Energy drinks have often been a magnet for the weird and wonderful. Swiss brand Louis XIV once added 24-carat gold flakes to its caffeinated drink. Bazaar in the US sells a fruit punch-flavoured energy shot as a pouch of ‘vampire blood’, and Austria’s Bomba puts its drinks in a bottle shaped like a grenade.

Such kitsch hasn’t yet taken hold in the UK (though Bomba does have a British distributor). But a new generation of energy drinks is definitely showing a thirst for adventure, using exotic and unusual ingredients from the Far East and South America to promote functional benefits that go far beyond a brief caffeinated high.

So what formulations are on trend? And what’s driving the change?