Olway®
This is Performance Drink Mix, 2026
01The work
Q:To begin with, could you describe this work?
A:A glass of Performance Drink Mix, dissolved in water. We changed the water into a high-carb drink mix without altering anything you can perceive.
Q:Anything you can perceive?
A:The clarity. The temperature. The absence of anything to notice. None of it changed. What changed is what the liquid is.
Q:It looks like a glass of water.
A:Of course it does. Performance Drink Mix does not change its appearance.
02What changed
Q:What changed?
A:One ingredient.
Q:Was that difficult?
A:It took three years.
Q:Why three years?
A:At the start, we always asked ourselves, “could we create a high-carb mix that tasted like water?” We got close. Close was not the same thing. The ingredient that would close the gap cost more than our price could carry at our current volumes, so it waited.
Q:And now?
A:Our volumes have increased, and that buying power can be spent two ways. We could pay less for our current ingredients and keep the difference, or pay the same and source something better.
Q:You kept the difference.
A:We did not. We sourced the ingredient we knew would close the gap.
03What is in it
Q:What is in it?
A:Maltodextrin, fructose, sodium citrate. Nothing else. Most of what makes a drink mix taste like a drink mix is there to cover something, and we had nothing to cover.
Q:And the ingredient that changed?
A:The maltodextrin. We sourced the highest grade possible. Paid a premium for it. Working with our supplier until there was nothing left in it to taste.
Q:Why two carbohydrates?
A:They are absorbed through separate transporters and do not compete with each other. Using one source alone puts a ceiling of around 60g an hour on what your muscles can take in. Using both removes it. The ratio is 2:1, optimized for the everyday athlete.
04The proof
Q:So the glass of water represents the drink mix.
A:No. It is not a representation and it is not a comparison. There are 30g of carbohydrates and 200mg of sodium dissolved in it. The glass contains fuel. It simply does not announce itself as fuel, which is a convention of the category rather than a property of carbohydrate.
Q:Can you prove what you claim?
A:Not by looking at it, which is the difficulty. The evidence people normally accept — colour, sweetness, a flavour to name — is exactly what we removed. The proof is when you drink it and question whether you drank anything at all. And in the third hour of a ride, when you are still drinking.
Q:Isn’t this the emperor’s new clothes?
A:The emperor was wearing nothing, and everyone agreed to pretend otherwise. We are asking for the opposite. There is something here, and we would be surprised if anyone claimed to taste it.
Q:But it is still water.
A:It is water with 30g of carbohydrates in it.
Q:That is what I said.
A:It is not, but we understand the confusion. The confusion is the achievement.
Q:When precisely did the water become Performance Drink Mix?
A:When the powder dissolved.
Q:Then the powder causes the change.
A:The powder precipitates it.
Q:Does it foam?
A:No.
Q:Should it not foam?
A:Our previous version did. We always preferred that it did not. But it did. Now it does not.
05What it costs
Q:How much does it cost?
A:768g, 24 servings, $32.50. 30% below the industry average.
Q:Is that not suspicious?
A:Only if you assume the average is correct. Most of that gap is not ingredient cost, and an athlete who rations fuel because of the price is not fuelling consistently, which defeats the purpose of buying it.
Q:Could another company do this?
A:Yes. But they probably wouldn’t. Not both at least. It costs more. We didn’t increase the price. We make less money. We’ve learned most companies like to make more money, not less.
Q:Can you teach someone to make it?
A:We would rather sell it to them.
Q:What did not change?
A:30g of carbohydrates, 200mg of sodium, the 2:1 ratio, three ingredients, the price.
06What remains
Q:But it still tastes like water.
A:Yes. That was the difficult part.
Q:Has anyone failed to notice they were drinking it?
A:During testing, some athletes forgot that they were fuelling at all.
Q:Is that a success or a failure?
A:A success.
Q:What exactly is the work? The glass of water?
A:There is no glass of water.
Q:The drink mix?
A:Yes. The drink mix.
Q:And if someone insists it is only water?
A:They are welcome to the view. It will still be 30g of carbohydrates.
Q:How long will it remain Performance Drink Mix?
A:Until you drink it.
- 1Performance Drink Mix, 2026Maltodextrin, Fructose, Sodium citrate768g | 24 servings$32.50003
Why three years?
3years
From the start, we kept coming back to one question: “Could we create a high-carb mix that tasted like water?”
We got close. But we always felt we could get closer.
Now we've done it. This art exhibit celebrates the milestone.
What changed?
1ingredient
We worked with our suppliers to source a more premium maltodextrin, then worked with them to keep the performance exactly the same while taking the flavour out.
Don’t be alarmed if you forget that you are using it.
Why doesn't it cost more?
2×volume
Every production round to date, we’ve doubled our volume.
Scale gives you a choice. Buy the same ingredients for less and keep the difference. Or put that buying power into the product.
We put it into the product.
It tastes like water.
Everything else stays the same.
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This is not a glass of water.
This is Performance Drink Mix.
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This is not a glass of water.
This is Performance Drink Mix.
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This is not a glass of water.
This is Performance Drink Mix.
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This is not a glass of water.
This is Performance Drink Mix.
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This is not a glass of water.
This is Performance Drink Mix.
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This is not a glass of water.
This is Performance Drink Mix.
Behind the campaign
A glass of water
For a week before launch, we posted glasses of water. Each one was captioned “This is not a glass of water.”
On October 3, the caption changed: “This is Performance Drink Mix.”
Nothing in the pictures changed. It couldn’t. The improved formula looks like water and tastes like water, so a glass of water was the only honest picture of it.
An Oak Tree, 1973
The idea is borrowed. In 1973, Michael Craig-Martin put a glass of water on a glass shelf and called it An Oak Tree. Beside it hung a printed interview in which he explains why it is an oak tree.
He changed what the glass was without changing how it looked. We changed what the glass was without changing how it tastes.
A drink mix that tastes like water has a proof problem. The evidence people normally accept — colour, sweetness, a flavour to name — is exactly what we removed. So we did what the artwork does: put the glass on the wall, and let the interview make the claim.
The interview
Our transcript is written in the same interview form. Every figure in it is real: 30g of carbohydrates, 200mg of sodium, a 2:1 ratio, $32.50.
Your glass
Before launch, we asked our athletes to post a glass of water somewhere in their day — the kitchen counter, the bottle cage, the nightstand, the cafe stop — captioned “This is not a glass of water.”
If you have a glass of water and somewhere to put it, post it. Caption it “This is not a glass of water” and tag @olwayperformance.
Credit
After Michael Craig-Martin, An Oak Tree (1973). The transcript on this page is original writing in the same interview form, not his text.
