The Big Flop - Four Loko: Hold My Energy Beer with DJ EFN & Kenice Mobley | 2

Episode Date: September 4, 2023

What happens when you mix an energy drink... and beer? On this episode of The Big Flop, DJ EFN (Drink Champs) and Kenice Mobley (Follow Up Question) join Misha to relive the boom and the bust of the original Four Loko, aka the blackout-in-a-can. Created in a fraternity basement, Four Loko supposedly provided the equivalent of 4 glasses of wine and a couple of Red Bulls - a potent recipe which eventually was investigated by the FDA, but not before inspiring more than a few terrible decisions! Sit back, relax, and enjoy the story of how this unhinged beverage's original recipe became one fizzy, carbonated flop.Follow The Big Flop on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to The Big Flop early and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to The Big Flop early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Picture. New York Assemblyman Felix Ortiz sitting in a doctor's office in a blue medical gown. Next to him are several 23-ounce cans of the beverage of choice at every frat party in America, Four Loco. He opens a can and gulps it down. A nurse is hovering nearby, periodically checking his pulse and blood pressure as he drinks

to make sure he's not dying. So this may be unusual for a local politician with a busy agenda, but Ortiz is here to make an important point. This is all to raise awareness of the dangers of Four Loko, also known by fans as blackout in a can. Just one can is equivalent to drinking around four beers and a couple of Red Bulls. Assemblyman Ortiz struggles through his first can. He opens a second can and finishes that. He's midway through his third when suddenly he stops. At this point, filming stops as Dr. Pedri tries to take one more pulse, Ortiz begins vomiting. It's an attention-grabbing demonstration that spells the beginning of the end. For the original, caffeinated for loco. Because even though it burst onto the beverage scene like a powder keg stand,

it ended in one big fizzy flop. Poor teens in White Plains are hospitalized, and police say it's all because of a beverage that looks like an energy drink. There is now a major government crack are on a sinking ship. From Wondery and At Will Media, this is The Big Flop, where we chronicle the greatest flubs, fails, and blunders of all time. I'm your host, Misha Brown, social media comedian and your favorite tall drink at Don't Cross a Gay Man. And today, we're talking about Four Loko. Hello, I'm Emily, and I'm one of the hosts of Terribly Famous, the show that

takes you inside the lives of our biggest celebrities. And they don't get much bigger than the man who made badminton sexy. Okay, maybe that's a stretch, but if I say pop star and shuttlecocks, you know who I'm talking about. No? Short shorts? Free cocktails? Careless whispers? Okay, last one. It's not Andrew Ridgely. Yep, that's right. It's Stone Cold icon George Michael. From teen pop sensation to one of the biggest solo artists on the planet,

join us for our new series, George Michael's Fight for Freedom. From the outside, it looks like he has it all. But behind the trademark dark sunglasses is a man in turmoil. George is trapped in a lie of his own making, with a secret he feels would ruin him if the truth ever came out. Follow Terribly Famous wherever you listen to your podcasts, or listen early and ad-free on Wondery Plus on Apple Podcasts or the Wondery app. And here to help me pop open the tab of the carbonated catastrophe that is the original Four Loko is DJ EFN, record label executive, DJ, and co-host of the Drink Champs podcast.

And we have actress and comedian, Kanice Mobley. Welcome to the show. Hey, thanks for having us. Or me, I can't speak for you. Thank you for having me. I mean it too. I'm seconding. Do either of you have any experience with Four Loko? Did we drink it back in the day? I heard a story that a party of like 20-somethings had all woken up on the floor and thought they had been drugged, but it was just the effects of Four Loko. And so I was like, oh, I got to stay away from this. This is bad news. I mean, I saw people drinking around me, but quickly people said, no, I'm not messing with

that. And I definitely didn't touch it. Let us all hop into my hot tub time machine full of Four Loko and go back in time to the late 1990s to a place where the idea of Four Loko first began to, you know, ferment. So our hero is a student named Chris Hunter, and he's a frat bro at Kappa Sigma at Ohio State. Frat bro Chris Hunter was still a few years away from founding Four Loko. So what do we think that Chris Hunter was known for? Party. Alcoholism.

