After coming home from a long Sunday afternoon with my family, it was obvious what I needed to do. Have a drink. Or have 8 drinks.
Much to my surprise, I walked into my spacious, one bedroom basement apartment, to find my neighbor laying on my couch sipping on none other then a cool refreshing tall boy of Colt 45
Malt Liquor. Being the man of discriminating tastes that I am, I proceeded to crack into a can. And I must say... not fucking bad. Not fucking good, but still not bad.
Skip to Monday morning. I settle into my desk and proceed to read my regular morning advertising publications and websites, when low and behold, something on Advertising Age struck my fancy. It was Jeremy Mullman's article Challenge: Make Malt Liquor Good on Paper. This made me think. Was this a sign from the Malt Liquor God looking down upon me?
Over the past few years, I've noticed a push for malt liquor and malt liquor based beverages around the hipster neighborhood that I live in. It started as 40 oz's of O.E. (if you don't know what that is, click here) offered up as "bottle service" at trendy night spots. Then Sparks started popping up at music festivals like Intonation and at rooftop parties around Chicago.
Much like the re-branding of such "old man" beers as Pabst Blue Ribbon and Old Style, the hipster crowd seems to be on target to be the new brand ambassadors for a beverage that was previously stigmatized as "ghetto" or "the drink choice for 9 out of 10 homeless people".
Colt 45's website www.talesofcolt45.com is a far cry from the days of Billy Dee Williams and Fab Five Freddy hawking their magical brew (which for the record, were some of the most bad ass commercials back in the day). Hand drawn graffiti fonts, chill hip hop soundtrack, illustrations done by indie graphic novelist Jim Mahfood and user submitted stories thanks to a collaboration with Vice Magazine , make the website read like a user guide on how to throw a party; malt liquor style. And there's nothing a hipster likes more then a good party.
Only time will tell if malt liquor's advertising efforts will pay off and reach the crowd of mainstream consumers, but if trends tell me anything, malt liquor will find a home somewhere in-between trucker hats, Nike Dunks, and ironic t-shirts.
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