Weird Drink Roundup: Red Espresso and Alcohol ßG Killer

One of the perks of this job is that I get to try a lot of stuff I would otherwise pass over. Examples A and B being the drinks that appeared on my desk last week: Red Espresso and Alcohol ßG Killer.

Both drinks have fibs in their names. Red espresso is neither espresso nor red (maybe a very dark burgundy or brown) and Alcohol Killer doesn’t kill alcohol or allow you to drive with a buzz, though its over-the-top Web site suggests as much. Neither have caffeine yet both are trying to replace caffeinated drinks.

Red Espresso is a rooibos tea from South Africa that’s brewed in an espresso machine. It claims to give you a natural energy boost and lots of antioxidants. Alcohol ßG Killer is Austrian (the ß is a German letter called eszett and is pronounced like a double s) and like its Austrian bruder Red Bull, it’s a slightly carbonated energy drink. Besides having no caffeine, Alcohol Killer doesn’t have any taurine either. To give the drinker energy it relies on ExtraAK, a trademarked name of a special chemical compound.

What a cub is to a mama bear, what rhythm is to blues, what a bribe is to a politician — these are nothing compared to what caffeine is to me. So it was with great trepidation that I gave up my beloved coffee for the weekend to switch to these two.

First the red espresso…