Once upon a time there was Pro Plus and it was good. It helped dozens of people through their exams and studying in the 90′s. It was better than coffee because, well, you didn’t have to waste valuable cramming time by going to the toilet or boiling the kettle.
If you wanted a useful drink – well, if you were in the States you had Jolt cola (the official choice of the hacker) – if you were in the UK, you had Lucozade – a pretty poor substitute, because honestly, that was for sports people or people who had flu. And it didn’t really keep you awake.
And then there was Red Bull … this was liquid rocket fuel in a can. The can was small, and that meant it was the the most powerful thing in the world, and only crazy people would drink more than one can.
That is, until someone decided to stick vodka in it. Cue thousands of people all over the UK legally wired, drunk yet unable to sleep it off. Red Bull and vodka became an institution – it would be on special offer in nightclubs (where you would get a third of a can with a shot of vodka) and the world was a happy place, if slightly narky the next morning.
There were reports that it was banned in far flung foreign countries – which kinda made it more appealing. “it’s so powerful” we thought “that other countries can’t handle it”
But small cans weren’t enough for some people.Someone out there decided that bigger was better, and came up with a PINT of energy drink.
WOW we all thought – more energy. Brilliant.
So suddenly a swathe of big can energy drinks came onto the market. Relentless lead the way, but Monster came up very quickly by basically being at every festival you could imagine, with late night banging DJ’s, and enough liquid to keep an entire campsite fuelled for months.
Even Red Bull got in on the pint can act … originally losing out to the “big boys”.
The problem is, as I see it, energy drinks are now knocked back like cola. An office I once worked in had a fridge permanently stocked with energy drinks. Everyone was very dilligent, and energetic until the crash hit a few weeks down the line, and things turned a little crotchety. One individual knocked back 6 cans in one evening an went totally hoop-la.
Have we forgotten how powerful these things are? Have we become immune to caffeine by sheer consumption or do we simply THINK we are? The powerful marketing messages of these drinks takes away the warning – they are fun, the more the better, bigger cans more energy etc etc. Plus with the explosion in coffee shops, I dread to think what our daily caffeine levels are now.
Are we setting ourselves up for a fall? In twenty years will they realise that all this caffeine, taurine and the rest, is incredibly bad for us and leads to who knows what?
Now the new wave of energy altering substances: anti-energy drinks.
A short piece in this months WiredUK magazine mentions something called Slow Cow. From what I can gather it does exactly the opposite to Red Bull It’s packed full of relaxing and calming ingredients to sooth your mind and remove stress
Will this become the drink version of the chill out room? Will crazed caffeine junkies be knocking these back when it’s time for bed?
