Grab your Bawls and run like hell.
The gaming community will certainly have heard of Bawls, the caffeine-packed drink that kicks Jolt to the curb, but what about those of us who have better things to do than kill imaginary zombies?
Because, honestly, who needs coffee’s bitter-I-will-throw-up-on-your-Doc-Martins’ taste when you can get the same power-packed punch without feeling the hurling sensation that coffee encourages?
With 80 milligrams of caffeine per 12 ounce bottle, Bawls carries a kick that is almost two times the amount of caffeine as Mountain Dew (55 milligrams), the extreme cola, and Surge (51 milligrams), one of the first caffeine pumpers of the era, but practically the same as a cup and a half of coffee.
“I don’t sleep when I drink this,” said Jason Egan, a computer programmer for Giertsen Co., who got hooked on the drink after seeing it at Comp USA. “It is perfect for when I need to stay up and study or just for gaming events.”
The secret ingredient is the guarana berry.
The guarana berry is used in Brazilian soft drinks to create more flavor, said Hoby Buppert, Bawls president and its creator. The berry creates a strong flavor of vanilla and cream as well as a blast of energy.
Guarana contains a naturally occurring chemical called guaranine, similar in composition and effects to caffeine. Guaranine is 2.5 times stronger than the caffeine found in coffee, tea and soft drinks, so the mixing of alcohol and mass amounts of Bawls could be physically harmful because of the large amount of stimulants in Bawls, Buppert said.
Caffeine and guaranine are considered “generally regarded as safe” drugs, so their use does not have to be approved by the FDA, Buppert said.
“But we want to stress all things in moderation,” Buppert said.
You’d have to go back to the days of yore, when Jolt was young, to find a beverage that is as common to the gaming subculture as Bawls. As the sponsor of major gaming events, Bawls has cannily marketed itself to a constituency that feels the need for speed but usually can’t be bothered to leave the basement to make the kind of connections that would lead to a hit of the good stuff.
Gamers even begin to depend heavily on the drinks as a major incentive to come to the gaming parties, Buppert said. “They say ‘if Bawls isn’t there, no one will come.’ “
The drink’s unique taste and the interesting bottle design are characteristic of the company’s overall intentions.
“We want consumers to take it in,” Buppert said, but with flashy designs and flaring colors the design would be too much. So the settlement was made on something subtle, yet interesting.
Bawls is easy to find on convenience store shelves with its blue bottle with embossed circles jutting from the smooth glass. And that won’t change, Buppert said.
The cult around the beverage is growing. It has become a representation of those who consume it. A statement, you could say, or a trademark for passive individualism.
“If you have to tell people that you are cool and hip, then you are definitely not,” Buppert said.
