Throne Sport Coffee wants you awake like Patrick Mahomes (minus the glory)

USA Today

5 hours ago

Throne Sport Coffee wants you awake like Patrick Mahomes (minus the glory)
Besides all the world championships, Patrick Mahomes' most valuable contribution to America's football-loving dads is his ability to subvert expectations. He helped the Kansas City Chiefs break through to glory after nearly five decades without a Super Bowl appearance. He proved Texas Tech quarterbacks were no longer figureheads of glorious-but-empty statistics. And, vitally, he showed the world the peak body type for an elite athlete carries just enough padding around the midsection.
Mahomes' dad bod has only improved his game, giving him a bit of heft while in no way detracting from his laser cannon arm or defense-breaking scrambling ability. It's wonderful for dorks like me, who can celebrate the fact that, hell yes, we have something in common with one of the greatest athletes to ever take the field. But it's also makes his endorsements a bit funnier. Coors Light? Yeah, that tracks. A healthy iced coffee aimed at athletes? A little less so!
Throne inked Mahomes as its face of Sport Coffee, a low(ish) calorie, low(ish) sugar canned brew that aims to deliver caffeine and nutrients for an active lifestyle. And maybe it works because Mahomes is relatable -- a guy who isn't meticulous about counting off each ab muscle but thrives anyway. We all want to be at least a little bit like the quarterback with three Super Bowl MVPs, right? Well, maybe a little canned coffee is all it takes.
Of course, there's a snowball's chance in hell Sport Coffee does anything for me beyond waking me up and helping my mornings feel a little less unpleasant. Let's see how it tastes.
Sport Coffee Mint Mocha: A-
Cracking the can unleashes a gorgeous wave of mint chocolate coffee aroma. It's enough to fill my office like an ice cream air freshener. Dig deeper and there's a slightly stale canned coffee smell lurking underneath, but for the most part it's great.
It pours the expected brown of a cold brew. There's no dairy involved, and the pour backs up the idea this won't be an oat milk situation or something similar. I'm slightly concerned, since my typical coffee is a milk+protein powder combination. Fortunately, Sport Coffee needs no cream. The mint and mocha create a soft landing spot if, like me, you're not a black coffee drinker.
Despite clocking in at 50 calories with cane sugar as the second ingredient, there's a sweet current that ties everything together and makes this a crushable coffee. It's not sticky or overpowering, but it works well with the acid of the coffee to prevent things from getting bitter or needing creamer. The chocolate enhances the light roast of the cold brew.
This all works in harmony to create a dessert-ish drink that works well as a morning eye-opener -- particularly given the added caffeine that cranks the overall content to 150 milligrams in an 11-ounce can. That makes it an easy breakfast pickup with enough B vitamins to at least give the illusion of warding off a hangover. All in all, pretty solid.
Would I drink it instead of a Hamm's?
This a pass/fail mechanism where I compare whatever I'm drinking to my baseline cheap beer. That's the standby from the land of sky-blue waters, Hamm's. So the question to answer is: on a typical day, would I drink Throne Sport Coffee over a cold can of Hamm's?
Actually, this would be a great start to a tailgate before I could get to the Hamm's. Might be weird chasing one with the other, though.
This is part of FTW's Beverage of the Week series. Here, we mostly chronicle and review beers, but happily expand that scope to any beverage that pairs well with sports. Yes, even cookie dough whiskey.