Review: Muscle Milk Strawberries 'N Creme Protein Nutrition Shake

In previous Muscle Milk reviews, I've been pleasantly surprised each time by how much I liked their protein nutrition shakes.  I went in each time with low expectations and each time, they far exceeded those expectations to make a quality product.  Expecting that experience again, I figured I would dive into another Muscle Milk product with this review of their Muscle Milk Strawberries 'N Creme Protein Nutrition Shake.  As with all of these, I picked it up at Thornton's in a free promotion and in an occurrence of hilarity (in my mind), this one has sat in my refrigerator for eight months and still has a comfortable amount of time before its shelf life expires.  Wow, these dairy free products (translation: pure chemicals) are amazing.  Anyway, a fourteen fluid ounce container of this shake is 220 calories and has 25 grams of protein.

I can't say I was surprised by the appearance of this once I poured it out of the bottle.  It had the normal pinkish hue that all strawberry product seem to have and had some tiny, and I mean really tiny, little slivers of strawberry to convey the strawberry theme as well.  It's thickness was comparable to that of whole milk and again, since I've had these before and they are aiming to be a shake, that was again not a surprise.  One thing that was a surprise was the smell of this.  It smelled like strawberry at first, but when I took a deeper whiff, it started to give off a smell that was not something of this planet.  It was very chemically foul and if I had to compare it to anything, I would say it was close to soybeans.  Gross.

The horrid smell was a harbinger of things to come as the shake itself had a faint taste of strawberry followed by a faint taste of a creme like mixture and then it was hit by that awful soybean-like chemical smell.  It was terrible and lingered in my mouth for a few seconds and I was completely disgusted.  Thinking I screwed something up, I put the cap back on the bottle and shook it like a mad man to make sure it was mixed correctly and when I took another taste, it was more of the same thing.  The horrible chemical taste wasn't as strong after the shaking, but I'm not sure that was because I knew what to expect or if the shake had mixed a little better.  Regardless of what it was, I knew that I wasn't going to go back for thirds and ruin my night, so the rest of this container met the drain of my sink.

Buy It or Fly By It?  An unfinished product always guarantees a FLY BY IT rating.  You don't really leave something that is good unfinished, right?  Well, this was unfinished and it was awful.  Some of the other Muscle Milk shakes I've had have been good, but this one was not even close.  Maybe I got a bad bottle, but I'm not willing to try another one to find out.  I value my taste buds (and life) far too much.

FLY BY IT!!