Drink Cart Friday Shot: Oktoberfest Bitters
A Friday newsletter shot that goes down like bourbon and Campari and lingers like an old VHS tape you can’t stop rewinding.
Dear marketing fans, this Friday pour proves people really will buy anything. Sunscreen ice cream, cursed VHS workouts, maybe even luxury French water.
This week is also kind of a rare overlap: Oktoberfest steins are clinking in Munich while the totally made-up drinking event known as Negroni Week is pouring across the globe.
Two festivals, one fuelled by beer, the other by bitters, both united by a love of ritual and a good excuse to raise a glass.
This week’s shot a mini Boulevardier, is the Negroni’s bourbon-soaked cousin. Bold, red and just bitter enough for a long week of agency shenanigans at the forefront of the AI productivity wars. Ein Shot, Zwei Shot, Drei Shot!
The Oktoberfest Boulevardier Shots
1/3 oz Bourbon
1/3 oz Campari
1/3 oz Sweet Vermouth
Shake with ice, stain and pour in a glass.
1. Ad History: Evian (1986)
In 1986, Evian decided the best way to sell bottled luxury French water was a pastel aerobics cult work out video.
Leotards, squats synced to synths and bottles treated like holy relics. It’s part workout, part infomercial, all brand theater. Proof that even before influencers, brands were sweating hard to make wellness look sexy.
A fever dream of a 80’s marketing excess. It actually kind of feels less like aerobics and more like a lost VHS broadcast from an alternate dimension where hydration is religion and you either sweat, or you are sacrificed.
2. I Scream for Sunscreen Icecream
Nothing says “bon voyage” like licking sunscreen. Van Leeuwen and Carnival Cruise Line just dropped a coconut-vanilla-sea salt ice cream that smells like the pool deck. It’s equal parts nostalgia play and marketing stunt—and somehow, it actually tastes good.
3. Michael Doret x Blue Jays, 1987
This gives you such a rare peek behind the curtain of Michael Doret’s process work for the Toronto Blue Jays Scorebook Magazine in 1987. That bold geometry and colour swatches, that turns epic sports iconography into graphic fireworks.
This is just a small part of the Michael Doret Collection, and featured in Alphabet City, his monograph overflowing with gems like this. If you’re into design history this one swings for the fences.
4. Midcentury Modern Halloween
Before craft labels and ironic pumpkin ales, beer ads leaned into a different kind of seasonal magic. Take this 1953 Ballantine spread: a suburban Halloween party in full swing, complete with jack-o’-lanterns glowing, neighbours in costume, and a punchbowl of ice-cold Ballantine bottles chilling in a pumpkin.
The copy doesn’t talk hops or tasting notes, it talks about friends, fun and the “flavor that chill can’t kill.”
This is midcentury modern Halloween in its purest form—equal parts kitsch and charm. A reminder that seasonal marketing wasn’t about limited-edition pumpkin-spiced flavours, but building a world you wanted to step into. A sweet living room of laughter, a table stacked with food and a bucket of beer in a pumpkin that promised good times.
5. Put the branding of this dive bar into my main frame immediately.
This is Smittty’s Market from Lockhart, Texas. everything about this is a mood board for cool.
You know what this newsletter needs? A splash of glamour and a dash of old-time Hollywood cocktail magic.
Thanks for reading. Another round next week
Jackson.
The Drink Cart Friday Shot is your late Friday pick-me-up for pop culture brains and ad junkies. A fast pour of ad insights and hot takes, served like a quick round at your favourite dive bar after a week of client feedback.