The beverage business can be brutal, just ask Gatorade

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[PEP  Loading...      ()   ] over the whole "Got G?" thing. But few companies have managed to do so well so quickly as Red Bull.

Now there's a new drink getting some buzz, a drink which doesn't boost energy, but prevents a hangover. It's called NoHo, for No Hangover. Like Red Bull before it, NoHo has been busy promoting itself, being distributed at parties and high-profile events since launching in May.

A friend of mine went to a party Monday to watch Bret Favre do his thing. People there were drinking NoHo, presumably to mitigate the effects of whatever else they were drinking. "Something was weird with the can," he tells me. "The weird thing - it was a diet Red Bull. NoHo just put a sticker on the Red Bull can. See the attached pictures."

The pictures, shown here, indicate that there was a NoHo label wrapped around a can of Red Bull. This wasn't some homemade label. It looks authentic, even containing nutritional information.

CNBC.com No Ho Drink

CNBC.com No Ho Drink

Is Red Bull the company behind NoHo? "Red Bull does not have any affiliation with NoHo and has never heard of anyone slapping a label on a Red Bull can," Red Bull's Paul Yoffe told me.

CNBC.com No Ho Drink

So...I emailed the folks at NoHo to find out, well, what the heck?

"I think someone may have been playing around with you," was the response I received from the "sstephenson" at the company. "Our cans aren't even out yet. They will be out in two weeks." Pictures of the drink on the NoHo website show the product in a type of bottle, not a can, as you can see in this image here.

Source: Nohodrink.com No Ho drink

"Our cans, which are actually being filled next week, will be launched at the NACS show in Vegas on the 21st," the email says. "We have had labels made internally to wrap different size cans for visuals, so not sure if someone grabbed one and brought it out."

My friend says the cans came from a very well-known nightclub in the OC. I've contacted the restaurant to find out where it got the Red Bull, er, NoHo, er, whatever, but haven't heard back.

Theories? Please let me know in the comment section below. Quite a bit of buzz for a drink designed to cut down on the effects of a good buzz.

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