We Tried 30 Popular Energy Drinks. Here’s How They Rank

Buying energy drinks in public is embarrassing. Every time I see someone scanning the cooler for their favorite flavor of Monster or Ghost, I guess which accompanying vape flavor they’ve picked out, and I know others are making the same assumption about me when I’m scoring a can of Celsius to beat back a hangover or get lifted before a 10-hour bartending shift.

The good news is that it’s easier than ever to purchase your favorite cans from Amazon, and the great news is that you don’t need to put on your Crocs and Cookie Monster jammies to do it. Throw in a nice little discount for buying in bulk and setting up auto-delivery, and you’re basically being paid to not leave your house. The future is here, and it is jacked up on B vitamins, red dye, and taurine.

As a devoted coffee drinker, I often feel like the misquoted New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael when I see neon-colored tallboys of high-octane energy drinks usurping shelf space from my favorite Dr. Pepper and Mountain Dew variants at my local Sheetz. Energy drinks are big business—they raked in close to $20 billion in the US alone in 2023—yet I don’t know a single person who drinks them on a regular basis.

A good cup of coffee is hard to find at odd hours in the middle of nowhere. Energy drinks, on the other hand, are as no-fuss as it gets. At any hour of the day you can pick out an eye-catching can that boldly advertises its caffeine content, plunk down a few bucks, and shoot into space in just a few swigs. Homebodies and deal junkies don’t even need to leave their domiciles to cop excellent deals with lightning-fast shipping on their most beloved brands, provided they’re Amazon Prime members.

I love value, convenience, and caffeine, so I finally caved.

Still thirsty? Check out our other drink-related guides, including Best Coffee Subscriptions and Best Nonalcoholic Wines.

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How We Tested

Across the span of 21 days I sampled 30 different energy drinks from an amalgamation of readily available gas station staples, brands the Amazon algorithm was pimping extra hard that day, everything in the Whole Foods end cap that advertised its caffeine content, and a couple oddballs from the past you probably don’t remember.

I graded on taste, which is obviously subjective, and the palpable effects of the caffeine after knocking back a can at 8:30 am every day, after my daily 1.5-mile run with my dog. The extra cans were deployed two hours into shifts at my part-time bartending gig. I took one day off from the experiment due to gut-wrenching stomach pain and horrible night sweats. If there’s a Ghost-addled gamer in your basement as you read this, please consider offering them a wellness check, or a refill on their tendies at the very least.

1. Celsius Functional Essential Energy Drink

Though it has less carbonation than most energy drinks, Celsius is punchy without a cloying aftertaste and it does wonders in masking the medicinal notes that are present in similarly potent drinks. This is an absolute unit when it comes to the caffeine-to-volume ratio, and not a single flavor I tried was objectively bad.

Celsius is a hot up-and-comer for a reason, and it’s not shocking to see entire fridges stocked with its whole portfolio right next to the checkout counter at a growing number of gas stations. The can has a whole lot of text I will never read, but it’s attractive and not too much in the extreme gaming or health-nut quackery camps to dissuade potential buyers who care about being seen in public with an energy drink. Like the Beatles or In-N-Out, this is a consensus pick everyone agrees on.

Notes: Nice mellow thrust of energy with very few jitters or butterflies in the stomach. This is a solid road trip or preworkout beverage. A slight dip in energy around 2 pm, but a few jumping jacks got me back on track.

2. C4

C4’s marketing materials position its sports fuel as the beverage of choice for the athleisure set. Does C4’s “clinically studied CarnoSyn beta-alanine” compound help you get swole? Do yoga pants increase flexibility? Who knows, and who cares!

With flavors like Frozen Bombsicle and Mango Foxtrot in C4’s arsenal, concerns of this “NSF-certified” drink tasting like saccharine gloop are valid, but the Midnight Cherry was a pleasant surprise. An intense cherry flavor—imagine a Dr. Brown’s dialed up to 11—hits on the frontend, and only a mild trace of diet flavor lingers in the aftertaste. Marketing be damned, you could add this to the rotation at a Taco Bell and no one would know (or care) about its alleged postgains powers.

