The Drink Cart: The Snow Job
If you’re here for St. Bernards with whiskey barrels, epic snow stories and a blast of freshmaking ‘80s & ‘90s nostalgia (cue the coolest ads ever), you’ve found your spot.
Greetings my marketing newsletter and snow bank loving friends.
Honesty, who travels from Hoth to Hoth 2 in February? Do you have have those moments when you know you should have taken another route? That’s how it felt to travel to Montreal this week from Toronto.
I was going to share a classic TaunTaun line, or maybe the time that I once used Han Solo’s “And I thought they smelled bad on the outside” while on a frozen Hudson Bay in Churchill Manitoba filming the movie The Snow Walker. Or maybe later that day when I crashed a snowmobile trying to chase some stray sled dogs. But that just makes me sound like a rad stuntman. I am not that.
In fact, it felt more like Snow Job from GI Joe. I know this bit of rambling is mostly for me, but I can’t believe this bit of his backstory, “Snow Job was a major contender for the Olympic Biathlon, who enlisted in the army to receive special training and support privileges, until deciding to join the G.I. Joe team.” Let me get this straight he was an Olympic Biathlon then transitioned to the “highly-trained special mission force.”
It might have been when I was knee deep in snow down a Montreal alley. I am grateful I made it in one piece as the weather has thrown most of Ontario and Quebec into a state of “snowmageddon”. At the very least I needed a husky and snow suit to help find me in the snow, or worse one of those dogs with the barrels of whiskey like in the old cartoons. The best dogs ever carry whiskey.
In all the nationalism talk of the last week and presumably leading up to the 4 Nations Hockey showdown tonight, I would have thought that Canadians really had truly mastered the cold. But was it all just a scam to sell more hats and t-shirts?
Three stats that blow the doors off your brain this week: First I still can’t believe this Door Dash stat. But if the delivery guys this week still delivering on bike in the snow are to be take at their word maybe it is right. “Total orders are now up 735% over the last 5 years.”
The second stat is about another, wish we werent’ buried under the snow stat. This one from an article in Air Mail, “In the Veneto region alone, almost 300,000 Aperol spritzes are consumed every day—more than the 200 every minute in Venice proper.”
And finally. Did you know that the coffee creamer market is now north of $5 billion? And it’s growing at a 14% clip over the past two years as people make their own coffee and want it to taste like some sort of candy beverage.
Thunderstruck Coffee
I might be the only one who like this first big ad by Starbucks. The well edited spot with the classic AC/DC song is pretty cool. And I really do not hate the tagline, “IInspired by Italy. Reimagined in Seattle.”
It pains me to think that Thunderstuck is 35 years old. 1990 is a very long time ago. I was commenting on a baseball collector’s post about what is vintage. I said that I look at anything from the 70s and older as vintage.
To me, this is the Christmas Vacation Effect. When it came out in 1989. Clark is looking back 34 years at 1955. When I watched it last in 2024, I was looking back 35 years. To me 1989 feels nostalgically vintage now. Same with the cards. Same reason an 1989 Upper Deck card now feels like looking at a 1955 Topps card did when we were in 1989.
So When Thunderstruck came out in 1990, it was fresh. Now, it’s vintage. I don’t make the rules.
Given enough time, everything becomes vintage. Even Starbucks.
The Celebrity Newsletters Era
They’ve done it. The found another place for celebrities to overexpose their every thought. Your celebrity has a newsletter added to their arsenal of their podcast, alcoholic brand (or NA brand), skin care brand, they’re content on social, they’re press release swhen they donate to charity, the video tours of their outrageous house in Architectural Digest. And when they aren't in their latest film or releasing new whatever lines, they are racking up fees in ads. There is no mystery left for celebrities.
It’s true. I mocked “celeb-letters” in a few comments this week. I was two issues into Tom Brady's and the long form journal thoughts are hilarious. Not sure if his use of queue cards or his pro-tip of a real life calendar are more relatable to me. Brady’s is almost pretty good if by good you mean a really rambling teen’s journal of what being a retired NFL player feels like. I’ve yet to officially get one of Mathew McConaughey’s little ramblings yet. Friday at five is going to be prime time.
Media Placement Sweats
Given the flight that inverted in Toronto, this is what Nathalie Vincent describes perfectly as, “Somewhere there’s a media buyer having a really bad day.”
Ad history: The freshmaker
Can we just talk about the "Paint Suit” Mentos commercial for a bit. What a 1990s vibe. I’ve had this in my head for days. Now you will too.
