Dragon Wild Tiger Bone Root Tonic Drink

At my local Super 88 market, I was perusing the aisles recently and found this vibrantly labeled bottle of Dragon brand Wild Tiger Bone Root Tonic Drink. I figured it had been a while since I reviewed a foreign energy drink so I threw it in the basket and a couple days later split it with Connoisseur Javier.  The lightly carbonated liquid is the same greenish-reddish-brown as a beer bottle and the smell is strongly medicinal. In fact, Javier said it smelled like something he rubbed on his dogs once when they had mange, and I tended to agree that it smelled like some kind of skin medication.

The flavor was medicinally sweet and intensely bitter, quite earthy, a little salty, and woody in taste as well with a slight wintergreen finish. In short, it tasted awful and very much like a medicinal tonic. This wild brew has a huge variety of roots and bark infused into it, along with caffeine, b-vitamins, and two types of ginseng.

The taste was just the first half of the battle, within a half hour both Javier and I were feeling horrible. Javier described the feeling as a nicotine hangover. Where I have never smoked, I couldn’t relate to that per se, but I can tell you that I only got a fitful three hours of sleep that night between terrifying heart palpitations and tweaked nerves.  I have a new rule about energy drinks: if it’s yellow, let it mellow, if it’s brown, flush it down.

- Connoisseur Tom