The Very Hardcore History of the Tamest Drink Imaginable

Some of the gnarliest fluids of the past century have all gone by the same name: “Liquid Death.” The muckrakers of the early 1900s used the term to stand in for nitroglycerin, the highly explosive liquid used to produce dynamite. The teetotalers of Prohibition damned the bootleggers’ whiskey by the bold binomial. And voices of civilian concern have turned to the phrase during wartime to describe various weapons, including World War I gasoline bombs, Cold War nuclear waste, and nitric acid bombs during the Troubles of Northern Ireland. Liquid death, I think we can glean, is anything but benign.

So when Mike Cessario and his enterprising team of marketers launched their Liquid Death in 2017, the public might have expected something other than … canned water. The brand, whose valuation has reportedly ballooned to north of $1 billion, has built itself a cultlike image through edgy, if not irreverent, advertisements. Their 2022 Super Bowl spot depicted a rowdy gathering of children headbanging to electric guitar and the lyrics “Breaking the law! Breaking the law!” while chugging water from the signature beerlike cans. They also sell a Travis Barker “Enema of the State” collectible kit.

Some might argue that marketing a substance as inert as water with a skull logo worthy of Post Malone’s neck is an exercise in commodifying irony. But I disagree. As it turns out, the water-slinging company’s rock ’n’ roll vibes are right at home in the untold—and surprisingly punk—history of canned water.

For decades, canned water has lurked in the background of American society, appearing only to those facing extreme scarcity, sudden disaster, or the looming threat of nuclear fallout. And before that, the aluminum can itself was forged over two centuries as a strategic weapon—a facilitator of war, conquest, and uncertainty.

Oui! La Mort Liquide. It was Napoleon and his bayoneting conquest of the Continent that brought canning into the world in the first place. In 1795, as Napoleon consolidated power in the wake of the French Revolution and turned his gaze eastward, the newly founded French National Institute of Science and Arts issued a challenge to the public: develop a technique of preserving food for prolonged military campaigns and win 12,000 francs. Nicolas Appert, a French candy-maker, collected the prize in 1809 by successfully describing a new technique of canning food in the most French way possible—using Champagne bottles.

Before long, the British adopted canning as an industrial process, downgrading to tinplate cans. Queen Charlotte herself reportedly tasted canned beef, then a novelty, at the Duke of York’s dinner table in 1813. The same decade, the Royal Navy began provisioning with canned meats, though Tommy Atkins could only get at his meal if he was properly outfitted with a hammer and chisel.

There is nothing so countercultural as leaving civilization altogether. Characteristically, canning left England for the North Pole. Royal Navy Arctic expeditions like those led by Sir James Ross relied on canned foods for survival. Questions remain, though, about the quality of these early tinned supplies. The ill-fated Franklin expedition, which sailed for the Arctic Circle in 1845 never to return, was outfitted with canned foods. But, as the details of the lost sailors’ final days have emerged over the years, something untoward becomes apparent. Rescue and research missions, which discovered caches of the crew’s unopened canned food, have also found human teeth marks on the skeletal remains of some explorers. It seems, in their hypothermic hunger, the stranded sailors preferred cannibalism to canned mystery meat. The HMS Terror, perhaps, was not the most auspiciously named ship for such a risky expedition.

Rotten meat in a can is gross, but canning water during this time was a far more elusive art. Cans, made of tinned iron, rust. Before the 1920s, most cans were soldered together, sometimes with lead (one of the periodic heavy metals). Plus, when stored for extended periods, water turns stagnant or becomes host to a range of deadly microbes. Most people, even 100 years ago, considered the idea of canned water to be absurd.

Dr. H.W. Wiley, the first commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, wrote in 1910, “We buy so much food in packages nowadays. How do we know how much or how little we are getting? I have opened cans of corn or peas which were one-third water. Think of it! Buying canned water!” Outrageous! Consumers at the time never would have fallen for the canned water ploy (unlike every Liquid Death–pilled podcaster today), but submariners stuck in their underwater torpedo tubes drank canned water out of necessity during World War I, even if the science wasn’t yet perfect.

In January 1935, just two years after the repeal of Prohibition, Krueger Brewery sold America’s first canned beer in a steel container that could be opened with a can opener. Pabst followed the same year. While shotgunning was yet to be invented, the new format caught on quickly, even with water in some cases. In 1940, after the collapse of a municipal well in Ashland, New Jersey, a local paper quipped, “Now that canned beer no longer is a novelty, Ashland residents have switched to canned water.”

