I know lots of people dislike energy drinks for various reasons, but I used to be a big fan of them in my younger years! As I’ve gotten older, I’ve gravitated more toward coffee, but I can understand the appeal of getting your caffeine from something that tastes more like soda or juice. These Alani Nu Energy Drinks showed up at my local Costco fairly recently, and they’re a bit cheaper than buying energy drinks from a convenience store. Are they tasty enough to make me want to pick up my old energy drink habit?
Other energizing beverages from Costco are the Aspire Energy Drink with Natural Caffeine, Starbucks Fall Blend Coffee Beans, Starbucks Winter Blend Coffee Beans, Salt Spring Coffee, Level Ground East Africa Dark Roast, Zavida Halzenut Vanilla Flavored Coffee, Kirkland Signature Cold Brew Colombian Coffee and the Starbucks French Roast Coffee Beans.
Location in Store
These are located in the drinks section at Costco, near all the cases of soda. The item number is 8888333.
Taste
There are three flavors in the box and I wrote notes for each flavor.
Breezeberry is very sweet and has an artificial blue raspberry flavor, kind of like the blue raspberry Kool-Aid.
Cherry Slush is also very sweet and has a very artificial cherry flavor. The flavor is a bit medicinal.
Cosmic Stardust is again, very sweet. The flavor is kind of hard to describe. It reminded me a bit of a sweet ginger ale with a hint of citrus.
These energy drinks are tasty enough. They’re very sweet, but that’s kind of typical for energy drinks. You’re not going to drink more than one at a time. I think teenagers might enjoy them but maybe not adults.
Cost
These aren’t cheap, but they are an energy drink. There are 18 cans in the box and the box costs $29.99 Canadian. This works out to be $1.67 per can which is a lot cheaper than what a person would pay for an energy drink at a convenience store.
Convenience
The box has six of each flavor and each can is 355 milliliters. The best-before date is over a year and a half from when I purchased them. I recommend serving these chilled or with ice.
Nutrition
Calories
Breezeberry contains 15 calories, zero grams of fat, five grams of carbohydrates, zero grams of fibre and sugar, one gram of sugar alcohols, zero grams of protein and 200 milligrams of sodium.
Cherry slush contains 10 calories, zero grams of fat, five grams of carbohydrates, zero grams of fibre, zero grams of sugar, one gram of sugar alcohols, zero grams of protein and 200 milligrams of sodium.
Cosmic stardust contains 10 calories, zero grams of fat, five grams of carbohydrates, zero grams of fibre, zero grams of sugar, one gram of sugar alcohols and 200 milligrams of sodium.
Ingredients
Each can contains 140 milligrams of caffeine which is quite a bit. It’s more than a coffee and more than a can of Red Bull. The drinks contain Vitamin B-3, B6, B12 and B5 and are sweetened with erythritol and sucralose which are artificial sweeteners.
Despite there being three different flavors of energy drinks they all have pretty much the same ingredients and there are no natural fruit flavors in any of them. I wouldn’t recommend these for kids, teens or even adults. They’re full of artificial sweeteners and ingredients
Scoring
Taste: 5/10
Cost: 6.5/10
Convenience: 10/10
Nutrition: 0/10
Overall
Walk on by!
These are very sweet and very artificial tasting. I don’t love the ingredients but I can usually overlook them if something tastes amazing and these do not.
Have you tried these Alani Nu Energy Drinks from Costco? What did you think of them? Drop a comment below!
Please note that this review was not paid for or sponsored by any third party. This product was purchased by Costcuisine for the purpose of producing this review. The opinions in this review are strictly those of Costcuisine. Costcuisine is not affiliated with Costco or any of its suppliers. In the event that Costcuisine receives compensation for a post from the manufacturer of a product or some other third party, the arrangement will be clearly disclosed (including where the manufacturer of a product provides Costcuisine with a free sample of the product).
