Throughout most of what I’d categorize as a semi-respectable Drinking Life, I’ve called bullshit on the commingling of spirits such as vodka with Red Bull and other energy drinks. After all, alcohol is a depressant; Red Bull is toxic waste (with wings!). They represent opposite ends of the potables spectrum. These are substances that were simply never intended to go together. It’s like mixing matter and antimatter on Star Trek, or having Denise Richards play a nuclear physicist in a Bond movie.

Note that I said I’ve been negatively inclined towards energy drink cocktails for most of my life. There was this one time back in the mid-aughts when I momentarily, shamefully, reconsidered my position.

I was at a party at the Sundance Film Festival sitting at the bar alongside the actor Jeremy Sisto. Now, it may have been the altitude or a burgeoning man-crush, but when Sisto ordered a Smirnoff and Red Bull – DIET Red Bull, no less – instead of rolling my eyes and cracking wise, I inexplicably found myself uttering the words, “I’ll have one of those, too.” What can I say? I was a big fan of the guy’s work on Six Feet Under.

We clinked glasses and Jeremy joked about having to watch his figure and I laughed, probably a little too loudly. A couple of hot chicks smiled at us. So I raised my vodka and diet Red Bull in a mock toast to them (hoping from that distance it looked like bourbon), and they giggled and waved. I turned back toward Jeremy because I wanted the hotties to think he was my friend… but he was gone. So, too, was any chance I had at getting laid by celeb-association.

The lesson I learned that night is that Jeremy Sisto is the kind of inconstant Hollywood weasel who would abandon a dear friend he had known for over four minutes just so he can talk to Clint Eastwood…well, that, and that you should never betray your core alcoholic values, no matter how badly you want to have sex with C-list groupies. Energy drinks are the Ed Hardy t-shirts of cocktail mixers. Always have been. Always will be.

However, it’s possible you’re still on the fence about this. If you need them, here are six more reasons you and those around you should never, ever stoop to imbibing energy drinks:.....