Well I already explained the story behind me picking this up in my previous review for the lemon citrus, so let’s forego the formalities and dig right in, shall we?

This has the same weird smell that the lemon citrus had. Well, obviously it didn’t smell like lemon citrus, but it’s the same kind of artificial scent with strong chemical undertones. That certainly did not pique my interest or get my experience off to a good start.

The taste is better than the lemon citrus, which I wasn’t expecting because I typically don’t like orange sports drinks, but then again, that’s not necessarily saying much. And it’s not, because while the initial orange blast tastes like a typical orange sports drink, there’s still the little issue of the multiple sweeteners, which don’t really seem to work in tandem and lead to a rather awful aftertaste.

I thought the point of the sweeteners, besides the one that supposedly slowly releases carbohydrates as you go about your strenuous activity, was to cut back on sugar content, but this doesn’t even do that. This bottle contains 15g of sugar per 8 oz. serving, which adds up to 30g of sugar per 16 oz. bottle. While that may be substantially less than what you’re getting from, say, a typical cola beverage, that’s still even more than the national brand, whose own 32 oz. orange version contains 56g of sugar, while this comes in at a whopping 60g! Obviously, some of that sugar is necessary to give you a little boost, and presumably to replace what is lost during activity, but this seems to have more than is necessary for that, unless you’re working out vigorously for an hour or more.

In short, if you have a gun to your head and absolutely have to pick up an Nth Degree Sports Drink of your choosing, then the person with the gun to your head is a heartless prick. That being said, I would go with the orange, simply because it’s less offensively bad than its lemon citrus counterpart. Still, though, it’s not something I would call “good”, and certainly not something I would pick up if it was more than $.50.

Overall: 4.5/10. This is more passable than the lemon citrus, but there’s still a gross chemical aftertaste that equals a big turn-off. Plus, the use of added sweeteners, which I thought was to cut back on the amount of sugar contained in each bottle, equals more sugar than what’s in the national brand sports drinks! Granted, I must confess that I did not use this while engaging in any strenuous activity, so maybe it really does give a boost to athletes who are staying active for long periods of time. But for everyone else, I can assure you, it more or less tastes like liquid garbage with a little fake orange flavor thrown in. The $.50 price tag is a plus, though!

NOTE: This is also available in a raspberry flavor. I sure as shit ain’t going near it, so you’re on your own for that one.