Good to the last half-life period
Nuke-Café was created by Seattle coffeehouse owner J. R. Andrews in 2032. Looking to differentiate his coffeehouse from the hundreds of others in the city, he began experimenting with various different additives and flavors that were unconventional for coffee. Though some of the gimmicked beverages increased traffic to his store, no beverage drove traffic like Nuke-Café, a coffee brewed with trace amounts of Cobalt-60, a radionuclide. The Cobalt-60 not only gave the coffee a unique taste, but the radioactivity in the beverage produced an energy boost far greater than caffeine.
After a cash infusion from outside investors, Andrews changed his business model, phasing out his coffeehouse and the additional beverages he served, and focusing solely on his Nuke-Café. He sold his café and purchased a small facility on the shore of the Duwamish River in the city’s Industrial District. Sold in ubiquitous orange tin cans, Nuke-Café took the Pacific Northeast by storm.
In 2058, J. R. Andrews was approached by the Nuka-Cola Corporation about buying the rights to his beverage. John-Caleb Bradberton, CEO of Nuka-Cola, made Andrews an offer he could not refuse, and the father of the Nuke-Café sold his product over. In compensation, in addition to being well compensated, he was given a position in the Nuka-Cola Corporation. The company was expanding west to capture a sizeable market share on the west coast following their failed attempt to buy the Sunset Sarsaparilla Company, and made Andrews an executive vice president of operations in their new regional headquarters in Seattle.
Since the Great War, tins of Nuke-Café can still be found all across Cascadia, the Badlands Territory, and northern and central California. Those lucky enough to have functioning Coffee King and Samskerski & Batchens coffee makers can enjoy the beverage in its Pre-War glory, while those that don’t try to do their best to recreate the beverage as it was. In addition, Badlanders and Cascadian tribals often use the coffee grinds to make paint, deodorizer, insect repellant, and fertilizer.