Check your cans
US authorities are warning consumers of Celsius energy drinks to check their cans after some were accidently filled with vodka.
Whoops! Happens all the time. You know how it is. The vodka tank and the energy drink tank are right next to each other, and the labels for both say Grape Soda, so the robot gets confused.
The US Food & Drug Administration (USFDA) issued the warning for the Astro Vibe Blue Razz edition of the drink.
Best. name. ever. Astro for reach for the stars, baby. Vibe for vibe, mama, you dig it? Blue for that swimming pool in Palm Beach with all the sexy chicks in it, you know what I mean? Razz for I have no idea but it sounds very vibey, very groovy, very hey nonnie nonnie and a hotchacha.
Stopped drinking these because the caffeine levels are really,really amped up.
You’d think the smell would be a clue. Now if only they’d hooked them up to the gin tank.
Brian M., I tried energy drinks a couple of times maybe 15-20 years ago and got really nasty stomach aches both times. I can’t think of any other food or drink that has ever done that to me and I have not lived the life of an ascetic. They add nothing good to the world, but rank below my general hatred of vapes.
Razz for Razzberry, Sister, you dig?
I like Monster’s Ultra Violet. But then my usual energy level is slightly above “Has joined the Choir Invisible.”
Will there be a run on Celsius, I wonder?
Sounds like we have a lot in common…though right now, I think my energy level is slightly below has joined the choir invisible. :-(
I don’t see how it’s remotely possible for cans to be accidentally filled with the wrong contents, but perhaps the company thought it sounded better than “We were sabotaged”.
For a while before he retired, my husband worked as a systems analyst for a famous soft drink company; his job was to make absolutely sure that the computer system controlling the robots which mixed the ingredients could not be hacked by outsiders. Given that he found active passwords for past employees which hadn’t been removed from the system, if that was the case here, then sabotage is a distinct possibility. However, given the woeful state of education in recent years, I suppose incompetence is as likely as sabotage.
As for energy drink, I never needed them; between relapses of ME/CFS, during which I feel rather like a particularly unfortunate zombie, my natural energy levels resembled those of a certain cartoon Tasmanian devil on cocaine.
when I tried one it tasted disgusting.
Ophelia, I have to admit your writing cracks me up some times.
“Astro Vibe Blue Razz” sounds like the kind of name The Simpsons would give an energy drink. Bart becomes a youtube sensation and becomes the trendy spokeskid for the stuff, or something.
Thank you, Harald! I’m glad someone cracked up, everyone else seems to be taking it extremely seriously. (Everyone except Catwhisperer.)
Sorry, Ophelia, your writing is very amusing!
However, the consequences of spiking a non-alcoholic drink with vodka could be devastating; even fatal. Ultimately, any error which leads to contaminated products needing to be recalled, rather than prevented from leaving the factory in the first place, is extremely alarming.
Well, and what went into the vodka bottles? Somebody’s White Russian is going to have an extra kick.
tigger_the_wing, #6:
I can’t say I know a lot about energy drink production, but maybe they didn’t put the wrong liquid in the cans. It could be that the cans were intended to contain vodka, but got mislabelled afterwards.
Per the article:
That still raises some questions, though. Did no one check the cans either before or after they went through the production line? Did no one receiving the products stop to think, “Hey, we ordered High Noon, not Celsius”? And what’s up with the Beach Variety packs?
Huh. I should have read the article. Thanks for clearing that up.
Tigger (@6) and WaM (@13), you raise good points. As part of my career I’ve spent a lot of time in all sorts of factories and workplaces run by others. It’s been illuminating and a privilege to have such access. As an aside, I consider it a highlight of my life to have gained a deeper understanding of just how meshed together our society is. Anyway. A well run factory with motivated and engaged staff still makes errors for all sorts of reason, but these are usually picked up pretty quickly. often before any product reaches retailers let alone consumers. On the other hand, factories where. staff are paid the minimum, poorly treated, curiosity and reporting issues are not rewarded or even punished, where QA and managerial staff are disengaged… Those are the factories where this kind of stuff happens. Even in countries whith good food safety standards and willing compliance it happens a bit. It’s one of the reasons I have to be restrained from doing physical damage to people who promote deregulation of the food industry. Sure, return to the days of arsenic laced, sawdust filled, rotting pork sausages. Sell that listeria laden milk and coli covered lettuce. Make people guess what’s in their food tonight. Sheesh. It’s bad enough already.
Apologies Ophelia, I know this was supposed to be a light-hearted item, but, well…
razz-a-ma-tazz
Nah Rob it’s fine. I had my little joke, and your point is interesting and important.
Prior to the rise of the energy drink, I was a serious caffeine addict, albeit one who did not like coffee. At one point, I was using Snapple Teas to wash down caffeine pills. I literally had to drink a bottle of Pepsi to be able to fall asleep.
I’m so very, very glad I was able to kick the habit once and for all. Took about two weeks of cold turkey before the headaches subsided. Now I avoid the stuff like a recovered heroin addict avoids needles.
Ya I slashed my caffeine consumption a few years back. I wasn’t drinking all that much coffee, but it was enough to cause me to wake up with a headache every morning. Once I realized that was why, out came the slasher.
?!?
Is this one of those “colorless green ideas sleep furiously” type sentences that may be syntactically well-formed, but don’t make sense at all?
As if coffee were the kind of thing a person could possibly fail to love :-S
#DoesNotCompute #SystemFailure #ShuttingDown #BrainExplode
Bjarte,
Considering some of the concoctions people get at the local coffee bar, I suspect a lot of coffee drinkers don’t like the taste of coffee.
Me, I need my mug of strong black coffee in the morning, and a cortado after lunch when I’m in Spain.
Bjarte:
For some people, such as myself, coffee just isn’t their cup of tea.
People who eat ice cream with vanilla, chocolate, or other flavors must not really like the taste of ice cream.
Or perhaps they like the taste of ice cream, but they prefer it with these flavors. Or perhaps they really enjoy the combination, and would rather not have the ice cream without the flavors.
I don’t especially like black coffee, but I do enjoy a decent cortado, or my daily cup of French press coffee with milk and sugar. I do sometimes order one of those coffee-based dessert-in-a-glass things; some of them are tasty.
That said, I do agree there are some coffee-based concoctions that completely obscure the coffee, to the extent that the drinker might not notice if the coffee were replaced with water. I don’t know whether any person who orders such a thing genuinely doesn’t like coffee or just doesn’t care about the coffee aspect. I do know that, the last time I was in a tea house and the only things available to order were maybe a hundred varieties of tea drinks, I sought out the ones that would obscure the taste of tea the most, because I genuinely do not like tea.