Notes: Halfway through the can I got happy feet and swapped my Aeron chair for the walking pad. Two miles and 35 minutes later I was still zooming, so I took my dog for a 2-mile run and felt like a million bucks at the end. I crushed a gas station salad for lunch and felt like a Healthy Person for one of the first times in my life.

3. Red Bull

Classic citrus flavor with minimal aftertaste and plenty of carbonation. That first sip brings back memories of all-night drives, marathon Excel sessions for the computer science class I took before I quit business school, and the countless “bomb” shots I consumed during this era. The gold standard for energy drinks. Minimal negative social baggage, maximal uplift.

Notes: The sugar high is sharp and abrasive, and the caffeine hits once the sugar wears off for stable energy well into the afternoon.

4. Jocko Go

The manosphere is rife with snake oil merchants, and Jocko Willink is no exception. In addition to a MasterClass about leadership, the ex-Navy SEAL also hawks Jocko Go, a monk-fruit-sweetened energy drink that makes highfalutin claims about “balanced energy,” “increased focus,” and “memory support.” The flavor hits like a combo of Sunny D and stevia, which is an acquired taste for some.

After just a few sips of this fizzy concoction I was overtaken by an urge to start a podcast about crypto and male decline. Instead of doing that I spiked the remainder of the can with a shot of Smirnoff and blasted off to the moon. I missed the memo that “bomb” drinks are out and BORG-ing is in, but I have a strong feeling that Mr. Willink’s vitamin-rich riff on Turbo Fuel is sloshing around in gallon jugs at state colleges all across the land.

Notes: It’s hard to tell where the caffeine ends and the 100 mg of B Vitamins (more than 4,000 percent of the daily recommendation!) begin, but either way this tiny black can packs a wallop.

5. Fast Twitch

Fast Twitch tastes less like an energy drink and more like a hybrid of Gatorade and Pedialyte. The liquid is just a touch thicker than classic Gatorade, but not at all syrupy. The watermelon flavor is nice and refreshing on a hot sticky day. This and a pint of Cuervo Silver or clear Captain Morgan would make a fantastic BORG base.

Notes: The lack of carbonation hinders the placebo effect that makes your brain realize you’re drinking an energy drink, so the onset of the respectable caffeine content in this small package hit a little later than I’d grown accustomed to. That said, this beverage is extremely crushable and the caffeine hit strong and long once it did kick in. No crash to speak of in the afternoon.

6. Guayakí Yerba Mate

Due to its branding, lack of carbonation, and overall vibes, Guayakí Yerba Mate is a caffeinated beverage that’s somehow exempt from being regarded as a capital-E Energy Drink by polite society. The stats on its cheery, GVC-inspired can say it contains no corn syrup or bizarre extracts—chemical or otherwise—and an absence of bubbles makes it dangerously chuggable compared to other drinks.

This is the caffeine vehicle of choice for liberal arts grads who spend their weekends wandering farmers markets with a hangover and a New Yorker tote filled with vegan junk food. You may not be able to dose a Mormon with one of these, but your “California sober” friend will gladly cut loose with a Guayakí while you take advantage of his offer to be the DD for the night.

Notes: The lack of bubbles is weird, but a hefty chug of one of these during a short break in Zoom meeting hell gave me just the boost I needed to draft (then delete) a subtly dickish email to a “cross-functional partner” about how they need to stop making Slack channels for everything. I finished the second half after work and was able to hustle through some household chores while still managing to crash by 10 pm—a win I never thought I would relish until I turned 40.

7. Reign Total Body Fuel

Reign makes maximalist energy drinks that appear to be marketed toward fitness bros who secretly have a gaming problem. Its flavors are wacky. I chose Rainbow Sherbet over White Gummy Bear and Tropical Storm because my brain actually remembers what rainbow sherbet tastes like. (Who knows what white gummy bears are supposed to taste like?)

