Announcing www.FizzyWakeUp.com

June 27th, 2011 4 Comments »

fizzyprofile

This is the official launch of Fizzy Wake-Up, the Energy Drink spin-off of this blog. No longer will you be burdened by the occasional reviews of random and obscure caffeinated beverages because they now have their own home on the net.

I’m intending to make www.fizzywakeup.com the most comprehensive energy drink review site on the Internet. Currently it is a little bare, but there’s only so many I can drink per day without killing myself and I’m anticipating it will take a couple of months to populate with the most commonly available UK brands. I’m also going to be relying on friends and family bringing back the occasional can from their travels to broaden the reach of reviews.

This site is just the first step in converting this blog in to a technology / gadget based site. Eventually I’ll be giving this site a name change and an overhaul but that’s a while off yet.

From a technical perspective the new site is built around WordPress, the same as this blog. I designed the theme from scratch, making use of as many WordPress features as possible. I’ve integrated WordPress’s new menu feature alongside standard CSS for the dropdown menus, and each tile is widgetised to allow me to easily drag and drop content through the admin interface.

I’ve written a PHP application to create review 5-star rating images, and used plugins for rating and commenting on drinks. PHP functions automatically calculate the overall rating based on an algorithm involving an average of all the other scores, with strength itself being calculated in comparison to all the other drinks on the site. This means that it is possible for a drink’s score to change automatically over time as drinks are added with higher caffeine content per serving.

I’ve learnt a lot about WordPress in completing this project, especially as WordPress itself has evolved considerably since I last created a theme. No longer is it just a customisable blogging platform, it now provides you with a comprehensive platform for developing a content based web site.


Cougar Lifestyle Shot

June 14th, 2011 No Comments »

Cougar Lifestyle Shot(NOTE: Energy drink reviews have been moved to http://www.fizzywakeup.com)

I am most definitely not the target audience for this particular energy drink, but given that it exists I had to give it a try. Cougar lifestyle shots, for women; advising on the bottle to provide “Age Defying Energy” are aimed at, shall we say, the older lady who… actually I’m going to let The Urban Dictionary handle this one:

Cougar
Noun. A 35+ year old female who is on the “hunt” for a much younger, energetic, willing-to-do-anything male. The cougar can frequently be seen in a padded bra, cleavage exposed, propped up against a swanky bar in San Francisco (or other cities)waiting, watching, calculating; gearing up to sink her claws into an innocent young and strapping buck who happens to cross her path. “Man is cougar’s number one prey”

Now, after drinking this I can’t (or won’t?) say that I suddenly found myself eying up younger men, but I Double-dipdid get the rush of energy expectedly provided by these drinks. The caffeine hit comes from the usual added caffeine and more unusually green tea extract. In fact, if you check out the product’s web site and look through the ingredients, you’ll see a whole host of natural additions which are aimed at women (you drink Aloe Vera?? Apparently so.) . The flavour was very nice. The bottle says Berry, but I’d say it was the same flavour as the cherry powder in a Double-Dip (remember them?). I know it’s not aimed at me but it tasted great, gave me the wanted caffeine hit, it is very different to Red Bull – good to see a drink NOT trying to copy them, and finally it says it has zero calories.

“Energy Burst” Energy Drink

June 8th, 2011 No Comments »

(NOTE: Energy drink reviews have been moved to http://www.fizzywakeup.com)

Energy Burst - Pound Stretcher

I found this one in Pound Stretchers, and no, it was less than a pound. Coming in a 500ml bottle only and containing pretty much the same ingredients and caffeine strength as Red Bull, it tasted exactly as I expected it to taste. It’s just another Red Bull clone – quite pleasant and sweet but nothing special. I can’t really think of much to say about it really suffice to say that it does the job! Probably would have tasted better from a can as I personally think that every drink tastes better that way. Taste: 3/5.

Power Up Energy Drink

June 4th, 2011 No Comments »

(NOTE: Energy drink reviews have been moved to http://www.fizzywakeup.com)

Power Up Energy Drink

After all the effort expended in the search for new energy drinks abroad, I find this in my local shop. This drink is helpfully summarised on the can: “Liquid Strength, Power Up, Extra Strong, Original Formula, Feel the Energy, Enjoy it Icecold [sic]”.

Given that it’s only 35p, I consider this to be a bargain.The flavour is very different to Red Bull with a flavour that should be sour but is very sweet – I’m sure I’ve tasted this flavour in another drink before but I can’t place it. The ingredients are the standard energy drink affair: caffeine, taurine and sugars so nothing to stand it apart from the crowd.

The “Extra Strong” slogan is misleading to say the least. The caffeine content is 30mg/100ml which is lower than Red Bull and most premium energy drinks, but the same as most bargain basement ones. I’m going to have to start giving star ratings for products I think – I’ll search for a WordPress plugin to do that but in the meantime my scores are as follows: 4/5 for flavour, I really like it; 5/5 value, it is very cheap; 2/5 caffeine kick. Now, Power Up Products in Manchester, do you do a sugar-free version?

Italian Drink

May 25th, 2011 1 Comment »

I had toyed with other Italian-based post titles including Wave-ioli and Spag-wet-hi but gave up on them in the end. Venice and the two Croatian destinations were low on the gadget and energy drink front. Very nice places to visit for many other reasons, but not much technology to talk about so this post is mainly just to publish my bad-pun post titles. I shall therefore resort to showing you a picture of a can of Italian Sprite because it made us giggle like school children:

Italian Sprite

And finally… an experiment in childcare:

Joey and Red Bull

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