Earlybird Morning Cocktail review – Not What I Expected…

In high school, I always overslept. I thought I wasn’t a “morning person” and never would be. In college, sleeping in started to take a toll on my performance. I still remember the first semester I snoozed my alarm one too many times and missed an exam. I knew something had to change.

From that day forward, I was determined to find a way to become a “morning person.” After I graduated, I found a gym partner that I met at the gym every morning at 4:45 am. This was my constant to get me out of bed on time for the next three years; a sort of “forced’ accountability since I knew someone would be waiting for me if I overslept.

That all ended when my wife and I decided this year to relocate our family. The daily routine I was so confident in fell apart and I quickly went back to my old habits of oversleeping. I needed to find a new solution: enter EarlyBird.

I saw an ad for a product called “EarlyBird Morning Cocktail” and all the claims it made about helping people become an “early bird”. Unconvinced, I still purchased it out of desperation that it would actually hold true to the claims. I decided to go all out on a 45-day wake-up challenge (more on that below).

In short, I drank EarlyBird every morning, as soon as my alarm went off, for 45 days straight and didn’t fail at getting up on time a single day. EarlyBird Morning Cocktail does work, but in a different way than you’d think. Here’s what I discovered.

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Ready to dive in headfirst without finishing the article? Be sure to use the discount code below for 10% off your EarlyBird Morning Cocktail order:

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2024 UPDATE:

*I originally made this review in 2021 and wanted to provide an update after almost 3 years of use. EarlyBird is still my go-to morning drink and has completely replaced my early morning energy drink (as well as being a much healthier option). I have pretty consistently used their Night Cap product as well and you can read more about my experience with it here. The EarlyBird team has consistently brought new flavors and products to the table and this article will always be up-to-date with new releases and testing.

**In addition, my wife started drinking EarlyBird on a whim back in 2022 after seeing me drink it for over a year. Turns out she loves it. She used to start every day with coffee first thing in the morning as most people do. When she started using EarlyBird, it helped her wake up and clear the “brain fog” faster. She still has her morning coffee a few hours later for enjoyment, but Earlybird is now her go-to drink as soon as she wakes up. She likes the Strawberry Daiquiri flavor the best!

***I ended up purchasing EarlyBird for my father over Christmas 2022 and now I have Early Bird on hand even when we travel to see family. As a side note, EarlyBird along with the shaker bottle makes a great gift!

Now on to the rest of the review…

What is the EarlyBird Drink?

First off, a little info on what the EarlyBird Morning Cocktail even is. EarlyBird is founded by a guy named Chuckie, that as you guessed it, was struggling to wake up early. After testing different concoctions for over 400 mornings, he came up with what he thought was the perfect drink. We’ll get into the actual ingredients below.

EarlyBird, the drink, revolves around three key elements to help get you going in the morning. Those three things are Clean Energy, Hydration, and Mood Enhancement. This morning cocktail, as they call it, contains ingredients that help with all three areas to help you get a jump on the day and become the early bird.

Why is it called an early bird?

EarlyBird’s name comes from the old analogy of “The early bird gets the worm”. This analogy means that the one who gets up early gets a jump on the day compared to everyone else and therefore receives the reward for doing so.

That is really the claim of this drink, so the name is very fitting in context.

The 45-Day Morning Challenge

When I purchased EarlyBird, I wanted to give myself the best shot at making it work. While I was hopeful the contents of the drink would help me, I knew upfront it wasn’t going to be a magic bullet. I had to actually work for it, the drink would hopefully make it come a bit easier.

Since EarlyBird contains 45 servings, I decided to make a 45-day wake-up challenge. Normally, when I was waking up early, I would wake up early on the weekdays and sleep in on the weekends. I always felt this harmed me (even though sleeping in feels great at the moment) because it would throw my body off any rhythm I had established during the week.

So, my commitment for the next 45 days was to wake up at 4:45 am, every, single, day. I also threw in a few other items into my challenge that needed to be completed each day including a water intake goal (8 – 12 oz glasses of water), a fitness goal (workout once a day), and a spiritual goal (read devotions first thing every day).

