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I think you hit the nail on the head with this….

If we were dealing with a person who was sensitive to the appropriate tone and the social realities, we might deign a glance of appraisal – might advise on the less than perfectly harmonious interplay of colors, the faulty juxtapositions of narrative mood. After all, one of the obligations placed upon our selves is the cultural improvement of our lessers. But one is disinclined to cast pearls before upstarts. No, indeed, we withdraw.

There are places where the elevated patronage of vaunted habitues of Instapundit is sufficiently recognized and observed. At such a place you may attend me.

In my experience, your experience with Tequila and Military Personnel is accurate. But in my experience, said experience applies in exactly congruent fashion with Non-Military Personnel!

Tequila is the hidden reef or Bermuda Triangle of boozes: Get too near, and you’ll need a salvage ship!

A comedian whose name I cannot remember does a great bit on Tequila. To wit, Everyone on Earth has a Tequila story. Walk down a street in any city in the world, say Tokyo. Accost a random stranger and simply say the word Tequila. You will get a horror story that you can tell has (maybe) grown in the telling.

Doug was right. I apologize for not correcting you earlier. I enjoy fine tequila and have for years. Years of military experience has kept me from exploring too many tequila’s.

When you go out with a group of military people for an evening’s enjoyment a strange phenomena occurs. A reasonable and responsible person will ask the bartender for a fine tequila. Someone in the group will hear this and for some reason interpret this as an accusation against their genderhood and capacity for alcohol; a stain upon their honor that can only be washed clean with gallons of binge drinking. Since I am a largish person and can function fairly well with a sampling of alcohol, I ended up far too often getting the idiot with the hearing impairment back to the ship.

My comment was intended to indicate that the bulk of radical Mexican nationalists have more interest in their indigenous spirit than any Swedish import. I apologize for any and all misunderstandings.

With regard to Soju, the number of Koreans who are ardent radical Mexican nationalist is also quite small. A large number of shopkeepers and liquor store owners are Koreans, and they have a better drink than Absolut. The amount of fondness Korean liquor store owners have for radical Mexican nationalists is small, and I suspect their future orders of Absolut might well be smaller.

That said, I completely agree that running that ad in Mexico, where they probably could gain 5 figures worth of consumers was idiotic given that they will probably lose 6+ figures worth of consumers here in the USA. If I need a vodka fix outside of my home, I will definitely be going for Skyy. I am only amazed that more people didn’t have photoshop fun with the ad. I saw a few, but not nearly as many as I anticipated.

Patrick, I don’t know where in Oregon you are, but if you are close (or passing through) the Seattle area, take the bypass around to the Redmond area. Quite a large Korean and Japanese population out that way with full sized grocery stores (better then what I found in the Japan-town area) with some good selections outside of basic Jinro Chamisul. Jinro is made from sweet potatoes and has saccharin added, so I usually only drink it mixed with other things like fruit juices so the sweetness doesn’t rasp on me (or doing shots of it over galbi with friends). Iichiko is pretty easy to get at well stocked liquor stores in Texas, so I would tend to believe you should be able to get it in Oregon at least as a special order. It is made from barley and has no sweeteners added, so pour it over ice (unless you like to keep your liquors in the freezer) and twist in a bit of lemon for a wonderfully smooth and simple drink (about as close to a vodka martini as I get).

Soju is a Korean spirit. In the dim mists of time it was probably fortified or distilled rice wine, but in 1958 the Korean government mandated that all Soju be composed of neutral spirits and applied other purity standards. Today Soju comes in 40-70 proof and tastes a lot like a good vodka. There are some super-premium Soju’s in Korea, but I am uncertain how available they are in the US.

http://www.jinrousa.com/
http://www.internetwines.com/rws34127.html

The critical advantage of 40 proof Soju martini’s is that you can either have a lot more of them, or a lot larger ones. In California and New York, Jinro was able to get 40 proof Soju classified as wine, so lower standards of liquor licenses are available for them. California and New York businesses with only a beer and wine license can sell Soju martini’s and other drinks.

Absolut is not in the Tequila business. They make Absolut, Level, and Fris Vodkas, Plymouth Gin, and Cruzan Rum. They are owned by the French makers of Pernod.
I think Patrick’s point was more along the line of laughing at a company taking the step of trying to capture a little more market share in a country that is not known for its Vodka consumption, at the risk of alienating a large portion (up to 62% in an LA Times Poll this morning) of one of your largest markets.
Stupidity transcends political affiliations. That is my central point!

Oh, and $60 Tequila is for sipping; I could not agree more.

What is a Soju Martini? We’s always looking for new stuff to try in this corner of the greater blogosphere.

Getting Soju in Oregon is a bit of a task. It hasn’t hit yet and so it is only available in one store in the Portland area. That store sells quite a bit of it to local Koreans, but there is only one brand. A couple years ago I brought home a good bit from a trip, but that was just what I could find at the exchange, not selected for premium quality.

Still, it makes for wonderful martini’s with giant volume.

I discovered Absolut when I was in college and found it worlds above and beyond the stuff friends would drink that came out of plastic bottles, but at the end of college discovered I had a taste for tequila and never really turned back- at one time I had over 30 brands of premiums with a couple of varieties of most- anything with Cuervo on the label qualifies as dreck, not premium- but that has pared back as some of my most favorites went out of business and couldn’t be replaced (ah, Porfidio, I miss you). Salt the rim of a glass, drop in a cube or three, pour in tequila and squeeze fresh lime to taste, then sip. Anyone doing shots of $60+ tequilas will have mescal substituted for their next shot.

Oh, and having spent quite a bit of time in Korea, I drink a lot of soju and sho-chu from Japan (pick your favorite romanization if you don’t like that one), but Iichiko is one of my favorites that I can get outside of Japan. My most favorite isn’t even sold outside of the town where it is made, Hitoyoshi. If you don’t speak Japanese, get a translator and find one of the many shou chu factories, the tasting rooms at the end of the tour can be incredible.

The only vodkas I have had around for quite a while are what friends bring me or Tito’s, but I never made any connection between Absolut and tequila before. Assuming that it wasn’t intended as an insult, which if you are comparing Absolut to Cuervo it would come across as, would you care to go further with where your statement is coming from? Ah, and do you have a favorite brand of soju that you would care to share?