Ow my liver

For the non-Americans in the audience, what is White Claws?

Soda water with vodka and a homeopathic amount of fruity flavoring
- I keep seeing people make fun of it online but that sounds like something I’d enjoy. My drink of choice for a few years now has been the depressing combination of whatever carbonated water is available with whatever better-than-rotgut-but-only-just vodka is available.
  Rotgut-tier is also fine in a pinch. But the bad stuff here will make you blind.
  (I’m also a fan of “give me your sweetest, fruitiest, girliest drink”, which was great fun back in uni when all the dudes around me were ordering bitter beverages they clearly didn’t enjoy. By trying to project masculinity to the girls around us, they were actually betraying an underlying insecurity about it - and by ordering my girly drink I was gently lampshading that idea. Fun times.)
- Bet he was full of pep when he got to work.
- Sounds good -- my go-to drink at my local is a vodka and soda with a lime wedge. (Occasionally will get a vodka and tonic with a twist if I'm feeling daring.)
- Vodka seltzer
A can of carbonated water with a shot of vodka in it.
Just as much flavour as a typical flavoured carbonated water too
- Just to clarify at least original White Claw gets its alcohol from fermented sugar. It’s basically a gluten free clear beer with no hops and fruit flavor added.
  High Noon and anything labeled Vodka soda use actual distilled spirit. Those are more expensive and taste better, especially after a few.
- It's honestly really refreshing during summer to drink vodka + carbonated water. If it's really hot (or I'm super full of food) I don't want much taste and carbonated water does a good job of hiding away the vodka taste.
  It's a common drink in Finland, Koskenkorva vodka and vichy (water)
An energy drink
- Found the husband!
Basically flavoured water with alcohol.
- And bubbles
White claw is a drink that comes in vaguely energy-drink looking cans, tastes bad (if it has any flavor at all), and has a slight alcohol content.
In fairness, my opinion of flavor should be taken with a grain of salt (lol) because I really dislike the taste of alcohol and am honestly surprised anyone could drink even a low percentage without recognizing ethanol’s horrible flavor.
- Huh, you may be surprised to hear, but I actually LIKE the taste of ethanol in many drinks.
- 5% ABV, might be slight in Poland
- I think part of that might be genetic, similar to how cilantro tastes like soap to some people.
"Hard seltzer." fruit scented fizz water with a little booze in it, marketed mainly to women.
- with a little booze in it
  I've never heard of this drink before, but I've looked it up and it's 5% ABV. That's not "a little" booze; that's the same as a premium beer.

In the 19th century all kinds of “snake oil” mixtures were sold as pain killers and energy tonics. The vast majority were just something suspended in alcohol. Alcohol dulls pain and makes you feel a rush of euphoria. So people thought it was “medicine.”

It continues to this day. My wife was convinced that a certain kombucha was benefitting her gut microbiome in some profound way because it made her feel so great to drink it. Turns out the brand got in trouble - their process was letting through 1.5-2% alcohol (yes my wife is a lightweight).

We like to talk about drugs like there's this clear delineation between something that is and isn't medicine... but it really comes down to the situation and the dosage.
For much of history and in most places, liquor was the most effective painkiller available. More recently, fentanyl started as a synthetic, medical grade painkiller. It's still widely used across hospitals for that. Before synthetics, it was opium (otherwise known as heroin), derived from poppy plants.
- Very true. The difference between medicine and poison is often just dosage.
- Heroin is made from opium. It's not the same.
- Not just painkiller, a bit of alcohol will kill tons of nasties, so it was often the case that lightly fermented drinks are safer and healthier than many water sources.
What brand?
- White Claw
- GT’s, around 15 years ago

If a 12 oz can at 5% ABV once per day makes you feel liver pain, there's probably something wrong with your liver, and maybe the drinking life isn't for you.

It's fine, I'll just take more Tylenol to deal with the pain.
- Just drink Painquil! It's acetaminophen, and it's 10% alcohol! The old liver double whammy.
- Oh no
I miss feeling things

I did the same almost, bought weird new energy drinks, was about to drink one at work, looked at the can better, 5,5% alcohol. Whoops.

Drank it on the drive home instead, naturally

Why the fuck are you drinking alcohol and driving?
- If god didn't want us to drink and drive then why'd he invent those nifty beer can hats?
- I had already opedened it, what else was I supposed to do, pour it out?? How wasteful smdh fr
- Insane that you're getting downvoted for this. I feel like alcohol abuse is so normalised in a lot of places. This really shouldn't be a controversial comment.
- If they get past a 0.07 with 1 white claw, I envy their lack of tolerance induced financial burdens and I hope they have a great time where nobody gets hurt but I also hope they know their limit and never drink and drive because we all share the road and a drunk driver probably won't end up killing the person who doesn't understand that the left lane is for crime that really ruins the buzz on my drive home.
- All the arguments below, but I'm pretty sure it was a joke. He's drinking it on the way home instead of the way to work. I laughed.
They have those weed waters now too. I love them but wouldn't want someone to get that by mistake
Was it the Monster Beast Unleashed?

One of my American colleagues in Japan once got written up because he didn’t know chūhai was alcoholic. It came in a can with colourful fruits on it on a shelf next to the coke.

