Tyler Benedict, a Seabreeze High School graduate and son of a Daytona Beach advertising mogul, got the idea for his new energy drink, Source Burn, while watching his cycling buddies water down Gatorade to drink during a ride.

In 1987, Austrian Dietrich Mateschitz started selling his creation, Red Bull, the first mass-market energy drink, after being inspired by the revitalizing, tonic-type drinks popular in Asian bars.

Between Red Bull's U.S. launch in 1996 and the 2002 introduction of Burn, entrants in the energy-drink category have come and gone, mostly gone.
Most contain some combination of caffeine, taurine and guarana, and the purpose is to give consumers the oomph to finish a sporting event or, for that matter, the workday -- or to stay up all night, whether to party or study. Mixability with alcohol was an early consideration, but competitors finally are expending energy to make this stuff taste good on its own.
"Red Bull is the category leader, and it tastes like cough syrup," Benedict said on a recent publicity swing through the Daytona Beach area. S.R. Perrott Inc. began to distribute Burn locally this month.

It's the only product line with the Source Beverage brand, which is the only division of Benedict's Greensboro, N.C.-based P.R. Performance Inc. Benedict, 31, has lived in Greensboro since 2001, is married and has a 5-month-old son.

Typical descriptions of the taste of energy drinks usually include the words "medicinal," "SweeTarts" or "chewable vitamins." Some who tried Source Burn at The Daytona Beach News-Journal didn't find it to be superior, but others said it was pleasant, either peachy or citrusy in character.

"We've got more caffeine, more vitamins and taste better," Benedict said.

Though he mentioned taste last, it was important enough to send him to a "flavor house" after experimenting with his own home brews for a while. Flavor companies help food, beverage and drug developers to determine how products should taste and smell and what ingredients to use to achieve the flavor and aroma.

Benedict knew the drink shouldn't be too carbonated. As a mountain biker, he had seen fellow cyclists shake cans of cola to make them gulpably flat before taking them along on rides.

And he knew it shouldn't be too sweet or tart or acidic. He perceived all three as problems with Gatorade.

The "flavor house," which Benedict wouldn't identify for publication because of confidentiality concerns, helped to give Source Burn what Benedict describes as a lightly carbonated citrus-tropical profile.

The functional part of the 8.3-ounce canned drink is 110 milligrams of pure caffeine, guarana (this extract of a rainforest plant seed contributes eight more milligrams of "natural" caffeine), taurine (an amino acid, so named because it was first obtained in 1826 from ox bile -- get the "bull" connection?), ginseng, and vitamins B6, B12, A, C and E. Most drinks that size have only 80 milligrams of caffeine, total. For comparison, it helps to know that, on average eight ounces of brewed coffee has 85 milligrams of caffeine.

There is also a zero-carbohydrate, sugar-free Burn, sweetened with Splenda and ace-K (acesulfame potassium) instead of sucrose, glucose and maltodextrin.

A 16-ounce version also is in the works, in keeping with a new industry trend that strays from those narrow eight-ounce bullet cans that everyone is hoping to ride into beverage history, their shot at following Red Bull's ultra-successful creator.

Power Surge: Who Buys All the Energy Drinks?

Phil Lempert, editor of Facts, Figures and the Future, says energy drinks are soon to be a $2 billion market, a market that grew about 56 percent between April 2004 and April 2005. "The increase has been driven by several factors, including":

• An "on-the-go" American consumer looking for quick bursts of energy throughout the day.
• The adoption of energy drinks by "Generation Y" -- the skateboard, dirt-bike, snowboard, X-Games set -- as a drink they can call their own.
• The popular use of energy/alternative beverages as mixers for alcoholic drinks, both in nightclubs and at home parties.

Making of an Energy Drink

1998: University of Florida graduate Tyler Benedict returns to Daytona Beach from Charlotte, N.C., with his wife, Kristi, to work at Benedict Advertising, owned by his father, Jim. The emerging energy drink market catches Tyler's attention.

1999: Benedict introduces Propel, a powdered energy drink, and files paperwork for a "use in commerce" trademark. The mix has no citric acid and a little caffeine and is a mild-tasting alternative to Gatorade. Quaker Oats trademarks a bottled water with the same name, Propel, two days later and afterward pays Benedict six figures to surrender his trademark. Two months after launching, he changes the product's name to ProLyte and hits the extreme sports circuit to sell it. "We had decent distribution in specialty shops," he says, but he yearns for a mainstream market.

2001: The couple moves back to North Carolina, Greensboro this time, still using the Quaker money as "seed capital," working from home and borrowing money from family and friends to develop a new energy drink. Tyler is the founder, owner and CEO of P.R. Performance Inc. with its Source Beverages brand.

2002: Benedict begins selling Burn, with 48 percent more caffeine than industry leader Red Bull.

2004: Sugar-free Burn is launched.

2005: P.R. Performance Inc. is thriving, with an expected annual revenue of $2 million and distribution in more than 20 states. In May, Burn sponsors advance screenings of "Unleashed," the martial-arts action film with Jet Li and Morgan Freeman, in 11 cities, including New York, San Francisco, Chicago and Greensboro. Other sponsorships include mountain bike races, hot-body contests, video game tournaments and drag races. Benedict plans to release a 16-ounce version of Burn in August.
-- Staff and Wire Report n