writing/witty/funny

A few days ago I got a great email from Smuttynose. There is a lot to learn from it. Peter Egelston (CEO of this New Hampshire brewery) explained about his recent label approval for — Homunculus Ale:

In 2007, as part of our limited-release, draft-only Short Batch Series, we felt comfortable calling this beer “the Gnome,” a blatant reference to Belgium’s Brasserie d’Achouffe. (Dave, our Director of Brewing Operations explains it here.) When we discussed graduating the Gnome to wider distribution in bottles as part of our Big Beer Series, we felt it was important to be respectful of Brasserie d’Achouffe’s trademark, so we cast about for another name.

As you know, naming a beer, like naming a rock band, is harder than it appears, but everyone wants to take a whack at it. If I had a nickel for everyone who’s approached me at parties with “a great idea for a beer” over the last twenty-plus years, when all they’ve got is a name they think is clever (usually involving a pun), but really isn’t, I could probably buy a fancy dinner with a pricey bottle of wine to boot.

I suggested Homunculus, partly because it means “little man,” making it a distant synonym for “gnome,” but mostly because it’s...

I felt sure this statement was famous and handed down from the ages. But even the mighty Google has not been able to locate the origin of this statement. The Peasant is 15.3% red wine produced by Four Vines Winery of Paso Robles, California. The label says:  “Temperance, like chastity, is its own punishment.” Temperance and chastity are two of the seven virtues. For each of the virtues, there is a corresponding sin, totaling “seven deadly sins.” In the case of this label, temperance opposes gluttony and chastity opposes lust.

Molson must be pretty darned excited about the prospects for the above marketing campaign. They seem to have hundreds of label approvals for variations on this theme. A lot of the “Answer Honestly” labels are quite amusing. Molson has a long way to go before passing Twisted Tea in the shocking hugeness of the number of labels submitted and approved. This massive exercise tends to beg the question, why don’t they just submit a few labels, with a long list of approved permutations alongside. Perhaps TTB wants every one submitted separately but it’s still not clear why that should be the case, as opposed to the relatively common allowance for personalization (Happy Birthday Joe, Trudy, Eleanor, etc.). Here are a few more good ones, among the hundreds. If you see good ones out in the market, please add them to the list by way of comments. Answer Honestly, Would You Prefer….

• To be half your height -OR- Twice your weight?
• To be famous and hated -OR- Normal and respected?
• To have the ability to play every musical instrument -OR- Speak every language?
• To be able to change the past -OR- See the future?
• To be stuck in a meeting -OR- Stuck in traffic?
• To be ten minutes late for everything -OR- An hour...