The Drink Cart: Fishing Season

Last week you got 94% too much baseball content. This week you're getting unexpected fishing lure brand content. I don't make the rules.

Dear Drink Carters

For reasons that will become painfully obvious by the end of this newsletter, we’re heading out on the water. If you thought last week’s newsletter meandered though baseball too much, boy have I got some bad news for you. This one some how careens into fishing and fishing lure branding for some reason.

I can hear Quint saying to me now after drinking way too much apricot brandy (another thing we’ll talk about later), “You have newsletter hands, Mr. Murphy. You been tappin’ on keys all your life.” He’s not wrong.

Another week. Another newsletter. Lots of things that don’t really matter:

• Vision Pro movies are out, brands celebrate 200th birthdays and streaming is Kaos

• Stories itching to be told, throwback ads and holiday buns

• AI shopping, Christmas shopping and halloween cheese

• Plus fishing hats, fishing lure branding and spiked coffees

1. Vision Pro Films

This week, Apple is launching the first scripted film in Apple Immersive Video to watch only on the Vision Pro. So this will make my very first suggestion that this could be cool - you heard it here first Graham MacInnes - who has been complaining that I’m not allowing him to get one yet. Maybe it’s now?

At any rate, this 17-minute film called Submerged is a WWII submarine film from Edward Berger, director of the Academy Award® winning All Quiet on the Western Front. This experience looks absolutely terrifying.

2. Celebrating the big 200th

Must be a 200th anniversary week. First I spy the limited edition Angostura Bitters 200th, now it’s scotch whiskey brand Macallan’s turn. These brands are no Joe Biden that’s for sure. Macallan is launching two hero films (the one above and this one) and 3D OOH ads in iconic locations like The Sphere In Las Vegas.

According to The Drum, the ads take people “on a journey to an alternative world where time flows unexpectedly and nature preserves what is most valuable. The films highlight the brand’s link with the outdoors, using different characters, animals and plants.”

Sure. The other thing the brand is launching is a very smug space themed $190,000 bottle featuring 80 year old whiskey from 1940.

3. The Kaos of streaming

Streaming, they say, is now profitable. Disney, Paramount+, Netflix and even Warner Bros Discovery are all making some money now. At the same time, as the thread above notes, shows find some very niche audiences only to be instantly cancelled. Kaos was pretty cool and the black and white underworld was stunning as was Jeff Goldblum just chewing the scenery.

One writer offers this, “If every show is going to be cancelled after a single season, commission limited series’. Stop asking for returnability from writers and failing to provide it for audiences.”

4. It probably sounded better in the presentation deck

When I saw this image in my feed, I was sure there no way that it was real. No way that the sub copy could possibly read “Stories itching to be told”. But here we are. To be clear, eczema doesn’t sound fun. But neither does an “innovative fusion of sound, sight and touch, visitors will embark on a multisensory journey, gaining a profound, firsthand understanding of the realities faced by those affected.” Sounds, well, itchy.

The comments on this post are worth it. “I have eczema and I can promise nobody actually wants this experience. Give me the ‘soothing lotion that makes your skin forget it hates you’ experience, please.”

I think the conclusion is, not everything is itching to be a pop up brand experience. But I still want to see the pitch deck.

5. Throwback ad of the week

Feel like we should all take a moment and honour this incredible artifact from Fudruckers that Dinosaur Dracula says is from 1989. Incredible stuff. There’s one lone outpost in Canada left you can find it in Regina - you lucky basterds. Although it looks nothing like this ad.

6. Holiday Buns

As Doc Brown once said, “Where we're going, we don't need roads.” And since it’s technically Thanksgiving up in Canada this week, where we’re going we don’t need stuffing, because I give you Pepperidge Farms Stuffing Seasoned rolls. These are rolls that taste like stuffing. I thought this was some sort of AI trickery, but it is in fact real. I love that it’s insight driven too.

The brand shared that 66% of American prefer side dishes during the holiday season and 80% of all stuffing unit sales occur during November and December. So problem solved - make the stuffing the bun. I can only imagine how good this would make some sneaky slider-sized turkey sandwiches taste.

7. Do we really need AI to shop?

Fascinating story in The Verge about Instacart’s evolving Caper Cart (an AI powered smart shopping cart) and their, “‘new gamified’ feature: when you add an item to your cart, it can show you the location of a second item you can grab to unlock more discounts.”

The app can also turn your shopping trip into a fun series of deal treasure hunts or side quests. Absolutely not. Gamified grocery shopping? In this economy? With these prices? Are you kidding me?

8. Spirit Christmas is finally coming

Your friendly neighbourhood Spirit Halloween store is coming back for an encore as Spirit Christmas this year in select cities. You can already book your photo with Santa.

As one person noted, “we’re getting closer and closer to a yearound Spirit holiday store.” Another is just mad that it isn’t called “Holiday Spirit.”

9. The Halloween-ification of Cheese

Holidays have come for our cheese too. Pixel Elixir posted these insane Halloween cheeses. Please make it stop.

