If you needed a caffeine rush in the 90s, finding a liquid jump-start was not a tough decision.  The energy drink market was an afterthought, and it only featured drinks with names that wanted to hurt you and packaging that was yelling at you. Here are those drinks:

SURGE

Taglines:  “SUUURRRRRRGE!”, Feed The Rush, Life’s A Scream

Surge was a scream-inducing citrus soft drink that Coca-Cola made to compete with Pepsi’s Mountain Dew.  It went directly after the extreme (EXTREME!) sports lifestyle that Mountain Dew now covets, and did so successfully for a few years.  Unfortunately, SURGE was discontinued in 2002 and replaced by Vault.  For the SURGEaholics out there, SURGE is still sold in Norway.  Weird.

KICK

Tagline:  The hardcore, psycho, nitro drink in a can!

Since every beverage company’s goal in the mid-90s included taking market share from Mountain Dew, The Dr. Pepper Bottling Company created Kick and gave it a totally hip tagline.  Unfortunately for them, most people thought the line was laughable and a weak marketing attempt.  Kick was quickly out-extremed by Mountain Dew and SURGE.

Jolt

Tagline: All the sugar and twice the caffeine

Jolt Cola is a highly caffeinated drink from the 80s that survived the EXTREME 90s and has since been re-packaged into intense battery-like bottles.  A large part of its survival can be attributed to movie product placements (Hackers, Jurassic Park) that aligned the drink with nerds that needed to stay up all night.

Josta

Taglines: Unleash It / Better do the good stuff now

Josta was created by Pepsi Co as Mountain Dew’s mysterious darker brother.  The key ingredient was guarana, which is a stimulant that supposedly boosts energy.  Even with a fun new jungle-sounding ingredient, Josta didn’t make it out of the decade.  Josta also has succeeded in scaring other energy drink makers from selecting a dark color for their beverage.

Mountain  Dew / Mello Yello

Mountain Dew Tagline:  Do the Dew

Mountain Dew and Mello Yello are very much the same citrus drink, and chances are you believed your friend when he said that drinking either would reduce your sperm count.  Both are still around, but these days it’s hard to find Mello Yello anywhere outside of the South.  Its been replaced by Vault as Coca-Cola’s main green bottle caffeineated beverage.

Red Bull

Everybody knows Red Bull by now, but did you drink it when it looked like this you hipster?

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