You’d think that Liquid Death would be the name of some vile 150-proof liquor brand. It is, instead, a brand of canned — not bottled — water.
That’s it. The very essence of life, marketed as death. “Murder your thirst,” the company’s tagline goes. And yet, it’s hardly even transgressive, not in this day and age.
In fact, the CEO said he came up with the brand identity while brainstorming “the dumbest name” he could think of as an attempt to, as CNBC put it, “actually make water cool.”
“I didn’t think it would be this big,” said Mike Cessario during a 2022 interview. “I think one of the most surprising things to everybody with this was how wide the audience really was.”
And now the man has a brand worth hundreds of millions of dollars that literally wanted — at least at one point — you to sell it your soul. Seriously.
The so-called “Liquid Death Country Club” is currently, according to its website, “temporarily closed for greens maintenance.” It sounds so cute. Less cute is when a writer for pop culture outlet Vanyaland reported on a 2024 visit to the club.
From writer Jason Greenough’s piece, “We sold our soul at the Liquid Death Country Club, and it was pretty metal”:
Upon arriving, you encounter all the usual country club motifs. As you wait in line, there’s a mini-golf game that grants you immediate access if you get a hole-in-one, a podium with a sign-in sheet, and two giant gold Grim Reaper statues, complete with sickles — ya know, the simple stuff. You will be asked to “sell your soul” in the form of signing a digital contract that welcomes you into the Liquid Death community, a commitment for which you receive a cool little lapel pin, and the opportunity to see a gravity bong used by Wiz Khalifa protected in a glass amongst a smattering of other brand-specific memorabilia. [Emphasis ours]
After getting the chance to physically sign a giant guestbook (presumably to be used to prove your place at the pearly gates at the time of your demise), you’re quickly greeted by brand ambassadors standing at a casket filled with exclusive new flavors of ice cold Liquid Death (we highly recommend the Cherry Obituary), and from there, lots of attention-grabbing is on full-display in the close proximity of the house’s main room.