![]() After tasting Club-Mate at a club in Berlin at the insistence of a friend (it's a popular mixer for vodka or rum), Barclay set out to find a source in the US. John Barclay went to some lengths to procure his first shipment of the mystical libation. So far, only a handful of venues in the states have taken advantage-a club in Brooklyn, an alternative bookstore in Seattle, and, as of a couple months ago, a rock climbing gym in San Francisco, to name a few. For years there was only one US distribution point-in New York City-and only in the past six months has another distributor emerged in San Francisco to drum up interest from Silicon Valley tech companies and startups. You won't find Club-Mate at your corner bodega or local BevMo. Brauerei Loscher, the small Bavarian brewery that produces the drink, refrains from marketing, relying instead on word-of-mouth and independent distributors. It's exported to 40 countries, from Kazakhstan to Chile.īut you're forgiven if you haven't heard of Club-Mate until now. Bottles of Club-Mate (pronounced KLOOB Mah-tuh in German) swing from the hands of seemingly every young person in the German capital, and distribution of the drink has quietly gone global. ![]() Staying awake for lengthy stretches is key in both hacker and rave cultures and, as Ohlig says, "Club-Mate is one of the legal options."įast-forward two decades to 2014. Then weekend dance club goers adopted the drink as their fuel of choice for all-night raves. For about a decade, the drink was enjoyed primarily by hackers like Ohlig at CCC gatherings. The first crates of Club-Mate arrived in Hamburg and Berlin in the early 1990s. "If we run out," she said, "it's a problem." Keeping the Club-Mate flowing is crucial to productivity and morale, Rugg said. SoundCloud is the centerpiece of Berlin's nascent tech ecosystem and views itself as a leader not just in business but also work culture. It's crisp and tart on the front and has a grassy finish familiar to anyone who's sipped yerba mate tea.ĭuring a tour of SoundCloud's headquarters in August, a community relations woman named Emma Rugg made sure I got a good look at the company's Google-like amenities, which included a fridge packed with bottles of Club-Mate. It provides a more mellow and enduring caffeine buzz than coffee and avoids the saccharine slap of energy drinks like Red Bull or Monster. The drink owes its popularity as much to its function as its flavor. The golden soda has become essential nourishment for anyone in Berlin involved in hacktivism, club culture, dance music, tech-just about everyone in the city under the age of 40. Ohlig is far from Club-Mate's only convert. "In crunch time I've had like 10 bottles in a day," he says, "but that was extreme." The Berlin-based Wikimedia engineer drinks between three and four half-liter bottles of Club-Mate every day. Today, Club-Mate is the keystone of Ohlig's diet. ![]() Stamped on Club-Mate's label, beneath an image of the drink's gaucho mascot, is its tongue-in-cheek slogan, which translates from German roughly to "One gets used to it." "The first time you drink it," Ohlig says, "it kind of tastes like horse urine filtered through hay."īut then it starts to taste, and feel, good-really good. The soda is infused with extract of yerba mate, a caffeine-laden plant native to subtropical South America. ![]() "They brought their magic potion with them and infected everyone at the camp," Ohlig says. ![]()
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