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Jolt Cola - The OG Energy Drink · Dirt Nap City - History's Most Interesting Dead People

• 0:06
  SPEAKER_02: Hey Alex, how's it going?
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_02: Hey Kelly, what's up, man?
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_02: Oh man, it's a beautiful day here in Texas.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_01: Is it beautiful where you are?
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: It is, but probably not by the time people are listening to this.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_01: We get about four days of nice weather.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like we go right from the 50s to the 90s, weather-wise.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_02: Although it was hot last week, and it is this week the temperature's down, the humidity's down.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's pretty pretty awesome.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_01: But you're right, it's it's short-lived.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: From those of you who don't live in Texas, spring lasts about a week.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_02: Go right into summer.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um, well, speaking of short-lived, I want to talk to you about something that uh used to be popular but isn't anymore.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_02: You know what that's called?
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_02: Dead end.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_02: It's a dead end, yeah.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_02: This is a pretty classic dead end, too.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_02: And it's kind of from one of our favorite decades.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um what would you say your favorite decade is?
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: My personal favorite decade is probably the 70s.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: Really?
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the 1970s.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_02: I thought you were the Peter Piper of the 1980s.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I have a love hate with the 1980s.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I don't like the caricature that the 1980s have become.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: While I enjoyed my time in the 80s, um, nostalgia-wise, I'm much more into the 70s.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, okay.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_02: You and you don't think the 70s is a caricature?
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_02: Caricature?
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: But I was a little kid, so everything was kind of a uh uh seems like uh an exaggerated version of itself from when I was a kid.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: But when people I guess I'm protective of the 80s when people make fun of it.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you're talking about like um like the skinny ties and the and the John Hughes movies and the um Huey Lewis and the news, that kind of stuff.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_01: If you're listening to my friend Jerry Christman, who used to wear a uh skinny people skinny ties, yeah, yeah.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_02: He did play the keyboard, yeah.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_02: The band Brazen.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, he was in several good brands, several goods.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_02: Brazen.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: There's a there's a there's a dead end.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe they're still around.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_02: Brazen, if you're listening, it is something like that.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_02: There was a band called 72 Inches.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_02: That was uh Alero.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_02: Al Scalero and Eddie um I forget Eddie Nunes, maybe.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_02: Anyway, and our buddy Jerry with the uh skinny tie.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_02: Well, you know what kept those guys going back then?
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_02: What?
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_02: It was really kind of the only option in town in 1985, 1986, 1987.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_02: There weren't they didn't have back then, they didn't have Red Bull, they didn't have Monster, they didn't have any of that stuff.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_02: They had Jolt Cola.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: You know what's crazy is I not 45 minutes ago was reading a Wikipedia entry about Jolt Cola, thinking it might be a dead end to talk about.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: Seriously, yeah, abandon it.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: I abandoned it uh because I never actually had a jolt cola.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: I'm kind of caffeine sensitive um and didn't imbibe with uh jolt cola, but uh I was actually reading this, it's probably still the tab is still pulled up on my phone.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, jolt cola.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_02: What did you what did you read about it?
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: Well, the one thing I remember is reading about it is that it's still around in Australia.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yes.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_02: That that's very prominent in the in the article.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: And that one of the flavors was called Citrus Climax.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, citrus climax.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_02: Man, we must have been reading the same article because um Jolt Cola was actually introduced in 1985, and it was a company called Wet Planet Beverages.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and they had originally been called the Jolt Company Inc., but they changed their name to Wet Planet Beverages.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so I mean, if you think of a wet planet, what is that even it's Earth?
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_02: What's planet pretty dry 75% water?
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_02: Uh yeah, okay, fair.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_02: I wasn't even thinking of Earth.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_02: I was I was thinking of like the moons of Europa or something with ice, but yeah, you were thinking of wet seal.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_02: Right, wet seal the at the mall, drinking my jolt cola.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_02: Well, the guy who invented it or brought it to market, his name was CJ Rap.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_02: Now, do you get a cooler name than CJ Rap?
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_02: Right, right.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_02: Was that his real name?
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_02: That was his real name, CJ Rap.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_02: Um, not a rapper.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_02: He was a business guy, and he decided to market Jolt Cola to students, young professionals, and it was really one of the first energy drinks.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_02: Now, do you remember the slogan of Jolt Cola?
