A small crowd gathered in New York City's Union Square with candles for the vigil. Some brought their guitars and bongos to play in tribute, and others shared stories about the good times. It was November 17, 2010, and earlier that day it had been announced that after months of legal headaches, Four Loko would remove the caffeine and other stimulants from its controversial beverage formula. And so a small but mighty band of New Yorkers came together to mourn their blackouts, pukes, and raging hangovers together.

It’s been a decade since that fateful day—a decade of tamer drunken adventures, a decade of having to mix vodka and Red Bull yourself, a decade that enabled the rise of the zero-sugar-added hard seltzer. Four Loko, of course, is still available, but the original formula—lovingly dubbed “blackout in a can,” and frankly, a menace to society—has been off shelves for ten years now. And while the rise and fall of the original Four Loko happened in less than two years, few products have made such a lasting impression on the American drinking consciousness.

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In 2005, Ohio State frat bro alumni Jeff Wright, Jaisen Freeman, and Christopher Hunter decided the world needed a super caffeinated, high-ABV alcoholic beverage, seemingly because people didn't already do enough stupid things on their own. Inspired by the popularity of an energy beer called Sparks, they set out to produce a cherry-flavored, vodka-esque malt beverage, which they called Four, because it contained four notable ingredients: caffeine, taurine, guarana, and wormwood (the stuff absinthe is made from). It was a flop. But you know what they say always does the trick when your product flops?

Add camo.

In its second, 2008 iteration, the one that would lift the beverage to notoriety, Four gained its “Loko,” grew to tall-boy size, cut the wormwood, and got a flashy neon camo look. The alcohol content also doubled, taking the can from six to a whopping 12 percent ABV. Freeman told Grub Street that once the new cans hit New York bodegas, “it was pretty immediate...we couldn’t make it fast enough.” The drink, with as much alcoholic impact as roughly four beers and as much caffeine as roughly a cup and a half of coffee, tasted horrendously sweet, like rotting Fruit Gushers. In completely non-scientific terms, it fucked you up so badly because the caffeine masked the effects of the alcohol for a time, leading you to drink more than you might otherwise.

Arguably the most insane beverage to hit the market since there was actual cocaine in Coca-Cola, Four Loko’s revenue doubled from $45 million in 2009 to at least $100 million in 2010, Wright said. There are tales of accidental nude break-ins and hallucinations attributed to Four Loko. There is an entire genre of Four Loko rap music on YouTube from the summer of 2010, a website devoted to Four Loko stories, and Reddit threads full of people’s craziest nights. But the fun couldn't last.

Colleges across the country began banning Four Loko after student hospitalizations were connected to the drink. Several lawsuits were filed by families claiming their children’s deaths were caused by or linked to drinking Four Loko. (Four Loko’s statements at the time cited issues of “alcohol abuse and underage drinking.”) In November of 2010, the Federal Trade Commission sent a warning letter to several caffeinated alcoholic drink producers—including the makers of Joose, Max, Core High Gravity, and Moonshot—urging them to “take swift and appropriate steps to protect consumers.” All this prompted several states, including New York, to seek out bans on Four Loko, which brings us to the tale of a legendary act by an elected official.

Pre-backlash, Four Loko contained alcohol, caffeine, taurine, guarana, and wormwood. These days, it just has caffeine.

Felix Ortiz, New York State assemblyman, introduced legislation to ban Four Loko and other caffeinated alcoholic drinks in his state in the fall of 2010. Shortly thereafter, NBC News asked if he might drink some himself to see what exactly the drink did to one’s body. Don’t knock it till you try it, as the old adage goes. He agreed, “to show exactly how detrimental and dangerous this was for the health of our children.” And so, under the supervision of doctors, Ortiz proceeded to drink “one or two” Four Lokos, watch his blood pressure spike wildly, and violently throw up. “I think they gave me two or three pieces of pizza, trying to bring me back again,” he said of the experiment. (Imagine all the fun we’d have if politicians were not allowed to ban things without first having to publicly try them.)

But with several lawsuits pending against them and the FTC threat looming, the creators of Four Loko got out ahead of the trouble and announced, on November 17, 2010, that they would be removing the caffeine, taurine, and guarana from their recipe. New Yorkers took to Union Square to mourn.

The company was stuck with $30 million of unsellable inventory that we can only presume some warehouse rats had a couple wild nights with. But the inventory that was already out in the world when the ban was announced...that’s a different story. The distributors had until December 10 to stop selling their existing stock, and the stockpilers didn’t take long to strike. New York University students bought entire bodega stocks to resell to friends; cases were going for unheard of prices on eBay and Craigslist. Eddie Huang’s bar Xiao Ye, which was hosting Four Loko all-you-can-drink happy hours on the Lower East Side, was shut down after it’s third Four Loko raid in a matter of weeks. It was Prohibition all over again.

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Eventually, the black market well dried up, and all that we're left with today, ten years later, is a sickly sweet, high ABV, caffeine-free drink in a camo tall boy can. Earlier this year, Four Loko even released a 12 percent ABV hard seltzer whilst trying to maintain the brand’s image; it is marketed as "the hardest seltzer in the universe." Which, fine, it’s harder than a White Claw. But even the “blackout in a can” company has hopped on the "healthy" seltzer bandwagon.

Still, the legend of Four Loko lives on.

My brother, who was born in 2001 and currently goes to university in Ontario, Canada, where Four Loko was never legal in the first place, knows exactly what it is when I ask. And he defines it as an alcoholic energy drink, despite the fact that it hasn’t been an alcoholic energy drink since he was in elementary school. Worldwide, in South American, Mexican, and Chinese markets, too, Four Loko is regarded today as the crown jewel of the American Frat Beverage. Its reputation has outlived its actual effects by a decade.

Was the original Four Loko really that destructive, or was it the fact it was only available for a short, blackout blip in time, that cemented it into urban legend? The young adults of today may never know. Unless...

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