I used to love coffee, but now it has such adverse effects on me I never drink it anymore. I tried a Red Bull today and got the stimulant rush I used to find only with coffee.
Any regular Red Bull drinkers out there? Are any of the knock-offs better? (I really don’t care much for the taste of Red Bull) Any side effects you know of?
red bull is great! But if your looking for the same “boost” but a different taste try either Amp by Mountain Dew, or try my favorite Lost it is slightly hard to find and has a funky smell but is sweeter than Bull! Plus it’s can is incredibly artistic in a “punkish/anarchistic” style!
What adverse effects did coffee have? I’m a long black drinker and I drink way more then I should but to me, Red Bull tastes like shit. Coffee is the PROPER way to get caffiene. 
I tried Red Bull once and the first thing that came to mind after tasting it was, “It tastes like ass.” Now, I don’t really have a large sampling of comparative data, but somehow, that was what came to mind. I’ll stick to my beloved coffee. When I’m drying out from it, I switch to one of the juice-type drinks with lots of vitamins and herbs in it. I stay away from ass all together now. I’m too afraid I’d say something like, “It tastes like Red Bull.”
In my experience:
Starbucks Double Shot Espresso’s > Red Bull > Mountain Dew > Coffee
The Double Shot Expresso are $20 per very small can, but they taste good, and it as though they tack on an extra 4-5 hours to your day as soon as you finish it. Red Bull tastes like crap, and sometimes I’ve found it to not have an effect at all, but it’s a usefull drink for the most part. Mountain Dew is the nectar of the heavens, and has been a reliable drink always giving me my much needed caffine and sugar kick in the middle of a workday. Coffee is good, but I’ve just about grown immune to it’s affects. Never tried Amp, but have heard swell things.
:eek:
I knew prices always spike after those hurricanes you Florida guys seem to have all the time, but this is ridiculous.
Red Bull has less caffiene than a typical cup of coffee but it also has taurine and a lot of sugar. Whether or not that taurine does anything is a matter of debate. You probably got the extra zap because you have lost some of your tolerance to caffiene since you gave up the java.
Red Bull tastes like a liquid Sweet Tart. Yuck.
Haj
I can’t drink coffee anymore either, unless I chase it with Imodium.
I tried Red Bull a couple of weeks ago. It gave me an energy boost, but boy was it gross! My mouth is puckering up just thinking about it. Then I tried Mountain Dew Amp. Better taste, same boost, a dime more expensive. I bought a bunch yesterday to get me through the week.
I recommend Bawls. It’s tasty, IMO, and has a decent amount of caffiene.
And for the broke college student in us all, I’ve recently discovered that Sam’s Choice Mountain Lightning has just as much caffiene as Mountain Dew, tastes only slightly nasty, and costs two bucks for a case of 24 cans (50 cents per 2liter bottle).
I drink my share of diet Mountain Dew, it’s been my wake up drink for several years now. I will have to give Amp a try. And I agree with the comments about Red Bull’s taste, when I was drinking it I was wondering what part of the red bull it came from.
With coffee, I get one of more of the bad coffee side effects with varying degrees of severity. Headache, diarrhea, stomach ache, sweating, etc. I can usually drink decaf coffee without any regrets, but what’s the point?
In desperation in my giving-up-coffee struggle (stomach issues), I drank Red Bull to stay awake through my work shift. I ended up at Giant at 3 AM buying Pepto-Bismol because it felt like my stomach was simultaneously on fire and caught in a vise grip.
Urgh. Stupid nasty-tasting Red Bull. Coffee is still the nectar of the gods, even if I can’t drink it. And I thought it was more like a liquefied uber-carbonated Sour Patch Kid, by the way.
I think JoeSki meant about $2 a can, which is about what they go for here. 
Anyway, I highly recommend the Double Shots, but not to anyone who has stomach problems with regular coffee. It’s basically what the name says, two shots of espresso and cream that you drink very cold. Great tasting stuff and a huge rush.
I like the taste of Red Bull. It’s also a hell of a mixer.
I’m not fond of either and am very happy I don’t require caffeine to function. The only time I drink coffee is on the days I’m feeling really groggy or I’ve not had enough sleep the night before and know I will need to stay awake for a long period of time in which case I just brew a large pot, cool it off as quickly as possible, and down it all as fast as I can.
I don’t have any personal experience with Red Bull, but a friend of mine mixed a can of it with about half a bottle of Mt. Dew. He’s normally a hyper-active kind of guy, but on this day he was doing laps around the theatre without getting the least bit tired. :eek:
I’m a caffeine addict, and I used to find Red Bull okay.
Until I found the original Red Bull (image here) .
This stuff is leaps and bounds better than the stuff we have. It’s not carbonated, tastes sweeter but in a good way (this is from someone who drinks diet pop because regular pop is too sweet) and seems to pack more of a kick. As an added bonus, it’s only 99¢ per bottle instead of the $2.25-2.50 I see for American (yes, I know, it’s Austrian) Red Bull.
The only problem is that it’s very hard to find, at least around here. I finally found a small Oriental Market that sells it individually or in 10packs.
I don’t understand. If decaf doesn’t give you the side effects, wouldn’t it be the caffeine that does it to you? And if that’s the case, wouldn’t any of these other caffeine concoctions do the same thing?
Just for comparison’s sake, I found this table. It says that 8.2 ounces of Red Bull provides 80 mg. of caffeine. 12 ounces of Mountain Dew has 55 mg. An 8-ounce cup of drip coffee contains 115 to 175 mg. (brewed has less - 80 to 135).
(They sell Red Bull in 8.2 oz cans?)
Truer words were never spoken. The DoubleShot is the creme de la creme of “energy drinks”. Now, you’re paying $2 for two shots of espresso, some milk, and some sugar. If you go to a Starbucks, two shots of espresso costs about $2. Red Bull is crappy soda with caffeine in it, and the other crap does nothing, and its still two bucks. Most every Red Bull knockoff I’ve had tastes quite similar, in that they are extremely sweet. Like, obnoxiously sweet.
I don’t know, maybe it has something to do with the acidity of “full” coffee. And coffee varies wildly in acidity and caffeine content depending on the type of coffee. So, I just avoid it these days. I can still get headaches if I O-D on Mt. Dew, so I try not to drink more than a couple cans a day.
The nice stuff is called Jolt Cola, and you can buy a six-pack of it relatively cheaply. Much nicer tasting and less expensive than a brace of Bulls.
::tosses third into recycle canister, reaches for another::