Brace Yourself America: Coke's About To Give You An Energy Drink

If the insanity of the past few years has taught us anything (and I write this with one eye on today's news, and Jesus Christ), we cannot keep using the same methods to cope with life. Caffeinated soft drinks, plain old coffee, even water: none of it is good enough anymore. We need to bulletproof the coffee, enhance the water, and ditch the pop for energy drinks.

Accordingly, Coca-Cola, that great icon of Americana, has announced that it's releasing its very own energy drink in January: Coke Energy. (Didn't people always drink Coke for energy anyway? Moving on...) It comes in regular and cherry, with sugar and without.

Coke Energy is already available throughout Europe and in Australia. But according to Bloomberg analysts, Coke has been losing ground to energy drinks, which happen to be the fastest-growing subsegment of the food and beverage industry. They are much beloved by gamers, presumably the same people who used to mainline Coke to stay awake during all-night gaming sessions.

The many, many reports about how bad pop is for you can't have helped much, either.

So what is in Coke Energy? Per the official press release: Guarana extracts, B vitamins, and 114 mg of caffeine per 12-ounce serving, equivalent to a 12-ounce cup of drip coffee.

Strangely, Coke is already the largest shareholder in Monster, the nation's number-two energy drink after Red Bull. It also distributes Monster through its own network. Monster was, understandably, a bit concerned about Coke's foray into the energy drink market, but when the two companies went to arbitration, Ad Age and Bloomberg report, a tribunal decided it was totally okay. A spokeswoman reassured the reporters that Coke Energy was targeting people who don't already drink energy drinks. Well then.