PUBLIC MARKS with tags drink & marketing

"never has anything been so highly or justly praised.” A good 20 years before the original cocaine-infused Coca-Cola taught the world to grind its teeth and give ineffectual bathroom-stall handjobs in per•fect har•mo•ny, there was another drink of choice among those wishing to feel invigorated and overconfident for no good reason. It was called “coca wine” and it was loved not only by self-important blowhards wearing too much jewelry but by Kings and Popes and… oh, right. Anyhow, it was called Vin Tonique Mariani (or simply Vin Mariani) was sold as a curative, and in the latter half of the 19th century it was a medicinal, recreational, and marketing powerhouse. To paraphrase J.J. Cale “Czars don’t lie, Popes don’t lie, Queens don’t lie...”

The story behind the face on the bottle

I recently read a piece by John Foyston in The Oregonian relating how five bottles of an ultra-rare beer named Hair of the Dog Dave sold separately at auction for a combined $2838.30. Had there been a sixth, Foyston points out, it would have amounted to a $3,500 sixer. After cringing a bit, I had to laugh. If it had been a wine, the name on the bottle would have been something pompous sounding like Coche-Dury Corton-Charlemagne. However, these bidders shelled out up to $719 per 375ml for a tipple named Dave. You have to love the working-class ethic of the craft beer community.