In today’s edition of Is This A Thing I Should Think Is Cool?, 7-Eleven has announced the release of Fizzics, their new line of sparkling cold brew. But that’s not what is questionably cool (sparkling cold brew is objectively cool. Don’t @ me), it’s the can in which it is served. According to an article in The Takeout, cans of Fizzics Sparkling Cold Brew Coffee are self-chilling. Cool?
According to The Takeout’s Kate Bernot—who called me out by name in her Stircle article, not that I even care or am holding a grudge or whatever—the cans for the new ready-to-drink coffee beverage were developed by The Joseph Company International, whose previous attempt at a self-chilling can got squashed after the refrigerant used “caused concerns over its potential to speed global warming,” which sounds like some sort of Faustian equal exchange. “Sure, we can chill your drink, but it’s gonna heat up the planet. Bet you’re happy you have the now-cold drink, huh?”
But now, some 25 years in the making, the self-chilling can comes without worries of ripping a new hole in the ozone layer. To chill the 8.4 ounce can, one simply has to turn a knob at the bottom of the can, which then releases CO2 into the beverage and is said to cool the drink by 30 degrees over the course of a minute and a half. Is it cool yet?
Fizzics Sparkling Cold Brew Coffee is currently being rolled out to 15 7-Eleven stores in the L.A. area, but as the article notes, given that they spent a quarter-century and god knows how much money developing the self-chilling can (solving a problem that didn’t really exist), “expect… a much wider rollout in the future.”
So the question remains: should I think the self-chilling can is cool? I feel like maybe I should, but I kinda don’t. But a new question has arisen thanks to this now-two-sided now-feud with my now-nemesis Kate Bernot: is a self-chilling can cooler than the Stircle? Now that’s a dilly of a pickle.
Zac Cadwalader is the news editor at Sprudge Media Network and a staff writer based in Dallas. Read more Zac Cadwalader on Sprudge.
*top image via The Joseph Company International
