Posted: Sat, Jul 18, 2020
Last updated: Sat, Mar 21, 2026
Original (Zero Sugar)
(Reviewed: 21/03/2026)
My boss bought me a can of original Monster just before we opened up. Not only is it a Saturday, we’re also starting to see some actual sun this year, so we were expecting it to be a rather feral shift. My chest implants are healing well, but a full week’s worth of shifts on my feet (plus 2 post-work gigs) were certainly not helping me. I was fucking exhausted, and my boss was on the tail end of a nasty illness too.
It took me a second to realise it was sugar free - there was some green text below the rim, but it wasn’t super obvious.
“I just saw black and green and picked it up,” says my boss, which, fair do’s.
It tastes alright, to be honest. It had been months since I last had a can of any Monster at all, and it tasted very much like the original but not quite there. Now, I couldn’t say if this was due to a lack of sugar, I’m getting older and don’t drink energy drinks as much, or if it’s genuinely a close match. I’m not about to do a blind taste test side by side - that’s an exercise for the reader!
Anyway, aye, it’s a classic. I’ll always pick full sugar if it’s available though. A tier.
Original
(This and the rest reviewed in 2020 or some time earlier)
I still don’t know the domineering flavour of this drink. It’s tasty and I keep coming back to it. Sometimes a bitch will deviate and go for Rockstar or Relentless depending on what’s on offer but I always come back to this. 11g of sugar per 100ml can’t be so bad, can it? S tier.
Absolutely Zero
This tastes like concentrated bubblegum essence, like it needs mixing with something to be palatable. C tier.
LH44 - Lewis Hamilton
I tried this years ago so I’m going off memory here. I remember it tasting like one of the subpar sugar-free flavours, but this time with sugar. I don’t think I want to shell out on another can to give a substantial review but I do remember this was a waste of time. C tier.
UPDATE: I bought another can to refresh my memory as it had been years since I last had this to drink. It’s fucking vile. It’s the same concentrated bubblegum fuckery that Absolutely Zero has, except instead of having the allure of being sugar free, it has sugar in it. It’s just horrid. I can finish the can, but it really needs mixing with something to be even remotely enjoyable. F tier.
Fury
I looked up both Fury and Assault and their descriptions are the exact same… hmm. This Reddit thread seems to confirm that they’re the same thing, just different sizes.
Okay, so first the smell. It smells like shit. It would be like if I poured cola, a drink which should be outlawed for how foul it tastes, into a filthy ashtray and just let it fester for a week.
It tastes almost like cola. As the taste lingers it threatens to dip its toes into cola territory but not quite enough for me to spit the drink out. This is extremely difficult to drink. This is absolutely the worst flavour of Monster I’ve ever tasted. I was talking shit about Yerba Mate earlier on this page but I’d rather neck a full can of that than a can of this. This is an insult to beverages worldwide. F tier.
Mule - Ginger Brew
I went into this one in fear as I hate ginger beer and was expecting this to be that, but was pleasantly surprised to find it was ginger and lime. It actually tastes… fine.. but not sure if I’d buy it again. It was hard to finish the can to be honest. F tier.
