A Sip in Time … Could Save Your Mind

By DENI KASREL
Big Shout Magazine, January 1993

My how the times change. In the ’60s and ’70s the hip crowd’s motto was “turn on, tune in, and drop out.” If you wanted to be “in,” you dropped acid and smoked a doobie, to, as Grace Slick urged, “feed your head.”

In the ’80s, cocaine fueled many peoples’ partying fires. And of course, booze was there all along.

These days, however, a growing number of today’s youth consider such escapist, mind-altering substances passé. Taking a head trip or getting blitzed isn’t for them — getting high to these kids doesn’t mean shutting one’s brain off but rather turning it on all the more. Instead of seeking to “get stupid,” they’re out to get smart.

And one way they’re doing that is by sipping so-called “smart drinks” — alcohol free beverages made primarily from vitamins, minerals, and amino acids. A toast of “to your health” with one of these may be taken quite literally: Smart drinks are said to replenish and enhance physical wellbeing. They come with claims of boosting one’s memory, energy levels, and concentration capabilities. Some purport to stave off the effects of aging, and others are said to be detoxifying agents.

Smart drinks are all the rage at house/techno rave parties lately. Clubs that run these dance-music events frequently cater to their audience with special “smart bars.”

When Vagabond, Philadelphia’s popular traveling band of DJs, shows up at its various locations, entrepreneur Joe Popi now comes along with them to pour out his homemade smart cocktails.

“I use my own stuff, my own mixes, using strictly vitamins, minerals, and proteins,” says Popi, who has drawn up his own menu of drinks, each of which is described by the projected effect it will have on the body. His Zing-A-Ling, a pick-you-upper, offers “body energy you can fee.” Down a Foc-A-Ling and Popie promises a “feel good mental state.”

Patrons at Manhattan’s trendy Limelight nightclub can step up to its smart bar and order glasses of Energy Elicksure and Power Punch. At San Francisco’s Nutrient Cafe, they serve Intellex and Renew You. Bartenders at Langhorne, PA’s club Fizz mix glasses of Encyclo Piña (made with a trademarked ingredient named Focus).

Janet Metague, associate manager at Fizz is an enthusiastic supporter of her club’s recently opened Cybersonic Smart Bar.

“We see the physical and mental stimulation tolls as the wave of the future because more people are busy and more people are health conscious,” she says.

Metague is not alone in her thoughts. In the past two years, smart bars have begun popping up in major cities across the U.S. (and they continue to proliferate in England, home of the rave scene). In Cleveland, there’s even a spot named Smart Bar.

Some bars have found that adding smart drinks to their menu allows them a means to stay open after hours since the beverages are non-alcoholic, they can be served anytime. Also, certain smart drinks are deemed to be detoxicants, and bar goers are encouraged to take one for a safer ride home; an action that gives new meaning to the old expression “one for the road.”

The term “smart drink” is a neat, modish title for liquid nutrient products, says Arne Bey, president of Life Services Supplements, a Neptune, NJ-based nutrient company. According to him, the smart drink trend is a direct result of rave parties held by a pair of Californians, Jim English and Neysa Griffith (aka “Earth Girl”).

The two entertainment promoters noted the growing smart drink craze on the Brit rave scene and they imported the concept to our country. “And they gave them wild names to make them sound exciting,” says Bey. “But really they’re nothing more than the nutrient drinks that we had been selling all along to life-extension enthusiasts and to people who want to take their vitamins in a liquid form.”

Though his company supplies a number of smart bar supply distributors with the basic drink formulations, Bey takes no credit for the blossoming attention given to these products.

“We’re in the vitamin business,” he comments. “We never thought of the term ‘smart drink.’ We never envisioned the idea. This could never come out of the mind of a corporate marketing person — it’s just too wild.”

Items in Bey’s product line are touted as being “unique, scientific formulations for health maintenance and more.”

They’re trademarked under the name “designer foods.” Of the 25 health enhancements sold by Life Services Supplements, seven are nutrient drinks, which are powders that are mixed with either water or fruit juices. Bey says a lot of his customers prefer to ingest their health supplements in drink form rather than taking capsules or tablets.

“And also, if they know a little more about nutrition and vitamins, then they know that when a vitamin is in drink form, unliked a tablet, it doesn’t have to break down with stomach acids and so on. It’s more bio-available,” Bey notes.

