Who Made That Energy Drink?

DANIEL ENGBER
December 6, 2013

The energy drink, as we know it, started in Japan. In the postwar period, amphetamines were very popular until laws were passed to curb their use in the 1950s. Then in 1962, a company called Taisho introduced Lipovitan D — a legal, energizing tonic sold in minibar-size bottles. By the 1980s, such vitamin-fortified, extra-caffeinated beverages were being regularly consumed by Japanese executives struggling to get ahead. One television ad showed Arnold Schwarzenegger bursting from a flagon like a juiced-up genie. Another had a hero in suit and tie, signing deals and making presentations as he raced around the world. “Can you fight for 24 hours a day?” he chanted with his chin upturned. “Businessman, businessman, Japanese businessman!”

It took a while for this sort of stimulation in a can to catch on in America. There was cocaine in Coca-Cola at one point, but that didn’t last long. In 1949, a chemist from Chicago invented Dr. Enuf, a caffeinated soft drink made with vitamins. Early advertisements called his drink “the answer to a housewife’s prayer, the bosom companion of a tired farmer or businessman and a shift into high gear for young Johnny or Mary.” (Although it never sold very well, the beverage still exists.) In the 1980s, other soda brands tried in vain to muscle in on coffee’s turf: Jolt Cola promised “all the sugar and twice the caffeine”; Coke started pushing “Coca-Cola in the morning”; and Pepsi introduced the short-lived breakfast product “Pepsi A.M.”

Meanwhile, Japanese energy drinks made their way from Asia to Europe. Dietrich Mateschitz, the international marketing director for an Austrian company that sold bathroom products, discovered the supercharging tonics while on a business trip to Bangkok. In 1984, he quit his job to partner up with the Thai manufacturer of a beverage made with caffeine and taurine called Krating Daeng, and three years later he debuted a carbonated version of the same in his home country under the Red Bull label.

Mateschitz brought his beverage to the United States in 1997, and the market for energy drinks took off. Annual growth remains in the double digits, says Gary Hemphill, director of research for the Beverage Marketing Corporation. Last year the category accounted for $11 billion in retail sales. That’s despite the fact that the major brands — Red Bull, Monster and Rockstar — are not so different from the standard colas that have been on the market for many decades. (All are carbonated, caffeinated, sugary drinks sold in cans.) What really sets them apart, Hemphill says, is the marketing: “It’s a product category that’s been built around a premium price. From an ingredient perspective, there are a lot of similarities.”
ALL PUMPED UP
Kathleen E. Miller is a principal investigator at the Research Institute on Addictions at the University at Buffalo.

What made you want to study energy drinks? I had a 16-year-old family friend who was bar-backing, and they were paying him in part in cases of Red Bull. He was putting his fist through walls and getting all jittery, and his family wanted to know if the caffeine had anything to do with it.

Do energy drinks make kids act crazy? I’ve found that if you report that you have six or more energy drinks over the course of a month, you’re also more likely to report that you got in a fight last year, that you had sex without a condom or that you drove without a seat belt.

Is the caffeine responsible? Maybe kids who get into fights just happen to drink Monster and Red Bull. Energy drinks are being sold with the implication that they are “extreme.” They may be reinforcing some of these behaviors not so much because of the caffeine content — which can certainly have an effect — but because of what the ads are telling people.

Should we worry about the mixture of energy drinks and alcohol? Before 1997, we all mixed rum and Coke. And we put whiskey in our coffee. Any high-dose caffeine with alcohol is potentially risky, since you may underestimate your level of intoxication. Still, who goes out and slams 10 Irish coffees in a row? It tends not to happen. Red Bull and vodka — you’re more likely to drink a lot of those.