If there's a time when anybody can be driven to Red Bull, it's the holidays.

It's the biggest travel time of the year, and chances are excellent that you're sharing the interstate and airport with your American equals: the hurried, the harried, the sleep-deprived.

And nothing announces your pledge to simply get through the next few hours like a Red Bull. Or Jones Energy, SoBe, Full Throttle or Rock Star.

What you want, of course, is that little pop of stamina and intense concentration that you used to get when you could routinely back a street-legal dose of Suphedrine with a 16-ounce cup of burner-crusted caffeine-concentrated coffee: Call it suburban meth, but it got you through the car pool.

But because most energy drinks are at least $1.50 a pop if you buy them in bulk, and at least $2 each from your convenience store cooler, you have to ask: How potent is this brew in a can?

We know that energy drinks are pervasive enough in our culture that the best kind of story - the Urban Legend - has sprung up around them. Did you hear the one about the guy who drank 3 energy drinks real fast and died?

We lined up seven of the most aromatic energy drinks this side of a brewery - full-sugar versions only, because we're not the wussy sort to dilute our caffeine/taurine/ sugar/mystery chemical high - threw them into cups and begged a variety of test subjects to offer their opinions.

Conclusions: The college-age male taste testers, a key demographic for this beverage, didn't wince once, gleefully sniffed each cup and toasted each other before each chug.

Older adults had a tendency to wince, sniff and then wince again. But not everybody: Some card-carrying grownups have a thorough appreciation for all things "energy" -- and a few even went so far as to comment on how well our energy drinks would mix with alcohol.

Do energy drinks work? In the sense that caffeine works, yes. But as Rick Pounds, director of Lexington's High Intensity Training Center, notes, so would a 59-cent cup of coffee. He thinks the appeal of energy drinks is marketing and hype.

Nonetheless, the winner of our taste test? Your classic Red Bull. The tiny, instantly recognizable can signals that you are nobody to be trifled with, and the paint-peeling taste says that you are drinking it for one reason: because jittery is good.

The loser? Jones Soda. It might be this cute little soda cult, with its adorable pictures and its "pure cane sugar" in its long-necked bottle. Still, there is such a thing as too much sugar, you scions of Jones. There is soda, and then there is syrup. And Jones Energy Drink is syrup.

What's in an energy drink? Reading the label might distract you from the caustic business of drinking the chemical solution beverage. You might find simply a concoction of sugar, caffeine and B vitamins. But you might also find:

Taurine - An organic acid that's broadly alleged to help burn fat and contribute to weight loss.

Ginseng - We in Kentucky love our "sang." Even Daniel Boone was briefly in the ginseng business. The root extract is said to lessen fatigue and promote endurance.

Guarana seed extract - A central nervous system supplement common in diet products.

Ginkgo biloba - Touted as a "brain herb" that improves circulation to the brain.

L-Carnitine - An amino acid derivative touted for heart health and weight loss.

Volunteers disagree over which drink is the worst

What did our taste-testers think about the - let's use the term broadly here - intriguing mix of flavors that conceal the caffeine jolt included in our seven varieties of energy drink?

Here's a sampling of what our taste testers - Herald-Leader staffers and a couple of college students - thought.

"Falls short of its promise to capture the essence of stale hotel mints and crushed cigarette butts."

"More mouth feel than most, but that's not necessarily a good thing."

"Wretched. Bubblegum-y."

"Like bad cough syrup."

"Watered-down apple juice."

"Nasty color; awful! Flat and sugary."

"Disgusting smell."

"Must ... have ... water ... chaser."

"The benchmark by which other energy drinks are judged. Metallic taste lends a sense of serious business to the drink."

"A chore to drink."

"Could drink a can or two."

"Might go nicely with cheap vodka."

"Harsh, caustic. Like a Flintstones vitamin."

"All the quality of strip-mall carnival fare."

"Like liquid candy."

"Medicinal undertones."

"Mountain Dew + Slush Puppie."

"Tastes like drinking Mountain Dew after sucking on a mint."

"Mountain Dew on steroids."

"Like Mountain Dew gone bad."

"Fruity flavor masks a diseased, wilted bouquet."

"Maybe the worst of the bunch. Tastes like prunes."

"Similar to punch I've had at weddings."

"An unholy combination of great fruit tastes that don't go great together."

"Pine-Sol smell, antiseptic aftertaste."

"Like hard candy too long in Grandma's purse."

"I could get this one down without grimacing."

"Like fruit gone bad."