Zevia Ginger Ale

After high school all of Stan's friends went to college to become teachers and businessmen. He knew from an early age that he would not follow the same path. He wasn't dumb or anything. He actually got high marks in school, but he just had no interest in higher education. As soon as he got his diploma at the end of his senior year he enrolled in clown school. Clowning seemed like a dream come true. His classes failed to hold his attention though, and after a semester he dropped out. He then spent a few months just hanging out, working at his uncle's shop. Then one afternoon he was on break flipping through the local arts paper and he saw an ad that would change his life forever. He had been close with clown college, but he now knew that his true calling was to be a magician. He emptied his bank account and took a three week crash course in magicianery. It was there that his instructor gave his the stage name of Zevia the Magnificent, a title that the whole world would soon know.

While he loved being a magician, he really wasn't very good at it. His rabbit would always end up in an audience members purse instead of his hat, and he could never keep a firm grasp on those darn rings, what did they polish them with anyways, lard? One trick that he did master was to hypnotize people into thinking that diet pop tasted good. His secret was that he would make his own soda and sweeten it with a natural zero calorie sweetener caller stevia. This was in the late 90's when everyone was trying to keep the pounds off with aspartame and sucralose. They never knew what hit them. One flavor that he worked hard on was a diet ginger ale. Even though there weren't many diet ginger ales on the market, and people weren't familiar with it, he still thought it was integral to his act. It didn't really taste like the other ginger ales he had drank in the past. It was more like slightly sweet seltzer water with a slight ginger taste to it. He prided himself on using real ginger, but not enough to have any sort of heat to it. It was a completely non-offensive soda that he drank all the time, and why not when it had no sugar and no calories. Sure it could have used a bit more flavor, but who was going to argue with it' healthiness compared to the leading brands?

It was during the portion of his act when he was convincing people that diet soda could taste good when his infamy began. The prime minister of China was in the audience that evening for some unknown reason. Zevia's helper monkey became irate and flung his dung at the prime minister before shaking up a can of soda and spraying it in the foreign dignitaries face. As you well know that was the catalyst for World War 3. Zevia the Magnificent, and his monkey, were later tried for war crimes, and we all know the outcome of that.