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The electrifying rise and litigious fall of energy beer
- parpfish 2y agoMillennials will talk about four loko the same way their parents talked about lawn darts
- solardev 2y agoWow, as a Millennial, I must've totally missed the memo on this stuff. Never heard of Four Loko or energy beers at all... sounds disgusting.
- antonvs 2y agoThey weren't actually called energy beers. In the US, they fall under the same legal category as beer, which is "malt beverage", but beer is just one type of malt beverage, drinks like Four Loko are another. They're closer to drinks like "hard lemonade" or "hard tea", which aren't beer. They're made by adding malt liquor to some flavored drink.
- SOLAR_FIELDS 2y agoThe author must have just been trying to be cute, because yes, they were never referred to as energy beers. In fact, Four Loko was so popular that the brand itself suffered from genericization, where all caffeinated malt liquors were colloquially referred to as Four Loko
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- TylerE 2y agoTho off brand Red Bull with a couple of rotgut vodka shots already mixed in.
- trevor-e 2y agoThey tasted horrible but were cheap and would get you incredibly wired and drunk in a short amount of time. A perfect storm for binge drinking students, especially pre-gaming early in the night for other parties/bars. It was a fun time for a year or so but can understand the ban.
- sneak 2y agoYou can’t buy lawn darts anymore. Every bar will make you a vodka redbull.
- maneesh 2y agoWill they put four vodkas and 3 red bulls in a single glass for the price of a college students budget? Because that was a four loko
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- antonvs 2y agoYou'd have to ask for more than three and a half shots of vodka to match the alcohol in a 22oz Four Loko can.
- antonvs 2y agoCorrecting myself: I was thinking of a different can apparently. That 12% ABV can mentioned in the article corresponds to 4.4 shots of vodka (using standard US 1.5 oz shots of 80 proof vodka.)
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- Al-Khwarizmi 2y agoAs someone from a country where when you ask for a drink, you get like 3x as much vodka as you would in the UK or US, when I was young I typically drank vodka with lemon soda, but when I lived in the UK I switched to vodka red bull. The reasoning was "so little vodka does nothing so let's see if at least the red bull does something" which was at least partially true, although still didn't make up for the lost alcohol content with respect to what I was used to :) Back to my place, I stopped having vodka red bull except very infrequently to remember those times, but here, with serious amounts of vodka, it's quite a bomb. I've never seen these energy beers (not sure if they were even sold in my country or countries where I lived) but I might have liked them.
- dwater 2y agoI was in college when Sparks was first released and it became an indelible part of the college party experience for a few short years. I saved a few packs after the ban and brought them out for a 10 year reunion. People were jubilant to get to experience it again, and thankfully there was only enough for everyone to have a bit, because it’s one of those things that only the metabolism of a still growing person can handle without serious consequences.
- evanelias 2y agoSparks also aligned well with the burgeoning post-punk revival / indie dance scene of the early to mid aughts. In Baltimore, one of the monthly dance parties was doing Sparks happy hours for a while. The deal was absurdly cheap, especially for a big music venue -- two or three dollars per can if I recall, but my memory is hazy for obvious reasons! Combined with good DJs and a very reasonable cover charge (for example $5 to see Diplo before he got huge), it was quite a time...
- doubleg72 2y agoHaha yes, I was in 11/12th grade when Sparks came out. What a unique time to be alive.
- pyinstallwoes 2y agoWhat’s a lawn dart?
- DoktorDelta 2y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawn_darts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawn_darts
- hn_throwaway_99 2y agoHeck, just sell the energy drink by itself and subtly market it as a mixer - probably cheaper to make with higher profit margins. There is a reason "Red Bull and vodka" is popular, and that the founders of Red Bull were mega billionaires.
- gambiting 2y agoSure, but then you're competing against red bull and every other energy drink on the planet, of which there are loads. People invent this stuff obviously because it's a relatively empty nieche.
- nosmokewhereiam 2y ago"Not just stupid, but aggressively stupid" - referring to adding caffeine to malt liquor. *It was from a comedy bit and I don't recall it.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- Zak 2y agoI always thought the litigation and regulatory pressure over this was misplaced. Consuming a single serving of the most outrageous product described in the article (22oz, 12% alcohol, 156mg caffeine) is not acutely dangerous to a healthy adult who isn't about to drive a car. Chugging multiple of them is a bad decision of course, but it's just as easy to drink other alcoholic beverages to excess - perhaps easier with hard liquor.
- TylerE 2y agoVery few adults, especially if we’re talking 40+, are healthy. By that age almost everyone has high blood pressure or asthma or a bad knee, or whatever.
- michaelt 2y agoI don't think "people aged 40+" were four loco's target market. Isn't this stuff mostly for 20-somethings on their way to a nightclub, who want to get drunk and stay up until 4am?
- gnabgib 2y agoWere they, perhaps, the target market when they were 20 years younger?
- supportengineer 2y agoI think I live in a different part of the world than you do.
- loeg 2y agoI know a lot of healthy adults in their 30s and 40s.
- supportengineer 2y agoAnd 50’s and 60’s even.
- 2y ago
- pbj1968 2y agoThey’re still around, just not as caffeinated. Still fun to drive around with one between your legs. Just alternate sips with a Monster.
- its_ethan 2y agoI'm a young millennial and Four Loko's were still somewhat popular at my college. Maybe it was just a localized thing.. they went under the name "sidewalk slammer" where you would (quickly) drink half of it, then pour in a Red Bull (or other energy drink). So still finding a way to get that combo of caffeine, and still using the (at that point) slightly "retro" branding? Never tried one myself lol
- minitoar 2y agoI think that practice came to be when 4loko was forced to lower the caffeine content.