I was shocked and embarrassed to realize I liked it quite a bit. The nondescript citrus flavor is wrapped in a cloud of vanilla that exits the palate just a moment before becoming sickening. I could not believe I liked this. Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s time to harass some strangers on Call of Duty between burpees.

Notes: This one had my toe tapping almost immediately. About an hour later I did a few laps around the block with my dog to stabilize, at which point I was on cloud nine. I spent the next hour cleaning up my iCloud folder and cataloging the dry goods in my pantry.

8. Mountain Dew Kickstart

This is the smooth, user-friendly “mama bear” of energy drinks. It tastes a little like juice, a little like Dew, and a little like gaming. The caffeine content is on the lower end compared to comparable brands that hump the esports/incel aesthetic much harder, but the combo of its smooth, juicy mouthfeel and a familiar citrus flavor is a pleasant surprise. This and a sandwich from the warming bin of a gas station is an all-star breakfast for a blue-collar hoss or a city slicker who’s on safari in the hinterlands of America. If gaming bars sold brunch this would make an excellent mimosa base.

Notes: The caffeine in Kickstart hits more like a traditional can of Dew than a proper energy drink, but you’re trading sugar for vitamins and a more mellow citrus flavor that even the staunchest anti-Dew crusader could get behind if you added this to their cocktail.

9. Aspire Healthy Energy

Subdued mango taste at the front, pleasantly sour lemonade finish. Mango can taste like a pine cone if it’s done wrong, so this is impressive. No chemical taste to speak of. Excellent balance of magical caffeinated ingredients and flavor. The flavor got a bit tiring three-quarters of the way through the can, but I still finished it.

Notes: A pleasant little jolt that helped me focus on a tedious spreadsheet for an hour straight. I hit a wall during an unnecessary meeting around 1 pm, but I can’t give this drink all the blame for that.

10. Gorgie

This wannabe Goop product tastes like Diet Peach Snapple diluted with club soda. Very noticeable “diet flavor” at the front, but a nice clean finish. Enough sweetness to trick your brain into thinking it’s having a treat. If you don’t hate diet drinks you’ll enjoy it. Bonus points for the vibey can, which would look great staged in a Kinfolk photoshoot or brochure for a yoga studio.

Notes: No physical jolt to speak of; however, I did get the urge to organize my Google Drive about 20 minutes after cracking this one. No crash later, just a mellow, buzz-free productivity bump.

11. Sparkling Ice Energy

Mellow mango flavor with just a smack of medicine aftertaste. Good carbonation and sweetness, but you’d never guess this was supposed to taste like mango if someone held a gun to your head after a few sips. Generic tropical flavor, but not bad! Can is sexy and unobtrusive. You could pound this after CrossFit in an upscale neighborhood and no one would think you’re a weirdo.

Notes: Nice little burst of energy that leveled off within 30 minutes. Hits more like a Gatorade than a Red Bull. This is a solid hangover aid.

12. Bawls Guarana

Regarded as the first “energy soda” explicitly marketed to gamers, Bawls is a fun throwback to the heady days of StarCraft and LAN parties in the late ’90s. The profile of the unnamed flavor in the iconic blue bottle, which still lines the checkout labyrinth at Micro Center to this day, sits halfway between Sprite and cream soda. A blind taste test would not convince the consumer they’re drinking an energy drink, which may be a good thing if they’re burned out on the more extreme offerings in the gamer fuel space.

Notes: Guarana is the OG herbal coffee alternative of the modern age. It doesn’t hit quite the same as a shot of espresso, but the sugary kick offered by Bawls is a nice halfway point between a can of Coca-Cola and the cartoonish chemical bombs you’ll find at your local gas station.

13. Prime

Pretty close to Red Bull, but with no sugar. Excellent carbonation. Much better than sugar-free Red Bull. Very strong lingering sweetener flavor, like getting a Jolly Rancher stuck in your teeth. The aftertaste was underwhelming, but not a deal-breaker.

