Bullet Points: 10 Drinks to Keep You Awake at Work

I've organized these drinks beginning with the lowest intensity and ramping up to the true blow-your-ass out energy system-shockers.  Start at the top, keep it simple, and if that doesn't work, move on down to the next item on the list.  Just don't try to complete the entire list in one day, or you will die.

10.  Water

One step at a time.  If you're feeling groggy at work, there's a chance that you might just not be getting enough water.  Of course, there's a much greater chance that your job is boring, and there's no beverage that's going to cure that for you, except for maybe molten rock or the liquid metal Terminator.  Then again, constantly needing to urinate may be just the excitement you need to get you through the grind, and if so, then water can do that trick.  If not, move on.

9.  Fruit Smoothie

Yes, a fruit smoothie is technically the fruitiest thing you can drink, and I mean that in every sense.  However, contrary to popular belief, drinking a fruit smoothie will not turn you gay.  If you've had friends who became gay shortly after drinking a smoothie, you can rest assured that the smoothie merely brought any pre-existing gaiety bubbling to the surface; it was not the first cause, so quit worrying your judgmental, homophobic little heart.  The smoothie's functional benefits in terms of keeping you awake lie in the abundant vitamins and fiber from its component fruit, as well as from the heaping helping of protein found in its yogurt.  The protein is especially salient, as nutritionists will tell you that protein fuels your muscles most directly, and also helps to rebuild your muscles if you're recovering from a long night of lifting weights.  Of course, if you've been lifting weights all night, you've got bigger problems than a lack of energy.

8.   Coke

Coke was first introduced and manufactured as a sort of miracle revitalizing tonic.  And, as is well known, the reason that it caught on so thoroughly and gave so many people that characteristic bounce in their step was that it was steeped in the extract of coca leaves, better known as cocaine.  When cocaine was outlawed by the federal government, caffeine replaced blow as the active ingredient.  Caffeine, of course, is famous for its stimulant properties, and you pretty much know what to expect when you drink it.  The principle problem with using it as a stay-awake aid, though, is that it contains tons of sugar.  The refined sugar gives you a short energy boost, but once an hour or so has passed by, you'll be dragging ass once again.  This may be a coordinated scheme by the people at Coca-Cola to get you to, at that time, drink another Coke, and it is for this reason that Coke, while effective, is not the most efficient means of keeping yourself awake. 

7.  Jolt Cola 

Moving down the intensity line is almost like moving down the evolutionary scale of energy drinks.  While other high caffeine and sugar content sodas could be rightfully grouped with Coke (Mountain Dew and Mello Yellow have only marginally more caffeine), Jolt has enough caffeine to push itself into its own category -- more than three times as much as Coke, to be more precise.  In essence, it's Coke, but with a more efficient delivery system.  I mean, if you wanted to get really efficient, you could just inject it under your eyelids, but I find drinking it in a sugary carbonated syrup to be somewhat more pleasant.  That is, until I get diabetes.  Then I may have to start with the injection thing.  Lord knows I'll have the needles.

6.  Coffee (and its evil stepbrother, espresso)

Now is the time on the list when you're going to have to begin exercising caution.  Sure, you can do a bunch of ecstasy, drink unreasonable amounts of water and die of hyperhydration, but the chances are that your workplace -- unless you work at a rave, and good work getting that job if you do -- would probably somewhat frown on the whole "large quantities of illegal drugs" thing to begin with, so you probably won't have that opportunity.  But you probably have a coffee machine right at work, and if the place you work at is fancy enough, or if it's a coffee shop, you might even have an espresso machine.  The average brewed cup of coffee contains roughly the same amount of caffeine as three cans of coke.  You can drink it black, which means no sugar crash.  Or you can drink that evil espresso:  a shot of concentrated waking power containing 80% of the caffeine of a cup of coffee at less than a quarter of the liquid volume.  Which means you can drink a lot of it without feeling full.  In the case of Jasmine Willis earlier this month, that meant drinking seven double espressos and a bonus trip to the hospital with heart palpitations.  As it turns out, it's pretty tough to work -- even at a coffee shop -- while having heart palpitations.  Go fig.