According to his pal and fellow frat bro, Ross Patterson, Hunter had quite a reputation on campus. And here they are on Patterson's podcast, Drinking Bros. So you and I have been friends for years since college. We won't date ourselves. Just a couple of summers ago, we graduated. Yeah. That's all. Recent grads. Couple of summers ago at the Ohio State University. And you had the best drugs. You had the best drugs. I did. We did. He was that guy. DJ EFN, tell us what your podcast, Drink Champs, is all about. It's a hip hop conversation revolved around a lot of drinking. I kind of feel like the Drink Champs is all about. It's a hip hop conversation revolved around a lot of

drinking. I kind of feel like the Drink Champs podcast needs to drink battle the Drinking Bros podcast. Like, what are your thoughts on that? I've never heard of them, but we'll battle them and we'll take them out. Well, if you did brawl, they might bring some interesting weapons because the frat house have some surprising rules posted on their wall. And here's Hunter describing it. This guy walks in the door, looks up on the wall, and there's all these rules. And one of them is like, no knives. Because something, some crazy shit had happened with somebody had a knife on a paddle, somebody's hand got cut, whatever. Sound like four gringos to me. Well, Kines, you went to North Carolina Central University, which has Greek life.

So were you a part of the Greek life? Okay. So North Carolina Central University is a historically black college. Black frats are different. That being said, I was also a nerd. So I wasn't really going out like that. I only went to one frat party in my entire life and it was at UNC Chapel Hill. I only went to one frat patty in my entire life, and it was at UNC Chapel Hill. And they were serving alcohol out of a tub, and I was like, this can't be sanitary, guys. Just looking at these people, I don't think they cleaned the tub well beforehand. Well, because if you were at Kappa Sigma, you might have drank something a little bit different than the cheap beer, something a little more novel. So Hunter and his pals learned about a new non-alcoholic beverage that just hit the market, Red Bull. A teeny little energy drink that could help extend your party hours?

It sounded too good to be true, but there was one little problem. Hunter says that since it had only been on the market for a couple of years, they hadn't yet started selling Red Bull in Ohio. But this is where Hunter's entrepreneurial streak begins. Because it turns out Red Bull is based on a beverage that's originally from Thailand. So Hunter and his buds go to a local Thai market and buy bottles of the original Red Bull concentrate. And they start selling them directly to their fellow students by the bottle. And it's a massive hit. So it's liquid cocaine, basically.

Well, despite his wild Greek life, Chris Hunter manages to graduate college. And he moves to Chicago and starts working for a vodka company called Players Extreme. That's a strip club. That's a strip club in Miami. I'm going to go to it right now. Do we want Players to be extreme? Why? Terrible name.

Terrible name. But one of Hunter's tasks there is to try and sell a cherry-flavored vodka, which even he admits is terrible. Hunter says they had trouble selling it. And, I mean, post-graduate Hunter is probably missing the familiar embrace of his sticky frat walls back at Ohio State. And he's probably pining for the days of mixing his Thai energy drinks into frat house booze. And then a light bulb goes off. He decides to tell bars to mix the disgusting cherry vodka with Red Bull to make what he calls cherry bombs.

Hmm. And guess what? Chris Hunter does it again. Cherry bombs take off and Players Extreme is able to sell their terrible vodka. Wow. Cool. Chris Hunter. Yeah. It's a happy day for Players Extreme. But soon after this, Hunter has the eureka moment that will become the foundation for his own company. So him and his girlfriend are on their way to a show, and she's tired and wants to stop and pick up some vodka and Red Bull, but then she decides that she doesn't want to buy an entire bottle, so she settles on a bunch of Smirnoff Ices.

But Hunter is bummed about this because he wanted his boozy stimulant potion of his past, so he pushes through his dejection and turns to his girlfriend and says, I'm going to make an alcoholic energy drink. So I love the thought of this. So for you, what does this moment look like in a hypothetical Four Loko biopic? Who's playing Chris Hunter and his girlfriend? What kind of car do they drive? Because I'm picturing like American Pie and just like, let's cast Sean William Scott and Tara Reid already, right? What do you think? I'm seeing Seth Rogen.

