Does the "Five Crazy Drinks" really exist ?

Going from the name, it sounds like it is based on Four Loko. There are numerous articles about it being dangerous and ban-worthy, though it appears to still be on the market. And apparently, it tastes terrible, to boot.

I can’t imagine why anyone would choose this over, you know, normal alcoholic beverages.

@dappled_leaves Four Loko is indeed horrible, and leads to some horrible nights. It was taken off the market for a while and then brought back with a lower caffeine content. As to why people drink it, that’s simple. It’s dirt cheap and it only takes 1–2 and you’re smashed. Drink of choice for dumb college kids.

@dappled_leaves A 22oz bottle of La Fin du Monde is about $9. A 22oz bottle of Pike Brewery Monk’s Uncle Belgian ale is about $5. A 24-oz Four Loko “tallboy” is about $1.50, and has a higher ABV to boot; 12% versus 9%.

Now, if you had only limited funds to get totally shit-faced with, which would you choose?

@jerv I don’t need to have the economics explained. What I don’t appreciate is the value of “getting totally shitfaced” as an end in itself. Hence @El_Cadejo‘s “dumb college kids”, I suppose.

@dappled_leaves If you don’t get it, then I suppose you had a totally different type of early life than me and 99.4% of the people I know. Nothing wrong with that, mind you, but it does make you stand out. That kind of implies that you had a pretty abnormal, far-from-average early adulthood; you never had a “foolish” stage, or at least not the same type of foolish stage as most people did sometime between 15 and 25.

As for your inability to imagine “getting totally shit-faced” as an end in and of itself, I have to remind myself that what is blatantly obvious to me isn’t always clear to others. (That is a personal shortcoming of mine.) I take for granted that people understand that chemically-induced euphoria is reason enough for many to want to pickle their liver. Then there is the “mental anesthetic” of escapism that alcohol gives, though that is more for older folks who have suffered emotional trauma than for thrill-seeking kids. Then there is the “social drinking gone too far” as most of those who are into the cheap booze aren’t at the age where they even acknowledge that there are limits, let alone that they have any; they are invincible.

Since I erroneously assumed you understood that part, I figured that you just needed the exact numbers to understand the “why”.

“That kind of implies that you had a pretty abnormal, far-from-average early adulthood”

Jesus Christ, @jerv. Not everyone is like you; not every place is like the place you grew up in. You are very wide off the mark here.

@dappled_leaves No, but when you see tens of thousands of people in the same age group in different parts of the entire world doing the same thing, and know that you’ve only seen a small fraction of humanity and of the world, then it isn’t a huge leap of logic to say, “A lot of kids do this!”. We’re not talking something esoteric like being into cars or computers. We’re not talking something uncommon like being in the military. We’re talking something that, in my experience, is nearly as universal as having two arms. We’re not talking one place. We’re talking countless places across the four continents I’ve set foot in, including all four corners of the US, a few places in between, and Hawaii for good measure. It’s not a small sample size.

I’m just trying to explain where I’m coming from, so why are you getting so riled?