I wanted to add some extra incentive to reach these goals, so I added in a bet. A big bet. I made it known to my close friends and family that each day, I would throw $100 into the pot. This sum would build day after day until the end of the 45-day challenge.

If I was successful, I could use the money to get myself a reward. If I was unsuccessful, I would donate the entire pot up to that point to charity. So failing on day 1 only costs me $100. failing on day 45 costs me $4,500.

My EarlyBird arrived in the mail and I started my challenge the very next morning. No turning back.

Does the EarlyBird drink work?

Yes, it does work, and for three reasons. First, it has ingredients that help with hydration, energy, and mood. All very important factors in waking up early.

Next, it provides a consistent routine for your body to count on. The alarm goes off, chug the drink, get out of bed. Routines are powerful for maintaining consistency; don’t underestimate the power of simple routines.

Lastly, even if the ingredients were not top-notch, you have to factor in the placebo effect. The drink could just be flavored water, but if you believe it’s helping you, it likely will. Our minds are extremely powerful, and thinking something will help you, even if it’s not, is often enough to push you over the edge.

How does the EarlyBird Drink Taste?

EarlyBird Morning Cocktail, in my opinion, tastes great. I was initially worried about this since I’m picky with flavors. Most protein and pre-workout drinks make me want to puke. I didn’t want myself to dread waking up each morning and drinking this.

To my surprise, I found I actually really enjoyed the flavor. I purchased the Morning Mimosa flavor and have liked it since day one. I fill my EarlyBird shaker with 8 oz of water and chug the whole drink in a few seconds.

Even if I wasn’t crazy about the flavor, I can drink it fast enough that it wouldn’t matter. Chugging it quickly is actually the method they recommend to consume it.

They actually recommend drinking it before turning off your alarm, but I never tried that as my wife would have likely killed me.

I read a few reviews before purchasing that said it had a “spicey” after taste. I personally didn’t really experience that. There is a slight “spice” in the taste, but nothing overwhelming (and I’m a baby when it comes to anything remotely spicey).

Since I purchased, there have been new flavors to come out, some in limited releases. I’ve made a list at the bottom of this article of all the flavors I’ve tried, and my thoughts on each. You can sign up for their mailing list to get notified when new flavors are released. I’m sure in the near future they will add a few other flavors as staples to their inventory.

What are the EarlyBird Ingredients

Here’s where we get into the bread and butter. I’m a nerd for finding out if something is actually effective or just great marketing. I’m a marketer by trade, so I can spot marketing ploys pretty easily.

If you aren’t super interested in a deep dive into the main ingredients, you might want to skip down to the next section.

If you are interested, we are going to take a quick look at each ingredient and use Google Scholar to help us find relevant research articles on whether the ingredients are clinically proven to do what the EarlyBird founders say.

Google Scholar is always the best method to do this for anything that comes to nutrition. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen major health and fitness magazines and websites claim something about an ingredient that has no clinical studies backing it up. Let’s look at the facts.

Supercharged Hydration Blend

The “Supercharged Hydration Blend”, as they call it, is the first set of ingredients. These ingredients are the ones that are supposed to rehydrate you.

When you sleep, you aren’t drinking water, but your body is still releasing water. This means you wake up in a dehydrated state.

Trying to get up and going when your body is not adequately hydrated makes everything more difficult. It will leave your body and brain in a fog.

To combat this, EarlBird uses four different ingredients: Magnesium, Calcium, Potassium, and Sodium. Technically five ingredients total because you have 8-12 oz of water you are drinking it with and what’s better at hydrating than water.

Magnesium – 50 mg

Magnesium helps with hydration, among a plethora of other things. Magnesium helps with energy, hydration, muscle strength, muscle elasticity, and helps to regulate sleep and stress.

The reason Magnesium is included and listed in the “hydration” ingredients rather than the “energy” ingredients is that, at its core, magnesium is one of the core electrolytes needed for proper hydration.

