Graeter’s Ice Cream is a family-owned company that has been a part of Cincinnati since 1870. Their small batch (hand-swirled in two-gallon “French Pot” containers), artisanal ice cream flavors have made them a local icon, and won the taste buds and hearts of ice cream aficionados from coast to coast. Their Black Raspberry Chocolate Chip flavor is far and away their most popular flavor.
Braxton Brewing Company is a family-owned company that has only been around a couple of years in Covington, KY, just across the river from downtown Cincinnati.
Last night, Braxton and Graeter’s unveiled their collaboration beer – Black Raspberry Chocolate Chip Milk Stout.
The Braxton taproom was packed for the official tapping and release party. Lines went around the block, even in the frigid weather.
I went, partly to get my grubby paws on a couple of four-packs. Partly to witness the sheer spectacle of it. But mainly because I know the family that owns Braxton. I work with Greg Rouse, who is a print production genius at our company in his day job. His older son Jake interned with us several years ago, during the summer after his junior year of college. He graduated from Indiana University’s prestigious Kelley School of Business with a degree in Entrepreneurship and Corporate Innovation. Greg’s younger son Evan is the wunderkind brewer of the family, starting out homebrewing in the garage of their home on Braxton Avenue (hence the brewery name) and winning all sorts of awards. When Jake graduated from college, it completely made sense for them to start a brewery, with Jake as the “hustler,” Evan as the “hacker” and Greg as the production wizard (sourcing and negotiating prices on everything from hops to bar stools to old-fashioned ice cream parlor milkshake glasses for the Graeter’s beer). And Greg’s wife Tina helps run the taproom. They’re such great people, and I’m thrilled for them. Greg is a very no-nonsense kind of guy, but he’s admitted several times what a thrill it is to be able to work with his sons in a successful business.
Three cheers for family-owned companies. Braxton, may you continue to thrive a century from now, just like your friends at Graeter’s.
P.S. The beer is mighty tasty. The four-pack above is no longer a four-pack. Or even a three-pack. Chocolate is good for you, right?
I don’t normally read Rolling Stone, but when I’m waiting at the dentist’s office with my kids and my choices are limited to:
A. a two-month old “Hot List” issue of Rolling Stone OR
B. a Highlights magazine where some dirty rat has already circled all the hidden objects in the picture puzzle (damn you to hell!)
I’ll go with the former. Their November issue featured Bruno Mars on the cover. Notice he’s holding a cigarette.
And in the photo spread for the Bruno Mars article, again he has a cig.
OK, so Bruno Mars is a smoker. Sad, but true. But turn a few more pages and you find a glossy photo of someone named Tinashe. (I’m so out of the pop music loop I don’t even know how to pronounce her name… Tina-SHAY? Tuh-NOSH-ay? TIN-ash?) And the pop princess is seductively sporting a smoking cigarette (say that 3 times fast).
But wait, there’s more. Turn a few more pages and you’ll find “Hot Actress” Haley Bennett, and yes, you guessed it, she’s smoking a cigarette also.
So the four largest, most prominent photos in the entire magazine feature people holding or smoking a cigarette. If I were the cynical type, I might strongly suspect that one or more cigarette companies (a.k.a. Merchants of Death) might’ve arranged an off-the-books, under the table sort of product placement deal. We all know that print is dying, so Rolling Stone certainly might be tempted to take some cash in a quid pro quo deal… or maybe Bruno, Tinashe and Haley got a wad of cash for holding a wad of tobacco. Certainly it would be a way to circumvent the tight restrictions on tobacco advertising in print… and make it seem “cool” to kids because all the “hot list” folks are doing it.
But no, Big Tobacco would never do something as insidious as that, right?
As an auditory learner, a music lover, a kid from the radio era (OK, we did have a whopping 3 TV networks) and someone who spent a decade working in advertising, I’m hard-wired to like jingles. A few of those earworms that were created merely to move the merchandise are still stuck in my head decades after I last heard them.
As a kid in rural Arkansas, I used to stay up at night (and sometimes get up very early in the morning) and tune my transistor radio to WLS, a 50,000-watt powerhouse out of Chicago.
I remember a few of the songs from that era, although the 70’s weren’t a great time for rock and roll. Actually, I remember the band Journey doing a spoof of Donna Summer’s “Hot Stuff” most of all.
Sadly, the advertising jingle is a dying art. Now advertisers find it easier (read: lazier) to license an existing song or commission a pop knockoff. Here’s a great NPR interview with the “Jingle King” Steve Karmen. He wrote “I Love New York,” “This Bud’s for You,” “Nationwide is on your side” and dozens of other memorable jingles so it’s hard to argue with his title… although Barry Manilow got his start penning jingles for the likes of State Farm (“like a good neighbor…”) Band-Aid (“I am stuck on Band-Aid Brand…”) and McDonald’s (“You deserve a break today…”).
Where have you gone, “Oscar Meyer Wiener Song”? If White Hen stores were still around, and they sold cassette tapes of advertising jingles (or even 8-tracks), I’d totally buy the entire set.
According to this sign, Rally’s has a new Artificial Intelligence (AI) burger.
It’s a slippery slope. First the burger learns what condiments you like on it. Then it cooks and serves itself to you. Then things take a turn for the worse:
you wind up serving the burger (literally and figuratively)
the burger becomes fully sentient, and you become Soylent
Ultimately, the AI burger stages a bloodless (but not ketchup-less) coup and overthrows the erstwhile Burger King.
So enjoy that buttery steak flavor for now. But don’t say I didn’t warn you!
Didn’t think so. Imagine how difficult it would be to read it if you were driving past at 40 m.p.h. Back when I worked at ad agencies (I believe it was the Iron Age), the rule of thumb for billboard copy was “7 words or less.” And the goal was to have one key image with words and logo in a large font, so that drivers could get the message with a quick glance as they were whizzing by. Clearly no one at Erie Insurance’s ad agency got that memo. That text up top would be difficult to read if it were a foot from your face, much less from 40 yards away in a moving vehicle.
So basically they’ve wasted whatever money they spent on this billboard. That’s OK, they’ll probably make it up by jacking up premiums.
Even in the 80’s, when Walkmans were all the rage, the Reese’s beat went on.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJLDF6qZUX0
(What’s with the creepy store owner lurking in the background? He’s like Mr. Hooper‘s evil twin. And what’s with folks walking down the street eating peanut butter straight out of a plastic tub? Sure, that’s plausible.)
But not every combo works as well as PB and chocolate. Here’s Exhibit A: Swedish Fish flavored Oreos.
Swedish Fish are fine on their own, and original Oreos are a classic, but when you combine the flavors it’s clearly too much of a sweet thing. Waaaay too much of a sweet thing. We’re talking instant hyperglycemia. And the flavor combination isn’t quite as bad as orange juice + toothpaste, but it’s close.
This happens a lot with established brands like Oreo. Instead of trying to create new products, they just slap different flavors on their cash cows. Which is why these products actually exist:
And there’s plenty more where that came from. Lays is another big offender. They love cluttering the shelves with gems like these:
“I’d really like a handful of cappuccino flavored potato chips right now” – said no one ever!
I wouldn’t be surprised to see Sriracha Oreos on shelves next summer.
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