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: I don't, but I was a Mountain Dew guy growing up, and I I think Wait, wait, you said you were caffeine sensitive and you drank Mountain Dew.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_02: It's got a ton of caffeine.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: Right, and I think that's why I'm caffeine sensitive.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: I think I burned myself out when I was a kid.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: I I drink so much Mountain Dew and Mellow Yellow.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's how it works.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: That I think I think I had my quota.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: Did you ever have squirt?
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not a big grapefruit guy, but that was grapefruit carbonated grapefruit, right?
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I mean, I thought it kind of tasted like Mountain Dew and Mellow Yellow.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: No, I never I never really uh messed with squirt too much, but Mountain Dew is my thing.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: That was kind of an energy drink.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: Is it yeah, as a in that kids should not be drinking that stuff, I'll tell you that.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_02: My mom drinks Mountain Dew.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_02: Hi, mom.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_02: If you're if you're listening, I hope you're not drinking in Mountain Dew because we're trying to get her off of it because she gets a little bouncy.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_02: But Joelt had a lot more caffeine than Mountain Dew, right?
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_02: Well, their slogan was actually all the sugar, twice the caffeine.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 6:10
  unknown: Yeah.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's a pretty straightforward slogan.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: I like And they say twice compared to like Coke, right?
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: Because it was a cola.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_02: Well, it had 70 um grams or milliliters or whatever the unit was of caffeine in it.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_02: Probably milligrams.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_02: Milligrams of caffeine.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_02: Let's say it's milligrams.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_02: Well, it was introduced, like I said, in 1985.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_02: So perfect for our upbringing, you know, as as kids from the 80s.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um, as I said, it was made by the Jolt Cola Company, which uh Jolt Company, which changed their name to Wet Planet Beverages.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_02: And as you said, it had several interesting flavors: cherry bomb, citrus climax, orange blast, white lightning, which was a grape flavor, red eye, and electric blue.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_02: Now, also cola.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_02: That was the um that was the original version, was cola.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_02: I wonder what electric blue.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_02: I wonder what that was that like blue raspberry, do you think?
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, probably raspberry, I would think.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um well this guy, CJ Rapp, he he went with it for a while, and then um he decided to license it to a company called Gum Runners.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_02: That's G-U-M Runners.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_02: And you know what they made?
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_02: They make caffeinated gum.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, caffeinated gum.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_02: And the slogan for that, chew more, do more.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_01: I think caffeinated gum is a I can't figure out if it's a great idea or a terrible idea.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, I've had some little caffeinated chews before.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_02: They're just they're just like little chews that and they're pretty good for if you're driving and you don't want to drink a lot.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_02: Like I say driving, like if you're driving on a long trip, like Austin to Houston, San Antonio to Houston, that kind of thing.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_02: If you drink too much coffee or too much soda, you just have to stop and go to the bathroom too often.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_02: But a little caffeine in a in a two more, do more gum runner, um, that was pretty good.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_02: And now here's what was weird is the gum had two flavors, spearmint and icy mint.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_02: What's the difference?
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_02: I I never have understood the difference between like fresh mint and spearmint and peppermint.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_02: They all just taste like mint.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_01: I think spearmint is the lesser good like peppermint is a really nice scent, and I they use that in aromatherapy.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_01: You never see spearmint.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's like the like the uh ugly cousin of peppermint, I think.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: You know, okay, okay.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: I always thought spearmint gum would give you bad breath, and peppermint gum would give you good breath.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: I always think spearmint gum was like a prank almost.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody talks like spearmint flavored anything.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_02: It's like Iceland and Greenland, right?
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_02: Iceland is green and Greenland is icy, as they say.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like spearmint was like maybe offered to the Wrigley company back in the day as like a low-grade peppermint and they tried to promote it.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not spearmint at all.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_02: Hey guys, uh, we've got some budget cuts to make.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um, we're gonna have to stop buying peppermint and buy spearmint.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_01: When do you ever hear about spearmint other than like cheap ass gum?
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: Not even good gum.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_02: Well, so you would have picked the icy mint of those two flavors.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: I would have picked the uh citrus climax.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_01: This is the gum we're talking about.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_02: I would have demanded citrus climax gum.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_02: And just imagine what that looked like when you chewed it.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_02: Just yeah.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so in 2006, Jolt actually uh revamped their packaging.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't know if you remember this or not, but they had Jolt battery bottles.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_02: Did you ever see those?
