This woman found something alarming (and furry) at the bottom of her can of energy drink. Don’t watch the video if you’re squeamish.
A hairy situation
In a viral video with nearly 2 million views, musician Sarah Mackenzie (@sarahmackenziemusic on TikTok) said she may need to go to the hospital after seeing what was inside her Alani Nu can.
In the TikTok (plus a follow-up video), Mackenzie explains that she was drinking her Alani throughout the day and left it in her car when she went out to work. When she came back for her lunch break she decided to dump out the little bit of liquid left.
That’s when she felt something strange.
As she dumped out the contents, she felt something hit the lip of the can. It was a mouse. In her reaction video Mackenzie was too stunned to speak, and looked disgusted and concerned.
“Soooooooooo guys like actually what do i do right now i feel like i need to go a hospital fr my chest hurts after that – also wtf alani?!?” she wrote in the caption.
She suspects that the mouse may have crawled into the beverage, not that it was there the whole time she was sipping on it.
“That’s the only thing that makes sense to me,” she says.
Mackenzie shared that she contacted Alani, the FDA, and went to the doctor.
Another Alani rodent
This isn’t the first time Alani has been accused of poor hygiene. Another person found a mouse in their can, but the video has since been taken down and people on Reddit think the person’s account was also shadowbanned. You can still see part of the video in this person’s reaction clip.
One TikToker theorized that since aluminum cans are open on the top during the packaging process, a mouse could have fallen into a can without anyone noticing.
@sarahmackenziemusic soooooooooo guys like actually what do i do right now i feel like i need to go a hospital fr my chest hurts after that – also wtf alani?!? #alani #pinkslush #alaninu #energydrink #witchesbrew #wtf #rat @Alani Nutrition ♬ origineel geluid – no sound
What is Alani Nu?
Alani Nu is a popular wellness and fitness brand that emphasizes clean and transparent ingredients to aid energy, hydration, and recovery. They offer a range of products, including drinks, supplements, vitamins, snacks, and merch.
Their energy drinks are particularly popular for having fun, low-calorie flavors, like Hawaiian Shaved Ice, Mimosa, Cherry Slush, and Watermelon Wave.
This isn’t the first time this has happened
One of the most famous cases happened in 2012 when an Illinois man claimed to have found a mouse in his Mountain Dew and sued for over $50,000 (which, accounting for inflation, is about $68,000 in 2024), ABC News reported.
The case blew up when PepsiCo, Mountain Dew’s parent company, got involved.
They argued that if the mouse had been sealed in the can for an extended period of time, the soda’s acidic nature would have rendered it unrecognizable since it would have dissolved into a “jelly-like substance”.
After a four-year battle, they settled out of court for an undisclosed amount, The Verge reported.
Other instances include a man who said that halfway through drinking his energy drink, he noticed a dead mouse in the can, and a Coca-Cola incident with a South Dakotan who felt something strange while sipping and cut the can open to find a rodent inside.
Can a beverage really dissolve a mouse?
Many of these cases rest on the specification that a mouse would dissolve in a soda or energy drink, so we did some digging to verify if that’s true.
According to a study by the Scientific American, it’s possible for the liquid to dissolve a mouse, but it would take a few months.
“Dissolving [the mouse] does not mean it will disappear because you’ll still have the collagen and the soft tissue part. It will be like rubber,” Yan-Fang Ren of the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry told the scientific journal.
Commenters react
“Stop this is the third Alani mouse video I’ve seen,” a top comment read.
“Wait. You drank it first and then a few days later a mouse climbed in? Why would you have rat toxins if you drank it BEFORE the mouse climbed in? I’m so confused,” a person wrote.
“Never drank an alani never will,” another commented.
The Daily Dot reached out to Mackenzie via Instagram and TikTok direct message and to Alnai via email.
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