Four Loko Banned... I see why.

The Food and Drug Administration is preparing to ban alcoholic energy drinks, the biggest brand name being "Four Loko." Think Monster infused with malt liquor.  The "beverage" is manufactured by Phusion Projects LLC of Chicago, Illinois. The company has already pledged to remove the caffeine from their recipe. 

After I saw "The Social Network" the first weekend it came to Fort Collins I had a thought - if I want to know what the mainstream headlines  will be in a month or two I should make a point to visit the Harvard Crimson and the Cornell Daily Sun websites on a regular basis. I remember being a big fan of the Cornell Daily Sun the summer of 2004 when I was a bum and lived in Ithaca, NY in a house on College Avenue with seven women. I was indeed one of the "heathens on the hill" though I do not have the student loans to show for it.   I just lived with them.  Those were some of the most stimulating days of my life. Serving as my introduction to Dr. Bronner's Castile soap, kombucha, birding,  and flip-cup. Ah flip-cup, a beloved game of beer and physics that many a college student harmlessly participates in but if you are still playing after college you might want to assess your state of alcohol consumption. You have a drinking problem when 20 drinks isn't enough, but one is too many. But, I digress

While the commute back to my beloved state school (SUNY Fredonia)  always looming, I made the most of my time on the shores of old Cayuga.   Those drives through New York's southern tier on route 86 were  beautifully bucolic all the way from Tompkins to Chautauqua county.

OK... long tangent. Anyway... Social Network, Four Loko, and me.  Here is the story.  I saw the Social Network, realized I needed to go the to the Cornell Daily Sun and Harvard Crimson websites  to see what's up and... lo and behold, the first article I read at the Cornell Daily Sun was all about the dangers of this crazy alcohol laden energy drink called - Four Loko. Again, ironic that I recently made the pilgrimage to Washington, DC to attend the "Rally to Restore Sanity"  with Four Loko on my mind.  Here is the article I'm talking about. And an earlier more entertaining piece I found simply titled "The Legend of the Loko."

Today I type in  W W W . C N N . C O M  and what is the primary story...???  FDA bans the Tuarine and Guarine alcohol drink "Four Loko."

My prediction was dead right!!! 

So what do I do? I go to the local liquor store and try to get my hands on this ephemeral beverage. As it is about to disappear as currently concocted.  My first attempt was fruitless... Aggie liquor  said their boss refused to re-order that "trash" and they did want that "stuff" in their town. Hahahaha.

So off to the College Liquor Depot I went; the closest geographically to my abode.

 

There they were, the whole rainbow of Four Lokos.  As I have two house-mates I choose three and purchased. @ $2.50 each I was quite impressed especially considering the subsequent effects.

Upon first cracking open the initial reaction was... DISGUST. I was drinking the orange blend and it tasted like straight vodka mixed with a crack-laden red-bull.  Caused my tongue muscles to retract in repulsion.  But "as a matter of principle" I decided I was going to conquer  this 23.5 oz can of shit!

So there I sat sipping this god awful brew watching Jeopardy with my braver housemate. At first I was texting so that accounted for me not paying attention. Eventually the category became plant biology which piqued my interest.  This WAS college jeopardy so it was semi-intellectual.  One plant question included a cross-sectional diagram of "fir's" needle. What is fir?    I was into this but as soon as they got into Shintoism, and Islam I lost interest and took to inspecting the ingredients label on the Blue Raspberry flavor I had traded my housemate for earlier. Blue Raspberry Four Loko is colored with blue # 1, in case you were wondering.   This was indeed gross. But as I kept drinking I experienced a different kind of drunkenness.  A state in which the veins of my forehead stuck out and I was verbally abusing my house mates for their lack of participation in this charade. I only drank one of these things and I was extremely inebriated. I finished the entire can only spilling a few drops and sharing a few with the more reticent (and perhaps more wise) housemate.  He reported that his one sip woke him up considerably.  Now after finishing one can of four loko I feel extremely energized and now we are ready head to the rec. center for some basketball.

Signing off, this is me live live-blogging once and only once after drinking an entire can of Four Loko... 

 

Why did I do this to myself  and my housemates?  One word - FREEDOM.

If I didn't the terrorists win. ;)