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_02: No, but I remember reading about this just about 45 minutes ago.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_02: So they were they were uh they had they made a popping sound when they opened.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_02: What does it mean?
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_02: Popping sound, like well, I mean, I think most soda makes kind of a little bit of a uh air or carbon release, you know, the air comes out, but maybe these had some sort of a special thing.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_02: I don't really know what the popping sound was.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_02: This was in the article I read, then you read as well.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_02: But they were um shaped like a battery, and they were painted like a double-A battery.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_02: That was kind of the gag.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_02: That's that's a cool idea.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_02: A little bit of a a little bit of a mashup with the Energizer Bunny kind of thing.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_01: And their logo is actually like a lightning bolt, right?
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, like a J, the letter, the letter J with a with lightning bolts.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: And but not really professional looking, is what I remember.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: I remember Jolt always looked like it was.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_02: Like a third grader did it.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_02: Like CJ Rapp's son did the logo.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, when I think about Jolt, I get Jolt and the Simpsons version, Buzz Cola, kind of mixed up because it looked exactly the same.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_02: Probably did the same thing to you.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_02: I think it was Buzz, yeah.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and and what was the Simpsons beer?
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_02: Do you remember?
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_02: Duff.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_02: And you remember what they sell served in Shelbyville?
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_02: No, it was FUD.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_02: Oh it was Duff spelled backwards.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, you're drinking that FUD, huh?
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_02: That's funny.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_02: Well, Joel Jolt Cola had um these bottles shaped like or painted to resemble a double-A battery.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um, they were twist top, you could put the top back on them.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_02: They were 23.5 ounces, too, aluminum bottles.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_02: So basically two 12-ounce normal sodas.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_02: But they also offered a smaller one called the quick fix.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_02: It was 8.5 ounces, and it was marketed.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, kind of like Red Bull, right?
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_02: Red Bull, a typical size of a Red Bull can is smaller than a 12-ounce, seven and a half or eight and a half or whatever.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_02: Um, these were marketed, these quick fixes were marketed as mixers.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_02: So for you could put them into alcoholic drinks.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_02: I know people do that with Red Bull.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_02: It's that's pretty dangerous, I feel like.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you're you're not just drunk, but you're buzzed and drunk.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_02: Like, yeah, yeah.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_02: Well, the jolt cola flavors got shifted around a little bit with these quick fixes that they were trying to turn into um mixers.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, they had the cola still, they had a blue raspberry, they had a cherry bomb, they had silver, which was lemon lime, white grape, orange blast, passion fruit, which had a yellow can, and they had the ultra, which actually the ultra was a diet drink with Splenda and uh ginseng and taurine.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_02: Now, do you know what taurine is?
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_02: No, never heard of that.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_02: I think it is actually urine from a bull.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_02: Shut up.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_02: Are you serious?
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_02: I think it comes from yeah, I think it comes from bull urine.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_02: Let me just see what uh I mean they discontinued citrus climax for that.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um they yeah, yeah, this is what they came up with.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_02: So it's an amino sulfuric acid that occurs in the body.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, and it comes from meat, eggs, and fish.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_02: I guess it doesn't come from bull piss.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: Oh well.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_02: Don't be spreading that around.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that that's how did that rumor start?
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, it started on Dirtnep City.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_02: That would that's kind of a goal of ours, is to start a rumor that sticks, right?
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_02: Well, after you know, a little bit of experimentation with these battery uh battery painted cans and the quick fixes, um, 2008, CJ Rapp decided to get out of the cola game and sold a controlling interest in his company um to an investment company called Emigrant Capital.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_02: Well, Emigrant Capital um had it for about a year before they filed for bankruptcy.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_02: I guess they um just couldn't make keep it going.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_02: Apparently, there were some problems with paying suppliers and some lawsuits.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_02: Well, since he had sold it to him a year before, RAP and some other original shareholders sued Emigrant Capital for a breach of fiduciary responsibility.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_02: And they were actually paid an undeclosed settlement term.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't know how that works.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I guess if Emigrant paid them for it and then screwed it up, you know, who was he to go back and say, well, you shouldn't have done that, but apparently he did, and apparently it worked.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_02: So, which means what for the for the future of jolt?
