Top 10 Drinks That Were BANNED
#10: Phrosties
With bright colors and a slushie texture, this beverage could easily be mistaken for a children’s drink. That’s just one of several reasons why Phrosties got iced by New York’s State Liquor Authority. The only thing sketchier than the product itself was how it got distributed. Coming in a variety of flavors, the sugary drinks could be purchased for $10 through an Instagram account. The combination of booze and sugar helped Phrosties gain over 12,000 Instagram followers. The unlicensed drink ignited controversy, though, when Swimmingly published a story entitled, “We Ordered Illegal Alcoholic Slushies and (Barely) Lived to Tell the Tale.” The service officially ceased shortly after New York Senator Charles Schumer targeted it, although D.I.Y recipes can still be found online.
#9: Palcohol
Powdered alcohol in general has sparked a fair deal of backlash over health concerns, seeing how it can be mistaken for a children’s beverage, or easily snorted. Palcohol is perhaps the most famous example. First announced in 2014, this powered drink mix from Lipsmark requires consumers to just add water. It’s like the cocktail equivalent of Kool-Aid! While the product was initially approved for U.S. distribution by the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, this turned out to be due to an “error.” The TTB subsequently retracted its approval, although they’d later sign off on revised labels. Nevertheless, Palcohol was a driving force behind Ohio’s bill to ban powdered alcohol. By 2017, powdered alcohol was outlawed in thirty-five U.S. jurisdictions.
#8: Stiffy’s Jaffa Cake Vodka
Sometimes it’s not what’s inside a drink that lands the company in hot water. In the case of Stiffy’s Jaffa Cake Vodka, it was due to misguided marketing. With a unique mix of chocolate and orange tastes, this spirit made consumers feel like they were drinking Jaffa cake biscuits. However, the name “Stiffy” is admittedly a bit um… suggestive. Although the beverage was apparently named after someone who helped develop it, Portman Group Code attributed “Stiffy” to “sexual success.” The group thus banned Stiffy’s Jaffa Cake Vodka and Kola Kubez. This motivated the company to change its title to Stivy’s. It didn’t help that a 17-year-old reportedly called Stiffy’s the “party lubricator of choice,” prompting a supermarket chain to take their products off the shelves.
#7: Pernod Anise
Stiffy’s isn’t the only alcoholic brand that the Portman Group has cracked down on. Once again, the backlash all boiled down to a label for Pernod Anise. While the bottle made it clear that this was a Pernod Ricard product, the group argued that the alcohol by volume description wasn’t legible enough because of the text’s color. The group also took issue with the words, “spirituex Anise,” only being on the side of the bottle and not being in English. Since it was decided that the drink’s alcoholic nature wasn’t presented “with absolute clarity,” the group warned UK vendors not to stock Pernod Anise. Pernod Richard felt that the group was overreacting, but ultimately modified the label to appease them.
#6: Five Wives Vodka
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Five Wives Vodka sounds like a fictional drink that the “South Park” guys would’ve come up with. As if the name wasn’t enough to brew controversy, the label features five women in Mormon clothing slightly lifting their skirts. Believe it or not, the drink is made by Ogden’s Own Distillery in Utah, which has the country’s highest Mormon population. The Idaho State Liquor Division deemed the vodka potentially offensive towards Mormons and women, and Idaho initially banned it, although this was later retracted to avoid legal retaliation. The drink’s name is actually based on the first wagon train to pass through Utah, which had five women onboard. According to the distillery’s president, “We're not poking fun at anybody; we’re just kind of acknowledging the past.
#5: Duff Beer
Duff Beer is not only Homer Simpson’s beverage of choice, but one of the most famous fake drinks in pop culture. The fictional beer became a reality in 2014 when actual Duff Beer arrived in Australia’s Woolworths Supermarkets. Although “The Simpsons” has been promoted as an adult cartoon, it also has plenty of younger fans. Heck, it’s on Disney+! Since the drink could potentially entice children, it was deemed in violation of the Alcohol Beverages Advertising Code and stores were left Duffless. Weirdly enough, this wasn’t the first time Duff got banned in Australia. In the 90s, a beer called Duff was developed by Australia’s Lion Nathan brewery. While no “Simpsons” characters were featured, 20th Century Fox took legal action and got the beer pulled.
#4: Dirty Bastard Beer
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If you’re old enough to legally buy beer, you should be old enough to say a dirty word like “bastard,” especially at a bar. Regardless, the Alabama alcoholic beverage control board banned Dirty Bastard Beer due to the profanity in its name. The board reportedly wanted to shield children from such foul language, although kids clearly weren’t the target demographic. Plus, through a pair of innocent eyes, the beer would likely blend in with all the others at a supermarket. This ban was viewed as hypocritical by some outlets since Alabama did approve Fat Bastard wine and Raging Bitch beer years earlier. The group Free The Hops was especially critical of the board’s decision and supported Founders Brewing Co., which produces the beer in Michigan.
#3: Four Loko
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Like alcohol, energy drinks can be extremely addictive. Putting them together is a recipe for trouble. Four Loko was one of the caffeinated alcoholic beverages accused of causing blackouts and other side effects, especially among college students. In response, multiple universities banned the drink while some stores yanked them off the shelves. Several states, most notably Oregon, banned alcoholic energy drinks, with Four Loko being a primary target. It was only a matter of time until the FDA got involved, calling Four Loko and similar drinks “unsafe.” While you can still buy this malt beverage, it no longer contains caffeine or other key energy drink ingredients. Original Four Loko, meanwhile, has been cast out to the black market.
#2: Dead Whale Beer
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Um, are we in a “Captain Planet” episode? We bet you didn’t know that dead whale could be an ingredient in alcoholic beverages. Since whaling is a touchy subject, you’d think that brewers would want to keep the words “dead whale” out of marketing. The Icelandic company behind Dead Whale Beer, however, couldn’t have been more direct. As you can imagine, animal rights activists weren’t at all pleased with this beverage. While brewer Steðji claimed that whale increases the beer’s health factor by 5.2%, that didn’t stop the health inspector from pulling the plug before distribution even commenced. This wasn’t an isolated incident, as Moby Dick whale cocktails and whale skin scotch whisky have also been placed under scrutiny.
#1: Absinthe
Also known as the green fairy, Absinthe has gained something of a notorious reputation for having a psychedelic, hallucinogenic influence. The chemical compound Thujone was thought to cause Absinthe’s trippy side effects. It was even claimed that it can turn people into criminals, cause epilepsy and tuberculosis, and had killed thousands. The drink was thus banned in the U.S. and a good portion of Europe by 1915. In recent years, though, people have found that the accusations against Absinthe have been wildly exaggerated. Slowly but surely, Absinthe started to make a comeback around the world with the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau officially lifting the U.S. ban in 2007. The green fairy certainly works in mysterious ways.
