Early next year, the giant canned water company Liquid Death is launching the Liquid Death Energy Drink, featuring no sugar, low total carbohydrates, minimal calories, and a similar amount of caffeine to a cup of coffee at 100mg in a 12oz can. The upcoming beverage does feature a few other active ingredients to further the functional experience by way of vitamin B12, the antioxidant vitamin C, a touch of magnesium, and calming theanine.
This past week at NACS in Chicago, we got the chance to try the Liquid Death Energy Drink to see how it’d measure up to the immense amount of competitors across the category, and we will say it wasn’t as good as we were hoping. We genuinely enjoy seeing new players get into the space as they tend to bring their own sort of take on taste and sometimes other aspects of energy drinks, which is kind of what you get in the caffeine of Liquid Death’s beverage.
Most of the big names in energy drinks hit their flavors out of the park, with complete tastes that you can pick up on as soon as they hit your mouth, right through until you swallow. Sometimes the flavors even evolve as the experience plays out, something the likes of Monster Ultra, 3D Energy, Reign, and many others do incredibly well. The Liquid Death Energy Drink kind of has this acidic, tangy base to it that made it difficult to really enjoy it at all.
We tried all four flavors of the Liquid Death Energy Drink in Murder Mystery, Scary Strawberry, a citrusy Orange Horror, and Tropical Terror, and most of them communicate their title taste right away. After that initial hit, you get the off-putting backend that really trumps the whole thing. It reminded us a lot of sparkling water and the difference between that versus Liquid Death’s Mountain Water, and it’s fine, but not what we were expecting.
Basically, the Liquid Death Energy Drink is not the same sugar-free blend of sweet, fresh, and complete flavors you get in all of the notable names in the space, and while we imagine it will certainly have fans, it was just not for us. We look forward to seeing how it all goes for the brand and its first beverage outside of canned water, as it is definitely going to make some noise with the branding, marketing, and presence it already has in the market.