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_02: Well, before we talk about future, I just want to talk a little bit about why it failed.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_02: So I did a little research.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_01: What did the lawsuit result in that they had to discontinue it or no, no, no, no.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_02: It it it went bankrupt, so it was discontinued in 2009.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_02: They stopped making it, they couldn't afford it.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_02: 2009.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_02: Right, right.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_02: It it had it had kind of come and gone a couple of times, came back in 2009, or 2008.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_02: That was when they, you know, 2006 is when they did all those changes to it, made the quick fix and the battery bottle and all that stuff.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_02: 2008, CJ Rap sells it to Emigrant Capital, and 2009 it files for bankruptcy.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's crazy to me then that Jolt Cola was actually out for almost 25 years because I feel like it would came and went.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_02: Like a flash.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I don't I then it's fizzled out.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: I'm surprised that it was even around in the 90s.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_01: I only remember it like for a minute.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_02: Well, apparently it tasted really bad.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_02: And I do think I had I think I had the original cola, and I think I remember it tasting not great.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of people complained that it was um not carbonated enough.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_02: It was kind of flat and it was kind of thick and syrupy.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_02: So if you can imagine like a Coke machine where the carbonation is out of whack.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_02: Have you ever had that on a soda machine where you get it and it just kind of tastes like syrup?
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_02: Um, that was that was the major complaint.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_02: But here's the weird thing: everybody kind of thinks Jolt Cola was the very first energy drink.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_02: There was actually an energy drink in 1962, the first one that was marketed as such called lipovitin, lipovitin D.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_02: And it was introduced by the Tashio Pharmaceutical Company in 1962, and it was actually marketed to um combat fatigue.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_02: It was a medicinal tonic, right?
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_02: This is kind of in the end of the yeah, yeah.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_02: It was uh it was um you can you can Google it, lipovitamin-d or lipovitin dash D, and it had vitamin B, it had taurine, it had caffeine, I mean, it had all the same stuff that Red Bull and all these others have, but came out in 62.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that was so far ahead of its time.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I feel like in 1962, people didn't even really know, had never heard the term caffeine.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like caffeine that even though people had drink been drinking coffee for thousands of years, I feel like the term caffeine kind of came out in the maybe the 70s or 80s.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_01: People were hip to what that meant.
• 17:36
  unknown: Yeah.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_02: And what might have just been coffee just coffee just was a pick-me-up, but you know, people were also drinking Coca-Cola with cocaine and taking all kinds of um, you know, opioids and things back then, and they had no idea what they did, smoking a lot of cigarettes.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_02: Kind of surprised we've survived as a species this long.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_02: It really is.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_02: It really is.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_02: We put such garbage in our bodies, don't we?
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_02: Well, in 2017, um, you know, after it went bankrupt in 2009, it came back in 2017 briefly to Dollar General stores.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_02: They were selling it there, but that was short-lived.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_02: And in 2019, what a collab.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_02: What a collaboration between Red Bull and Dollar General.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_01: Jolt and Dollar General.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I mean.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_02: Jolt and Dollar General.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_02: What a collab.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_02: So memorable that you thought it was Red Bull.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_02: Let's let's head up to Dollar General and get some uh Jolt.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_02: Well, here's how they knew that it was really in the pits in 2019 was they stopped updating their social media platforms.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_02: So that was kind of the indication that they were uh on on the out.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, the good news though is if you've never had jolt cola, you can have it now because in 2024, late 2024, it was announced that Redcon 1 is relaunching Jolt Cola, not as the original Cola, but as a sugar-free energy drink.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_02: Now, I don't know if you I I said this earlier, it's milligrams.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_02: You're right, milligrams of caffeine.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_02: The original Jolt Cola had 71 milligrams of caffeine in a 16-ounce can.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, guess how much the new Redcon 1 jolt will have?
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_02: I bet a lot more.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_02: 200 milligrams.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_02: More than double, almost three times as much.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_01: So you're familiar with the trouble with the Panera bread company?
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, they had some sort of like uh lemonade, caffeinated lemonade or something.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_01: Supercharged lemonade, and they didn't make it clear enough.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think that that lemonade was supercharged.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think they called it that, but then it was like right.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_02: How do you make it any clearer than calling it that?