Magnesium is a great ingredient to be included in a drink like this, but the real question we need to ask of all supplements we take is, “is this ingredient properly dosed?”

Having a great ingredient that is under-dosed is relatively useless. EarlyBird contains 50mg of Magnesium. Dosing magnesium, or rather, figuring out the ideal dose, is not extremely straightforward.

magnesium can be used as a supplement to combat many different ailments. This means, based on what you are trying to accomplish, the daily recommended magnesium intake is between 310mg-2,500mg, which is a very wide scale.

EarlyBird comes nowhere near even the low end of the recommended scale, but it doesn’t necessarily need to. Your body gets its magnesium intake through the foods you eat throughout the day.

The goal of putting it in a drink like this is to give your body an initial boost at the beginning. Given that it’s a core electrolyte, it’s well-dosed to have the intended impact on hydration.

Calcium – 40 mg

Calcium has more benefits than just helping your bones get stronger. It’s also essential at helping your body retain and use fluids. After a night of dehydration, a boost of fluid retention can improve your hydration quickly.

Earlybird contains 40mg of Calcium. This is rather low. Unlike magnesium, the recommended daily calcium intake for adults is between 1,000-2,000 mg. EarlyBird only gives you 5-2.5% of your recommended daily intake.

Again, you get calcium, just like magnesium, from the foods and water you drink throughout the day. This morning cocktail does not need to include the whole daily intake, but it should include a decent portion.

Now, even though they could include a higher dose of calcium, let’s take it into context. Gatorade and Powerade also claim to help with hydration and list calcium as a core ingredient. Although, studies found that Gatorade and Powerade only included between 2.5-7mg of calcium.

To put that in perspective, you get more calcium than that drinking the average glass of tap water.

So, while I think it would be beneficial to include more calcium, compared to other popular drinks with the stated goal of just increasing hydration, EarlyBird is doing pretty well. I’ll give them a pass on this one as well.

Sodium – 120 mg

The most important part of hydration comes from sodium. This is the base for nearly every sports drink to aid in faster rehydration. Sodium in Early Bird is 120 mg, and to compare that, a Gatorade has 270 mg.

Sodium helps reduce your body’s fluid loss due to urine, helping you remain hydrated. Contrary to popular belief, larger intakes of sodium are not bad for you if you drink enough water throughout the day. Even diets extremely high in sodium can be healthy so long as you drink the proper amount of water to flush sodium from your body.

While 120 mg is about half what most sports drinks contain, it is still fairly well-dosed when taking into account the other ingredients that aid in hydration as well.

Potassium 100 mg

There are positive and negative ions that carry electric charges. Potassium carries a positively charged ion, which is why your body uses it to keep the fluid balance in check. A process of electrical signals communicates the movement of muscles and nerve impulses (aka it helps your body properly use hydration to get going).

Get 10% Off With The Coupon Code Below

Ready to dive in headfirst without finishing the article? Be sure to use the discount code below for 10% off your EarlyBird Morning Cocktail order:

CODE: RISEANDGRIND

Clean Energy Blend

Whether it be an energy drink, coffee, or espresso, everyone’s goal when they wake up is to get a spike in energy. Even a slight boost can help. The below ingredients are what are included in the EarlyBird Energy Blend.

The clean energy blend does not contain specific ingredient amounts, just what ingredients are included. It is tough to know what level of each ingredient is used, but we will do our best to break it down.

L-Tyrosine

L-Tyrosine is a non-essential amino acid that can be used to increase dopamine levels and improve performance. It also offers the option of an all-natural, more sustainable way for users to achieve this result rather than using psychostimulants which come with unwanted side effects like anxiety or addiction issues.

In research studies, 2g of tyrosine was shown to have similar enhancing effects as drugs commonly associated with ADHD such as amphetamine when it came down to focus enhancement and improved moods.

For those who feel mentally exhausted, tyrosine may be just the thing you need. Not only does it improve physical performance but research indicates that it also boosts mental performance equally well! One study, in particular, found that consuming 2g of tyrosine significantly improved memory, while another piece of research noted improved creative thinking.

