to all our liquid friends...
good bye...
goooood byyyyye........
well this is it kids. we've reached the end of the long arduous journey together that has been the oh dear god why taste test #3. i've opted to combine the last two legs of the trip into a single entry, both for practical reasons (if i drink this whole can of drank and don't have an infusion of caffeine afterwards, my day effectively ends here) and selfish ones (i'm lazy). before i get into the long sentimental farewells, let's not forget we have two more drinks to go before we call this one a day.
first up is drank. even semi-regular readers of this internet beverage tasting space have heard me extol the virtues of the world's only (to my knowledge anyway) ANTI-energy drink before, but for anyone who's not familiar, let me give you a rundown.
sometime in the 90's, the practice of drinking heavily codeinated prescription cough syrup to get high caught on in the underground hip hop scene in houston texas. the reasons for this (other than the fact that it's super fun to get fucked up) are largely lost to history, but nonetheless, the practice of drinking the syrup (often mixed with soda, juice, or candy) became closely associated with a type of music (or music mixing, to be accurate) called "screwing" or "chopping," which involves slowing down tracks, thereby dropping the voices of the performers often several octaves, rendering the entire track a muddy, disorienting haze (much like the effects of getting high on cough syrup - not that i'd know) and then chopping up the actual track itself by skipping the cd/record. if you've never heard it it's a little impossible to imagine, but as this style of music caught on in houston and surrounding areas (atlanta, new orleans, even good old memphis) the practice of drinking what had come to be known as "sizzurp" (among other things) caught on as well. more information is available here if you're interested, along with a list of notable casualties of this HIGHLY FUCKING INADVISABLE practice, growing every day.
so it seems a couple years ago an enterprising beverage company decided to see if they could make a buck off this phenomenon by offering a legal (and substantially less deadly) alternative to sizzurp, using herbal extracts like rose hips, melatonin, and valerian root to simulate the effects of codeine and promethazine. thus, DRANK was born. i had heard about this stuff somewhere on the internet shortly after we moved to memphis, but hadn't been able to get my hands on a can until last summer, when my hours of scouring local gas stations paid off and i found a place on summer ave that had a few cans available. impatient after a long struggle to track some down, i elected to slam a can in the parking lot of the gas station and see what happened.
that brings us to today.
it tastes like nothing quite so much as cheap grape soda. aside from the herbal extracts mentioned above, it's got the usual high fructose corn syrup, citric acid, yada yada whatever that all sodas have, along with some B vitamins which is curious considering people usually take those for energy. maybe they had to include them so people weren't just straight up lapsing into comas after two or three swigs. speaking of which.
the taste doesn't really change much over the course of the can... but you didn't come here to hear about the taste of this stuff, did you? you want to know if you can get FUCKED UUUUPPPPP by drinking it, right? well let me pick my story up where i left off.
so there i was, having slammed this 16oz lousy tasting grape soda in the parking lot of this run down gas station on summer ave, and i needed to get home (i was in the middle of running errands) so back in the car i went and tooling down summer, not giving the whole thing another thought beyond "well that was kind of a waste oooofffffff........ ttttttttiiiiiiiiiiimmmmmmmmeeeeeeeee....."
ladies and gentlemen, my roll had been slowed. it came on all at once, which i would imagine probably wouldn't happen that way if you didn't chug an entire can like a moron, but regardless it was like my brain slammed into a brick wall. my first thought was "i need to get home - quickly." probably goes without saying but DO NOT DRIVE AROUND after drinking this stuff, it is just not smart, which you will immediately realize if you try. i felt a tendency to lean, as per the advertisements. my mind felt foggy. it was, in short, a much more manageable alternative to drinking prescription cough syrup recreationally. does the world need that, though?
honestly, i think it does. i love the idea of drank and i don't mind saying i was all for it before i ever got myself a taste. as long as people use this halfway intelligently (not that i expect them to) i kind of think it could do some good. i mean what are you really drinking here, aside from the corn syrup and all that crap? melatonin, rose hips... these things treat anxiety. they're fucking mood stabilizers, for christ's sake, and if this ridiculous "ANTI-energy" beverage gets more people consuming them, then more power to it! that being said, people are people (ESPECIALLY around here) and my first thought (after i came straight home and took a 2 hour nap - no lie) was that it's only going to be a matter of time before some moron decides to combine this shit with three shots of vodka and a blunt and then goes and wraps his car around a telephone pole, and the good people at the DRANK company get sued off the face of the planet. hasn't happened yet, but if you're at all interested in trying this stuff i'd advise you to get out and get it now because i really get the sense it won't be around forever, whatever the reason.
how am i feeling, you might wonder? well while i was typing that last paragraph i knocked down the rest of the can and i can definitely say i feel a good deal calmer than i did BEFORE i drank the drank. am i in a narcotic coma? no. is it anywhere near as strong as, say, chugging a bottle of robitussin? HELL NO! it's not supposed to be, for christ's sake! anyone who would expect to get genuinely wasted off of 16oz of this stuff would probably also expect to start hallucinating after two glasses of absinthe. people: they want you to think that.
that being said, i'll probably keep a can of drank around in the back of the fridge for the next time i can't get to sleep and i need to get up early the next morning. it would be perfect for that. and with that, i happily close the door on drank, the anti-energy beverage (until they make another flavor, that is).
next up?
bawls! a much more straight forward, get your motor running, guarana-based energy beverage. to be honest there are really only three reasons i'm capping this whole foray into liquid insanity with this particular beverage
1. i found the whole "cockta bawls and everything in between" too funny of a tagline to pass
2. it's an energy drink called "bawls" whose logo is a GIANT BLUE BALL that they used to sell in blue ribbed bottles that they had to discontinue because it reminded some people too much of condoms
3. it's a sentimental favorite. my little sister in law loves this stuff. that's right, my little sister loves bawls. say what you will - she's family.
anyway like drank, i've actually had this stuff before, so let's see if it tastes anything like i remember.
that's right, internet, you now have a photo of me with bawls in my mouth. congratulations.
this stuff tastes fine - honestly pretty undistinguished. they don't skimp on the guarana and caffeine though. i can already feel the onset of my drank-induced stupor dissipating before my eyes! i can't honestly say that there's much to recommend bawls above and beyond any other energy drink (except for some of the truly nasty ones) but just the fact that it's not gross and delivers a punch makes it one worth keeping your eyes peeled for. okay kids let's make that last push to glory. all together now...
AND THAT'S A WRAP FOOLS.
i'm tempted to make all sorts of grandiose proclamations about the journey we've been on together, but i think that would somehow cheapen it, don't you? i'd really like to thank anyone who decided to play along with this exercise in masochism - it was really fun to see the response to some of the nastier ones, and made me feel like it might have even been worth drinking yogurt soda a little bit. not that i'd ever do it again.
but don't think for a moment this is the end. remember, this was only installment number 3 of a much longer, open-ended project that i'm already concocting the next step in. i don't want to give anything away but trust me when i say that i have something truly special in store for you, as a way of thanking you for indulging me over the course of 3 months that felt more like 3 fucking years. keep your eyes peeled, there's more to come. until then...
if you don't know, now you know
love
d
