Spike Shooter.

• Author: Peterson, Eric
• Position: Spike LLC - Brief article

The owner of nutritional supplement maker Biotest Labs, Tim Patterson crossed over into the energy drink business late last year.

"It was always interesting to me that (energy drinks) were very successful when they didn't taste very good and weren't very energizing," he said. "We put our money into flavor."

Patterson's Spike Shooter uses sucralose--plus a hearty kick of caffeine and other active ingredients--to outdo the Red Bulls of the world. It's working in the Colorado, California and Nevada markets where it's currently available, he said, and in those markets Spike outsells the competition by a wide margin at many retailers.

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Spike made headlines earlier in the...