2g of L-Tyrosine is obviously not included in EarlyBird since the entire energy blend, including many other ingredients, only totals 575mg.

Ingredients are typically listed in the order of highest to lowest amount on the label, and L-Tyrosine is listed first. Next is PurCaf, which contains 100mg. This means L-Tyrosine likely is dosed higher than 100mg.

I would classify this as a great ingredient to be included but certainly underdosed compared to major studies’ findings.

Caffeine

The first form of caffeine in EarlyBird is from PurCaf. PurCaf is simply caffeine powder obtained from organic green coffee beans. The extraction process used what they call “clean water” to give the caffeine a more natural taste. This amounts to 100 mg of caffeine.

The next source of caffeine comes from DiCaffeine Malate. This can be thought of as a slow-releasing caffeine as compared to the PurCaf, which is faster digested.

Dicaffeine malate is one malic acid (malate) molecule bonded to two caffeine molecules. This slows the rate at which the caffeine can be processed by your body this extending the useful life of caffeine and preventing the typical crash experienced after drinking caffeine.

This is dosed at 50mg bringing the total caffeine in EarlyBird to 150mg.

Anti-Oxydents

EarlyBird antioxidants blend contains a variety of antioxidants. It is a bit perplexing why these are listed in the energy blend as the most notable benefits of antioxidants are not energy. Normal benefits listed by clinical studies include the ability to reduce “free radicals” (bad cells), decrease the risk of heart diseases, cancer, and diabetes.

Energy is not typically the main benefit of antioxidants. It’s a great ingredient to include in a morning drink like this, but the primary benefits do not come in the form of increased energy.

Be Happy Blend

The last group of ingredients is the mood enhancement blend. Let’s dive in an see what we have going for us here.

Ashwagandha

Ashwagandha, also known by the technical name of KSM-66, is one of my favorite ingredients in this product. KSM-66 was developed using over 14 years of study. Some benefits include:

• Reduced stress, anxiety, cortisol levels and stress-related food cravings
• Promotion of enhanced memory and cognitive function
• Promotion of endurance, strength, muscle size and muscle recovery rate
• Enhanced sexual performance health in both men and women, and testosterone in men

There are many clinical studies backing up this ingredient. One of the other benefits, and the benefit specifically listed by EarlyBird, is to limit the so-called “brain fog” that happens when you first wake up.

While the typical recommended dosage is around 600mg, there is significantly less included in EarlyBird. It still has benefits, but the benefits are not as substantial as they could be. I’d like to see them increase this ingredient in the future.

NeuroFactor

EarlyBird contains one of the more popular Nootropics on the market today, NeuroFactor.

NeuroFactor is clinically shown to significantly increase levels of a key neuroprotein (BDNF) vital for learning, memory, and higher thinking. NeuroFactor has been seen as the next big thing in cognitive health since its release this year–already becoming popular among college students looking for that extra edge.

With years spent in development, an all-natural supplement has proven time after time to noticeably boost BDNF production which can be crucial towards improving brain processes such as mood regulation and cognition skills like reading comprehension or attention span.

This is an excellent addition to the other main ingredients for helping your brain function at peak ability first thing in the morning.

Bioperine

BioPerine is a Black Pepper Extracts, known for its high piperine content. Piperine triggers dopamine release by activating a TRPV receptor in your brain triggering sympathetic nervous system activity and increased levels of the feel-good chemical known as Dopamine. Even better? It helps boost dopamine levels both directly and indirectly in your Brain which further improves mood, focus, or concentration.

Another excellent, well-studied ingredient to include in a morning cocktail.

Overall Thoughts on Ingredients

The ingredients included in the EarlyBird Morning Cocktail are well thought out for the intended purpose of helping you get up and going in the morning.

The ingredient list has clinically backed ingredients that help with a variety of things needed for a proper start in the morning.

The one complaint is the lack of proper dosage on some ingredients. While the ingredients themselves are great, I believe this would be an even more powerful product with high dosages of some core ingredients.

