And, for the record: you can have my Irish coffee when you pull it from my cold, dead hands.
Executive summary: the FDA has informed four companies that caffeine is an “unsafe food additive” when mixed with alcohol. In this particular case, the drinks being affected are cans of carbonated, caffeinated, and alcoholic drinks… but if you’re wondering what’s the scientific difference between that and a hand-made mixture of coffee, whiskey and whipped cream, the answer’s simple: there isn’t one. This is strictly ‘political’… or more accurately, ‘pandering.’ And if you’re wondering what’s stopping the government from deciding that bars shouldn’t serve Irish or Jamaican coffee – or, God help us, Red Bull and vodka, which is apparently the big club drink now – the answer’s even simpler: nothing. Nothing at all. If young drinkers start consum[ing] hand-mixed caffeine/alcohol concoctions, the FDA will start going after the organizations that serve them.
Still enjoying that Democratic-controlled executive branch that you helped wish on the rest of us in November of 2008, kids?
Moe Lane (crosspost)
Reading “Unseen Academicals” last night, I read Pratchett’s rephrasing of the classic phrase: “You can take my axe after I pry your cold, dead hands from it.”
Not that I’m sympathetic to Nanny Statist ambitions, but I doubt this is anything beyond ordinary FDA policy. It’s along the same lines as the regulation of ephedra. But if it makes you feel better, things that naturally contain caffeine as part of their ingredients are specifically excepted, including coffee flavor. What seems to be the problem here was the addition of caffeine to something that one wouldn’t ordinarily expect to have it. Coffee or soft drinks presumably would, so there’s no analogous surprise factor for Irish coffee or Jack and Coke. Red Bull is a closer call, and the other energy drinks are even murkier, but FDA has at least pointed out clear exceptions. I’m not saying that FDA couldn’t be co-opted for political purposes, but as bureaucracies go, they’re generally very competent and fair.
Just a quick correction the popular drink at the bars is called a jager bomb.This drink out sells all others by 2 to 1. It is made with jagermeister and some energy drink(Redbull,LionsHead, etc.)So I guess we better get ready for the big fist of the nanny state to start controlling what we drink at our favorite watering hole. Big Brother is watching!