CSotD: Sipping Ol’ Possum with the POSSLQ
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I was in a liquor store once — well, to be honest, I've been in a liquor store more than once — But once when I was in a liquor store, I overheard a couple ask the manager which was the best butterscotch schnapps. His professional response was to say, "well, we seem to sell a lot of this one …" which answered their question without having to address their premise.
Much that is on the shelves these days seems to be designed to be a drug-delivery package to get you high without subjecting you to the actual taste of an alcoholic beverage. Wine is a little different, since the good stuff genuinely tastes better than the mediocre stuff by almost any standard. And yet.
I have a rule that I prefer the winemakers concentrate their talent on making something good to go inside the bottle rather than focusing on making something witty and cute to go on the outside of the bottle. I realize it's not impossible to team up an expert vintner with a clever promotions person, but, in my ideal world, the clever promotions person would create a label that made the winery seem serious about its craft, and I refuse on principle to buy wine that comes wrapped in clever art and bad puns.
In other words, while I dearly love what each of them does, I don't find a lot of crossover between my favorite winemakers and my favorite cartoonists.
Besides doing this syndicated panel, "Bliss," Harry Bliss also cartoons for the New Yorker, where making fun of suburban nitwits is somehow subsidized by readers who embody Jonathan Swift's remark that "Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover
everybody's face but their own."
And who probably like to buy fruity wine with cute little critters on the label.
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