California's Barefoot Wine & Bubbly has long supported efforts to keep beaches clean and “barefoot friendly.” Now the wine brand taken some of that beach trash and put it to use – in a billboard touting its new film, One Beach.

As you can watch above, the billboard — located in Venice, Calif. — used 18,000 pieces of beach detritus, and turned out to be a visually stunning reminder — in keeping with the brand's name — to keep beaches clean, beautiful and safe.

The campaign — which echoes Corona's "Save Our Beaches" effort in Europe — used the reclaimed trash motif in its poster announcing the film launch on Facebook.Continue reading...

British-based brewing company SABMiller has been avidly pursuing Foster's, including a bold move to snatch up Australian beer maker in August with a hostile takeover offer of $9.51 billion Australian ($9.68 billion US), but the Aussies didn’t go for it.

So the persistent SABMiller sweetened its proposal to A$9.9 billion, which was enough to finish things off and seal the deal for the Foster's board, according to Agence-France Presse.

Foster’s and its many beer brands can now be served up by company execs alongside SABMiller’s Grolsch, Pilsner Urquell, and Miller Genuine Draft.Continue reading...

SoCo with a Kick

Brown-Forman’s Southern Comfort is joining the flavoured spirits trend, but instead of going for sweet, like Jack Daniel's Tennessee Honey or Jim Beam’s cherry-flavored Red Stag, SoCo is bringing out the spice with its new Southern Comfort Fiery Pepper.

The liqueur is splashed with Tabasco and aimed at the shot-drinking young male market as well as being promoted as a key ingredient for spicy cocktails. The brand surely hopes the new product will be a shot in the arm, as the overall Southern Comfort brand had an 11 percent drop in revenue during the quarter that ended July 31.Continue reading...

ABSOLUT Mode: Reflections of Fashion

The ever-chic ABSOLUT brand continues its long association with the world of high fashion with the ABSOLUT Mode Edition, a 12-faceted bottle wrapped in a silk cloth design and a sleek ad campaign starring model Shannan Click, shot by Sharif Hamza. The bottle is now available exclusively at Selfridges and Harvey Nichols in the UK, and after Sept. 5, the special edition will be sold at other major UK retailers.

British designer Gareth Pugh has designed an even more exclusive edition of the bottle featuring a “batwing” design inspired by the iconic “Stealth” jacket from his Autumn 2007 collection. This limited edition bottle will only be available after Sept. 7 by going to the W London Insider at the W London in Leicester Square and saying the password “Reflections of Fashion.” No word on the price for this bottle or how many will be available, so latecomers may find themselves speaking nonsense for nothing.Continue reading...

Bacardi Oakheart: Spiced Rum for the Strong of Character

Bacardi is hoping "Oak and Coke" will be a drink order heard across the globe as it launches its new Bacardi Oakheart, a spiced rum with a “distinctly masculine, smoky edge” aimed at the young male market. The launch will be supported in the U.S. by the “Oakheart Challenge,” a series of events and competitions, presumably for distinctly masculine men. Apparently, 2,700 names were considered before Bacardi settled on “Oakheart,” which refers to the barrels in which the rum is aged and has overtones implying "strength of character.” Manly men, get ready: Bacardi Oakheart will be available in the U.S. in September.Continue reading...

Beam Global Spirits & Wine has come out with new branding in anticipation of its upcoming separation from parent company Fortune Brands. The new logo features the word “Beam” written in the script of James B. Beam, the fourth-generation distiller who gave the Kentucky bourbon its name.

The new branding highlights Jim Beam, the company’s flagship brand and the no. 1 bourbon globally, as Beam Global moves out from the umbrella of Fortune Brands to focus solely on the spirits business.

While the new design is not exactly a “bold choice” – Jim Beam bourbon’s most recent marketing theme – it reflects Beam’s strategy of focusing on the idea of heritage and authenticity in marketing its vast portfolio of brands, which includes Skinnygirl margarita and sangria, Sauza tequila, Maker’s Mark bourbon, Canadian Club whiskey and Courvoisier cognac.Continue reading...

Any old alcohol brand can sponsor a sports event or an arena, but Captain Morgan spiced rum has found a more unique opportunity: the underwater exploration of a ship thought to belong to Admiral Sir Henry Morgan – the rum brand’s notorious namesake – that sunk off the coast of Panama in 1671 along with four other ships.

The announcement that Morgan’s flagship, the Satisfaction, had been found by a team of divers and archaeologists led by Texas State University was made earlier this month, while Captain Morgan parent Diageo sent out its own press release announcing its sponsorship of the project. But Captain Morgan offered a grant to the archaeologists last September, after the team recovered six iron cannons from a nearby site also believed to be from one of Morgan's ships and additional funding was needed to explore the surrounding sites.Continue reading...

It's not enough that our booze just gets us drunk anymore, multitasking modern drinkers are asking alcohol to do more.

First, brands added oddball flavor combinations (Budweiser "Clamato?") Then, a few bold brewers threw caffeine into the mix, a combination that proved popular, and litigious.

Now it's all about the packaging. And Medea Vodka is going to get your attention, like it or not.Continue reading...