I do wonder if I’ve ever made this joke before.
Kore-Cola
Made with real pomegranates! And birch! And chervil! And a bunch of other herbs traditionally associated with death and the afterlife! Not that they really mention those herbs on the label, and honestly: pomegranate is the important ingredient. These particular pomegranates are from the orchard that Persephone planted in order to have a supply of seeds that would take her back to the underworld — what’s that? Yes, well, suffice it to say that the Greek myths kind of got a few minor details wrong. Like the fact that Persephone and her mother actually invaded Hades’ domain (in fairness, he deserved it), and that Persephone and Hades were both being very much Greek deities about the situation. Which is to say: rude, entitled, mercurially violent, and utterly incapable of staying out of each other’s beds. As usual.
But I digress! Kore-Cola came out a year ago, mostly in the Midwest market; it’s a mildly popular hit that will soon become a rather well-subsidized natural hit for its occult properties (although it is pretty tasty). It will shock nobody that a draught of the stuff, drunk at exactly the right moment in a certain ritual, makes it infinitely easier to access the afterlife in a way that will let you come back. Spectral communications become automatic, and free of that stereotypical, and highly annoying, informational entropy that occultists usually get. Astral travel becomes so trivially easy that the unenlightened can even do it. Actual dimensional portals become merely very difficult to create, instead of nigh-impossible. That sort of thing.
And there’s not even any side-effects! …Besides having to deal with the afterlife, of course. That’s sometimes not very fun.
Naturally, just about every competent magus in the universe wants a steady supply — for him or herself, and maybe some friends. The idea that you can order a six-pack on Amazon.com offends more wizards than you might expect; it seems cheapened, somehow. The problem there is that the factory that bottles Kore-Cola is located in Ames, Iowa; which means that it’s under the protection of Iowa State University, which of course means that the factory is behind magical fortifications that would make Cthulhu bounce if he hit them. Don’t mess with Iowa State’s mage circle. Don’t. And as a magical college, they’re fine with the stuff being widely distributed. Makes it easier for them to teach classes in necromancy.
On the other hand: a mundane attack on the factory might work. Well, assuming that the attackers could get the formula first, as well as a living shrub to transplant. That would make it a complicated job, of course — but that’s why the universe has freelance troubleshooting teams with no oversupply of scruples, correct?