Today is a sad day in the Neon Nation, and it’s hard to imagine what a whole generation of Philthy Pauls and Lil’ Conrads and Jay Yoos will do now that their formula has been taken away. For what crack babies were to the 1980s, the Sparks Generation was to us. Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan announced that, as part of a get-out-of-hot-water agreement for MillerCoors, Sparks must reformulate its signature caffeine/alcohol mixture. In particular, the brewer will remove all caffeine, taurine, guarana and ginseng from the product as well as making some marketing changes. Which will make Sparks no longer Sparks. But oh, it had a good run. Sparks first blasted upon the Philly nightlife scene in ‘02, when Sparks became the freebie du jour at various Dave P parties, most notably Fire In The Disco at the now-defunct Soma. By ‘04, the beverage was ubiquitous in these parts, which produced this memorable article by Christine Smallwood in The Philadelphia Independent, notable not only for being the first major piece written about Sparks, but also for documenting the effects it had on its users’ and marketing rep’s brains:

“The first rep I dealt with was totally fucking cool, totally on the level. She dated a guy in the Rapture,” [Matt Werth] recalls. He declined to give the rep’s name.

And:

Independent music promoter Sean Agnew, who made the unlikely claim that he had been drinking Sparks since 2000, before it existed, swears by it. “I love Sparks!” he shouted. “It makes you act like a robot on cocaine.”

Ah, Sparks. You will be missed.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 18th, 2008 at 3:29 pm.