Notes: Very mild energy boost that didn’t hit until about 90 minutes later, at which point I was tapping my foot and rapidly clicking a pen while on a Zoom call. I crashed a couple hours later and found myself zombified by 2 pm.

14. Joggy

This tiny can with the “Brat” colorway packs a mighty wallop of bitter tea and cough drop flavor that no energy drink fan is ready for. I hated the first two swigs, but it grew on me in a strange way by the end of the can. What’s more is the complete lack of sugary sweetness, which may be just what the doctor ordered if you’re on one of those trendy pleasure/dopamine detoxes. This is the Gilbert Gottfried of energy drinks: diminutive, astringent, bizarrely potent, and definitely not for everyone.

Notes: The unpleasant flavor presents a sense of urgency to get through the thing, and the bitterness belies a staggering 150 mg of caffeine jammed into this tiny little can. I cleared my inbox and crushed a quick 2-mile run with energy to spare thanks to Joggy. The can alleges its energy is derived from “jitter-free AmaTea May Guayusa Extract,” which sounds made up. Either way it works great, despite the bizarre flavor.

15. Wooooo!

Ex-WWE star Ric Flair’s signature “dietary supplement” tastes exactly like it looks: bright and obnoxious, but in an uncommitted way. I can deal with a few calories if they’re put to good use, which is thankfully the case here. The can alleges an “herbal mushroom blend” and 1,500 mg of “Cognitive Cap Complex” do the heavy lifting. Like wrestling, that’s probably not real, but it’s still kinda fun and silly.

Notes: Flair’s snake oil never got me jacked up enough to engage in “Woo Girl” behavior, but I did get a nice little jolt of energy that mellowed out after an hour with no crash to speak of.

16. Accelerator

Accelerator is an inoffensive and unassuming option for folks who don’t like brand names or flashy cans. The carbonation is adequate, and the peach flavor is juicy but not over the top. It should appeal to the three people left on the planet who still prefer generic gas station peach rings over the vastly superior Haribo option that’s hanging from the next rack.

Notes: The energy level offered by Accelerator is a tad underwhelming, but it didn’t hurt my brain or put me in a sugar coma, so I’ll chalk that up as a minor win.

17. Bang

The crack of the can shocks the senses with a strong whiff of vape juice and gaming. Pop Rocks up front, with a mild hint of Tums on the finish. Blue raspberry is an unholy flavor you’ll never find in nature, but this manages to mask the insane caffeine content with just enough flavor while barely plunging into the netherworld of fake sweeteners replicating flavors that aren’t even real.

Notes: The buzz provided by Bang is an aggressive wallop of caffeine that’s best microdosed unless you want your body to be on the verge of a heart attack one minute then slumped over in your gaming chair like a heap of dirty laundry the next.

18. Clean Cause

This Whole Foods standby presents a small hint of blackberry sweetness up front and a dull tinge of old bubble gum on the finish. The carbonation is nice. This is the least appalling option you’ll find at Whole Foods, which is not saying much. For the caloric spend I would much rather have a Guayakí Yerba Mate.

Notes: Clean Cause gave me a mellow boost that burned slow and low for a few hours. I powered through some spreadsheets then cruised at 3.5 mph on the treadmill for about 45 minutes right after.

19. Monster

Since launching in 2002, Monster has been all in on being the bratty, buttrock-loving stepbrother of Red Bull’s more refined European sensibility. At the time of publication the SoCal beverage giant has almost 40 flavors in its Monster portfolio, but the original flavor in the black-and-green can is an American icon for good reason.

The sweet, citric tang hits harder than Red Bull, which is either a plus or a minus depending on how EXTREME you’re feeling when you crush this for breakfast at the crack of noon. Downing an entire can is nearly impossible without a honey bun and some Jack Link’s sent down the hatch as advance fortification.

Notes: A throbbing sugar high put me one step closer to the edge, and the aggressive creep of the caffeine buzz had me feeling like I was about to break. A set of burpees set to the pace of “Push It” by Static-X failed to quell the stinging pain forming in my frontal cortex, so I cracked a CBD soda and spun some Wilco to fight back against the Darren Aronofsky scene unfolding in my brain. To say Monster Energy “has zero chill” is a gross understatement.

