Urine for a treat

About once a week I gather up the bottles and cans that have accumulated in my cube at work and empty the dregs into the kitchen sink before I toss them into the recycling. One of this week's offerings was a tall can of an energy drink called "Rock Star." I'd only made it about halfway through the can, because I didn't much like the flavour.

I noticed while pouring the remaining half of this stuff into the kitchen sink that it had the colour and consistency of piss.

That confirmed my earlier appraisal of "Rock Star," but it also got me wondering exactly where they get the 160 mg of caffeine and nearly two grams of guarana they put into every can.

I'm wondering if some enterprising young barista at a certain coffee-hawking megachain realized that 145,000 coffee-swilling employees worldwide produce a great deal of highly caffeinated pee. What a vast untapped reserve of riches, just waiting to be bottled and shipped off to the 7/11 conveniently located just down the road! A few grams of sugar, a little water and a hipster-baiting brand name later, a "Rock Star" is born.

Think about it. Even the brand names aren't all that different.