Caffeine Examiner

Cocaine is Back Baby!

According to all the press about it, Cocaine is back in fashion, - and in a big way (it was pulled off the market for making untrue statements on packaging). I have not tried it yet and was bummed when I heard it had gone out of vogue. So as soon as I  heard it was hitting the market again, I snuck down to the distribution center (Hats off to Creager Mercantile for letting me wander the aisles) in a warehouse off in a run down area of town.

I felt like a complete outsider inside the massive warehouse. I read off off a website (http://www.drinkcocaine.com/distributor.htm) that this is the place to go to get some of the good stuff, but everyone there was milling around looking stern. I finally went to a lady in the corner who looked like she might be friendly, and asked her if I could score some off her. She looked up at me and smiled. " Unless you want to buy a big shipment we can't sell small amounts from here." (seems you can only buy them there in the case, and that seemed just plain excessive). She asked some of her other associates around if there were samples I could try, but alas - I walked away empty handed. She did helpfully give me the names and phone numbers of her small time dealers, so I could go to them for a small score, as well as asking for my phone number so in case more shipments come in she might be able to hook me up with some freebies!

So later that afternoon I pulled up at the side of this seedy liquor store, trying not to pay attention to the guy peeing on the wall of the establishment or the couple having a screaming fight near the entrance, and sidled in, finding the clerk and finally buying my very first taste of Cocaine - and how very harsh it was! If this were not for this kind of substance, I might not have cared, but the fact that to get this drink I had to actually walk through this gauntlet made me a bit surprised there wasn't 70s disco or 80s Miami Vice neon everywhere. On first ingestion, it burned my throat and made me sneeze, but was definitely getting me amped as I spent the rest of the day in a buzz. While I am not sure if I will try it again, I am glad I was able to at least give it a shot before the government cracks down on it again (they got in trouble from the FDA for advertising it as both a street drug alternative and a dietary supplement) !

Cocaine Energy Drink was pulled from U.S. shelves as a result of the FDA's decision that Cocaine was "illegally marketing their drink as an alternative to street drugs", and Redux Beverages began working on a new name for the product immediately. At the end of May, 2007, the Redux team decided to change the name to "No Name:" energy drink, with the new can label. Sort of. For 2008, it seems that while released back to market, its probably not going to be in your local Wal-mart any time soon. For an energy drink, I could not see this as an everyday kinda thing. But as an every once in a while thing, when going out to swingers parties or hanging out in your new Ferrarri Testarossa, this drink would fit right in!

Buzz/Nutrition:9
Cocaine is PACKED full of caffeine, almost like a Spike, however it is completely without the palpitation inducing anhydrous mixed with other potent weight loss ingredients that other high caffeine dietary supplements do. I found the 280mg per 8oz can to be a great pick me up, without feeling like my heart was going into palpitation mode. I also sipped this drink, as the taste was purposely harsh and burning, forcing smaller swallows. The drink also features a healthy dose of taurine at 750mg and the usual drink mix. Other than a couple extra flavors, there is nothing remarkable about the ingredient list - which I actually appreciated. With a name as incendiary as this, just having be a normal energy drink with a ton of caffeine is more than enough.

Taste:8
The taste was VERY surprising to me - definitely unique. This is one drink that you will either love, or never touch again. They spice this with cayenne pepper - so it burns while sipping and smelling, and can warm your insides. I took a big drink, then coughed a little, thought it strange so I smelled the drink, and ended up sneezing and rubbing my nose - which was very fitting. while the first few tastes are hard to get down, it gets easier as you drink, so by the end of the can you can actually taste the flavor, which was actually pretty good.

Packaging:9
Like the drink I tried, when they pulled this drink off the market, they just sold it with the same ingredients, and covered their printed aluminum can with a plastic peel off wrapper, where you could peel it all off and have the original can showing. The only difference is when they changed it after the FDA thing, the can featured a large blank space for fans to write their chosen name for the drink, covering the "Cocaine" on the can.
This is the reason for buying this drink. Like buying tequila with worms in it, this one is strictly about the experience of buying and drinking Cocaine. We knew we would get noticed against a thousand other energy drinks," Hannah Kirby recalled last fall. "We knew kids would find it cool, but we also wanted to stress the idea that it's an energy drink, you don't need drugs."
They did modify the package a little for re-release. I ripped off the silly plastic label to compare the old label to the new onem with the only real difference is this statement printed in a big bold box.

"WARNING: This message is for people too stupid to recognise the obvious. This product does not contain the drug cocaine (duh). This product is not intended to be anything other than an energy drink."

Website: 8
Very very cool ideas are afoot here. If you are already logged into an IM client, it will log you into a chat screen with any other on the site, and use your Meez icon if you have one. It is very very myspace looking, with favorites, music, pics and even a shout out area. I actually started looking for the myspace logos, fully expecting their myspace page to be the official site for the drink. If you don't have a decent computer it might take a while to load, as it seems to do odd things processing, but is completely worth visiting if you like the drink at all.

Wikipedia entry
Topics: In The News , Energy Drinks

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