Energy Drink Showdown: IRON BOSS vs The White Edition

    I saw these on a recent and rare trip to 7-11. As someone who has imbibed her fair share of carbonated and highly caffeinated beverages, I thought I should give them a try even though I haven't been much for drinking the stuff in a couple of years. As I've embraced darker coffee, I haven't needed the high sugar and expense of these drinks. Nowadays I am so exhausted, I will try almost anything to stay awake.

    Red Bull is something I drank more of when I was working in Sendai. I can't say I ever really enjoyed the flavor of the drink but at the time it was preferable to black coffee, which I did not enjoy at all. For me, the peppy-bitter aftertaste is a reminder of my early twenties. It tastes like wasting a whole night watching vampire dramas and being too sleepy at work the next day.
    I was very happy to note that The White Edition was free of this aftertaste. It was a more subtle and genuinely enjoyable flavor. For energy drinks, it is now number two for me, behind the tea-based concoctions Monster sells in the US but not Japan. 

    IRONBOSS was significantly less pleasing with the same familiar flavor I had dodged in the previous drink. It was as if someone mixed Red Bull and Real Gold but retained the preppy bitterness I never really enjoyed. I would prefer Real Gold to this even though I do not consider it a proper energy drink.