Welcome, everybody, to the Four Loko brewery tour. Right through these doors is where the world’s favorite malt beverage that the F.D.A. once described as “liquid hopelessness in a can” is lovingly crafted by our brewmasters! Before we enter, I must ask you all to refrain from taking flash photos inside the brewery. The Loko abhors light, and a single snapshot could transform its delicate chemical structure into something not unlike napalm. Let’s begin our tour!

This vat in front of us is where the life of every Four Loko begins. Carbonated water, sugar, malted barley, and depleted uranium ooze are combined until a sense of foreboding fills the brewery. That sense indicates that the Loko is ready to be poured into smaller batches and infused with the numerous flavors that make Four Loko so popular among alcohol connoisseurs and people who have made peace with death. Just this year, we’ve added three great new flavors: blueberry, mandarin orange, and knife!

Next, let’s move along to the quality-assurance area. Here our master taster Dennis samples each batch, making sure it is up to Four Loko’s famously high, and court-mandated, standards of taste, texture, and survivability. As you can see, Dennis is punching holes in the wall and screaming nonsense at an invisible demon, so that particular Loko is definitely up to par! If you’ll follow me, I’ll get us away from Dennis as quickly as possible.

Does anyone have any questions so far? Yes, you, with the Tasmanian Devil shirt. Oh, sorry, I didn’t realize all of you were wearing Taz shirts. The man in the blue one. When was Four Loko invented? Well, this version was first brewed in 2005, but variations of the drink have existed throughout all time. Even the ancient Egyptian “Book of the Dead” mentions a Four Loko-type beverage that the god Osiris would consume before getting stupid. If there aren’t any other questions, let’s keep the tour moving before Dennis catches our scent.

Over here you’ll see the Loko being funnelled into its famous neon tallboy cans. The bright cans help the product stand out on supermarket shelves and in crime-scene photos. Fun fact: we don’t use bottles because if Four Loko were ever to be sold in glass, it would technically be classified as a weapon, and customers would be subjected to a background check and a three-day waiting period with each purchase.

After being canned, the Loko heads down this ramp to be packaged and shipped all over the world. Just last month, we started shipping to Japan, China, and Korea. And not the good Korea. The bad one.

For international customers, Four Loko is usually rebranded with a name better suited to the region. That’s why in France it’s called Quatre Fou. In the Netherlands it goes by Vier Gek. And in Australia you’ll see it in hardware stores as Uncle Loko’s Paint Remover & Vermicide. Don’t worry—it has the same great taste wherever you go!

But all this talk must be making everyone thirsty, am I right? Great, because we’ve reached the final part of the tour: the tasting room. Here you can enjoy a drink straight from the tank, right after I check your I.D. to make sure you’re of legal age. Not the regular drinking age of twenty-one, of course, but the Four Loko drinking age, which, as of a recent United Nations mandate, is at least thirty-seven years old, as well as a verified organ donor.

Damn! That blaring alarm means that Dennis has escaped. Most likely, he’s just in the parking lot, trying to eat one of your cars, but this does sadly mean we’re going to have to skip the tasting and end our tour immediately. Please do visit again, and, on your way out, take a selfie—no flash!—in front of the Four Loko motto, “The Surgeon General isn’t always right.”