Did New York Bully an Alcoholic Slushie Business Out of Existence?

With the
heat of summer quickly approaching, New Yorkers might want to
quench their thirst with some “Phrosties,” alcoholic slushie
beverages sold by an eponymous delivery service. Too bad, because
New York Sen. Charles Schumer (D) may have just scared the
underground drink maker out of existence.

At a press conference on Monday he
said it’s time for a crackdown on Phrosties because “a
12-year-old can probably buy these ‘sloshies’ online, get it and
enjoy it because it’s filled with fruit juice and fruit punch and
all the things that taste sweet and nice.” 

According to the New York Post, Phrosties is “already
are under investigation by the State Liquor Authority because they
are unregulated and unlicensed.”

Vice‘s Grace Wyler says that’s all it took to put the
delivery service “out of business, or at least driven them deeper
underground.” She reports
on Phrosties’ quick fade into obscurity:

By Tuesday, the Phrostie Instagram account had been
scrubbed clean, its delivery contact details replaced by the
warning “WE DO NOT DELIVER.” After that, my texts to the previously
listed phone numbers went unanswered, until Wednesday night, when I
got a reply from the Brooklyn delivery service saying that if I
wanted any more Phrosties, I would have to order “ASAP.”

Twenty minutes later, a delivery guy showed up and handed me a
black grocery bag full of slushies. “That’s it for the Phrosties,”
he sighed. The service, he explained, was selling the last of its
inventory and closing up shop, thanks to “Schumer and the
regulations, I guess.”

“It’s all just political propaganda bullshit,” he added, with a
wave that was both a farewell and a summary dismissal of the
crushing regulatory burden of the nanny state.

Were
these $10 drinks really so dangerous? Even at the food blog
Grub Street where Alexis Swerdloff worried
over the fact that Phrosties are unregulated, she bought some
anyway and lived to tell the tasty tale. The same goes for
International Business Times‘ Eric Brown who
thinks Schumer “has a point” about Phrosties but slurped them
down until his face went numb.

For those keeping score, Schumer is also leading the charge
against powdered alcohol and in 2010 threw a fit about caffeinated
malt liquor drink Four Loko because of its appeal to young
people.