Chill Out Drinks Are The New Cool Beverage

By on July 19, 2011 in News 12

purple-stuffEunju Lie reports on the new trend in beverages for Reuters:

Sales of “relaxation drinks” with names like Vacation in a Bottle, Dream Water and Just Chill, while small, are growing. “There is clear potential for further growth in the coming years,” said Cecilia Martinez, market analyst at UK-based beverage research group Zenith International.

Relaxation drinks help the body chill out by relieving muscle tension and reducing levels of cortisone, the main stress hormone, according to a report that Martinez wrote about the drinks earlier this year.

The drinks, which evolved in Japan as far back as 2005, contain no alcohol but some have melatonin, a hormone that can cause drowsiness. The biggest relaxation brands include Innovative Beverage Group’s Drank, Purple Stuff and Jones GABA.

Another called Slow Cow is up and coming…

[continues at Reuters]

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  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Jamal-Mohmed/663730590 Jamal Mohmed

    I’ve been trying these drinks sometimes when I happen across different types/brands. Some have a generous variety of mild herbal intoxicants like Kava Kava, which is an MAOI (used as antidepressants) thus there’s a possibility of dependence, not to mention possibility of a bad reaction to other medications or drugs. Most all those herbs just make too lethargic personally, I prefer good ol’ mary jane.

  • Anonymous

    Needs more Robitussin.

  • fuzzgun

    These drinks are bullshit. Melatonin has no specific calming properties – it just directly induces sleep. The other actives I’ve seen in these types of drinks are small, barely-psychoactive amounts of passion flower, valerian, nacinamide and all the other common over the counter tranquilizing herbs.

  • fuzzgun

    Another point  – supplemental GABA doesn’t even cross the blood-brain barrier, so it doesn’t have the same calming effect as GABA that’s produced in the brain.

    All the active ingredients in these are dirt cheap and readily available from any online vitamin supplier. If you think a crappy 100mg of valerian or whatever in one of these drinks calms you down, try taking an actual therapeutic dose of the herbs in pill form – which actually tends to be in the 1000-2000mg range.

    It also seems to me that melatonin was included in these drinks to deliberately mislead consumers. People will get sleepy, so they’ll assume that the “relaxation drink” worked. Melatonin has no effect on anxiety or calmness though – just actual sleep.

  • Guest

    Hell of a placebo effect though. I can really see these catching on!

  • DeepCough

    Honestly, I’d rather stick with caffeine-fueled sugar rush from those HFCS based soft drinks from Coke and Pepsi than drink this nonsense. Honestly, melatonin in a can? They couldn’t get approval for Xanax or Thorazine?

  • Malk

    last time I took melatonin i slept for nearly 36 hours… no thanks XD

  • Hadrian999

    you’ll never go broke banking on the gullibility of people, our entire way of life is predicated upon it.

  • Hadrian999

    you’ll never go broke banking on the gullibility of people, our entire way of life is predicated upon it.

  • David Crowe

    I read about something like this in a book one time only they it “Soma”… :P

  • David Crowe

    I read about something like this in a book one time only they it “Soma”… :P

  • SomaFM

    We will finally have our state-sanctioned Soma when MDMA is legalized and you can go down to CVS and pick up your weekly dose. And I. Can’t. Wait.