10. Hat of the week: A Good Old Fashioned Fishin’ Hats

I cam across this incredible hat in my feed from one of my favourite posters, eBay jackets & hats. This classic trash beer fishing hat immediately made me think of fishing when I was younger. It made me think of summers in Desolation Sound and in particular one of my favourite places, Squirrel Cove on Cortes Island. If you haven’t been before, you need to go.

So strap yourself in, here we go with another Drink Cart Story Time.

First the fishing, we fished a lot back then. Not like Danny Glover and Joe Pesci in 1997’s Gone Fishin’ where they coined the amazing line: “This is gonna be a ten. Ten plus. Borderline 11.” But I do remember one particular day out with Greg Salmon - a family friend. We went out, right off the shore outside the cove - there was a good swell going and we were steps from shore. He was sitting on the outboard engine (I remember thinking how this was such a cool move) and the water was so clear you could see the rock cod when they bit.

Sidebar, and one that I never thought I’d be able to work into this newsletter, was that the best lure for some casual dingy fishing while sitting on the motor was The Original Buzz-bomb. Not only did it have the most bad-assed logo a fishing lure ever could, it always worked - or at least it seemed that way at the time. Must have been the iconic hydrosonic vibrations it made. But you needed to have that pack of extra bumpers at all times.

Two things are amazing to me given that it’s 2024. The first is that the brand’s packaging seems to be virtually the same as it was in the 1980s. I’m sure some nitwit would want to rebrand it to look more like Olipop or Liquid Death. I’m glad they resisted that. It’s perfect.

Secondly, there is a thriving eBay market for unopened vintage Buzz Bombs. So you’re telling me, while I was stockpiling Gregg Jeffries rookie cards for my retirement fund, I should have been buying more Buzz-Bombs in 1989? It all reminds me of making that annual pilgrimage to the Army & Navy store to load up the old fishing tackle box for the season. Just look at them:

And that day, the Buzz-Bombs we’re really cooking. I can’t remember how many cod we actually caught, but it was probably way more than we should have. The little boat’s catamaran hull was filled - pardon the pun, to the gills. I don’t even remember what we did with all of them.

So yes, I’d love to get a hat like this and go back to Squirrel Cove. Grab a little Livingston boat with an outboard motor, go fish for a few hours sitting on that motor. I’d also like to watch this 1979 classic movie with Lee Majors. The 1970s featured two very real threats you don’t hear about much anymore. Piranhas and Quicksand. This is about the Killer Fish. Bravo on the other tagline: “They search for treasure. They search for flesh.”

You could also convince me to take that boat for a rip over to Refuge Cove so we could get an ice cream from the general store - and maybe a few new Buzz-Bombs. Then return in time for a swim and maybe a float down the cove’s rapids when the tide changed. As luck would have it with all this fish and lure talk, I got an email this week for a lovely looking collaboration between a chef and an illustrator comprising of fishy drawings and simple recipe at the Jealous Gallery in London.

Last call: The Drink Cart Spiked Coffee

Full disclosure, we are completely riffing on this spiked coffee from the best schnitzel in North Vancouver, The Jägerhof. Seriously you need to go see Christopher and get some schnitzel in you, immediately.

Now for the coffee. Since we just talked about fishing stories and lures for way too long and it’s October, and temperatures are starting to go down, I thought a Boozy coffee cart option might be right. You know a pick-me-up from your morning drink cart or a drink cart when you’re outside all day on a rainy shoot in video village.

This coffee is about warming you up and making the pain of Jiras, client feedback and revisions all go away. And since it features the apricot brandy Quint wanted so much as payment in Jaws, then it was meant to be in this very special fishing tale edition.

Here’s your Grande Spiked Coffee

• 1 oz brandy

• 1 oz apricot brandy

• 1 oz Kahlua

• 10 oz coffee

• I’d do a splash of cream. Absolutely no whip cream. Quint would never. Christopher might.

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Drink Cart Approved™ agency discussion topics in 4 parts:

Food & Drink:

• Brand placements: Your tequila brand is on the mound of someone who is sober?

• Suck it hot grass water tea drinkers. Coffee is back.

• I would absolutely not trust Tim Hortons with this kind of responsibility. The Waffle House Index indicators.

Entertainment:

• Sometime’s Hollywood does the right thing. This is good news that Amazon killed a Who’s The Boss revival.

• Your new favourite movie popcorn bucket has arrived so you can think more about the Roman Empire.

• Contemplate the interfaces in The Empire Strikes Back or the vintage Puffs Star Wars Collection.

Baseball:

• Check out some of the MLB Brand Book.

• The Mets are offering up Cinnamon Bun Egg Rolls for the post season. Yes or no?

• The Mets are offering up cookie buckets with 20 freshly baked chocolate chip cookies for the postseason. Yes or no?

• The Tigers are offering up The Tipsy Pumpkin cocktail for the post season. Yes or no?

Random:

• Step into my offish.

• Discuss the idea of Uber inventing buses.

• What do you think of King Charles not knowing what cling wrap is?

Bonus:

Here’s a little something from the musical vault to pair with your drink cart concoction. This is The Pixies performing Where is My Mind Live in October 1988 in the Netherlands. Iconic.

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Drop 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.