Red Bull Gives You Wings... and a Halo

Club kids and airplane racers the world over mourned the loss of Chaleo Yoovidhya, the Thai inventor of Red Bull. Born sometime between 1922 and 1932 (record keeping not being that important in rural Thailand), Yoovidhya worked on the family duck farm until, as a young man, he moved to Bangkok to work in his brother’s drugstore. He would eventually open his own pharmaceutical company, whose main product became a non-carbonated drink with a mix of sugar, caffeine, taurine and B vitamins that gave a kick valued by students, truckers, and anyone who just wanted to feel jumpy and exhausted at the same time. An Austrian toothpaste salesman would discover the drink and convince Yoovidhya to form a company with him to sell the drink abroad. It changed a bit in the process - the addition of bubbles, for example - but its popularity resulted in Yoovidhya becoming a mutli-billionaire. And like another multi-billionaire, Howard Hughes, Yoovidhya would become a recluse in his later years, not giving an interview in the 30 years before his death (though unlike Hughes, it does not seem that Yoovidhya kept his nail clippings or urine).