Mother turns mini, doubles up in Taurine and Gurana. Worth the change?
Energy drinks are wonderful things, usually packed into a can that has just the right amount of heft to it, offering the sleep-deprived masses out there an alternative to coffee (which I maintain is totally gross) when their get-up-and-go just got-up-and-went. I've looked at Mother before, in both the standard red flavour (not the original ginger-aley one) and Mother Surge, but they've just launched a new version of it - Mother Big Shot.
This can is the latest selling strategy to come out of the big energy drink manufacturers, offering supposedly the same energy boost from a smaller package, though the other 'shot'-style drinks are not high on my list of pleasant things, sitting just underneath a visit to the dentist. While I've yet to write anything about them, they're not so great.
Mother, on the other hand, is taking a different tack - they've priced their Big Shot at $2.50 for a 150mL can, seemingly much cheaper than both V and Red Bull's shots which are priced over $4. The packaging for the can makes it look like a gigantic Duracell battery but it's very easy not to notice it on a store shelf, being so very tiny. It also proudly boasts that it has "Double Gurana & Taurine".
This doubling is relative to standard Mother, and though there is 10mg of Gurana per 100mL in the Big Shot vs 5mg in standard, and double the Taurine to 800mg, the total serving size is smaller thanks to the reduced amount of actual drink. Caffeine sits at a baby-appropriate dosage of 48mg*, with Taurine sitting at 1200mg and 363kJ of energy provided mostly by the 19g of sugar.
Compared to a normal 500mL Mother, the Big Shot loses out on only 220mg of Taurine, and the caffeine count goes backwards by 66mg. Strangely there's almost double the sugar in the Big Shot with 1g/7.90mL, compared to normal Mother's 1g/13.51mL - in other words, sweeter than an iced donut dipped in honey.
So the little Big Shot definitely wants to be a little different compared to its older brother, and with the ingredients in mind I cracked the can open to release that characteristic Mother smell. By characteristic I mean "smells like a chemical plant", but hey, at least it's unique! But what does it taste like?
Issue: 137 | June, 2012