Ad History: 1989 IZOD
Dopamine hit of pure nostalgia unlocked. Tell me this IZOD ad with the dog licking the guy’s face in the most incredible late 80’s cardigan is not perfection. They don’t make this kind of thing enough anymore.
A Little leftover Valentines content
I still can’t believe the depths that brands will go on Valentines day. So here is a little game of which would you rather have Papa Johns Garlic Bath Bombs? Or Dominoes Eau De Passion? Or neither? Since I’m remaindering Valentine’s content, these vintage California Raisons cards are low key amazing advertising artifacts from 1988.
Hat of the week: Unidentified Flying Potato
Last week the breakfast pancake hat. This week, the New Hampshire Fisher Cats released their upcoming Space Potato hat. So we didn’t extend Vladdy, but we’ve got a sweet Double-A, Blue Jays affiliate hat.
This one is out of this world and celebrates the state’s long history with the vegetable, but also “with the infamous Barney & Betty Hill incident that occurred on Route 3 in New Hampshire’s White Mountains late in the summer of 1961, remarked as the first widely reported alien abduction in the United States.”
Last call: The Drink Cart Tequila Sunrise
I can’t think of a better cocktail to enjoy when there are snowbanks as tall as you for days. When the soon impending doom of melting snow and likely ice sidewalks, than the stupidly beautiful Tequila Sunrise. This was a drink made to fight snow, cold and seasonal disorders.
The funny thing about red looking sunrises or sunsets is the old sailors adage. Red sky in morning, sailors take warning. Red sky at night, sailor’s delight. So I imagine that this means the Tequila Sunrise is really a sunset. But, I’m not a sailor or a weatherman.
How the Tequila Sunrise came to be an iconic drink are rock n’ roll related. In 1972 as the Rolling Stonees were touring the US for the album “Exile on Main Street” the discovered tequila and took it on tour. This sounds very much like Real Housewife of New York’s Erin and her husband Abe who no-so jokingly say they discovered mescal.
After a brutal concert, where four people were killed, the Stones ended up at the Trident bar in Sausalito, California known as kind of retched hive for scum and villainy, but also fresh squeezed juice and lots of tequila. When Mick Jagger (or maybe Kieth Richards that’s where the old bar story gets murky) ordered a margarita, the bartender (as bartenders do) convinced him to try his version of a tequila sunrise.
It was a match made in heaven. Not only did the band require tequila, orange juice and grenadine everywhere they went, they woud recall this period as their "Cocaine and Tequila Sunrise Tour."
If you want to know how any of this relates to branding or marketing? Simple. Jose Quervo would put the recipe right on the bottle by 1973. Within three years the drink would be iconic. And by the 1990s it would be out of favour.
The Drink Cart Sunrise
1.5 oz Mezcal (was out of tequila)
1 oz Luxardo Cherry
A heavy splash of nuclear grenadine - not the fancy kind.
Orange juice to make it look like a sunrise or sunset.
Garnish with Luxardo Cherries of course.
Here’s a little though on drinking. Given the current trend of restraint, from the great read I’m currently stuck into, Everyday Drinking: The Distilled Kingsley Amis.
The horse and mule live 30 years
And nothing know of wines and beers.
The goat and sheep at 20 die
And never taste of Scotch or Rye.
The cow drinks water by the ton
And at 18 is mostly done.
The dog at 15 cashes in
Without the aid of rum and gin.
The cat in milk and water soaks
And then in 12 short years it croaks.
The modest, sober, bone-dry hen
Lay eggs for nogs, then dies at 10.
All animals are strictly dry:
They sinless live and swiftly die;
But sinful, ginful, rum-soaked men
Survive for three score years and ten.
And some of them, a very few,
Stay pickled till they’re 92.
—ANON, quoted in Arnold Silcock’s Verse and Worse
Drink Cart Approved™ agency discussion topics
How are we living in a time with Creamsicle Capt Crunch?
Why does Gen Z hate capitalization so much?
Watch this look at a cool retro looking matcha brand.
How great were 1981 Newport cigarette ads with dogs? Can we bring back this corny-core style?
I think discussing Kim Kardashian’s flagrant use of the lanyard to announce her deal with Nike is the perfect one to get into.
The Drink Cart is your weekly fuel for pop culture brains and ad junkies. A cocktail of ad insights and hot takes that feel like you’re hanging at your favourite dive bar after launching your latest campaign.
I loved that "Paint Suit” Mentos ad. It is a classic! And I didn’t know the Rolling Stones connection to the tequila sunrise. Makes me love them even more.