I'm seeing Adam Devine as the guy. And the girl is, I cannot remember the actress's name, but she's in Made for Love on HBO Max. Oh, oh, Kristen Milioti is the lead actress for Made for Love. We're not plugging them. They're not paying me, but she does a great job and she would be a wonderful, like, babe. I think they would be absolutely perfect. I think I'd watch it. So Hunter hits up his two old frat buds, Jason Freeman and Jeff Wright.

And in 2005, they found Fusion Projects. And you better believe Fusion is spelled with a PH, like the rock band Phish. I don't know all these names. It sounds like fret bro ideas. It sure does. Well, their first product is a boozy energy drink called Four. Don't worry, Four is spelled the normal way. But Four is named after the drink's four main ingredients, caffeine, guarana, taurine,

and wormwood. So two stimulants, a depressant that has stimulant-like effects, and wormwood, another depressant, and one of the key ingredients in absinthe. Ooh. Yeah. And Hunter actually says, quote, wormwood oil is four's point of differentiation, end quote. He says there's a mystique around the ingredient. Or anal leak around the ingredient. Well, if you've never heard of it, it is the ingredient that's rumored to have the psychedelic effects in Absinthe. Ah, okay.

Yes, and at that time, it had just been legalized in the US. He's shooting for the stars. Sure was. The drink comes in a plain 16-ounce red and silver can and has a 6% alcohol level, basically like your average malt liquor. Now, I feel like a lot of people, especially in college, we've all drank or made weird concoctions. Like, I remember playing a drinking card game called King's Cup where everyone poured part of their drink into the cup and the fourth one you all drank whatever that concoction was. I mean, do you have any weird mixed drinks that you make? So this is one that is a favorite of mine. So you take, I think it's Bolton Farms makes a fake vanilla chai latte, right? And you pour that into a pitcher and then you pour like an entire

container of vodka into the pitcher. And then you put ice into it if you can fit it. And people would drink it and have no idea that it was alcoholic because there's so much sugar and spice in the chai. And everyone got very drunk at a birthday party of mine. My story is on Drink Champs. We had a famous Drink Champs with Diddy and it was the first time he was on the show. And if you watch Drink Champs, we had a famous Drink Champs with Diddy, and it was the first time he was on the show. And if you watch Drink Champs, we have a ton of alcohol bottles, all kinds of liquors on the table, including something called Tiger Bone, which is like a root medicine from China that people drink for all the wrong reasons. It's not even really an alcohol, but it's a

fermented wine type of thing. It's disgusting. So we had all these bottles, and there's a point in the show where Puff, Diddy, he has like an epiphany like, oh, I understand this show now, meaning he's drunk now. And we had a chalice as a centerpiece to the table. He grabs the chalice and proceeds to pour every liquor bottle into this chalice, topping it off with tiger bone and says, we will all drink this right now. We named it the Jeffrey and we all went around taking a sip of this. It was the most disgusting thing I ever tasted in my life. It went around the room until it was finished. That's impressive that you finished it. Yeah. And didn't throw up. So Hunter and his

friends, they have their new beverage, right? And Hunter and the gang, they are super pumped to start selling it, but it doesn't sell well. Because people, much like your and Diddy's drink, think it tastes gross. And also people are weirded out by that whole Wormwood thing. Same. Like, what even is that? One anonymous commenter on the blog Feed Me, Drink Me writes, Four is the worst tasting, weakest drink I've ever had. Completely disgusting. Wow. Also, who named that website?

Yeah. I know. The theme of this is bad names. That sounded like a porn site to be honest with you. Yes. Well, clearly something has to change. So they ditched the Wormwood. Oh, I thought this was the best part.

I know. Well, they doubled down specifically by doubling the amount of alcohol. Okay. So they're inspired by another alcoholic energy drink that comes out around that same time called Juice, spelled J-O-O-S-E. I remember that. Same, which had 9% alcohol. So Chris's co-founder, Jeff, is like, we have to go bigger. And they do in more ways than one. So they put their drink in a 23.5 ounce can like Juice. And they also double the alcohol content from 6% to 12%.

Let's go. And then sell it at $2.50 a can. That's right. Go hustle. Yeah. Yeah. So drinking one of these new concoctions is the equivalent of drinking around four beers and a couple of Red Bulls.

