Cocaine And Liqueur, 2 Things That Should Never Go Together, Combine In New Liqueur

A double whammy of drugs and alcohol? Reports advertise that a new spirit from the U.K. uses the same raw ingredient used to make cocaine, the coca leaf, in a premium liqueur. 

From Babco Europe, reports The Spirits Business, comes the liqueur Coca Blue. But don't worry, there's no drugs in there: the spirit is made from Bolivian coca leaves, but the cocaine alkaloids are removed under the maceration and decocanization processes. We suppose that's good news, but it gets weirder: Coca Blue is being marketed for the end of the Mayan calendar, aka the end of the world, supposedly coming up on Dec. 21. That includes "end of the world" parties in eight major cities, including Las Vegas, Amsterdam, Seoul, and Sydney. 

Said proofs director Paul Ferguson to The Spirits Business, Coca Blue is "amazingly smooth" on the palate, and he thinks the spirit will be a hit. "We don't expect the limited number of gift-packed bottles to stay around for long," he said. The Huffington Post notes that coca leaves are used for numerous medicinal reasons, but we'll still stay far away from the stuff.