Gas Station Gourmet: Say what you like about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, but they mix a damn fine drink.

At the Fat Kid's behest, I'm tasked with an article on the best thing I've ever eaten from a gas station.

This one is pretty difficult for me. I try not to engage my higher brain functions if it becomes necessary to pick up food at a gas station, and chips, Cheetos, and jerky only come in so many variations.

But the beverages. Oh my the beverages (note- beverage is a very fun and obnoxious word to use). Sodas and juices, energy drinks and cheap booze of all kinds! It's a wonderland of insulin-spiking proportions.

I could spend all day talking about soda alone, but I'll leave that for another time. For now I want to focus on things you can only find (for the most part) at a gas station. Here we go.


There are the imported mexican sodas that are sweetened with real sugar and ironically more healthy than what we have here, the cases of red bull piled to the ceiling, prepackaged frothed-to-order shakes (which are actually quite good, btw), and all manner of other assorted liquid confection.

To cut it short, one could say I've had a great deal of sugar-water in my time. From the beginning of high school to near the end of college Mountain Dew was nearly the only liquid that entered my body. I can write a treatise on the anise levels of brand name root beer and how it affects both body and flavor. I'm the kid who learned to simulate the flavor of beer by mixing various sodas together (a recipe sadly lost to times forgotten). But when it comes to the gas station, there's one can I'll always remember looking for.

Monster's line of coffee flavored energy drinks is varied and I have many loving memories of them, like the time I downed 3 of them in a row during a midnight shift at a grocery store I was once employed at, and then began to taste sound as I stood twitching at the end of a check-out line. But my fondest is still of my last can of Monster: Russian.

A tribute to industrial mad science

This wonderful abomination has sadly been discontinued, and I fear I'll never find another, but somehow in attempting to create a non-alcoholic doppleganger to the White Russian, Monster chanced upon one of the most heavenly and wrong flavors to ever grace and pervert my tongue. The drink was very smooth, smoother than a real White Russian thanks to the faux-milk product that they use as the base (yes I know the ingredients list says real milk but I've yet to find real milk that pours like that), which results in a very pleasant trip over the tongue and down the throat as it very lightly coats the palate. Body aside, the flavors are pretty brass standard White Russian, but without the punch of a shot of vodka to go along with it. The coffee is just barely detectable below the high fructose corn syrup that plays the dominating sweetener (likely attempting to replicate the sweet notes in alcohol, plus some more). A secondary sweetener that I can not identify leaves a second sharp note as you swallow and your palate is cleared. Despite the simple composition of the beverage it's a delight that can't be found elsewhere. Like Twinkies or just about anything from KFC, it can't be replicated at home. Somehow those industrial, corporate ingredients, combined with the despair of their underpaid employees creates a delicate unholy balance that transcends mere flavor.

(Also if anyone knows where you can still get some of these please let me know.)

Careful, man. There's a beverage here.

-Gnome