Wine Vs. Spirit

November 7, 2011

I’ve arrived. I’m not talking about my people talking to famous people’s people, I’m talking about being an ‘expert’. A spokesperson. An elder statesman in the alcoholic beverage industry. Someone who gets invitations – three this week alone – to sit on panels, go to advisory boards, committees, forums, sales conferences and symposiums and wax [...]

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A cock by any other name

October 5, 2011

Pubs have been burned down where I come from because a ‘barman’ tried to make a ‘cocktail’. If you had a little umbrella in your brandy and coke everyone thought you were French. So it’s taken a little getting used to hearing people who serve you drinks describe themselves with ever increasing grandeur when, accordingly [...]

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INSPIRED IN NYC

September 30, 2011

The Pentawards (packaging only) Ceremony was held in NYC this year and so last night Morgan and I were able to pop down the road to pick up our gold shiny bottle award thingy and share a stage with the big grownup firms like Turner Duckworth and Design Bridge while pretending that we too employed [...]

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Hurricane Barfly

August 26, 2011

As if the earthquake on Tuesday wasn’t bad enough, after yesterdays beautiful weather it’s now raining, as in Cambodian Monsoon Season raining, and to rub that in even further we’ve just been given papers from Mayor Bloomberg telling everyone to pack a ‘go-bag’ of essentials because we may be EVACUATED ahead of Hurricane Irene hitting [...]

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Bar Fly

August 1, 2011

Straddling the pond as we do, and sleeping in some mid-Atlantic time zone as I do, lends a rare opportunity to compare and contrast the two drinking cultures and as it’s good to share, this one’s on me. One of the best bars in Manhattan is Amore Y Amargo in the East Village. It’s a [...]

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Global Wine Brands: Drinks Business July 2011

July 28, 2011

Kev contributed some thoughts to a discussion in the latest edition of The Drinks Business. Here’s his rant piece in full. Despite what all the marketing blurb might tell you there really are very few global wine brands. If we’re honest there are very few wine products that would be described as a brand at [...]

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The art of selling wine in China…

June 6, 2011

Mouton Rothschild are well known for their art based labels and they’ve used artists from all over the world so why not China? The Chinese are very nationalistic so it’s only appropriate that they would feel strongly for the Chinese artists label. Now, if Mouton do a special edition Chinese label every year featuring a [...]

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Innovation For The Nation: UPDATE (Reply)

May 31, 2011

This is a reply to the comment we’ve had on Innovation For The Nation: UPDATE post. I’m sorry you feel that we’ve done such a terrible job of managing the competition. It is our first attempt at this and unfortunately we all have day jobs and have been doing this project in our spare time [...]

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Innovation For The Nation: UPDATE

May 19, 2011

We’ve had literally tens of entries. 28 to be precise. I applaud the people who tried but I’m saddened by the lack of enterprise. Some were products that already exist, which should be entered into the enterprise awards rather than innovation. Some were nice brand names, which we’ll help the creators sell on, but not [...]

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LIWF: Kev Talks…and the IFTN winner will be announced!

May 15, 2011

Kevin will be speaking at this years’ Harpers LIWF Seminar on Wednesday 18th May, when the winner of the Innovation for the Nation initiative will be announced. Click here for more details and in the meantime, here’s a taster as featured in this week’s Harpers Magazine:    

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