That's like putting yourself to sleep and then slapping yourself awake. Hunter's friend calls what they're doing loco, and just like that, four becomes loco. So the loco, there's no backstory to why they threw the Spanish word in there? No, some guy just said loco one time. Much like us, not everyone has great feelings about this. So a New York Times food critic, Frank Bruni, writes, about this. So a New York Times food critic, Frank Bruni, writes, the watermelon flavored Four Loko, for example, is a shade of rosy pink that put me in a mind of sherbet or bridesmaid's dresses or maybe bubble yum bubble gum. In fact, the watermelon tasted somewhat like that too. It certainly didn't bear any relation to any melon that I've ever tripped across or for that matter

to any known fruit. I mean, it's like the Times trying to review Kool-Aid as if it's sophisticated. Yeah, that was poetry right there. I don't think Far Local deserved that articulation and poetic review. So they also redesigned the cans with a new, like, multicolored camo print to make it stand out. And again, Frank Bruni of the New York Times describes it like this. Sporting a few ultra bright childlike hues and a kind of rippling weave that evokes a camouflage pattern.

Fatigues like these are what an army of Teletubbies would wear into battle. This is great. Whoever wrote this review, spot on. You and that guy need to get together and just do audio versions of all his reviews. So now Four Local might be the most recognizable alcoholic energy drink, but they're not the first. In 2002, when Hunter was just graduating college, Sparks had already come out,

which Miller bought for $215 million cash. Wow. Hunter cites them as an inspiration, and he actually says that fusion projects weren't the first at any of the things that they did. For example, they weren't even the first to use a camo-designed can. The TV show M.A.S.H. had its own beer in the 80s with a camo can design. He took it back. In an interview, Hunter even makes the questionable point that people have always been mixing caffeine and alcohol. It's basically like having wine and espresso at dinner, he says.

and alcohol. It's basically like having wine and espresso at dinner, he says. You know, the classic European tradition of having four glasses of wine along six cups of coffee at dinner. Now, while the New York Times turned their news up to the drink, fat boys across the nation were guzzling the stuff down. From the launch of Four Loko in 2008 to 2010, it spreads across the U.S. like wildfire. Okay, question. If this was your creation, how would you spread the buzz? Pun intended. I would go to the most popular frat at each college and give them a case of it just to see, and then they would distribute it and eventually it would become popular. I would have had four local guys just streaking across all these campuses with the can in their hand. Ah, four local! There's four locals.

Well, they did something different. Here's Hunter's frat buddy Patterson again on the Drinking Bros podcast. You guys were shipping it out to rappers in like the ghetto and shit and just saying, look, if you rap about the product, we'll give you X amount of cases of it. And I remember one of the videos, the guy was like, I'm going loco for my loco. Exactly. Where is this ghetto that this man is asking about? I'm sorry, the way that he just said ship it to rappers in the ghetto.

Not great. In the 70s, in the 1970s. That sounds like COINTELPRO and shit. Yeah. For our listeners, COINTELPRO was a secret program of the FBI, and part of what they did was infiltrate Black power and civil rights groups and discredit them in their own neighborhoods. Hmm. Yeah, what? You better believe there were more Four Loko-inspired bops. So let's play a game. We're going to play some examples of some other Four Loko-inspired songs. And on a scale of one to five, how many Four Lokos would we give each song? So here's Four Loko by Smoke Dizza. Purple, we loco.

Oh, purple, we loco. Purple, we loco. All right, how many locos? One. That's my homie. I'm going to give him four. Oh, you know it? Oh, sorry.

I was just making some variation over him just saying the same thing. We didn't hear his verse. We just heard some kind of hook there. Okay. Yeah. All right, here's another one. So this one is For Local by Lil Fag, which we should also point out that is Fag with a PH as well,

just like Fusion Projects and Phish. Everybody has a PH here, right? So here we go. Oh, great goose body, but that face for a loco. Stay real skinny, cause you hooked on cocoa. Smoking on backwoods, sipping for a loco. Great goose body. I'll give it a three. I like that one. Yeah, I'd give it three.

