Pimp Juice is the

brand A brand is a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that distinguishes one seller's good or service from those of other sellers. Brands are used in business, marketing, and advertising for recognition and, importantly, to create ...

name of the non-carbonated energy drink inspired by the Nelly song "

Pimp Juice "Pimp Juice" is the fourth US and Canadian single by American rapper Nelly, released on March 10, 2003, from his 2002 album, ''Nellyville''. The song peaked at number 58 on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100. It samples UGK's song Wood Wheel from their ...

". Nelly also co-owns the drink. Produced by Fillmore Street Brewery, in

St. Louis, Missouri St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...

USA, Pimp Juice is

marketed Marketing is the process of exploring, creating, and delivering value to meet the needs of a target market in terms of goods and services; potentially including selection of a target audience; selection of certain attributes or themes to emph ...

as "Hip-Hop's #1 Energy Drink." Pimp Juice was one of the first celebrity driven energy drinks on the market, and an example of hip hop and pop stars using their appeal to younger audiences to market and sell non-music related products. The drink contains 100% of the

recommended daily intake The Dietary Reference Intake (DRI) is a system of nutrition recommendations from the National Academy of Medicine (NAM) of the National Academies (United States). It was introduced in 1997 in order to broaden the existing guidelines known as Reco ...

vitamin C Vitamin C (also known as ascorbic acid and ascorbate) is a water-soluble vitamin found in citrus and other fruits and vegetables, also sold as a dietary supplement and as a topical 'serum' ingredient to treat melasma (dark pigment spots) ...

, B₂, B₃, B₅, B₆, and B₁₂ as well as 7mg of

taurine Taurine (), or 2-aminoethanesulfonic acid, is an organic compound that is widely distributed in animal tissues. It is a major constituent of bile and can be found in the large intestine, and accounts for up to 0.1% of total human body weight. I ...

. The drink is intended to taste like apples and berries, and is commonly used as mixer in alcoholic drinks such as

vodka Vodka ( pl, wódka , russian: водка , sv, vodka ) is a clear distilled alcoholic beverage. Different varieties originated in Poland, Russia, and Sweden. Vodka is composed mainly of water and ethanol but sometimes with traces of impuriti ...

and

rum Rum is a liquor made by fermenting and then distilling sugarcane molasses or sugarcane juice. The distillate, a clear liquid, is usually aged in oak barrels. Rum is produced in nearly every sugar-producing region of the world, such as the Ph ...

. Two follow-up drinks have been released, PJ Tight (a

low-carb Low-carbohydrate diets restrict carbohydrate consumption relative to the average diet. Foods high in carbohydrates (e.g., sugar, bread, pasta) are limited, and replaced with foods containing a higher percentage of fat and protein (e.g., meat ...

variant) and PJ Purple Label (flavored with

grape A grape is a fruit, botanically a berry, of the deciduous woody vines of the flowering plant genus '' Vitis''. Grapes are a non- climacteric type of fruit, generally occurring in clusters. The cultivation of grapes began perhaps 8,000 years a ...

and prickly pear). When released, Pimp Juice was a source of controversy after a number of community groups called for a national boycott of the product for glorifying and promoting a negative stereotype of

African-American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ensl ...

lifestyle. Pimp Juice is still sold online from an Australian site but consumers outside Australia are asked to send email and ask about availability.

Ingredients

Ingredients are

water Water (chemical formula ) is an Inorganic compound, inorganic, transparent, tasteless, odorless, and Color of water, nearly colorless chemical substance, which is the main constituent of Earth's hydrosphere and the fluids of all known living ...

high-fructose corn syrup High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), also known as glucose–fructose, isoglucose and glucose–fructose syrup, is a sweetener made from corn starch. As in the production of conventional corn syrup, the starch is broken down into glucose by enzy ...

and/or sucrose,

apple juice Apple juice is a fruit juice made by the maceration and pressing of an apple. The resulting expelled juice may be further treated by enzymatic and centrifugal clarification to remove the starch and pectin, which holds fine particulate in suspe ...

concentrate,

citric acid Citric acid is an organic compound with the chemical formula HOC(CO2H)(CH2CO2H)2. It is a colorless weak organic acid. It occurs naturally in citrus fruits. In biochemistry, it is an intermediate in the citric acid cycle, which occurs in ...

