energy drink

V Pure mark 2 review

New bottle & label design

Recently I bought a bottle of V Pure and noticed they'd changed the design of the bottle. 

Upon tasting it, I realised that's not all they've changed.

This is V Pure mark 2, a new version of V Pure, originally released in mid-late September 2017 (see my review of that here).

It's in a different-sized bottle to the others in the range at 330 ml. 

Flavour wise, it's sweeter than the original V Pure, but not as sweet as V original. 

V Pure mark 2 nutritional information

Looking at the nutritional information of V Pure mark 2 per 100 ml:

  • Sugar 7.9g per 100ml

  • Caffeine 31mg per 100ml

  • Guarana Extract 160mg per 100ml

Which is similar to V Pure mark 1:

  • Sugar 6.4g per 100ml

  • Caffeine 31mg per 100ml

  • Guarana Extract 241mg per 100ml

The difference being the amount of guarana extract which has dropped, while the sugar has risen. 

With V Pure Mark 2, the ingredients list has also increased to 6 ingredients (V Pure Mark 1 had 5 ingredients). 

Ingredients: Apple Juice, Sparkling Water, Lemon Juice, Guarana Seed Extract, Caffeine From Green Coffee Beans, Natural V Flavour.

V Pure mark 2 bottle back - ingredients

The new ingredient over the mark 1 is the "Caffeine From Green Coffee Beans". 

I do wonder if caffeine as a separate ingredient was added to drop the amount of guarana needed in the V Pure Mark 1, in order to get a similar effect. As I would think the guarana would be the priciest portion of the drink's ingredients. 

The bottle is different on the mark 2. The mark 1 bottle was a glass bottle with white stickers on the front / back. The mark 2 bottle is a glass bottle with a plastic wrap around label. It includes a line down one side with makes it easier to rip off. I'm not sure if this would enable better recycling than the paper labels of mark 1. But it means that the label and bottle are much easier to separate. Although I wonder of the recyclability of the plastic label / wrap.

I'd probably buy V Pure mark 2 again. If it was sold in cans in the 275ml configuration in the supermarket then I would definitely. But at the moment it seems V Pure Mark 2 is confined to convenience shops and petrol stations.  

V Pure mark 1 review

This is a review of V Pure mark 1, released in 2017, for the new version released 2019 see my review here.

An artisanal energy drink.

V Pure contains 5 natural ingredients, so the neck of the bottle says.

Apple Juice, Sparkling Water, Lemon Juice, Guarana Extract, Natural V Flavour

What the "Natural V Flavour" is isn't exactly explained. Given that it's got a 'wheat derivatives' notice on the bottle one might presume that the "Natural V Flavour" has something derived from wheat within it.

V Pure is pretty good. It's not as sweet as regular V, my go-to energy drink of choice.

The V Pure bottle is the same volume as the slightly larger V cans you can buy in the supermarket. That is the 275ml cans. These are marginally larger than the 250ml but obviously not as much volume as the 500ml 'double sized' cans. I find the 500ml cans too much in one sitting. While I might, if I'm out and about throughout the day consume 2 cans of V, I wouldn't want to all at once.

Regarding the sugar content the lack of it is noticeable, though not unpleasantly so, there's certainly a more tart flavour that comes from the lack of sugar. V Pure per 275ml serving has 17.7 grams of sugar while regular V per 275ml serving has 29.2 grams of sugar.

Will I buy V Pure again? Probably, it is less sweet and more interestingly flavoured. But it probably won't replace the regular V for me, in part because it is more expensive than regular V, but also because sometimes I'm looking for that hit of sweet tartness that V brings.

V Not Orange

Not awful I think is my initial impression of V’s newest energy drink flavour.

It sort of reminds me of Berocca with all the gritty and other horrible bits taken out.
It is orange in the vaguest sense of the flavour of orange. Though orange specifics wise it’s probably closer to Sunkist or Fanta than it is to the spherical fruit that commonly grows on a tree in a grove.

There’s a flavour which isn’t passionfruit, isn’t even Passiona, but has a similar tang of...something to it, it’s not quite acidy, but it’s similar to those flavours.

I quite like V, the original normal bright green can / bottle flavour. I much prefer it to Red Bull and other energy drinks and rather like its strong sharpness.

V Not Orange is quite inoffensive, it’s not as acidy as V’s regular flavour and it’s not as outright awful as V Black (which was as though they’d got some coffee and mixed it with regular V; result; horrible).
V Not Orange seems to be aiming for anyone who doesn’t like the acidity of V regular. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing though. One of the defining points of energy drinks is their fairly sharp flavours. With Not Orange it’s more like Sunkist that’s had some extra something put into it, or Berocca that’s had sugar added.

Would I buy it again?
Maybe. I only bought it today because Safeway had it on special and there were only the huge cans of regular V.
It’s not that bad flavour wise, but it’s kinda as though they’ve decided to create a flavour that is less acid and more sweet than regular V.