So we didn't remember any of these songs? Nah, I don't remember. No. And I give that one a four, too. It's a catchy song. Yeah, come on. They're not bad. I mean, I'm not happy that anybody did a song about this, but they're catchy songs. So Fusion Projects allegedly places the product most heavily in low-income neighborhoods and

pairs it with stickers and promotional materials, which is messed up. And they're focused on neighborhoods already facing a lot of these economic issues, selling them this very potent, super boozy, sickly sweet cocktails for super cheap. Not only that, but in these neon camo cans ripe to catch the eyes of kids. Yeah, that's a problem. Yeah. So remember how Hunter says that none of what he was doing was new. He was for sure not the first liquor brand to push itself into these low-income neighborhoods and also tried to become cool in Black culture in America.

And guess who falls for that? College kids. So messed up or not, it works. And Four Loko gains the reputation of being a go-to party drink. Here's a clip from the Wall Street Journal of college students talking about Four Loko in 2010. Basically, it's the cheap way to get drunk. It gets you really drunk. You know, it doesn't take a lot for you to get drunk. You know, a couple of, I think a can, if you finish off a can, it's like probably finish off

a pint of hard A. Yeah, it makes sense. That's just like Mad Dog, how it was for us in high school. So how do we feel like 4Loco is doing as a business so far? Yeah, it's doing great as a business, but that's where capitalism goes wrong. You said COINTELPRO earlier and I was like, yes, this feels like that. Yeah, yeah. So we're going to play another game. I'm going to read a few online comments, and you have to tell me if it's a real comment that we pulled from people writing about their Four Loko experiences online or something that we just made up. So the first one.

Split a can of Four Loko with my gorgeous wife before spending an enchanting evening at the ballet. We got home just in time to kiss our beautiful children goodnight. Thank you, Four Loko. Never happened. Fake. All right, here's the second one. The last thing I remember before waking up naked in Floyd's bed was running through a fire with a face paint on me screaming, Where are the sleeping giants?

I'm going to say that's real. It real? Yeah, it's real. It's terrible. It's too crazy to be fake. I wonder if them and Floyd ever, you know, reminisce of that night together. One last one. I saw another friend bong a grape for Loco.

He ended up throwing his car keys in a pond later that night. I'm going to say real. Yeah, that's real. But also, I know people like beer bong, but I didn't know they were doing it with what? Wild. I don't do it with anything. So for Loco, sales grow fast.

They go from $4.5 million in revenue in 2008 to $45 million in revenue in 2008 to $45 million in 2009 to as much as $150 million in 2010. But then something happens that pumps the brakes, and that's an uptick in pumping stomachs. Because starting in 2010, news stories about alcohol poisoning and hospitalizations from Four Loko start popping up faster than you can say, bear me. So just in October of 2010, these three stories surfaced. A house party at Central Washington University where nine underage students were hospitalized for alcohol poisoning.

Four Loko was blamed. Four Loko was blamed. Also in October, Ramapo College in New Jersey banned the possession and consumption of Four Loko after 17 students and six visitors were hospitalized. Jeez. And my favorite, a man was arrested after running around naked, breaking into a stranger's house named Vicky, and passing out on her couch. His last recollection was drinking for Loco, which almost sounds more like a Law & Order episode. And that wasn't the only house he broke into or terrible thing he did. Here's a clip from ABC Action News. According to a sheriff's report, Barker had been busy that night. Earlier in the evening, they say he broke into a vacant home just a few blocks away What?

Imagine you're just having a night out with your family, and you come home, and there's just a crap on your rug? Yeah. This drink is a menace. But to be fair, and devil's advocate, I'm sure this is happening all the time, every day, all day with every other alcohol. That's a good point. It is fair. So maybe the alcohol companies were targeting them and doing their own COINTELPRO on 4Local to get them out of the business. You know, yeah, because I mean, we have things like these super high proof hard liquors.

I think the difference is because these are in these like cans. I think people are drinking them so quickly. You know, So adults and college students weren't the only ones ending up in the hospital. According to the Annals of Emergency Medicine reports, there were 11 cases of young people who wound up at Bellevue Hospital Center during a four-month period in 2010 after drinking Four Loko. The median age of these kids was a little over 16 years old, and nearly all of them were under 21.

