Alcoholic energy drink makers Four Loko was pulled off store shelves last year. They were accused of targeting underage consumers with their soda-like flavors. They were also linked to a surge of date rapes as well. The founders of Four Loko tried to stay out of the spot light.
"If you set out to engineer a booze delivery system that is as cloying, deceptive and divorced from the usual smells, tastes and presentation of alcohol as possible, you'd be hard pressed to come up with something more impressive than Four Loko," wrote former New York Times restaurant critic Frank Bruni in the midst of the flap last fall. "It's a malt liquor in confectionary drag...Four Loko cans--I paid $3.50 apiece for mine--are something to see, each sporting a few ultrabright, childlike hues in a kind of rippling weave that evokes a camouflage pattern. Fatigues like these are what an army of Teletubbies would wear into battle."