20. NOS

Considering the gargantuan size of the energy drink market, it’s curious that only a few cross-branding efforts exist outside candy companies lending their intellectual property for branded flavor recognition. In the wake of the massive success of the Fast and the Furious franchise, it makes perfect sense that Holley Performance, which owns the trademark on nitrous-oxide systems, or NOS for short, would collect royalties on every can of this sickly sweet concoction that’s sold.

The staggering sugar content of this “high performance energy” drink will give even the most loyal Mountain Dew stan pause, though it does wonders to obfuscate the laundry list of dyes and adjuncts that clutter the bottom half of the snazzy can’s nutrition facts. If you ever wished OG Mountain Dew was just “more,” then this is the drink for you. Make sure your dental insurance is up to date before you get too wild with this one.

Notes: I’ve never experienced the pleasure of juicing the engine of a tricked-out Mitsubishi Eclipse with a boost of nitrous, but I’ve thrown my fair share of newspaper on bonfires at Boy Scout camp. The kick in the pants provided by NOS’s unwieldy sugar content hits the same way, with very little substance on the back end to prevent total flameout on the shoulder of the highway of life.

21. Alani Nu

Alani Nu gets high marks for vibes and aesthetics, which hit somewhere between Alaska Airlines chic and Margaritaville with an ’80s synthwave twist. The actual drink, on the other hand, is a chaotic mess. An overwhelmingly sweet cherry flavor belies the lack of calories, which raises suspicion at how a low-cal can like this can somehow be the sweetest drink of the entire lot. The end result hits somewhere between a mouthful of cherry Luden’s Cough Drops and a high-volume tiki drink one would purchase on the 311 cruise.

Notes: This one gave me a mild bump in energy that might’ve been real, but it was probably just my brain getting excited about a long night of flaming sugary drinks and Jimmy Buffett tunes. About half an hour later my brain realized it was lied to and chilled out a bit.

22. Full Throttle

Full Throttle pitches itself as “heavy-duty energy for hardworking Americans.” The can looks like something you’d see onscreen during the intro of The Colbert Report, but this is not a joke. The flavor is halfway between original Red Bull and Mountain Dew at a poorly run Taco Bell with a shoddy soda machine.

Notes: I cracked one of these during an eight-hour bartending shift and I didn’t feel much aside from a brief sugar high and a bizarre sense of patriotism. I lifted myself up by my own bootstraps and powered through the shift for less than minimum wage, and I felt very American—and very tired—while doing so.

23. Ryse Fuel

In the future, after the earth goes fallow and traditional farming as we know it goes kaput, scientists will be tasked with replicating what we once called “natural flavors” in a lab. If we’re lucky, they’ll have a better frame of reference for “lemon” than whatever’s in the Country Time Lemonade flavor of Ryse Fuel. Society will get the flavors it deserves in the future, and we’re on pace to get exactly this until the sun goes out.

Notes: It’s easy to mistake “heightened alertness” for energy, but the combo of dystopian thoughts and the scraping sensation this beverage imparted on the back of my throat felt more like paranoia than a feeling I could channel into actual productivity. Is this how Thom Yorke felt when he penned the lyrics of Radiohead’s 1997 masterpiece OK Computer?

24. Oca

Oca tastes like someone tried to infuse Nerds candy in a can of soda water. It sorta tastes like berries, and mostly tastes like nothing. If you’re counting calories, this is probably not the best use of them. What little taste that’s there is very inoffensive.

Notes: Energy drinks powered by caffeine derived from green tea make up the bulk of what you’ll find in the cooler at Whole Foods. Convincing your body these types of drinks are up to the task is a slog, as was the rest of my day after drinking Oca. You’re better off with either a La Croix or a Guayakí Yerba Mate rather than this disappointing compromise between the two.