Yeah, that's terrible. Unfortunately, not funny, there have also been some deaths associated with the drink. The backlash starts coming pretty quick. So in a span of a month, between November and December, five states banned the sale of Four Loko. Michigan, Utah, Oklahoma, New York, and Washington. This is also around the time that New York assemblyman Felix Ortiz drinks two and a half Four Lokos in an hour on camera, gets wasted, and pukes to raise awareness of the dangers of Four Loko. That's a choice.

Talk about reality TV. Yeah, he's like, you guys want to see it? I'm going to show you. That's dedication to a cause, and I appreciate that. He's a representative from New York. Yay, New York. Can we get a clip of that? Yeah.

At this point, filming stops as Dr. Pedri tries to take one more pulse. Ortiz begins vomiting. No, you look so red. He's so red. It's the shoveled, like, a... Ortiz's stomach isn't the only thing that's turning against for Loco. So now if you thought that the New York Times review was bad earlier in the episode, the FDA's review was much worse. And in 2010, it issues a warning letter saying that adding caffeine to alcohol is an unsafe food additive that could mask

sensory cues to how intoxicated a person was. They cite 4Loco as a public health concern. And just a short while later, Hunter gets a call from the FDA, and the way he describes it, it's not a good phone call. This is Hunter on the Drinking Bros podcast again. I'm flying to Florida. I land, and I get on the FDA call. And we Hunter on the Drinking Bros podcast again. I'm flying to Florida. I land and I get on the FDA call and we're just listening and our lawyers are handling it at this point. And they come out with a ruling and they're like, look, this is considered an adulterated product because caffeine is a food additive and we're taking jurisdiction and this shit is adulterated and illegal. Not good. Yeah. So, I mean, obviously adultered means

to render something like poor in quality by adding another substance, typically an inferior one. So basically the FDA is calling for loco contaminated. Wow. Not great, right? So I'm assuming what Hunter said is not a direct quote from the FDA, but the spirit is basically the same.

And Hunter and his co-founders are left with a question. And so shortly after we had a decision of, all right, are we shutting down or are we fucking riding this thing out? Right. And we're like, we're riding this thing out. Ride or die, baby. He's going guns a blazing. Sure is. All right. So are we ready for the rest of this ride? Yeah. Because it's a tale as old as time, right? David versus Goliath, Four Loko versus the FDA, bitch.

I feel like I'm thinking of Four Loko here. Yeah. I mean, who would prevail? So, right after the FDA call, Fusion announces that they'll remove the stimulants from Four Loko. Four Loko would now just be a malt beverage like Smirnoff Ice,

and distributors agreed to stop buying the product and sell out their existing stock. Oh, how the people moaned. There was a candlelight vigil in New York City's Union Square for the fallen beverage. No. No. Come on. This is ridiculous.

We have a whole clip. It's a little grainy, so I'm going to tell our listeners what we're seeing. All right, so there's a crowd of people sitting on a step. There's a couple dudes who are playing guitar and bongos. Someone's got a candle. And another person has a big Four Loko sign. And there was a woman twerking above the musician's heads.

So they were really upset. And it looked like someone was crying back there, too. Like, really? Yeah, weeping. You can just have coffee and wine. You can just drink caffeine and also drink alcohol. It's definitely doable. Well, they are not the only ones that are sad because the company says they have $30 million worth of Four Loko that can't be sold.

says they have $30 million worth of Four Loko that can't be sold. But people started texting each other, letting them know where the original Four Loko was available and started buying it by the case. Like this black market for the drink just bubbles up online and cans are sold on eBay for up to $50. As recently as 2022, someone puts an original Four Loko on eBay for $100. Yeah. Is it still good? Does it go bad? I don't know. I mean, it tasted like jet fuel at the time. So I couldn't even imagine all these years later. So Four Local's rise happened over a span of two years and its crash happens in a matter of two months. I think now's a good time to do a little where are they now. Remember, their sales got to upwards of $150 million at one point. And it would take Fusion Projects four years to make up the losses of the leftover original recipe they couldn't sell.

However, the company's international business grew, even in the drink's new non-caffeinated form. Around 2016, Four Loko saw a huge resurgence in China. There were these Four Loko drinking live streams, and it was known as Xi Shen Ju, or the Lose Your Virginity Liquor. Leave it to China. No! Yeah, Kaniece, your face was so funny. Lose Your Virginity?

