Caffeinated Homebrew White Claw with Ketamine
by Gabriel Smith
Boy Blowing Soap Bubbles by Karel Dujardin, 1663
I have recently started taking Vyvanse (a dexamphetamine) daily, prescribed by a real doctor for my fake ADHD. While it’s wonderful to have an excuse to be on speed literally all the time, it does have some side effects: my heart goes faster, my blood feels more pressured, I want cigarettes all the time, and my mouth is extremely dry.
I can deal with the first three side effects. What I can’t bear is the dry mouth. I Googled it and some users on the r/Stims subreddit say it goes away with time. It hasn’t. The only cure for the dry mouth seems to be sparkling water, applied frequently. Something about the bubbles fixes it. Don’t ask me why!
The result is that I am constantly drinking sparkling water. Maybe six litres a day. I do not wish to keep track. I began to bulk-buy crates of Perrier and San Pellegrino, though my very favourite is San Benedetto in a can. It is the softest sparkling water in the world, and it’s so salty it almost tastes like seawater. It’s impossible to get in London, but the wonderful Meghan & Bruno who run the Il Sovrano (https://ilsovrano.com/) deli in Brixton will import it for you if you ask nicely. Having it on deck was a nice move: the cans are aesthetically pleasing, and it’s a minor flex to be able to offer guests a cold, crisp sparkling water on a hot summer day.
Unfortunately, after my more environmentally-conscious friends discovered the rate of my consumption of pre-packaged sparkling water, they began to nag me about the vast amounts of plastic, glass, and aluminum waste my consumption was generating. They implored me to think of the oceans. Some suggested I buy a SodaStream (a device that carbonates water in your own home). When I mentioned the SodaStream concept as a solution, other friends told me that it was bad to buy SodaStream products. So I was in a situation where some friends told me that plastic packaging was bad, and other friends told me that SodaStream was bad.
I purchased the SodaStream Spirit One Touch, and it’s a pretty cool device. You attach a gas canister to the back and then affix a water bottle to the front and press a button and a cool noise happens and the regular water turns into sparkling water. The machine is sleek and black and very militaristic, especially when you have to change the gas canister. The gas canisters are like miniature versions of the ones used to kill Jaws the Shark.
You can buy flavours for your SodaStream from the SodaStream corporation: little syrups that change the sparkling water you make into lemonade or imitation Coca-Cola or imitation La Croix. And naturally, as a health-conscious alcoholic, it did not take me long to realise I could also use the SodaStream to produce imitation White Claw — the delicious, low-calorie, fruit-flavoured sparkling water drink that has taken London and New York by storm.
So my best friend and I began making our moonshine White Claw in the SodaStream. It is not quite as delicious as the real thing, but it’s cheap, effective, and fundamentally funny. A key moment in the development of this particular recipe that I am sharing with you came when I — whilst carbonating — looked over at the spice rack, where we keep our medicines, and clocked the caffeine pills that sit between the Vitabiotics Ultra D3 Tablets and the Clarityn.
Caffeinated White Claw! Wow! And once we’d tested that idea (a resounding success), a natural progression followed: what other drugs could we put in the White Claw? Crushed xans? Cocaine? Codeine cough syrup? MDMA? More Vyvanse? The possibilities are limited only by your imagination, physical tolerance, and modern pharmaceutical science.
Here is our favourite recipe that we have discovered thus far: it's cheap, effective, gets you fucked up whilst providing an energy boost, and doesn’t actually taste too bad.
Some notes:
- Obviously, I recommend familiarising yourself with ketamine and its interaction with alcohol prior to consumption.
- Ketamine, for some reason, seems to hit way fucking harder when it's suspended in liquid. So the dosage might look a little low, but trust me, you wouldn’t want it to be higher, probably.
- The grain alcohol I get is like double the strength of vodka, but I guess you might want to use more alcohol if your alcohol is weaker than that. Vodka works fine. Tequila’s good. Gin not so much. You do you, baby.
- This recipe does kind of fizz up too much and fuck up the SodaStream device, but not terminally.
- I recommend making it in bulk prior to a party you are hosting, or bringing it as a party favour if you are a guest. The other attendees will be delighted. But don’t forget to take your SodaStream bottles home with you — they’re like eight quid a pop to replace.
- I do not recommend leaving this in the fridge until the next day, forgetting about it, and then saying ‘help yourself to the sparkling water in the fridge’ to an unsuspecting visitor.
Caffeinated Homebrew White Claw with Ketamine Recipe
Prep-time: 30 minutes
Ingredients (makes four servings):
750ml Tap Water
1 Portion SodaStream Flavouring Juice
75ml Grain Alcohol (plus more to taste)
500mg Ketamine
600mg Caffeine Powder (or like 12 crushed Pro Plus, but this tastes bad and I would not recommend it)
Method:
- Dispense tap water into your SodaStream-branded bottles, then chill. I like to put it in the freezer so it goes cold more quickly (don't let it freeze).
- Once chill, remove your water from your fridge or freezer.
- Using a funnel (we fashion one from a torn-up piece of A4) add your ketamine and caffeine powder to your water.
- Affix lid and shake.
- Remove lid and add your grain alcohol and SodaStream Flavouring Juice.
- Affix lid and shake.
- Remove lid, then affix SodaStream bottle to SodaStream machine.
- Carbonate to your desired carbonation level.
- Remove and serve.
**
Gabriel Smith is from London. His debut novel, BRAT, was published by Scribner (U.K.) and Penguin Press (U.S.) in 2024. His fiction has appeared in The Drift, New York Tyrant Magazine and The Moth.