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I I think it was available just like where you could just put your cup under it and have some.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_02: It's it came with the kids' meal.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_01: It should have been like where you the manager has to unlock something, like you know, where you have to uh and it was very dangerous.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I think some people went to the hospital or maybe even died uh from drinking too.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_01: I want to say that had like 450 milligrams.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_01: It was one of those big giant cups, yeah.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that supercharged lemon eye.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_01: I know my son, when he was about 12 or 13, accidentally drank one of those and came home and was like shaking.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_01: And wow, um, it was we it was just we had to basically flush it out of him.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_01: You know, just get him.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: It was awful.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_02: My son had a similar thing with Everclear.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_02: You know, he accidentally did 10 shots of Everclear and he came home and he was shaking.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm kidding.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_02: Uh there's no accidentally in these situations, Alex.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_02: We got we got boys in college.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_01: No, I I think he really didn't, I really didn't know that it was had caffeine in it.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_01: Even though it was called supercharged.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think it was that clear that it was that it was or what that meant.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, he was you know, he wasn't paying attention.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_02: Well, here's the ironic part about the 200 milligrams of caffeine in the new jolt cola.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_02: They're they're marketing it as an energy drink that's healthier because it's sugar-free.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_02: So they're using a different sweetener called sucralose, and they're um now gonna include new tropics.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_02: Have you ever heard of new tropics?
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_01: No, and is that gonna be available in the US or only in Australia?
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_02: No, it's US.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_02: US.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_02: As a matter of fact, you can buy this at HEB, you can buy it at Whole Foods, you can buy it at um Trader Joe's, all the major grocery stores have this new Jolt Cola and the new.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: Nootropics, it's N-O-O-T-R-O-P-I-C-S.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um are a smart drug.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_02: They're things like B vitamins and stuff like that that they put into this that is supposed to make it healthy.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um no sugar, but 200 milligrams of caffeine.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not gonna drink that.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_02: I'll let you do it.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_02: I I think maybe we should do that right during our hundredth episode.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: What do you think?
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I was uh staying in a hotel last week, and when I came to my room, there was uh a case of two Red Bulls on it was like a little um carrying case on the door of my room.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_01: It was like a promotion from Red Bull, and it said something about if you're gonna be, you know, burning the midnight oil tonight or staying out late, here's something to help you in the morning, and it was two red bulls.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_01: It was an original and their new flavor that was like grapefruit last or something.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_01: I don't remember.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't even open them, left them in my room.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um they were on every door in the whole hotel.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_01: There's not a lot of money to so there is, I guess, um you know, this whole uh alternative to alcohol um craze that's going on right now is everybody's trying to find a little angle of something that's gonna do something to you, you know.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_02: Oh yeah.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_02: Well, 200 milligrams of caffeine will do something to you.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_02: For sure.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_02: Well, that's jolt cola.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um I I do want to try it, just to say I did.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe I'll have some for our for our um hundredth episode, which is coming up in a couple of weeks, folks.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_02: You're gonna want to stick around for that.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um I definitely think that jolt is probably not gonna be what everybody wants to drink, but it is a nice little blast from the past, and it may have been a dead end at one time, but it's a dead end with a U-turn that came back.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: The year was 1985, and I was only five, and they tried to make me drink milk.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: I said I'd rather die.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: Then one day I found my father with a can in his hand with a giant blue light He said twice the sugar, twice the caffeine, the original energy drink And it gave us superpower That can't be recreated today Oh Joe Cola Oh Joe Co-Cola Oh joe co-cola Oh Joe Co-Cola Oh Joe Co-Cola All the other kids on the playground were drinking Pepsi And if you found a kid drinking Joe He was likely to have a 1987 delivery And if you gave a kid a Joe today He's likely a regional energy drink And it gave us superpowers that can't be created today Oh Joe Cola Oh joe cold cola Oh joe cold colla Oh joe cold colla Oh joel cold collabor If you gave a kid a Joel today he'd likely explode if you gave a kid a jolt today he'd likely explode And if you gave a kid a jolt today he'd likely explode If you gave a kid a jolt today he'd likely explode The real gentle energy dream And he gave us superpowers that can't be created today Oh Joe Cola Oh Joe Coca Oh Joe Coach Oh Joe Coca Cola Oh Joe Coca.