413 Comments

I had the mango yuzu one, they had it in the bubbler fountain next to the teas and such. I didn't think it was anything but a new lemonade flavor. I drank two. I didn't realize until later how much caffeine that was. It's dangerous for there not to be clear warning.

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Why would lemonade need any caffeine? When I want a caffeinated beverage I know "lemonade" is not the first thing that springs to mind!

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For me that goes for the "hard" lemonade they sell these days too.

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When I see a drink described as “charged,” I’m going to think it’s carbonated, not caffeinated! Why would anyone think lemonade is caffeinated?

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I tried the Blood Orange (which is sugar-free) and 1. It didn't taste that good, NOTHING like the Blood Orange drink they had 5ish years ago and 2. I did not feel energized at all. Though, in retrospect, it may have contributed to the panic attack I had about 90 minutes later.

(I have a pretty high caffeine tolerance-- the only times I've ever felt truly affected is the day my office did red bull slushies and I accidentally had for little cups and also every time I combine Sudafed, Diet Coke, and not eating.)

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When I make lemonade at home, I might put in 𝘢𝘵 𝘮𝘰𝘴𝘵 about 12 grams of sugar for a big 16 ounce glass. To put 68 grams of sugar strikes me as insane.

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I remember when Len Bias died. The one thing that probably saved more people from dying from cocaine was it was so fucking expensive. Still, in the late 70s and early 80s, it was the hottest of hot drugs, and the coolest of the cool used it -- though if you over-indulged, you were looked down on as a "snowball."

But then came -- and so quickly went -- Len Bias. His fate was probably the other thing that saved more people from dying from cocaine. Though it was obvious that cocaine was risky, it had developed a rep as being a non-addictive and safe pleasure -- don't ask me how it got that rep. Everybody I knew who used it -- and that included me and nearly everybody I knew, for those were my young and wildsome days -- knew that it was a risky drug. One of its most significant effects was it made you want more cocaine, in ways that could spin out of control and into tragic consequences.

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David Crosby's autobiography is a horror story of coke addiction, especially once he got into free-basing.

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I am stuck on the question of why anyone would want caffeine in lemonade.

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Because caffeine is the only legal drug for kids, and kids LOVE the stuff, and get hooked on it just like adults do.

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There’s a principal accident lawyers sometimes describe as “ the violinist’s hands.” Defendant causes an accident that results in a violist’s hand being crushed. The victim sues for a hundred million because he could have made that in concerts. The defendant says, “Ya rahnah. I dint know he was a fancy violinist. He should get what any mug, excuse the language, would get if he got his hand crushed. Like ten thousand.” Nope. The principal is that you don’t pay a hypothetical client, you pay the client you are given. So Panera doesn’t get to say “we dint know she had a heart problem.” But… (lawyer talk, yawn, where is Liz Dye when you need her) the question is whether the lemonade was the proximate cause of the young woman’s death. Experts will weigh in, for a price.1

1 Mandatory footnote: discontinuing, or not, the charged lemonade drink won’t affect their liability for this injury. The jury will be instructed to ignore evidence that the defendant attempted to “fix” the problem.

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Oct 31, 2023·edited Oct 31, 2023

I stopped drinking lemonade when I went to the county fair and bought a lemonade. It was a 32 oz cup, I think, and I saw them put a cup of sugar in it. That might be more than a bouquet of cotton candy.

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Cotton candy is, shockingly, like one teaspoon of sugar for pounds of the stuff. When I saw someone make it at a fair I literally gasped. There is more sugar in my tea than that!

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It's funny, at the baseball game I was just at (aka, the shittiest World Series game ever, boo) the cotton candy guy was bellowing "Git yer bag o' sugar!"

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A dentist invented it! Designed to thrill but not decay. I used to feel guilty eating it and now it’s my go to purchase at fairs.

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Oct 31, 2023·edited Oct 31, 2023

There are some canned (or aluminum bottle) coffees in Japan that are between 200-260 mg of caffeine, usually unsweetened. One of those is good. Two or more is a bad idea.

Of course, one expect to find a lot of caffeine in coffee. In lemonade, not so much.

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Lemonade Executive: "How much caffeine is in our lemonade soft drink?"

Lemonade scientist: "Oh jeez like 50 miligrams."

Lemonade Executive: "Put more in."

Lemonade scientist: "We could, um, we could go to 100. Double it."

Lemonade Executive: "More."

Lemonade Scientist: "We could go to 200 but that's a lot of caffeine."

Lemonade Executive: "MORE."

Lemonade Scientist: "Look, we could put 300 milligrams in it but that is a lot..."

Lemonade Executive: "MORE! I want the drink to taste like lemon-zested-caffeine. I want enough caffeine in that drink to kill a horse. I want so much caffeine that even sniffing it makes my heart pound so hard that blood starts spraying out my ears!"

Lemonade Scientist: "This is madness."

Lemonade Executive: "THIS. IS. PANERA!"

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Oct 31, 2023·edited Oct 31, 2023

"You will note that the sign still does not list the amount of caffeine that is actually in the drink"

it does, in the fine print. # oz | # cal | # mg caffeine

I tend to drink a couple of C4 every day (~400mg), because addict. The Orange Slice and the Bombsicle are delish. The big difference is I always go sugar free, because you know natural stimulants are bad for you in quantities.

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Deathade

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The amount of caffeine is listed on the dispenser directly under the flavor.

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Everybody reads the dispenser!

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they should; it's the 'label' on a fountain product.

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That's why nobody reads it.

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I must be the only person who reads labels everywhere. I mean, they're there for a reason (aside from the legal requirement). I often learn a thing or two

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Oct 31, 2023·edited Oct 31, 2023

Pantera > Panera

https://youtu.be/yhXuMD9Wlro?si=aQgtDLS-ki6HcO9i

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We're taking over this town....

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Aren’t Mango and Mint two of the original flavors that Juul used?

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I recently saw a doc on Nethuluprime about Juul and yes Mango was the big seller to the kiddies.

Maybe its the result of my being a teen in the stone ages when homophobia was raging, but it seems like if the anti-Juul people had wanted to get the kids to stop, "You look like you are sucking a dick" would have been a more effective campaign than "Its bad for you". They could have even seeded the term Juul as slang for a blowjob. I am sure Urban Dictionary can be bought off.

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