Cooper's Cave Ale Company Dracula's Blood Strawberry Soda

Since the 1890's the Van Helsing family has hunted the ever-elusive vampire Vlad the Impaler. He was the most feared man in the eastern block until it came out that he was not a man at all. When people realized his lack of humanity they began referring to him only as Dracula the lord of the undead.

It is not the 21st century and Ludwig Van Helsing (his mother was a fan of classical music) has finally tracked down Dracula to a remote town in Upstate New York. It is now his turn to go face to face with the ruler of the undead just as each of his male ancestors have in the past (In Bram Stoker's novel it claims that Abraham Van Helsing slayed the dark one, but that is nothing but a conspiracy to cover up the truth to keep the towns people calm. It was typical of politicians of the time.). It mid June and it's a nice warm day. The sun is shining and Ludwig takes that as a good sign. He parks his rental car at the front gate and walks up to the door of the mansion. He rings the bell, but no one answers. It's probably for the best, anyways his Intel informed him that there is a cave around back and that is where Dracula slumbers during the daylight hours. Ludwig digs around the piles of Burger King and Arby's wrappers in his back seat and produces a crossbow. He thinks it's kind of stupid, but the retro look of it is kinda bitchin'. He walks around the yard, waving to the neighbor next door who's mowing his lawn, and finds himself at the entrance of the cave. Ludwig is pretty much resigned to the fact that this is where he dies. I mean every male of his family has met the reaper under similar circumstances, but whatever this planet is going down the turlet anyways. If The Impaler doesn't get him, he'll probably end up with cancer or AIDS in the next year anyways. With that thought he stepped into the darkness.

About 100 feet inside the mouth of the cave Ludwig came upon a large wooden door. It looked as if he would never be able to open it himself, but with one small shove it flew open. You have to hand it to the prince of darkness; he sure doesn't let his property fall into disrepair. Inside the room was a smaller room that was built out of black steel, with what appeared to be elevator doors on it. Ludwig pushed the button and the doors slid open exposing what appeared to be the world's most comfortable bed. Ludwig momentarily forgot his charge and just lost himself thinking about taking a little nap. In the middle of the bed was Lord Dracula with a nice lacy sleep mask on, Ludwig slowly crept towards the bed, careful not to make a sound. Just as he was about a foot away he stepped on a remote control and Miley Cirus' "Party in the USA" started blaring from the stereo system. Oddly enough Dracula just rolled over. I guess a couple of hundred year of being undead really makes you a sound sleeper. Ludwig shrugged, pointed his crossbow and put and arrow right through the vampire's heart. Dracula screamed, exorbitant amounts of blood shot out of his chest and then he and all his fluids burned up, like he never existed. "Huh." was all Ludwig could say. It was way easier than he ever would have imagined.

His whole life had been built around stalking and then being killed by Dracula, and now that it was over and he was still alive he was completely unprepared. So he ended up moving into Dracula's house. There wasn't much inside except cases of empty bottles marked "Dracula's Blood." He didn't want to put them to the curb in the recycling bins for fear that the local homeless would then constantly rummage through his trash looking for more returnables. Instead he took up the hobby of making soda pop, and used the bottles to hold his wares. What else was he going to do, get a job? I think not. Since the bottles said "Dracula's Blood" already he decided to make a strawberry soda. It didn't turn out as well as he would have hoped. Here he was with all these rad looking bottles, with a sup par soda to fill them. He guessed it kind of tasted like strawberries, but it was more of a generic soda flavor with a generic berry undertone to it. The closer you got to the bottom the stronger the flavor became, but what good is it to have a few sips be tasty when over half the bottle be extremely disappointing. The town folks all laughed at him. Sure he had killed the father of the undead, but he still couldn't make a high quality soda. They didn't hesitate to remind him that you're only as good as your last achievement. Man he should have just given up after committing monster homicide.