Couldn't have been STRONG ZERO
- That stuff still gives me nightmares

tell me how these weren't designed to give alcoholics plausible deniability lol

Oh, I thought they were designed to give alcoholics heart attacks
- Naw, the industry basically self-regulated itself out of mixing alcohol and caffeine after all the Four Loko incidents. The labeling is just for brand loyalists or something now, idk
those are actually kinda good tho

Never been ID’ed for an energy drink.

Be glad you don't live in the UK then. You have to be able to prove that you're over 16, or 18 - I forget which. Luckily I don't have to worry about that being 27, but it does get annoying when I forget about it and take a monster through the self checkouts. Normally I have to wait maybe 5 minutes for the overworked employee to notice me and authorize the purchase.
- They did this in Sweden too. Then people stopped buying energy drinks, because most people self checkout and you had to wait for an employee to come check that you are an adult. And swedes being swedes, they would rather die than go through that.
  Now they have a permanent employee checking from afar with a tablet, approving people without any intervention or interruption. I wouldnt be surprised if the energy drink brands partially pay for them.
- Energy drinks are pretty bad for you though. Probably should do the same thing in the US.
- Honestly caffeine should be age restricted to like 15+. Its a very addictive psychoactive drug.
- Technically you dont have to, its not an actual law just supermarkets being melts
- Why do people have to be ID'd for an energy drink? We don't have to be ID'd for them here
I never got ID'd buying Sparks (basically four loko before four loko was cool). The places I went that had it, stocked it with the RedBull and it only says it has alcohol in it in the smallest of print. I was getting that shit when I was still just 18.
im rarely id'd for beer...

“thought”

In some sense it shows how beautiful this community is that I had to scroll all the way down here to find the "he knew" comment.
All the rest are just supportive, like "I almost made the same mistake".

Ain't no open container laws when you're drinkin' claws.

Trevor?!

Do people not read the package at all for the food they consume? It says right on the front the alcohol content.

Put it near enough to the energy drink case in the convenience store, and this kind of mixup seems plausible.
Yeah that’s kind of insane. I kind of get it if you’re seeing it for the first time and someone else is holding it, but to actually buy it and not realize it’s alcohol is a completely different level.
- Assuming this is real, maybe the wife bought them for herself and hubby thought, "I'm sure she wouldn't mind if I started snagging these bad boys". She notices that some are missing, asks about it, and we have our reveal.
Party pooper

It's not easy to tell the difference between a can of kombucha and a can of thc sparkling juice at first glance either. Both have similar designs.

I can't tell if you're being serious or if you're leaning into the joke bc here in america they take all of the alcohol out of kombucha so both drinks would be intoxicating anywhere else
- Yes almost all the alcohol is removed from kombucha so it is not intoxicating.

Watched my boss drink one of those and a red bull at the same time. Regular thing for her apparently.

Like alternating between, mixed drink, or just both cans right to the mouth at once?
- She had two cans open, alternating between the two. It was like watching a train wreck.
That's a Redbull Vodka with soda water.
Is this from a Trailer Park Boys episode?
- This lady makes six figures for sure. Sounds like it though.

Bet he’s been having a very good work time though.

they're..

they're not?

Newp! Alcoholic seltzer!

Mango juice

That's just one drink a day, not that bad for your liver. (For some anyway, I have no idea how some people drink so much.)

If one was to drink a beer first thing in the morning to get an energy boost it would be called "hair of the dog". IMO, dude in this fictional story has a hangover and the malt liquor alleviates his symptoms.
source: reformed boozehound
If it's in the car, it's pretty illegal a lot of places.
Depends on how strong and how much, some comments saying 2.5% though which probably isn't too bad.
- Claws are 5%

As someone who has successfully cut down their alcohol intake this is cringe supreme for me.

Found the husband

Conversely, we had a small event at work with three different drinks, of which two were lemonade and the third looked like just another flavor of lemonade, but was actually an energy drink. You basically had to read the ingredients to find out.

I'm sorry, you don't know what an alcohol buzz feels like? I'm caling bullshit on this one.

Or what alcohol tastes like.

Is this an ADHD meme?

(Smol amount of alcohol to focus the mind a bit, deal with normal amounts of ADHD anxiety? Still, not reading the labels is weird.)

Wait is this a thing? Sounds like a horrible way to manage but I'm down to try anything.
- It only kinda is, it's more of a partial indicator really (not on it's own, a distant personal clue that fits more puzzles), doesn't last long & is easily overruled by other shit (a bad/worse focus day, emotional things, adrenaline, etc).
- It's not really a thing. ADHD is usually medicated with stimulants, not depressants. Counterintuitively, ADHD brains suffer from a lack of sensitivity to dopamine and similar chemicals, and stimulants flood the brain with these giving ADHD people an experience closer to neurotypical.
  Alcohol as a depressant does the exact opposite thing that an ADHD brain needs, and will make core symptoms worse.
Hangover also great for ADHD. Slows down the mind. Quite productive unless you buy in to the idea that you can't do stuff while hungover.
Pity alcohol is so bad for you.
- Yeah, being sick is a little vacation from yourself.

He knew

Let's be clear here, calling white claws an alcoholic beverage is... Technically true, but it's literally %2.5, I wouldn't put it past someone to not notice they're drinking with that weak sauce

They're 5%
- The blue cans are 8%.
Where are you getting that number from? I don't think I've ever seen an alcoholic beverage with that low of a percentage
- It's apparently not white claws, but 2.5s absolutely exist
- IDK about the US, but 2.5% is very common for bottled beer-and-soda mixes (usually lemon- or orange-flavored) here.