5.   Cocaine

Not the powdery drug, the energy drink.  Sadly, this drink has been pulled from the shelves pending a change to a more family friendly name (some suggestions:  blow, nose candy, candy cane, candycaine, toot, lady, snow, flake, snowflake, C, Charlie, chaz, chang, charge, white, draw, fluff or stuff).  When it was on the market, though (and, ostensibly, when it comes back), it had about three and a half times caffeine as its prude of a predecessor, Red Bull, along with the requisite other energy boosting ingredients like taurine (an amino acid purported to boost brain function), B vitamins (which help facilitate the conversion of sugar to energy), ginseng, guarana and so on.  But really it's here for the name.  R.I.P. Cocaine.  Like the eight-ball I bought less than an hour ago, you were gone too fast.

4.  5 Hour Energy

This is actually a mildly disturbing product.  It's made by the same people who make the Chaser anti-hangover med.  You know the one:  "It's like a sponge inside your stomach!" or whatever their scary slogan is.  This comes in a small bottle, which you're expected to drink all at once.  There's no nutritional labeling on it at all, so it's hard to say exactly how much caffeine is involved, but the commercials promise no more than "a cup of coffee."  Considering that the bottle can't be more than three ounces, that's still a lot of caffeine for the volume, but it makes you wonder what the remainder of the beverage is.  It claims to contain no sugar, so you'd expect the rest would just have crazy amounts of all the aforementioned standard energy drink ingredients.  Now is as good a time as any to point out that too many B-vitamins can be really bad for you.  You can get what's called B-vitamin toxicity, symptoms of which can include a headache on the low-end and tachycardia (freakishly rapid heart rate) and convulsions on the high end.  It's not the kind of thing that helps you stay awake during work so much as it helps you eventually fall into a coma.  Kind of counter productive, really.  In moderation, though, drinking the bottle makes your face flush and feel not unlike as if alcohol is evaporating off it.  It doesn't quite last the full 5 hours, but if you feel yourself slipping away after lunch, there's a good chance that this drink will be able to carry you through most of the rest of the day, if not all of it. 

3.  Sky Rocket Caffeinated Syrup

If you've made it this far and you're still unsatisfied with your level of alertness, I'm going to start calling you Top Gun as I take you right into the danger zone.  As this syrup contains around three Cokes worth of caffeine per ounce, it's probably not something you'd consider drinking straight out of the bottle.  However, as you are apparently some sort of death-defying connoisseur of caffeine, it might not hurt to at least try a little sip.  If you chug it, though, you'll probably die.  It comes in a 24.5 oz bottle.  Jessica Willis' seven double espressos probably only contained in total about a third as much caffeine as one of these bottles does, so you're going to have to be careful.  Still, this is perfect for the person (apparently this is you) who wants to add just the right amount of caffeine to any of the above beverages.  Mmmmm... hyper-caffeinated pineapple yogurt smoothie with additional cream soda flavoring.  Sounds like your days of constipation are distant memories, along with your "regular" heart rhythms.

2.  SPIKE Shooter

What could possibly top the Sky Rocket syrup, Top Gun?  Well, SPIKE Shooter is the first item on this list with a warning to all potential under-18 consumers (the warning:  DO NOT DRINK THIS!) -- a warning that was not heeded by two Colorado High Schoolers who were taken to the hospital with nausea and heart palpitations after drinking just one can each.  One can of SPIKE Shooter contains almost four times the caffeine of a Red Bull (a little under ten cans of Coke), and the incident in Colorado caused many vendors to pull SPIKE from their shelves altogether, which is no small feat considering how eager those same vendors would generally be to cash in on the free publicity.  Bottom line:  if you can find SPIKE Shooters, and you've exhausted all the above possibilities, go for it.  If you jump straight to this one, though, there's a pretty good chance that you'll regret it.  In the pants.

1.  Wired x505

I know you're already a little concerned about this.  It sounds more like some sort of secret government space plane project than a beverage.  But if you're still unsatisfied, then this is your last chance.  The x505, in addition to containing more caffeine than a 12 pack of Coke (to be more precise, it would take over fourteen and a half cans of Coke to match it), also allows you to travel forward OR backward in time.  That's not true, but it probably feels like it is.  This drink is so ridiculous, it's hard to believe that you don't have to chain it to your wrist in a locked suitcase on the way home from the store.  In ancient times, it was used to rouse the gods.  And so on.  If you need this drink after trying everything above, you probably weigh at least eight-hundred pounds and work in/are a comic book store.  You are a true energy fiend.  Congratulations to you, and I hope I've been of service.