Yeah. Denise, your face was so funny. Lose your virginity? Yeah. By the middle of that year, Fusion Projects was shipping 100,000 cases to China each month. Wow. So, I mean, Four Local also did well in South American and Mexican markets because of the novelty of it being like a gem amongst American frat boy drinks. Terrible. But remember, this wasn't the original Four Local. This is the new non-caffeinated form. But in 2019, back in the US, Fusion Projects

obviously gets into the alcoholic seltzer craze, and they introduce Four Loko, the hardest seltzer in the universe, at 14% alcohol by volume, almost three times as much as alcoholic seltzer. Don't do this! These guys, they're going all the way until something happens. And in 2021, the company decides that it's time to move from people's stomachs to their ears and puts out Four Loko Records, where Fusion partners with a couple of other companies to put out music you could probably only enjoy while being wasted on Four Loko. But I did particularly love this song by Fulltack and Lil Mariko, where she continually asks, where's my jewel? Where is it? It's not okay.

Where's my jewel? Where's my jewel? So not cool. Where's my jewel? Okay, I'll drink the Four Loko. I'll drink it. I'll drink it. Turn it off.

Turn it off. I'll drink it. I'll drink it. That sounds like a song somebody made up in a show where they're making fun of music. 30 Rock would have that as a single. Well, although Freeman and Wright seem to be focused on fusion projects,

Chris Hunter ironically gets into the wellness space and co-founds a plant-based protein beverage called Koya, marketed as a healthier protein beverage for fitness. Of course you would. Come on. Would you trust a health drink made by the Four Loko creator? No, I wouldn't. I don't know, man. But you know what? We all grow. We all learn.

Right. But there are definitely some silver linings here, or we could say aluminum linings, because it was probably a good thing that the FDA now regulates caffeine in alcoholic beverage, you know? I think that's good. I think that's all I can think of. You know what? We'll always have the memories, or whatever memories you can cobble together when you regain consciousness after running around naked, passing out on a stranger's couch, and pooping on their carpet. Do you have any silver linings that you can think of? Yes.

Okay. We can get them to make the original formula again. This is, again, back into COINTELPRO. Okay. We ship it to countries that we are at war with

or have issues with. So we just drop it out of a plane and just seed it amongst different populations. What war? What thing? They're too busy dealing with that.

I'm not saying this is a good thing. I think ruining communities is bad. But if we're going to ruin communities, we should do it intelligently and we should do it elsewhere. I give him credit, though, for his vision, let's say, and his business astuteness, if I could say. Well, now given everything that we know about 4Loco, would you consider it a flop, not a flop, or a mega flop? I think it depends on who you're asking. If you're asking someone that looks at it as just a business, I would say it's not a flop. Yeah, I think they pivoted and kept going after the FDA ruling. I think that's a good point. What about you, Kanice? I would say that this is not a flop. I mean, the fact that we all know what Four Loko is doesn't surprise me at all

that they were like, get rappers on there. I was like, I don't like it. To say ghetto, that turns me against you immediately. But it did its job. And that era where all the songs are about drinking way too much, it fit in and it hit the moment it knew it, it made its job. And that era where all the songs are about drinking way too much, it fit in and it hit the moment it knew it, it made its money. It's not a flop. DJ EFN, if you could, would you do an episode of Drink Champs where everyone could only drink the original Four Loko? I wouldn't put everybody through that, but we'll try it. We'll definitely try it. All right. Well, that is the story of Four Loko. And I just want to say thank you to my wonderful guest, DJ EFN and Kanice Mobley for joining us here on The Big Flop. And thanks to all of you for listening. a controlling director, two mega rock stars who hate musicals, and a production so cursed that many actors left the theater in an ambulance.

It's Spider-Man Turn Off the Dark with guests Guy Branum and Jess McKenna. What I love is in this very, very Greek take on Spider-Man, Julie Taymor made herself a pair of wings out of wax and then flew too close to the sun. If you like The Big Flop, you can listen early

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And executive producers are morgan jones and marshall louis for wondering we are on a sinking ship we are on a sinking ship