Trying to find a new niche in an already saturated energy drinks market has led some manufacturers to add caffeine to cocktail mixers such a tonic water and ginger ale. It’s the first innovation in mixers in many years and includes drinks such as ‘Jetset’.
Some people however are not too pleased with the idea of caffeinated drinks being mixed with alcohol – although the vodka – Red Bull concoction has been around for a long time. It seems a bit like locking the barn door after the horse has fled. The argument is that mixing caffeine with alcohol makes you think you’re less inebriated than you think you are and that the mix can be deadly.
A study in Brazil found that although mixing vodka and Red Bull made you feel less drunk your motor co-ordination and reaction time were just as impaired. Furthermore, the critics say, you shouldn’t be serving up brews like this to kids who’ve had little experience with alcohol and who are ripe to pick up on anything considered cool or anti-establishment.
But the energy drinks market has always been the youth market and the more apparently ‘dangerous’ the drink is, the more young people are going to want to experiment with it. That’s always been the way with energy drinks, so to condemn the use of caffeinated mixers seems redundant. After all, what’s the difference between mixing an energy drink with caffeine and drinking several strong cups of espresso after a bottle or two of wine? The secret, as always, is to drink responsibly.
One of the problems with using a weak-flavoured mixer is that the ingredients that give the drink its powers to stimulate leave a bitter after taste that these mixers don’t entirely mask. So a formula had to be found that still tasted like it should but masked the bitter taste of the stimulants.
The ‘Jetset’ company did this and the product was launched by persuading bartenders in its home area of San Francisco to offer it to customers.
The results were good, as the customers liked the idea of being able to order a caffeinated version of the standard ‘gin and tonic’. And as Jetset has a variety of flavours to choose from and a diet low-sugar and low- carbohydrates option it’s almost like imbibing a health drink.
Still, there’s no getting away from the underlying concern. Perhaps it’s the youth-targeted market that’s the problem, combined with the huge numbers of energy drinks vying with each other for that market. Aggressive marketing programmes may encourage young people to take on more then they can handle, just to look cool. And the ‘cooler’ a drink seems the more likely it is to be used – and by extension abused. It’s the responsibility of the manufacturer’s surely, to make sure their target market is warned of the dangers of over-indulgence as well as being encouraged to drink a product, either on its own or as a mixer. There has to be a little give and take here.