How much does the EarlyBird Morning Cocktail Cost?

EarlyBird costs $68 without our 10% off code. If you use our coupon code RISEANDGRIND you would pay $61.20 out the door with free shipping bringing the total to $1.36 per serving.

I know what your first thought is, “this is way too expensive”. And I had that initial reaction as well. But think of it in another way.

How much more could you accomplish in life if you were able to wake up when you wanted to each morning to get a jump on the day? What could an extra hour or two added to every single day be worth to you? My hope would be significantly more than $1.36.

If you are a high achiever and don’t currently feel like you are living up to your potential, think of this as an investment into your personal goals, health, and well-being rather than an additional expense tacked onto the month.

If you are purchasing this just to have a drink in the morning, it’s not worth it. If you are purchasing to try and improve your mornings to be more productive, then a simple $1.36 investment is more than worth it in my opinion.

EarlyBird Morning Cocktail Shaker – is it worth it?

There is an upsell when you purchase EarlyBird Morning Cocktail that is a stainless steel cocktail-style shaker bottle. This is $17. I chose to add this to my first order.

Even though this is pricey for a simple shaker bottle, I believe it helps in making this a system that lasts. Having a new drink, with a new bottle designated for it, sitting next to your bed each night waiting for you in the morning is simply a more powerful motivator than grabbing the old protein shaker bottle out of the cabinet to throw it into.

I don’t have to go looking for a new bottle each night. This is always there when I need it and only serves one specific purpose. When I see this bottle, my mind immediately knows what to expect.

This might not be the same for you. Any old bottle will do the trick of allowing you to consume the drink, but this was something I’m actually glad I added onto my order.

Does EarlyBird Actually Help you Wake Up?

Yes, the EarlyBird Morning Cocktail is extremely effective for anyone that struggles to wake up early. The combination of mood enhancement, energy, and hydration gives your body exactly what it needs to turn on and function in peak performance first thing in the morning.

EarlyBird Morning Cocktail Discount Code

To get 10% off the Earlybird Morning Cocktail, use coupon code RISEANDGRIND at checkout. You will also receive free shipping.

Where to Buy EarlyBird Morning Cocktail

You can purchase EarlyBird at their website here, or you can purchase on Amazon here (note, you can’t use the 10% coupon code on Amazon purchases).

EarlyBird Flavor Reviews

Blood Orange Mimosa (Original)

This is the OG EarlyBird flavor. I probably finished 3-4 tubs of this flavor before getting any others. This is still my favorite. While I personally wouldn’t say it tastes like a blood orange Mimosa, I will say it’s easy to drink and I look forward to it.

Pink Guava Colada

This is the second EarlyBird flavor I tried, and it’s currently tied for my second favorite flavor. This flavor is easy to drink because it’s not over powering or particularly strong. I’ve been out of the OG flavor and this has been my go-to for about a month now.

Strawberry Daiquiri

First time I tried this I thought it was terrible. Then I realized I accidentally used two scoops. ?‍

With a single scoop like normal, this flavor it great. It’s tied for my secodn favorite and is my wife’s favorite flavor. Probably the flavor that tastes the closes to the drink its named after.

Watermelon Margarita

I’m not typically a fan of watermelon flavored drinks, but this one isn’t bad. While it’s not one of my favorites, I don’t dislike it. I threw this flavor in my regular travel bag, so this is the flavor that typically comes along when I travel.

Hazelnut Espresso Martini

Okay, I wouldn't say I liked this at first. Coffee isn't my favorite drink, so coffee-flavored things aren't typically my favorite either. I decided I needed to try it a few times before making a definitive decision, and after the 5th time, it started to grow on me...a little.

I actually ended up trying it mixed with warm water instead of cold water like usual, and it dramatically improved the flavor for me. I don't think this will ever be my favorite flavor, but I can see why it would be for any coffee lover.

Get 10% Off With The Coupon Code Below

Ready to dive in headfirst without finishing the article? Be sure to use the discount code below for 10% off your EarlyBird Morning Cocktail order:

CODE: RISEANDGRIND