This Mana Potion is just what the wizard ordered.
When you go to visit a foreign country, most of the interesting things will come from the culture; whether that be architectural, social or in this case, foodural. Yes that is a word.
We've seen quite a few energy drinks in recent times; such as the Smart Energy, LOL and V: Double hit - but this is very different.
Specifically we mean the Mana Energy Potion, a concoction that meshes so well with gamers that you'd almost think it was a licensed product.
Basically a large blue orb, the Mana Potion is an energy 'shot', and at 50mL of liquid it's about enough for a large gulpy mouthful.
Inside that 50mL is crammed about 160mg of caffeine, an enzyme blend (whatever that is) of 400mcg and 6667% of your recommended daily intake of Vitamin B12.
They describe the drink on the very amusing site as:
"the premium energy shot made by gamers for gamers. It's for long nights of gaming, partying, and the longer mornings that follow. It has lots of vitamins, no sugar, and no aftercrash...it will bump your mana or your HP up +160 (real world humans have about 100 mana, by the way)."
Peeling off the packaging from the hard plastic sphere, the cap was undone to reveal a most curious odour - it smelt exactly like a mix of blue cordial and lemon/lime cordial, but in syrup form.
The smell was quite pleasant, especially in comparison to the taste - an intensely sour concoction that only serves to prove that those two flavours seem to go together as well as tuna and milk.
If the taste wasn't bad enough then the after effect certainly took the trophy, leaving a completely dried-out mouth devoid of any moisture (nor living bacteria). Even drinking water seemed to only delay the effect actually finishing, bringing back another bout of crushing desertmouth after every sip.
But if you're willing to look past the bad taste and after effect, surely you'll get a great energy boost at the other end? Well it definitely did wake us up, but it wasn't anywhere near the hyperactive state you'd expect from that much caffeine in one hit and just enough to be noticeable.
They did stay true to their claims on the aftercrash, something that we didn't notice at all.
For US$5 we'd have a hard time recommending it to anyone but the very curious, though for those who hate their tastebuds it'd be a great choice!
Jump into the gallery of pics for some shots of the drink, and other little tidbits of info. Sadly we still don't know why the wizard gave us one in the first place (perhaps we had wronged him in another life).
Issue: 133 | February, 2012