In what comes as a complete shock and a horrible disappointment to anyone who likes getting drunk and staying up all night, the MillerCoors company announced yesterday it will stop production of its wildly popular Sparks 7% Alcohol by Volume Energy Drink.

The City of San Francisco and the Attorney Generals of 13 other states have successfully won litigation with the MillerCoors company on grounds that the energy drink/alcohol concoction was improperly marketed to younger children. These underage drinkers were said to be enticed with the products branding as 'an energy booster' and partying stimulant due to its ingredients of guarana, caffeine, taurine and ginseng.

Although Sparks has never produced a television ad or directly sought out underage drinkers to buy its product, the prosecutors argued that the drink is heavily associated with drinks like Red Bull and Monster which are already popular with the youth demographic.

In my opinion that sounds like kind of a shaky argument. Is the mere fact that taurine, caffeine, and guarana are contained in the product enough to say that they are 'marketed to the youth'? Is it possible 'of age' drinkers also enjoyed energy boosts and the ability to 'party longer'. All packaging clearly says 'contains alcohol' and 7 or 8% by volume, a malt liquor beverage. And I'm pretty sure liquor store owners know not to allow underage kids to walk out of their store with these drinks. So whose fault is it?

Happy Thanksgiving to all. Still trying to figure out what beer to buy? Check out this news report with the National Beer Wholesalers Association. This guy is selling beer like it's going out of style. Could someone please tell him to relax. We're gonna buy some, alright dude?

via AdFreak

Congratulations to the Jack Daniel's marketing department for having the best-timed sponsorship of a major news publication: right after a precipitous decline in the stock market!

Here on Reuters.com, denoted by the giant red arrow I placed, you'll see the section called "After The Bell sponsored by Jack Daniel's". Well done, chaps. Because sometimes the only solace to watching your life's investments evaporate is some good old No. 7 brand.

Cheers!

(Click for larger image)

Thanks to the ever-vigilant ScreenJunkies guys for pointing this out.

The GuestOfAGuest blog just came across some of the best investment advice I've heard in a while. It's called the 401-Keg Plan and it really puts a lot of things in perspective:

If you had purchased $1,000.00 of AIG stock one year ago you would have $44.34 left.

With Wachovia, you would have had $54.74 left of the original $1,000.00.

With Lehman, you would have had $0.00 left.

But, if you had purchased $1,000.00 worth of beer one year ago…drank all of the beer, then turned in the cans for the aluminum recycling REFUND, you would have $214.00 cash.

HELL YES!

GuestOfAGuest: Rome Is Burning So Invest In The 401-Keg, September 30, 2008

The alcohol business is one of the few industries that improves sales during times of economic hardship. We even postulated that liquor and beer might be recession-proof, but now some hard evidence has emerged showing that Wall Street is really reaching for that bottle after last week's mess. And who can blame them?

Crain's New York quoted some Manhattan liquor stores talking about their increased sales reports last week:

1.) “Vodka and scotch sales are up, there’s no question about that,” said Chris Adams, executive vice president of Sherry-Lehmann Wines & Spirits, on 59th Street. He says that traffic in his store has increased this month—over the counter sales are up 23%, and delivery volume is up about 18%, compared to last year. But, he added, revenues have remained flat. “We have more people coming in, and people are buying more wine and liquor, but they’re trading down,” he said.

2.) Red White & Bubbly in Park Slope, Brooklyn, is noticing a similar trend. “People who normally buy a $22 bottle of wine are now buying a $16 or $17 bottle,” said Darrin Siegfried, owner of the store. He also noticed another slight change in his customers’ behavior. Usually, about 10% of his business is spirits sales, but that’s jumped up to about 15% over the past two months.

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For years Bud Light has held the top spot as the most consumed beer in the world. But the reign of terror for the King of Beers is now over. Behold the new #1 - Snow Beer.

According to a leading UK-based independent alcohol sales research group, Snow Beer outsold Bud Light in 2007 with 51.2 million hectoliters compared to BL's 48.4 million hectoliters.

One of the most surprising things about this shift is that no one outside of China has ever really heard of Snow Beer. The name alone conjures horrible images of 'eating yellow snow'. But its relative obscurity in the Western World is just another way of explaining China's new economic might on the global scale.

It appears that despite layoffs, foreclosures, and all the other depressing things our economy is throwing up, people are still willing to spend what little hard-earned cash they still have on alcohol - the cause and solution to all of life's problems.

Could it also be one of the only true recession-proof industries? (Even the porn industry is suffering)

A recent report by the AP boils it down to a few simple rules:

• 1.) When people are under financial stress, they’re more likely to frequent bars.
  
• 2.) When economic times are tough, people drink more alcohol.
  
• 3.) In a downturn, folks will cut back first on other purchases before they give up booze.
  
• 4.) Maybe we’re more complicated creatures than conventional wisdom suggests.

When faced with big financial burdens, most people will cut back to single-ply toilet paper and generic cereal brands (Lieutenant Crunch, is just as good, right?), but they'll hang on tight to their booze.

In the immortal words of those white guys from Brooklyn - "You've gotta fight!. . . for your right! . . . to drink liiiiight beer!"

Or at least that's what the beer industry is hoping you'll do this weekend.

Say what you want about Light Beer (it's just watered down regular beer, isn't it?), but you can't deny the market for it in the United States, for whatever reason, is huge.

In the past 5 years Bud Light has easily surpassed Budweiser in sheer volume to become the country's #1 selling beer. Beating all other beers, both domestic and imported by a mile. I have a feeling those countless SuperBowl ads, funny commercials, sponsorships of every major sporting event, and one of the cheapest price tags have a lot to do with it. 

But with the recent mergers and takeovers that have created our modern American beer industry (Anheuser-Busch taken over by Belgium's InBev and SABMiller / MolsonCoors teaming up), this could be the time to crown a new king. 

Now this is the type of stuff that could take Forbes magazine from the nerd patrol to the ranks of 'chill dude-dom'.

Forbes took a looksie at the Center For Disease Control's most recent Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System Survey and analyzed the answers residents of 33 US cities gave to questions involving ingesting alcohol.

The questions were:

1.) What percentage of the city had at least one drink of alcohol in the last 30 days?

2.) What percentage of the city's men had more than 2 drinks per day or women having more than 1 drink per day? (whatever happened to equality?)

3.) What percentage of city's population has had 5 or more drinks on one recent occasion.

I suppose that would give you one viewpoint of whether a city is 'hard-drinking or not'. Here's a countdown of their list. Notice any surprises?

15.) Detroit, MI

14.) Jacksonville, FL

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During a fundraiser in Houston last Friday, President Bush was feeling particularly candid with his fellow supporters. He asked all the TV cameras to be turned off and then went on a rant about one particularly alcoholic avenue in lower Manhattan. One enterprising young reporter took note of the disclaimer and proceeded to capture it with his cell phone:

• "There's no question about it. Wall Street got drunk - that's one of the reasons I asked you to turn off the TV cameras - it got drunk and now it's got a hangover. The question is how long will it sober up and not try to do all these fancy financial instruments."

Bush Secretly Announces Wall Street Got Drunk - Watch more free videos