Winery Channel TV

Via Slashfood:

"Here's a clever idea: online wine videos! It's The Winery Channel, and they have everything from instructional videos that teach you what foods go with what wine to visits to various vineyards and vacation spots.

The site has a sense of humor too. Make sure you watch Rex Havoc (and his horse "Brokeback"), who shows you the best wine bottles to use for shooting practice, and Dave in Los Angeles, who rants about his neighbor Walter, a wine snob. The stuff he says...well, you know people like Walter (and not just when it comes to wine). You'll be quoting a couple of Dave's lines to your friends later this week.

There are many "shows" to watch, including "Hot Legs," "The Wine Bar Show," and "Got Wine?" (the videos can be kinda glitchy - took me a few clicks to get each video working, but it's worth it)."

Patron XO Cafe

From Slashfood:

"I hadn't touched tequila for the better part of a decade until someone handed me a glass of Patrón in Las Vegas a few years ago. The aged, crystal clear, premium flavor redefined any preconceived notion of tequila that I had, and set a whole new standard for what I would order in the way of tequila from that point on, even in my margaritas.

That said, I was pretty excited to see that they have expanded their line to include a tequila infused with pure coffee essence - Patrón XO Café. Since I haven't tried it yet, I'm hoping Jonathan will do an in-depth review at some point, but in the meantime I'll leave you with a number of drink recipes recommended on their website, which can be found after the jump."

To continue reading the article, comments and numerous recipes click here.

This has got to be the way to help launch new SKUs and a super way in general to help seed drinking strategies and word of mouth campaigns.

Hornitos Margaritatini on This Next and Slashfood

A while ago I mentioned that we should be aiming to get our brands talked about on major blogs; specifically the likes of NotCot, BoingBoing, Coolhunting, This Next, SlashFood etc.

I was having a look at Slashfood and the first item on their blog was a cocktail recipe that had been posted on This Next about how good Hornitos is.

Have a look at the SlashFood article here.

And the This Next recommendation here.

Here's the text from Slashfood:

"On the weekends at the beach, you're wasting away in Margaritaville. During the week, you're a swanky Rat Packer at the uptown lounge. Honey, it sounds like you're going through a little identity crisis.

Alyson's Margaritatini is just the thing for the swanky, sophisticated beach bums. It's a combination of margarita ingredients, shaken and served (halfway) "up" in stemless glasses like a martini. It's got "none of the melt, all the ole!" Sound good? Not even close. The kicker is a little secret ingredient that you can find out only by clicking through to get the recipe."







What's also interesting is the fact that once you are featured on one big blog it's very often picked up and cross referenced on other blogs and then syndicated out further. This can often lead to blog storms. It's a great way of spreading the word very quickly. In addition because of permalinks people often bring up issues and items of interest from the past. So a PR triumph or failure on a blog will stay fresh and powerful far longer than a standard article in the paper. Plus personal recommendations are often more powerful than articles in papers.

See the cross syndicated article on Hornitos below from Tastespotting:





Word of mouth, the long tail and the power of user recommendations are so important. We should be aiming to encourage and precipitate this kind of activity as much as possible.