The Drink Cart: After Dark Mode

When the dog eats your "homework" and you end up writing the newsletter after hours.

Dear Drink Carters. Yes, it’s true. You caught us. We didn’t make our completely arbitrary Thursday morning publishing deadline for this newsletter. We are deeply sorry about that. But remember, this is a free newslette! I wish I could say it was a denial of service attack like Elon did, but it was more that I had to watch 1972’s The Poseidon Adventure last night. Did a movie like this need to go so hard having Gene Hackman in it? It did not.

And you’re never going to believe this, but while I was crafting this newsletter listening to the highly motivating Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan soundtrack - which is perfect for a little Drink Cart after dark newslettering, more distractions hit. We somehow found the iconic Tom Cruise 1988 feature, Cocktail playing on linear TV (yeah, like on TV). It’s a fact that I can’t resist the “Last Barman Poet” scene in the wonderful fictional bar, Cell Block. I think we all know that I’m dropping Tom Cruise into this since his appearance at the closing ceremonies of the Olympics on Sunday was so iconic - but also nearly a week ago.

So we’ll try to bring that same 26 year old Tom Cruise energy as we go for an after dark, newsletter experience today.

Tonight’s rare after dark “newsletter” is so much more than excuses on missing our publishing schedule:

• Catch up on mayonnaise scents, billboards that smoke and angry rinos

• Then jump into a new favourite Tiktok, giant Pop Tars and boozy PSLs

• We go back to the olympics for the future of memes and all our favourite pharma ads

• Then we shake up an 80’s classic from the Drink Cart

1. Peak Mayonnaise

Let’s start this week with something light. Like the world’s first mayo fragrance. The video is so perfect and yes, you can smell like greatness.

2. Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em

I am so bummed I missed the hey day of cigarette advertising where you could have a billboard that smoked. This billboard for Netflix’s The Gentleman is a nice throwback to those.

There was a great one on Broadway between 43rd and 44th Street that puffed out smoke rings from post-Pearl Harbour until the 1960s. But there were others

3. Get the rino

A few weeks back I was on set doing some shooting for an upcoming spot featuring special effects. 9 hours in a studio on a hot day almost had me missing being on location. So this backstory of a rino chasing a Land Rover for a print ad really caught my eye.

As Brand Gully tells it, adman Allen Richardson explained that the ad was all shot live in camera. “We even shot on 35mm film to give it a slightly grainy, less polished look. It was documentary-style with very little retouching and no CGI.”

This part is so awesome: “We found a rhino named Tank and put his trainer in the back of the Defender to call to him. Tank got hip to the game and chased the Defender around for a couple of laps. But after a while, Tank got sick of the game. He lunged, caught the Rover, and lifted it off the ground. According to the professional driver, if it wasn't for the 4WD, Tank would've flipped it.” That is so cool and reminds me of this post about Tom Cruise on this week’s Olympic stunt.

4. New Favourite Tiktok

This one is everything you want from a Tiktok.

5. Giant Pop Tarts

When in doubt, make your product 75x bigger. Pop Tarts did this to celebrate 60 years of the tasty treat this week and I kind of wish they were available in Toronto. As Fast Company notes, “Expect more snack food stunts.” And large ones.

6. 6% Pumpkin Spice

Since this is after hours, this is just nuts. How could we not talk about this Dunkin Spiked Pumpkin Spice Iced Latte cans? And at August 15th, it is way too early to be talking about PSL season. Everything you love about fall, but make it uncomfortably boozy. Perfect.

7. A more perfect meme drop doesn’t exist…

As Team USA battled France in their gold-medal game last weekend, Steph Curry had already planned out his post game outfit. After draining multiple three-pointers in the final few minutes, he struck a celebratory pose where he, on French soil no less, “mimed” sleeping. The viral moment was everywhere.

Then during post-game Curry was seen in a newly designed bit of swag featuring the words “nuit, nuit”. As designer collaborator Mike Fogg tells it, “In English, it’s Night Night. In French, It’s Nuit Nuit. In any language, it means game over.” The most interesting part, this swag is just for him. It’s not on sale - yet. Meanwhile McDonald’s France had some fun suggesting that it might remove Curry dipping sauce for the next 4 years after all this.

Basically players now can pre-plan viral moments and have their own personalized swag to capitalize on it all in advance. Expect to see more of this playbook. Would that make these scripted memes?

8. Hat of the week: The Malecón Mojitos

This is a fictional hat for The Malecón Mojitos that was once on The Clink Room made to signify The Malecón, “a broad esplanade, roadway, and seawall that stretches for 5 miles along the coast of Havana.” Something about this, just screamed late night Drink Cart Hat.

9. The extended universe of pharma ads

We all know television pharma ads are a bit weird. And it’s been a great time to watch them during the Olympics. They are weirder than Tim Walz thinks JD Vance is. Don’t get me wrong, I want to have been in the room and on set for the Wegovy ad (there’s a 90 second cut? Holy crap that’s amazing. ”WE-GO-VEE”) and watched how that anthemic spot happened.

Not sure what is my favourite part is the painting in the woods or the Dad who just hands the wrench to his son and joins the Wegovy march. And the crowd even makes the We part of the logo at the end in an epic overhead shot. I can’t. It’s so perfect.

While we’re on the subject, I also definitely want to know who came up with the term Skyrizi as a brand name (The jingle is so good “Control is everything to me.” Preach!). But it was this Syfovre ad - that brand’s name seems like it was inspired by Trump’s Covfefe tweet - and I’m not a doctor, but is this disease some sort of slug or turtle face? That would be shocking to wake up with a painted slug on your face. Gross.

The comments on the Youtube are amazing and worth the price of admission. Here’s my top 5 favs:

“Definite vibe, that someone's getting sacrificed.”

“The way they looked at each other got me very strange.”

“So that's how JoJo Siwa will look at 70.”

“if I take syfovre I will turn black and white and get a free animal face painting? Cool sign me up.😂😂😂😂”

“If ad agencies on mushrooms was a person 🤔”

Last call: The Drink Cart Brandy Alexander

Watching Cocktail we were inspired by the 1980s vibes. The Brandy Alexander is a classic. I remember making these on Sundays bartending at the Keg. A very rare drink indeed, like the Grasshopper.

Here’s the recipe:

• 1.5 oz brandy (or cognac)

• 1 oz crème de cacao

• 1 oz heavy cream

• Shake that all up (preferably with this song playing) over ice and then strain into a coupe glass to keep it classy.

• You can sprinkle some cinnamon or nutmeg. If you wish. I wouldn’t.

And once you’ve made that, and discover that it kind of has a chocolate milkshake taste, here’s the rest of the story. The cocktail is likely named after Troy Alexander, a bartender at Rector's, a New York City restaurant. It is believed to have been created at a dinner honoring Phoebe Snow, a fictional character from a popular early 20th-century advertising campaign for the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad. See it’s an ad cocktail. Love that.

Someday, if this newsletter ever doesn’t get shared, or I no show for a series of meetings. Or don’t answer my texts or Slacks. You’ll know where I am. Creating a small cocktail on a boat business in Croatia.

What did you think of this week’s newsletter? Drop me a comment or question below or tell me how your weekly drink turned out.

The Drink Cart is a weekly newsletter of advertising, pop culture, baseball and cocktails from Jackson Murphy.