Yes, it’s Friday, without doubt the greatest day ever invented. A lot of people have Friday rituals to celebrate this marvelous day. Take my father, for instance, who has, for as long as I can possibly remember, had a bottle of the same brand of white wine every Friday evening. The love of my life also enjoys a glass of wine on Friday night - I’ve got the impression many people do - but to her utter annoyance, I don’t. I have my own (weird) Friday rituals:

1. Don’t bring my own lunch to work, but instead buy lunch in the canteen.
2. Have an energy drink some time after dinner.

As you can imagine, my Fridays are pretty damn wild. Buy lunch!? I’m crazy. But at least I’ve got bragging rights for sampling quite a lot of different energy drinks. And since Anniken is visiting her parents on this particular Friday - probably to have someone to drink wine with - I’m home alone and free to go wild: I’m having three energy drinks this evening!

I’ve bought three cans of SoBe Pure Rush, one can of each of the available flavor: Lime Starfruit, Pink Grapefruit and Berry Apple. Each can contains 250 ml and comes with natural ingredients like caffeine, guarana, sea-buckthorn, açaí and ginseng. In order of appearance, they have the following effects on the human body:

• Caffeine acts as a central nervous system stimulant, temporarily warding off drowsiness and restoring alertness.
• Guarana increases memory, alertness and mood. It’s also rich on caffeine.
• Sea-buckthorn berries contains loads and loads of C-vitamins, about 15 times more than oranges, in addition to dense contents of vitamin E
• Açaí has no scientifically proven health effects but products made from the açaí palm has been marketed as products for reversal of diabetes and other chronic illnesses, as well as expanding size of the penis and increasing men’s sexual virility and sexual attractiveness to women.
• Ginseng, on the other hand, contains ginsenosides, which actually can facilitate penile erection. It’s also possible to overdose on ginseng, with possible side effects being fever, seizures, convulsions, and delirium. Stuff like that.

In addition there are of course ingredients that are used to color and flavor each individual version. It seems to me like mixing caffeine, guarana (both increasing alertness) and ginseng (delirium) is a sub-par idea, but the people who came up with the Pure Rush recipe probably knew what they were doing. The only warning label on the can covers the caffeine level, which is 320 mg per liter, or 80 mg per can. According to the interwebs, a cup of coffee contains about 100 mg of caffeine. With a warning label that states that “kids below the age of 14, pregnant women and people who are sensitive to caffeine” should stay away from the drink, I was expecting more of the good stuff.

I know that you love gadgets and since caffeine can cause increased heart rate, I’ll be doing my drinking tonight with a heart rate monitor strapped to my chest. Even though I might not feel more alert, maybe technology can prove that pouring down three cans of Pure Rush actually have some effect on my body. To make sure nothing else than the pure Pure Rush can affect my heart rate, I’ve turned down the lights and I’m listening to Hammock. Right now my heart rate is about 57 beats per minute.

The first can is SoBe Pure Rush Lime Starfruit. It has a nice, fresh and green color, not a big surprise since the word “lime” is used in the name. I love lime, so how can this possible fail? The drink tastes a bit like lime, but with a bitter aftertaste. To be honest, I was expecting more, and the bitter is an unpleasant surprise. Around half way through the can I’m beginning to feel that the can should have been maybe half the size.

The SoBe Pure Rush Pink Grapefruit also has a nice color, a dark red - not so different from grapefruit juice. No real surprises there either, in other words. Both the smell and the taste is sweater than Lime Starfruit, and I have to admit I like the taste better. But it could use some lime, crushed ice, rum and a little umbrella. Unlike the Lime Starfruit I didn’t get tired of the taste half way through the can.

SoBe Pure Rush Berry Apple is an interesting little thing. First of all, I wonder what “berry” they have been using. There’s a chance these “berries” are the same as the “meat” in sausages - the stuff that’s left when all the edible parts of the animal have been used. The drink smells extremely synthetic and not natural at all, but the taste is surprisingly good, considering the smell.

After finishing the third and last can I’m starting to get a nice layer of sugar in my mouth, probably because the three cans cover 102% of the recommended daily sugar consumption. My heart rate is stable at 60 beats per minute, and I don’t feel particularly upbeat. It’s well beyond my usual work-week bed time, though, so it could be that the drinks are indeed making me more alert. Or it could be because it’s Friday and I’m in love.

As a drink to clench your thirst, the SoBe Pure Rush series is all right, but nothing more. You should empty the can in one go, though, because it’s easy to get bored with the taste. As an energy drink, I’m not sure if it actually works, because I just talked to Anniken on the phone and her yawning immediately spread to me as well. But if I find myself still being wide awake at three in the morning, I’ll let you know.