Boozin’ Blog

At least this time it’s not in the US. It seems like our lawmakers hold the world record for irrational fear of the drink.

But now we turn our attention to Ontario, Canada where they’ve banned a brand of vodka called Crystal Head. It’s cleverly packaged in what appears to be a crystal skull. That’s a brilliant marketing move. I don’t generally drink vodka but I’m tempted to go out and pay the $50 just to have it. The bottle is incredibly eye-catching and who wouldn’t want to serve vodka out of a skull?

Liquor Control Board of Ontario spokesman and noted ass-hat Chris Layton, that’s who.

Layton contends that the image of the human skull “is an image that is commonly associated with death or, in some cases, death by poison. It’s especially problematic because there are concerns these days around binge drinking by younger adults.”

Seriously? Okay, to the poison issue. Is there really a household in Ontario where people are keeping poison in a 750ml bottle that is shaped like a human skull? It seems that Layton might be afraid that there is and that someone is going to confuse the two and wind up mixing the Bloody Mary of death. Frankly, I’m more concerned about why anyone would have a giant bottle of poison.

And then there’s the youth issue. It’s a favorite thing for neo-prohibitionists to bring up with they arbitrarily try to ban alcohol. Won’t someone please think of the children? I really don’t get it here. How does a skull induce kids to drink? In the first place, when kids drink they drink to get drunk. They’re not going to pay 5 times more for a bottle with a cool shape or label when they can buy a cheap bottle of vodka or whiskey for $10. Second, the neo-prohibitionist like to go after alcohol with cute labels, the argument being that kids will be attracted to the cartoon characters or fuzzy animals and be sucked into a life of raging alcoholism. But now the argument seems to be that a sinister image will do the same.

So which is it?

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I know I tend to go on about this but the variety of silly laws regarding alcohol sales and consumption never cease to amaze me.

Last night I found myself in Mississippi. The night was warm and sticky and I wanted some seltzer – nothing quenches my thirst like the bland and bubbly.

Anyway, I saw a small liquor store so I stopped in found my water. I live in Missouri and I don’t often have occasion for booze buying in the great state of Mississippi. So I looked around a little bit – lots of wine, a very nice selection of whisky and lots of other sorts of distilled alcohol as well as the expected alcopops and mixers.

But not a drop of beer! Thinking that I’d missed it I circulated the little store twice to make sure that I hadn’t overlooked something. But no; there was simply no beer. I asked that guy at checkout about it and he told me that in Mississippi beer and other alcoholic beverages couldn’t be sold at the same location.

Where could I find beer? The grocery store.

Now what could possibly be the reasoning here? The wouldn’t-someone-think-of-the-children laws and the crazy religious laws at least come with their own sort of twisted logic but I can’t come up with any sort of reasoning that explains why beer must be segregated from other booze.

Amazing.

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