Ultimately, though, it took the Second World War to force canned water (and Spam) on the masses. In February 1942, the U.S. War Production Board took over can manufacturers under Conservation Order M-81. The canning industry used a lot of metal and produced a critical commodity for feeding the armed forces. Over the course of four years, M-81 developed new interior coatings for the cans and decreased the amount of metal needed. The tin can of 1948 was one-fourth the weight of 1940. And nothing is more punk than the government improving industry’s efficiency.

One postwar story headlined, “Took a War to Show How to Can Water,” reads, “The long-standing problems in canning water were taste, metal salts that might make the water hazy, rusting when a can had been partly used, and freezing. The wartime demand for canned water spurred research to overcome the problems. … Some beer cans, lacquered and coated on the inside with a special wax, were used for canning water.” In the aftermath of the war, we even find a confidential “Canned Water Project,” declassified for our modern enrichment, which involved the U.S. government assisting the Portuguese military in establishing a water-canning facility. Muito bacana!

Carey Causey, SVP and chief growth officer at Ball Corp., which now produces 50 billion aluminum cans per year, stated via email, “For decades, manufacturers have used food-grade, polymer-based coatings inside cans to create a protective barrier between the metal and the beverage. These coatings are essential for extending product shelf life, ensuring that quality and taste remain consistent from when the can is sealed until it’s opened by the consumer.” Finally, in the wake of World War II, the average American consumer would gain access to canned water.

In 1955, Barbara Fox of Lincoln, Nebraska, became something of a local celebrity. She proposed the use of canned water for civil defense to the Nebraska City food processor Otoe Foods. As a reward for the patriotic suggestion, she was taken to Nevada alongside 300 other civilians to witness the test of an atom bomb. She later wrote of the experience, “The lesson I learn from the A-bomb test is simply this: If atomic war ever breaks out, the people in rural America will have a tremendous responsibility in caring for those fortunate ones who, somehow, might escape the horrible fate of being blown to smithereens.” Barbara did not mince her words. The same message was heard around the country—Americans needed to be prepared and doomsday prepping was born.

Casey Watson, owner of MRE Mountain, an online shop that sells military rations to curious civilians, explains, “The largest systematic adoption of canned, shelf-stable water occurred during the Cold War era. U.S. Government Civil Defense stocked thousands of bomb shelters with millions of cans of U.S. government water.”

Watson cites an Alabama Civil Defense Department’s 1953 announcement as among the first civil defense endorsements of canned water. The memo stated that the Multiple Breaker Co. of Boston had developed a perfect system for canning drinking water in 12 oz cans that could keep for 10 years. Civilians keen on stocking their fallout shelters could buy 24 cans for $3.15. Now, Watson sells a similar vintage pack of 1952 10 oz cans of water for $199.99 to those who want to risk drinking water packaged on their grandmother’s actual birthday. A comparable quantity of Liquid Death might set you back $18.99. (Price, of course, is a secondary concern when it comes to outsmarting the Soviets.)

Nuclear Armageddon never came, but canned water proved useful for other disasters. In 1988, the brewing giant Anheuser-Busch launched its emergency drinking water program. The following year, the beer-maker diverted operations of two of its canning lines in Jacksonville, Florida, and Fairfield, California, to provide water to the victims of Hurricane Hugo and the Loma Prieta earthquake, respectively. In the aftermath of 9/11, the brewery pledged 9,500 cases of canned water to New York City.

In a comment, Anheuser-Busch confirmed, “To date, Anheuser-Busch and our wholesaler partners have produced and delivered more than 96 million cans of emergency drinking water to communities and volunteer fire departments across 49 states in support of ongoing relief and preparedness efforts.”

Which brings us back to Liquid Death, the company that has made millions on the novel idea of branding canned water. But the water was already canned. And it was already branded—branded by Napoleon’s conquest of Europe, by England’s ambitions in the Arctic, by World War I submarine provisions, by World War II civilian rations, by Cold War doomsday prepping, and by modern disaster relief.

It is uncanny how well the brand’s identity meshes with canned water’s legacy. Far from being a blank slate, canned water is a retired warhorse whose “Kilroy Was Here” tattoo is getting touched up by some 21^st-century Mad Men. But why now? Canned water has already helped militaries fight battles and has saved many a thirsty soul in need. But in the hands of Liquid Death, canned water seems to be enjoying a relatively easy retirement. In a world where single-use plastics and dehydration are the popular enemy, Liquid Death is here to be our mercenary.