Weird Drinks Are Just Regular Drinks With a Dare Printed on the Label

Oct 19, 2026 01:00 AM EDT
Hand holding a parody Kentucky Fried Chicken Listerine bottle, one of the weird drinks shared online, in a store aisle.
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I have never met a drink I wasn’t willing to try at least once, and my stomach has filed several formal complaints about it. Some people see a strange can in a gas station cooler and keep walking, but I see a tiny aluminum dare with my name on it. Weird drinks are my love language, even the ones that are clearly fake, clearly cursed, or clearly mouthwash. So grab something cold, read the label twice, and come sip along with me.

Retro faucet graphic filling a glass, warning against drinking water for a very fishy reason.

Hydration has been cancelled.

Hand holding a cream colored Pepsi Maple Syrup Cola can decorated with dripping syrup and pancakes.

Finally, a soda that pairs with a short stack.

Purple Coca-Cola can labeled garlic, shared as a strange find from a trip to Romania.

Vampires are going to be furious.

Side by side cans of Dr Pepper and a parody Dr Salt with icy blue branding.

Dr Pepper's estranged brother.

Coca-Cola vanilla can with the cream colored top relabeled garlic in bold red letters.

Garlic again? Who is lobbying for this?

Hand holding a parody Kentucky Fried Chicken Listerine mouthwash bottle in a store aisle.

Fresh breath, eleven herbs and spices.

Parody blue mouthwash bottle labeled Listenhere, followed by a rude second line on the label.

Mouthwash with a parenting style.

Diet Coke can with a sealed, tabless top, captioned as a can't of coke.

The most diet a Diet Coke has ever been.

Person chugging an energy drink beside a mountain of crushed cans, joking about heart attacks.

Cardio, technically.

Steel flask engraved with a molecule diagram and the pun technically alcohol is a solution.

The only chemistry I retained from high school.

Bucket collecting water dripping out of a wall outlet, jokingly labeled energy drink.

Locally sourced, straight from the grid.

Tweet showing a bottle of Chinese herbal wine with an eyebrow raising English label.

The translation team clocked out early.

Pint glass layered with Guinness stout over green Monster energy drink, nicknamed the Gonster.

Ireland and a gas station had a baby.

Hand gripping a five gallon jug of Monster Ultra White in a warehouse store.

For when the tall can starts feeling like a sample size.

Hand holding a green and black Monster Energy liquor bottle in a store's vodka aisle.

Upper and downer in one convenient bottle.

Monster Energy Ultra bottle advertised as a 9 in 1 shampoo, protein, and testosterone.

The final form of the guy who showers in four minutes.

Five cups of blue liquid in front of sports drinks, glass cleaner, and windshield fluid.

This game has no winners, only a phone call.

Hand holding a packet of powdered water with instructions that say just add water.

Some assembly required.

Hand holding a pink bottle labeled Pepsi Bismol, a soda and stomach medicine mashup.

Causes and cures the stomachache in one sip.

Green Taco Bell fountain soda glowing in sunlight, praised as an accidental photography masterpiece.

Renaissance painting, fountain drink edition.

Bottle of smartwater beside a bottle humorously labeled Dumb Ass Water from Georgia.

Finally, a water that meets me where I am.

Fountain drink cup under a real sugar soda dispenser labeled Dr Doctor instead of Pepper.

Went to medical school twice, no regrets.

Taco Bell cup filling from a soda fountain button that only says coming soon.

Tastes like anticipation and syrup water.

Spilled chocolate milk beside a full shot glass, captioned like a heartbroken late night text.

Heartbreak hits different at 2 percent.

Smirnoff vodka bottle behind two Lightning McQueen children's cups, joking about getting drunk fast.

Kachow, responsibly.

Glass of orange juice crowned with a huge, towering cluster of ice on a counter.

Just a splash of juice with my ice, thanks.

Opened can styled like a Duracell battery, captioned as an upgrade from Red Bull.

Copper top, zero sleep.

Weird drinks

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My honest position is that every soda company is one bad quarter away from putting garlic in a can. Weird soda flavors used to be something you dared your cousin to try at a rest stop, and now they’re a whole corporate strategy, with breakfast syrup cola sitting on the shelf like it pays rent there. I respect the ambition. I would also drink it immediately, standing in the aisle, making direct eye contact with the cashier.

Then there are the energy drink memes, which have quietly become a support group for people who should be asleep. I went through a stretch where I had two of those tall cans before lunch and could hear my own eyelids. So when somebody suggests a five gallon jug, a shampoo version, or just skipping the middleman and sipping a battery, I don’t laugh at them. I laugh near them, nervously, because I have been that guy.

The fake product memes are where my trust in my own eyes goes to die. Half of these mashups look real enough that I have genuinely gone looking for them, which means a store clerk somewhere has heard me ask, with hope in my voice, whether they stock a mouthwash that tastes like fried chicken. And nothing humbles a grown man faster than pressing the coming soon button at a soda fountain out of pure optimism.

My theory is that drinks are the safest place a grown adult is still allowed to be adventurous. You can’t quit your job on a whim, but you can absolutely grab the purple can with the alarming flavor and let your tongue have the midlife crisis for you. It costs two bucks, it’s over in ten minutes, and you walk away with a story either way. That is the cheapest thrill in the entire grocery store.

And underneath all the fake labels and suspicious buckets, there’s something sweet going on. Every one of these posts is somebody holding up their weird little find and saying, you have to see this, which is exactly what we did as kids with a gross bug in a jar. The internet just gave us a bigger audience for the bug. I’ll keep looking, I’ll keep sipping, and my stomach will keep filing complaints that I will keep losing.

The can is open. The flavor is questionable. The sip is mandatory.

If your fridge has ever held something you were scared to open, you’ll feel right at home with our terrible product flavors roundup, a pile of cursed food that should come with a warning label, and a nostalgic drinks collection for anyone who still misses the stuff that turned your tongue blue. Add a round of Dr Pepper memes and you’ve got a full menu. Hydrate responsibly, or at least hydrate creatively.

Michael Hartley, or just "Mike," is an editor and seasoned meme historian whose articles have traced the evolution of meme humor from early Impact-font classics to today’s TikTok sensations. With nearly a decade spent as senior editor at ViralHype and as a regular contributor to Cheezburger, Mike has dissected the rise of meme legends such as Bad Luck Brian, Success Kid, and Doge. When he's not hunting down meme gold for Thunder Dungeon, Mike teaches workshops on meme marketing and the psychology behind shareable content.
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