Spirits of invention lead to a gender war minefield for Scotch and vodka distillers
FELLOW gentlemen drinkers – do you yearn for a more manly drink? Do you lament the erosion of the bar/lounge divide, or women being allowed to drink pints? Are you confused by the modern bar scene, with its unisex toilets, non-binary mixologists and alluring flamboyance of cocktail culture?
Well, good news from the east, where one vodka firm has decided to take its product from the category of ‘the tasteless stuff ordered by people who don’t know what to drink’ and place it firmly in the brozone. Marking their 25th – and hopefully final – year, Ukrainian vodka producers Nemiroff has gone all in and placed all its chips on the masculinist square with a vodka aimed solely at men.
Yuriy Sorochinskiy, CEO of Nemiroff, said: “Throughout the centuries, we fought for the right of men to consume high-quality vodka – brave as their spirit and strong as their will. We stay loyal to our traditions despite all the obstacles that have been placed in our path.” Obstacles like suffrage, presumably.
The relaunch of this particular vodka has seen them redesign the packaging into a manly, square bottle rather than a clearly womanly, round bottle shape preferred by everyone in the world – except Johnnie Walker.
In fact, Johnnie Walker would do well to take note of Nemiroff’s bold rejection of a century of progress, as the whisky maker’s own struggles back in March showed. To mark Women’s History Month, the iconic Scotch brand replaced the figure of Johnnie Walker with a woman, and renamed the limited edition Jane Walker. “What a terrific idea,” somebody in Diageo thought to themselves as they signed off on it. Sadly, in an unsurprising turn of events, almost nobody agreed and once again it, much like the Nemiroff CEO’s statement, it was a statement from senior management that really punched in the launch codes. “Scotch as a category is seen as intimidating by women. It’s an exciting opportunity to invite women into the brand,” Stephanie Jacoby, vice-president of Johnnie Walker told Bloomberg. If there’s one thing the ladies love, it’s being told that they are intimidated by an inert liquid. Roughly two seconds after this statement, the fair and gentle sex unleashed hell on the brand, and all Diageo’s good intentions from the limited edition – donations to various organisations championing women’s causes and, obviously, brand promotion – were lost in a mighty cacophony of people of all genders wondering what Diageo was thinking.