, natural flavor, d-

Ribose Ribose is a simple sugar and carbohydrate with molecular formula C5H10O5 and the linear-form composition H−(C=O)−(CHOH)4−H. The naturally-occurring form, , is a component of the ribonucleotides from which RNA is built, and so this compo ...

malic acid Malic acid is an organic compound with the molecular formula . It is a dicarboxylic acid that is made by all living organisms, contributes to the sour taste of fruits, and is used as a food additive. Malic acid has two stereoisomeric forms ( ...

, ascorbic acid, inositol,

maltodextrin Maltodextrin is a polysaccharide that is used as a food ingredient. It is produced from vegetable starch by partial hydrolysis and is usually found as a white hygroscopic spray-dried powder. Maltodextrin is easily digestible, being absorbed as ...

guarana Guaraná ( from the Portuguese ''guaraná'' ), ''Paullinia cupana'', syns. ''P. crysan, P. sorbilis'') is a climbing plant in the family Sapindaceae, native to the Amazon basin and especially common in Brazil. Guaraná has large leaves and c ...

seed extract,

niacin Niacin, also known as nicotinic acid, is an organic compound and a form of vitamin B3, an essential human nutrient. It can be manufactured by plants and animals from the amino acid tryptophan. Niacin is obtained in the diet from a variet ...

, calcium pantotherate,

pyridoxine hydrochloride Pyridoxine, is a form of vitamin B6 found commonly in food and used as a dietary supplement. As a supplement it is used to treat and prevent pyridoxine deficiency, sideroblastic anaemia, pyridoxine-dependent epilepsy, certain metabolic disor ...

, yellow #5, riboflavin, blue #1,

cyanocobalamin Cyanocobalamin is a form of vitamin used to treat vitamin deficiency except in the presence of cyanide toxicity. The deficiency may occur in pernicious anemia, following surgical removal of the stomach, with fish tapeworm, or due to bowel ...

Nutrition information

Origins

The first case of Pimp Juice Energy Drink was produced and shipped in August, 2003 by Fillmore Street Brewery, a St. Louis, Missouri company partially owned by Cornell Haynes, Jr. also known as Nelly. The Pimp Juice team was driven by Nelly himself and organized by former Fillmore Street Brewery President, Demetrius Denham. Pimp Juice started as a mostly regional product, with distribution limited to the Midwest (

Missouri Missouri is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee): Iowa to the north, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee to the east, Arkansas t ...

, Oklahoma,

Arkansas Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the South Central United States. It is bordered by Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, and Texas and Oklahoma to the west. Its name is from the O ...

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Rockf ...

and

Michigan Michigan () is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the List of U.S. states and ...

), but expanded nationally quickly to meet the demand created by national media coverage. Since 2003, Pimp Juice has expanded internationally into Europe, Australia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East and South Africa.

Controversy

Pimp Juice made national headlines when several cultural groups and women's organizations, including Project Islamic H.O.P.E., the National Alliance For Positive Action, the National Black Anti-Defamation League and the Messianic Afrikan Nation, called for a national boycott of Pimp Juice Energy Drink and all stores that carried the product. Naji Ali, the director of Project Islamic H.O.P.E., one of the leaders of the boycott, stated that the drink "Contributes to negative and demeaning stereotypes of African-Americans", while others said that the name "degrades women and glorifies a pimp lifestyle". Paul Scott of the Afrikan Nation has also expressed concerns that the drink promotes the wrong leadership and lifestyle that is required in the black community. Demetrius Denham, co-founder of Fillmore Street Brewery, was one of the first to speak out publicly in defense of Pimp Juice when he told BET.com "the term '' pimp'' has changed meaning over the years and doesn't have the same connotation to youth. I think it's a word that has changed significance over the last 10 to 15 years". Nelly defended the product as "Pimp Juice is anything that attracts the opposite sex; it could be money, fame, or straight intellect; it don't matter! Pimp Juice is color blind; you find it works on all colors, creeds and kinds; from ages 50 right down to nine." He noted that a portion of the proceeds from the drink will go to his philanthropic organization, 4Sho4Kids. While these protests created a storm of negative media coverage, they did little to slow the sales of Pimp Juice. A company spokeswoman said the company sold over one million cans of Pimp Juice in the first 3 months of operations.

Notes

External links