Bey’s cerebral offerings were devised by Durk Pearson and Sandy Shaw, research scientists and best-selling authors of the book Life Extension, A Practical Scientific Approach. Pearson/Shaw’s formulations are based on studies observing how certain brain-related processes are the result of specific biochemical reactions. What the two have done is isolate certain agents and nutrients involved with brain activity. They have come up with their own recipes for enhanced body and brain performance, packaged them, and are now selling their products through mail-order catalog companies.

Each of their designer foods comes with specific enhancement features. The orange-raspberry flavored Rise & Shine is promoted as giving “appetite satisfaction and long-lasting energy.” Fortified with L-Phenylalanine, an essential amino acid that simulates the central nervous system, Rise & Shine acts on the brain’s natural adrenaline transmitters. Those who want an even bigger boost can take Blast, which adds caffeine into the mix and gives users “long-lasting energy.”

The high-performance formulation, Energy Cycle, is said to be “a brain food, a muscle food, and a carbohydrate craving satisfier.” It’s used by “world class body builders, athletes, and holders of Guinness Book of World Records.” Additionally, Life Services Supplements claim Energy Cycle is also “a favorite of computer programmers and hard-working executives who have to keep their minds functioning efficiently even when the work week stretches to and beyond 80 hours.”

Basic nutrients found in a variety of smart drinks include various members of the vitamin-B family, vitamin C, choline (a body nutrient essential to memory and problem-solving functions), the amino acid arginine (believed to assist the body’s muscle building and fat-burning capabilities), and gingko biloba (an extract from the gingko tree which is touted as a brain stimulant).

Two Chinese herbs are often part of the equation as well: ephedra (used for stimulant effect), and ginseng, the popular root that comes with all sorts of purported benefits, including improved brain function and increased sex drive. Besides these ingredients, co-factors may be added — agents used to help the body absorb the supplements in an efficient fashion.

Whether or not the ingestion of these supplements really can do as they say is a matter of contention, especially in the scientific community. For years, health gurus like Pearson and Shaw have had to endure insults from disbelievers. Many scientific researchers pooh-pooh the whole concept of vitamins and related herbal extracts and nutrients entirely. Dr. Victor Herbert, a professor at New York’s Mount Sinai School of Medicine was quoted in an April 1992 Time Magazine article as saying, “We get all the vitamins we need in our diets. Taking supplements just gives you expensive urine.”

Still there are many believers in nutrient supplements. And as borne out by the upsurge in smart drink proponents, their numbers are presently increasing. But can smart drinks really make you smarter? Not likely, and even those who espouse their use are quick to clear up the matter.

As explained by Joe Popi “There are few ways of taking the term ‘smart’ — it can be interpreted in different ways. Basically, what you’re doing with a smart drink is eating a very good meal. And it’s so good your body start to run right because it gets everything it needs for enhanced function. These vitamins, minerals, and other things are the constituents of a meal. But rarely are you going to be able to get anything quite like this nutrition ever,” continues Popi. “I mean, I’m not gonna say I added 10 IQ points. I wouldn’t make that claim. But you definitely will notice that you’re perceiving things a lot better and more clearly. Your thinking is not as cluttered.”

Life Sciences’ Bey is equally careful about the “smart” tag.

“You’re not going to become an Einstein if you take these drinks, and we make no such claims,” he states. “I think they’re called ‘smart drinks’ because they are the smart alternative to drinking [alcohol} and drugs.”

Bey is also quick to disassociate his products from pharmaceuticals known as “smart drugs.” These are definitely not drugs,” he emphasizes. “They are basic nutrients.”

However one chooses to interpret smart drinks, they are finding a receptive audience in the ’90s techno-culture that is quick to embrace cutting-edge products like virtual reality machines and biofeedback gadgetry. Smart drinkers are a varied lot, ranging from the young rave crowd to AIDS patients and activists, college students, and others who want to beef up their mental and physical mettle.

The think drinks are also the choice of many who eschew drugs and alcohol. It is indeed the perfect product for the “just say no” generation.

“It’s a thing that appeals to people who are younger in nature,” asserts Popi. “They’re the ones willing to take it on its own merits. The older group wants to compare it to drugs and booze, and they’re nothing like drugs and booze. But if that’s your frame of reference, then that’s the comparison you’re gonna make.”

Popi notes that some who step up to his bar are disappointed that they don’t get the same high from his mixtures that they may get from consuming alcoholic beverages. Smart drinks, he says, aren’t intended to enhance the effects of alcohol or drugs.

“Booze is a poison,” he warns. “That’s why you get hangovers and liver disease from it. It’s not good for your body and eventually your body tells you so. But with smart drinks, you know it’s making your mind and body function as a whole. And you feel great from doing that.”