John Walsh: These brews with a boost <i>don't</i> taste good

The expert...

Relentless Origin energy drink's packaging is a gothic-tattoo-parlour design extravaganza, its can combining curlicued script and a quotation from The Raven, by Edgar Allan Poe. The drink itself has a nice sharp finish, spoilt by the noise of teeth rotting in the head. There's no actual fruit in this "mixed fruit flavour energy drink". It's the liquid version of Starburst fruity chews. Red Bull energy drink, meanwhile, has a slender, glossy, silver-and-blue can featuring a charging-bulls logo. Oddly, it doesn't say "Best with colossal slug of vodka" anywhere. A topnote of grapefruit mingled with Haribo Tangfastics gives way to a Frankenstein's lab of sweeteners and acidifiers. Speaking of Frankenstein, the Monster Ripper Energy Juice can has a spooky-monster-in-metallic-prison design. "The magical smells in the air driving out to surf the North Shore of Oahu was our inspiration," it promises. Its makers boast it's half juice concentrate and half other stuff. At first sip, you can taste fruit, instantly drowned in syrup, with aftertaste of surgical spirit. Appalling.