Pabst Blue Ribbon

Case File: Light of my life, fire of my loins. My soul, my sin. Pee-bee-arr. I had to do it. I know it's been said a thousand times before by a thousand cooler, funnier, more intelligent people than me, but it doesn't matter: fuck this drink. They say the greatest trick the Devil ever played was to convince the world he didn't exist. The greatest trick Pabst Blue Ribbon's urban outreach department played was to convince the world it's beer wasn't shit.

PBR. Those three smug letters are now scratched on every drink special bulletin in every bar from Williamsburg to Wicker Park: $2 PBR Tall Boy. Buy one PBR get the 2nd FREE! $5 PBR and a shot of Jameson! As if any of these deals was a bargain. As if handing over hard earned legal tender for a drink that costs a nickel to research, bottle and brew was better than staying in and watching torrented reruns of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

Flavor: Pennies, flat soda, a stable.

Problem: I'll drink one if offered.

Anheuser-Busch Natural Ice

Case File: There is nothing remotely natural about carbonated backwash. If Natural Ice were a naturally occurring substance, if since the Cretaceous lakes and streams and oceans were filled with Natural Ice instead of water, evolution by natural selection could not have occurred, which paradoxically might have prevented human beings from evolving the cognitive capacity to later create Natural Ice in the Holocene, which might be a logical and/or time travel fallacy.

Problem: Each day for fifty-three years my grandfather, Marcel, drank a bottle of fortified cooking wine and one can of Natural Ice.

Anheuser-Busch Clamato Chelada

Case File: Flows like music. If there is such a thing as negative assonance or reverse consonance, “Anheuser-Busch Clamato Chelada” is up for an award. What was missing from regular Bud Lite? Oh, of course, tomato sauce. I would love to have been a fly on the wall inside Anheuser-Busch's marketing department when they laid this thing out; a boiler room full of chain smoking suits buying mortgage-backed securities on Blackberries and pouring cans of V-8 into red cups overflowing with Bud Lite and Red Bull. According to Anheuser-Busch, Clamato Chelada was inevitable given the unbeknownst to the world overwhelming demand from the United States’ Latin American community:

"[D]ue to their tremendous test market success, adults across the country are clamoring to enjoy this convenient, great-tasting drink. “This is a recipe that combines cultures and flavors,” said Ana Vitrano, product manager, Anheuser-Busch, Inc. “Budweiser, Bud Light and Clamato are all highly respected brands that, when combined, produce the authentic-tasting recipe many Latinos love. It’s la combinación perfecta!”

The perfect combination. I imagine you'll say a lot of things when you're standing in the hot parking lot of Anheuser Busch’s Ciudad Juarez branch with a gasoline-soaked tire around your neck.

Problem: It is a little known fact -arguably known only to me- that the touch screen menus behind the counter at Flash Taco on the corner of Milwaukee and Damen have internet access. I know this because one night at 3AM the chef flipped it around, hit minimize, and the entire burrito menu dissolved into a grainy uncensored YouTube video of a Mexican cartel execution.

Four Loko/Four MaXed

Case File: What could be more refreshing than a blend of alcohol, caffeine, taurine and guarana? Nothing, according to Chicago’s own Phusion Products. Which is why their original formula, Four Loko, hatched by three Ohio State University alumni, had to be juiced to 10% alcohol by volume for their most recent World’s Fair exhibit, 4 MaXed. Four MaXed comes in two only two flavors: Gold and Grape, while its little brother is available in eight: Uva Berry (huh?), Fruit Punch, Orange Blend, Blue Raspberry, Watermelon, Lemonade, Lemon Lime and Cranberry Lemonade. As of 2012 it is no longer available due to reported hallucinations, "unpredictable behavior" and its frequent link to violent crime.

Exhibit A:

Currently illegal following an FDA ban due to its mixture of stimulants and alcohol, a black market has slowly emerged on the dark channels of the deep web, Ebay and Craigslist, driving bootlegged 24oz. cans of Four Loko up to $15 a piece. That Four Loko and Four MaXed are illegal but massive, corrupt, billion-dollar TARP reappropriations are not is interesting. That a drink that is basically a Red Bull with a little alcohol is but collateralized debt obligations are not is telling. That a can of shit no one in their god damned mind would drink anyway is forbidden, but carrying a loaded .44 magnum into a park full of children is perfectly legal in the South, makes me want to log onto Ebay and set my max bid to infinity.

Problem: I kind of miss it.

Everclear 191

Case File: Jesus Christ on the cross. Just when you thought they couldn't go any higher, the good folks at Luxco managed to raise the bar their already formidable Everclear 151 had previously set. At an impossible 191 proof, the final iteration of an already ridiculous science experiment is as far as you can go. Research and development claims,

"[S]ince 95.6% ethanol and 4.4% water form an azeotrope (meaning that simple distillation cannot remove any of the remaining water), 191-proof spirits are the maximum proof that is available from the distilled beverage industry."

What would drive a culture to manufacture an alcoholic beverage so strong that its main functional uses include cleaning electronic parts, fueling gas stoves and disinfecting gunshot wounds? At what point is Everclear 151 not cutting it? Who is sitting down to dinner, killing a bottle of Everclear 151, and just kind of quietly frowning in sober disappointment? Also, the label says, "Distilled from 100% selected grains." What does that even mean? That's like marketing a calculator that only uses "100% genuine numbers."

Palette: Life, death, fear, love, God, the Devil. The inside of a second stage turbine.