Or perhaps, at worst, an “inadvisable” science. I made a ‘mana potion’.
I have a habit of experimenting with a lot of things. I am a reasonably good cook, sometimes dabbling in molecular cookery; I build and alter furniture around the house when needed; I assemble the occasional experimental bit of electronics too. Your basic renaissance nerd, I suppose. I haven’t tried forcing metal to demonstrate intense blackbody radiation then smacking it with more metal, though; I prefer to leave that particular insanity to Marcus and Charly.
What I’ve done here is something that’s been on my mind for a long while. I’m a big fan of a particular brand of energy drink, the only one I’ve encountered that is not carbonated and tastes reasonably pleasant, like semi-artificial juice. That product was becoming harder and harder to find even before the pandemic and now I don’t think any local stores at all carry it. Energy shots work, but they’re kind of like having your brains smashed in with a slice of lemon wrapped around a gold brick. Effective, but unpleasant.
So I decided to try to make my own. I ordered a pile of reagents from a couple of online shops and also some lab glassware (if you haven’t done this, I highly recommend it; short of “Fools! I’ll show them all!!” nothing feels as mad-sciency as saying “Ah, my reagents have arrived!”). Then I prepared four concentrate cocktails from them, one containing amino acids (and glucuronolactone), one containing magnesium carbonate, one containing vitamins, and one containing the actual caffeine and taurine, the concentrations calculated to give a final dose gentler than the energy shots but a bit heavier than the dearly departed drink.
Mmm science potions
Then I made an interesting blue beverage from ingredients at hand (lime-blueberry flavor with a hint of coconut) and added in the correct few mL of each of these. If I have crunched the numbers correctly, the final drink, the “mana potion”, should contain:
- 30 mg Magnesium carbonate
- 20 mg Calcium ascorbate (Ca + C)
- 200 µg Folic acid (B9)
- 30 mg Niacin [niacinamide] (B3)
- 5 mg Pantothenic Acid (B5)
- 15 mg Pyridoxine HCL (B6)
- 50 µg Cyanocobalamin (B12)
- 250 mg Glucuronolactone
- 150 mg L-Phenylalanine (AA)
- 150 mg N-Acetyl L-Tyrosine “NALT” (AA)
- 480 mg Taurine
- 160 mg Caffeine
It’s late now. Tomorrow morning, we see if it worked. MUAHAHAHAHA!!
U really liked HHG2tG dincha. Hope your experiment goes well. The other day I was thinking, somebody needs to make a spice melange so we can trip ballz on that, pretend we’re space jeezises. Maybe earthworms paprika and LSD, but I’d take constructive criticism on the idea.
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Well I’m definitely interested in how this experiment turns out. I’ve been consuming the little bottles of water flavoring (name-brand and grocery-brand, with and without caffeine) for several years, but getting a bit bored of some of the flavors and they are not always on sale. I wind up drinking 2~5 glasses a day partly because I’m a mouth breather, so go through a bottle every few days which is kinda expensive and definitely wasteful with those little plastic bottles.
What about good old methamphetamine? It’s cheap and plentiful.
(joking aside, I am genuinely surprised that nobody has yet discovered that some popular “energy” drink is not some form of amphetamine. I’m not sure if it’d be any more addictive than caffeine in small doses.)
Is it Strovite you’re making? Or Red Bull?
I recognize the Taurine from Red Bull. You’ve got some dopamine precursors in there, too. Have you been reading Sasha Shulgin?
@4 Marcus
The choice of supplements is from combining – really, averaging, where possible – two existing drinks, so it’s not any specific one, and isn’t based on a recipe I found either. I have never heard of Sasha Shulgin! This was purely an empirical “these worked, let’s see what happens” thing.
@1 G. A. Satan
Since I posted a whole animated video inspired by the H2G2 style and am working on another right now, I think we can safely say yes. 😀