This line of drinks used to be made by a slightly twisted individual about twelve years ago calling himself Bones Jones. The Skeleteens Soda line was also responsible for such unique drinks as Rat Bastard Root Beer, Brainalizer and Fukola Cola. These drinks used to contain heavy doses of food coloring along with odd ingredients like Jalapeno. While the original company went out of business, some of the product line is now being created by the fine folk at Real Sodas.
Real Sodas actual name is "Real soda in Real Bottles", and specializes in bottled soda. While they make a whole bunch of their own brands, they carry a enormous selection of other glassed sodas, and ship them far and wide to delis, specialty grocery shops and department stores across the country. I just recently found a place near Denver which carries the line, so I am probably going to be up to my eyeballs reviewing some very cool and fancy bottled drinks for a while.
Packaging: 8
Jack Black sodas are going to run into real problems if the comedian/songwriter/actor ever decides to star in a Pirates of the Carribean movie. Until then though, this bottle is great fun. Not only is everything about the bottle awesome, even the bottlecap is cool - covered in cool sayings and the goth Jolly Roger.
The bottle is covered in piratey sayings, like "From Black's last raid", "Drink up you scurvy dog"and "4th time available in 499 years". It is hard to escape the scary pirate skull with one eye staring out at you too. Jack Black did a great job of holding my attention and it one of the very few energy drink containers I have kept around (Duff Energy and 666 energy shots were the only others).
The only issue I have is that they do not list the caffeine in the drink, even through they list both caffeine and guarana in their ingredients list. This is about all they needed to really put it over the top.
Taste:7
Seeing as this was called Blood Red Cola, I was expecting this to be red. No such luck - it poured out of the bottle a cola color - dark brown caramel color. Red has sometimes been used to describe a flavor too - when you are going for a fake cherry berry but not any particular real fruit, which is about what there was in here. There is a bunch of Red Food Dye in here (#40), but it was not enough to overcome the caramel color to turn this anywhere close to red - let alone blood red. Although, if you let blood pool and then dry, it kinda turns the same murky reddish brown of this drink. I think Jack Black's Pooled Dried Blood Red Cola might be too long of a name though.
I think they were going for a cherry cola flavor with this - but it was not quite strong enough to really tell. I did enjoy the cola - but it was nothing too exciting. I have had much better cola drinks, as this was made with your basic cola flavorings, caramel color and sugar, but it was still tasty enough. If I were a cola connoisseur, i would probably snub my nose at it, but for a caffeinated soda it was decent enough.
Buzz:6
According to Danny, the head of Real Sodas, this has somewhere in the neighborhood of 50ish mg of caffeine, and feels like it. As this was not the drink's main selling point, I understand holding back some on the energy ingredients, although I would have loved it more if it were twice the potency. As it stands, the drink will give you a nice afternoon rush if you are looking for one - not enough to really wake you up but enough to make it through to the evening. There is cane sugar aplenty in here to help the caffeine along, so a couple hours after slugging in into yer' gullet you might feel the need for a bit of a lie-down.
The bottle is covered in piratey sayings, like "From Black's last raid", "Drink up you scurvy dog"and "4th time available in 499 years". It is hard to escape the scary pirate skull with one eye staring out at you too. Jack Black did a great job of holding my attention and it one of the very few energy drink containers I have kept around (Duff Energy and 666 energy shots were the only others).
The only issue I have is that they do not list the caffeine in the drink, even through they list both caffeine and guarana in their ingredients list. This is about all they needed to really put it over the top.
Taste:7
Seeing as this was called Blood Red Cola, I was expecting this to be red. No such luck - it poured out of the bottle a cola color - dark brown caramel color. Red has sometimes been used to describe a flavor too - when you are going for a fake cherry berry but not any particular real fruit, which is about what there was in here. There is a bunch of Red Food Dye in here (#40), but it was not enough to overcome the caramel color to turn this anywhere close to red - let alone blood red. Although, if you let blood pool and then dry, it kinda turns the same murky reddish brown of this drink. I think Jack Black's Pooled Dried Blood Red Cola might be too long of a name though.
I think they were going for a cherry cola flavor with this - but it was not quite strong enough to really tell. I did enjoy the cola - but it was nothing too exciting. I have had much better cola drinks, as this was made with your basic cola flavorings, caramel color and sugar, but it was still tasty enough. If I were a cola connoisseur, i would probably snub my nose at it, but for a caffeinated soda it was decent enough.
Buzz:6
According to Danny, the head of Real Sodas, this has somewhere in the neighborhood of 50ish mg of caffeine, and feels like it. As this was not the drink's main selling point, I understand holding back some on the energy ingredients, although I would have loved it more if it were twice the potency. As it stands, the drink will give you a nice afternoon rush if you are looking for one - not enough to really wake you up but enough to make it through to the evening. There is cane sugar aplenty in here to help the caffeine along, so a couple hours after slugging in into yer' gullet you might feel the need for a bit of a lie-down.