25. G Fuel

If video games finally gain the legitimacy needed to join the Olympics, then G Fuel’s very overt aspirations to be the Gatorade of gaming will finally come true. The can says it’s the official energy drink of esports, and the website is a sensory overload of colors and text that flashed words like “Tetris” and “PewDiePie” before I got a headache and slammed my laptop shut.

All of this fanfare, yet the end product tastes like nothing in particular. If you try hard enough you can get trace notes of the white Airheads flavor, which is usually the flavor left at the bottom of the bucket because no one knows what it’s supposed to taste like. A Reddit commenter said it “tastes like what a clown would taste like.” Shut it down.

Notes: The caffeine content of 300 mg is nothing to scoff at, and I did get quite a jolt after choking this down during the span of an episode of Rick and Morty I queued up while plowing ahead on the treadmill. Ninety minutes later my joints turned to rubber and I napped for what felt like three hours.

26. Rockstar

The music industry has collapsed and rebuilt itself several times over since Rockstar first launched in 2001. In that span, the very concept of what a “rockstar” even is has been rewritten ad infinitum, with the most current iteration functioning as an ideal assembled from poptimism, monoculture, consolidation, and psychopathic “stanning.”

In other words, the model followed by musicians—forming bands to meet strippers to do drugs with—has been blown up completely, and consumers’ appetites for branding that’s hitched to that ethos have bottomed out accordingly. Rockstar is now owned by Pepsi, and the flavor of this energy drink that is famously not Red Bull tastes exactly like you’d expect it to with this in mind. A nondescript citrus flavor serves as a poorly made Trojan horse for high fructose corn syrup and a synthetic aftertaste that’s hard to tolerate unless you’ve been chain-smoking Parliaments most of your adult life.

Notes: Partying with a can of Rockstar is a white-knuckle affair that commonly leads to grinding teeth, anguished pacing, and an overwhelming urge to argue with strangers on the internet about how the music of Buckcherry is actually good. This is the kind of energy drink that’s only appropriate to drink after midnight before you’re about to do even worse things to your body.

27. Zoa

The can looks like a tribal tattoo a 20-year-old would acquire after a “mind-blowing” yoga retreat in Hawaii, and the flavor of this clunker is not much better. Imagine a fistful of Airborne tablets dumped in a diet orange soda and you’re halfway there. The overall flavor is astringent, sour, and a tad bit spicy on the finish.

Notes: The grab bag of vitamins in each can of Zoa does most of the work, but the 160 milligrams of caffeine does just enough to provide some temporary reprieve from the early-afternoon snoozies. I would not trust a single can of this to get me through a light day, let alone a busy one that mixes very important laptop work with light cardio and dog walking.

28. Ardor

This is the best of all the Ardor flavors we tried, and it still tastes like someone rinsed out a glass that contained a mango White Claw with plain seltzer. It’s 99 percent flavorless. On the bright side, this may be drinkable if you have food poisoning and need to get caffeine in you without throwing up.

Notes: I copped a bigger buzz watching commercials for Mountain Dew Kickstart on YouTube. This one is a hard no all around.

29. Ghost

Have you ever thrown up all night after eating too many vodka-soaked Skittles you snuck into a bar because you’re a broke college kid? This is like that, only instead of consuming it from a plastic bag hidden in a cargo short pocket, it comes from a can that looks a lot like the disposable polyester shirts worn in the movie Idiocracy. Do not leave the basement with one of these cans in hand. You will be rightfully mocked and shamed.

Notes: An explosion of jittery energy for about an hour, followed by bubble guts and a mild headache for the next hour. The one upside is that this drink is strong, and it should keep you on the edge of your seat if you can keep it all down.

30. Riot

If actual riots were this forgettable, Fox News might not have anything to report on. I don’t remember anything about the flavor of this aside from the fact that I hated every second of it. If anyone knows how to contact Ralph Nader, please tell him Big Energy has gone too far in co-opting the language of the oppressed … or something like that.

Notes: Once I gave up on being angry about how bad this tastes, I did some light breath work to see if I could focus on the caffeine coursing through my veins. I could not. I got angry again and switched to coffee.