Drunk, But Not Wired

Good business is all about feeding demand. And MillerCoors, a joint venture between SABMiller and Molson Coors, apparently saw a big thirst among testosterone-addled young men for a drink which mixed alcohol and caffeine—sort of a speedball for the sweatshirt-and-shorts set. They called their product Sparks Red. Since most of them probably don't go to a lot frat parties, they either didn't think about, or didn't care about, the inherent dangers or the inevitable obnoxiousness that would result.

But consumer advocates and more than a dozen state attorneys general did. And now, three months after the states asked MillerCoors to cease and desist from unleashing hordes of drunken, sleepless youths upon college campuses, sports bars, and roadways, the company has relented. It will remove caffeine and other stimulants.

"Attorneys general from around the country are gravely concerned about premixed alcoholic energy drinks," Maine Attorney General Steve Rowe said in a statement. "They're popular with young people who wrongly believe that the caffeine will counteract the intoxicating effects of the alcohol."

In a prepared statement, MillerCoors President Tom Long said: "We are always willing to listen to societal partners and consider changes to our business to reinforce our commitment to alcohol responsibility."

Long's "societal partners," though, had made "inaccurate allegations about the marketing and sale of Sparks," he said.

The company agreed to yank the drink's Web site, so it's hard to gauge the accuracy of the societal partners' (attorneys general) statement that it looked "like it was created by a college freshman."

It's not clear what precisely MillerCoors is planning to do with the brand, which was conceived and marketed explicitly as a booze-caffeine combo. The company isn't pulling it—at least not yet—but says it will be "reformulated." That's what Anheuser Busch did with its similar Tilt brand earlier this year after making a similar deal with the grown-ups. Tilt is now simply an awful-sounding "flavored malt beverage."