Plenty of labels call attention to feminine endowments, but we haven’t seen too many labels that point so directly to male equipment. Well Hung wine is produced and bottled by Virginia Wineworks of Charlottesville, Virginia. The back label brags that “Our wines stand up to any occasion!” Any other good examples out there?
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Water 2 Wine
Water 2 Wine caught our eye. Because there are an enormous number of label approvals. Water 2 Wine has more than 1,500 label approvals since 2004. Why so many? It turns out that Water 2 Wine runs franchised mini-wineries in nine cities around Texas, with one in California and one more in Colorado. The website explains:
Water 2 Wine is the Ultimate Wine Experience! Juice (or “must”), is made available from more than 100 vineyards in 12 countries, and is made into wine in our custom winery! The wine is sold by the glass, by the bottle and by the batch (approx. 28-30 bottles). Wine sold by the batch is made by customers, who return about 45 days later to bottle, cork, and custom label their wine with a label we help them create! All wines contain only minimal amounts of sulfites and no histamines and are available for tasting before purchasing.
It further explains the business and legal side:
Continue Reading Leave a CommentThe Franchise Fee for your first Water 2 Wine will be $35,000. This fee is part of the total initial investment and includes up to 3 weeks training at the franchise training center in Austin, TX. … There is a mandatory $5,000 Licensing Assistance Fee. The path to Federal and State licensing can...
Tags: business strategy, design, sexual
Sex in a Bottle
A great many brands hint at it, but Frank-Lin has gone right to the heart of the matter, launching Sex in a Bottle. The Hula Girl is very direct and to the point, especially compared to something like Tease brand wine. Frank-Lin has about 11 variations of this distilled spirits specialty, approved over the past year. Sex in a Bottle (above) is “luscious peach” flavor, made with grain neutral spirits, rum and flavors. Bikini Bling has a pina colada-type flavor.
Continue Reading Leave a CommentF-Words, F-Bombs and Booze, Part 2
Yesterday we discussed a scholarly article on the F-Word, in F-Words, F-Bombs and Booze, Part 1. That post was long on discussion and short on examples, so here are several examples of approved labels, raising a similar term and topic. First and perhaps most famous is Effen Vodka. It’s possible the brand name refers to something other than what Potts is talking about, but somehow we believe they are thinking of roughly the same thing. As Potts explains, this term has always been mired in ambiguity, and that accounts for much of its power and popularity. The ambiguity also, we suppose, helps it get approved. Second is Fricken Beer, as above. Indian River Brewing, of Melbourne, Florida, is hoping you too will walk up to the bartender and say “Get me a Fricken Beer.” If you don’t get slapped, it might be refreshing. Third is Big F’n Syrah. It is a robust Yakima Syrah with overtones of the F-Word. We have a few additional F-Word labels but please let us know if you see others.
Continue Reading Leave a CommentTags: legally interesting/controversial, policy, risqué, sexual, sin, speech, would you approve it?
F-Words, F-Bombs and Booze, Part 1
Cary Wiggins alerted us to a recent, scholarly article about, of all things, the F-word. His blog, called Meeting the Sin Laws, covers the intersection of sin, vice, alcohol beverages, and the law.
Wiggins points to The Connotations of the F-Word. This is a post in The Language Log; it is a blog run out of the University of Pennsylvania since 2003. The post is by Chris Potts, a Professor of Linguistics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He wants to get a better understanding of why people tend to remain so fascinated with this term (and other “taboo vocabulary”). He wants to know:
Does it in fact have sexual connotations even when used as an intensive, as in Bono’s “really, really f-ing brilliant”?
Ed. note: F-word modified. It’s not an idle topic; the FCC needs to grapple with this and so does TTB. Potts applies some fancy academics to this not so fancy topic, with cosine measures, cooccurrences, fleeting expletives, formal linguistic theories, latent semantic analysis, and even rubrics of framing. He does not necessarily conclude that the term has much to do with sex.
This topic has a fair amount of relevance here, because this terminology pops up on alcohol beverage labels more often than you...
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Lady Godiva Ale
Who would’a thunk that men would appreciate booze adorned with naked women? Judging by TTB records, they do. The TTB database is overflowing with almost naked and sort of naked women in various states of cavorting. Once again, we challenge you to find the men in similarly varied states of undress. Lady Godiva Ale is made in England and Warwickshire explains that it is: “Blonde, Full Bodied, Goes Down Well.” This lady took her famous ride through the streets of nearby Coventry, England. Whereas the lady on the left had the noblest of reasons to prance around naked, we are not really sure about the lady on the right, except to say she is the nakedest lady evident in the database today.
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