The early aughts were a time of big shifts in the beverage industry. The craft beer boom was just gaining its footing, the modern cocktail renaissance was underway, and maligned ‘90s drinks like the Appletini and Cosmo were giving way to — for lack of a better word — more serious cocktails. Simultaneously, it was a time when energy drinks were all the rage. Red Bull hit the U.S. market in 1997, Monster Energy followed up in 2002, and then several companies upped the caffeinated chaos by making canned beverages containing both alcohol and caffeine. The storm of liquid speedballs captured the minds and palates of many, especially college students and those early on in their respective drinking journeys. Not only were these beverages boozy, stimulating, and affordable, most tasted more like fruity energy drinks than alcohol, making them an easy-to-down option for anyone looking to party the night away. But of course, dancing with the devil seldom ends well.
Seeing the writing on the wall, the FDA and a few other legal entities put the legal smackdown on several spiked energy drinks near the end of the decade, forcing them to ditch the caffeine. While that hasn’t stopped drinkers and bartenders from finding other ways to mix the booze and caffeine (think Vodka Red Bulls and Espresso Martinis), it did mark the end of an era — probably for the best. But for many who lived and drank through the 2000s, these beverages will always hold a special, nostalgic place in their hearts.
So join us as we take a trip down memory lane to reminisce about them. Although there were countless brands that came and went during the near-decade of boozy energy drinks, we picked out the eight most iconic — from Budweiser Extra and Tilt to Sparks, Spykes, and the notorious original formula Four Loko.
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Budweiser Extra
Budweiser Extra, a.k.a. “B to the E,” was Anheuser-Busch’s feeble attempt at cutting in on the market share of Vodka Red Bull in the nightclub space. Marketed as an “energy beer,” the product was simply Budweiser amped up with ginseng, guarana, and 54 milligrams of caffeine. Needless to say, it didn’t stick. The youthful masses wanted boozy stimulants that tasted like energy drinks, not the beers their parents drank. After its launch in January 2005, B to the E only hung around on the market for three years before A-B ceased production for good.
Core High Gravity
Charge Beverages Corporation was a Portland, Ore.-based company that jumped in on the alcoholic energy drink craze without ever truly hitting the big time. There’s little information about the company online, and its website looks like it was more or less abandoned at least 15 years ago. Nonetheless, the company’s 11 percent ABV Core High Gravity line made a big enough splash to find itself in the crosshairs of the U.S. Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) in late 2010 when the regulatory body called upon the brand’s owner to remove caffeine from Charge’s products, or else.
Four Loko
The one alcoholic energy drink to rule them all was, without a doubt, Phusion Projects’ Four Loko. The caffeinated beverage was launched in 2005, packaged in 12-ounce cans, and clocked in at 6 percent ABV to minimal fanfare. But that all changed in 2008, when Phusion Projects upped the ABV, doubled the can size, and gave it its signature camo-print packaging. For the next two years, all hell broke loose as young drinkers indulged in the Loko’s up-and-down rollercoaster ride of effects. In 2010, the “fun” came to a halt when the FDA put the kibosh on Four Loko’s caffeine content, but the beverage lives on as a high-octane, malt-based brew.
Joose
Joose was essentially Four Loko without the catchy name or cool packaging. The brand was launched in 2006 by San Diego’s United Brands — which bears an equally uninspired name — and established itself as yet another high-ABV, caffeinated behemoth targeted at the same demographic as its predecessors. However, Joose had a one-up on the competition with its sheer breadth of flavors. The brand unleashed over 15 expressions, ranging in alcohol content from 6 percent to a whopping 14 percent ABV. Whether Joose was having an identity or ABV crisis, it didn’t matter. The brand got wrapped up in the same FDA kibosh as Four Loko, leading it to remove the caffeine from all of its products. United Brands still produces uncaffeinated Joose to this day, but its other once-caffeinated alcopops like Max Vibe, Max Fury, and 3Sum have all bit the dust.
Moonshot ‘69
Moonshot ‘69 is a bit of an outlier here. Don’t get it twisted: It still contained both alcohol and caffeine, but it wasn’t in the same league as Four Loko, Joose and its other caffeinated cohorts. Moonshot ‘69 was a 5 percent ABV light beer with 69 milligrams of caffeine — hence the name — produced by Boston’s New Century Brewing in 2006. The brewery’s founder, Rhonda Kallman, had previously co-founded Boston Beer Company with Jim Koch in 1984, but set out on her own with New Century in 2001. The brewery was a one-woman show, and in light of personal health issues, Kallman pulled Moonshot ‘69 from the shelf in 2008 to focus on her recovery. She brought it back in April 2009, right before the FDA embarked on its tear of regulating alcoholic and caffeinated beverages. Kallman was left sitting on a stockpile of the brew, and ultimately closed down the brewery due to the FDA’s regulations. As beer writer Jay Brooks said, “She was the dolphin that got snared in the net.” On the bright side, Kallman went on to found the Boston Harbor Distillery in 2011, which she still runs to this day.
Sparks
Although not as well known as Four Loko, Sparks was the caffeinated energy drink that started it all. It debuted in 2002, courtesy of San Francisco’s McKenzie River Corporation — the same company behind St. Ides malt liquor. Sparks clocked in at a relatively modest 6 percent ABV, and originally came packed with caffeine, taurine, ginseng, and the other usual suspects of ingredients found in energy drinks of the time. Better yet, the drink came in 16-ounce cans featuring both “plus” and “minus” signs to mimic the appearance of a battery. SABMiller scooped up the brand in 2006, and after the beverage conglomerate’s merger with Molson Coors in 2008, the newly formed MillerCoors got hit with a lawsuit by 13 attorneys general in regard to Sparks’s mix of caffeine and booze. MillerCoors tried to keep Sparks alive sans caffeine with different flavors and expressions of varying ABVs, but the brand was ultimately discontinued in 2021.
Spykes
Anheuser-Busch’s Spykes was not an RTD, but rather a brand of two-ounce shots designed to be mixed in other beverages or enjoyed in a single swig. It came in four flavors: Spicy Mango, Hot Melons, Spicy Lime, and Hot Chocolate. Each one packed an ABV of 12 percent and contained an at-the-time trivial blend of caffeine, ginseng, and guarana. A-B initially rolled out Spykes in test markets across eight states in 2005, and expanded distribution to more than 30 states over the next two years. Unfortunately for Spykes, not only was it not selling well, but various government officials came after the product for appealing too much to underaged drinkers. As a representative from the Center for Science in the Public Interest put it, Spykes was “a shameful ploy to market malt liquor to the Lunchables set.” By early-mid 2007, A-B decided to cease production of Spykes amid the controversy.
Tilt
Just a few months after it launched Budweiser Extra, Anheuser-Busch debuted Tilt, a caffeinated alcoholic beverage designed to be a transitional drink “from work to play,” according to NBC. Initially, the drink came packaged in 16-ounce cans and contained caffeine, ginseng, guarana, and an alcohol content of 4 to 6.6 percent depending on state laws. The brand kicked off its short-lived saga with a raspberry flavor, shortly followed by fruit punch and lemon-lime expressions. But just like B to the E, Tilt met the end of its caffeinated reign in 2008 after government officials criticized the beverages for “illegally marketing these drinks to young people.” A-B tried to keep the brand alive and relevant with larger 24-ounce packaging and by upping Tilt’s ABV to 12 percent, but further criticism ensued, and the beverage conglomerate ultimately axed Tilt some time in the 2010s.
*Image retrieved from Nikolay via stock.adobe.com
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