We Don’t Just Drink Pink
It never occurred to me until I got into the whiskey business that whiskey was considered “a man’s drink,” or maybe I should say that never stopped me from drinking it.
When I was younger I used to joke that I was channeling my inner old white man until at some point I realized that wasn’t true - I was reaching for higher ABVs because of the flexibility they provide in cocktails and their forward flavors when drinking neat while many of my older and white drinking compatriots were reaching for pours on the lower AVB range. Also, as my career in conservation progressed, I became the go-to-person for reviewing the whiskey selection at a bar and making a recommendation for everyone based on what vibe I was feeling at the moment. After a while, I realized everyone was actually drinking like a young black woman so I needed to put that joke to rest.
In fact, any time I was presented with a situation where someone expected that I wouldn’t want whiskey, or that I would want a mixer it was often a man making that assumption, not me. I will never forget conducting field work in South Africa and drinking Johnny Walker neat while everyone else (and I mean everyone) was mixing it with Coke. None of the guys could believe it when I politely declined the mix-in saying I preferred it neat and couldn’t drink Coke because of the caffeine. They actually went out and found decaf cola which they tried to force on me, trying to top off my glass even when my hand was over the cup. Eventually I just started drinking wine so I wouldn’t offend their delicate sensibilities.
Recently, I was doing a virtual cocktail workshop with the Sister Supply Chain Network and I was gleeful to discover a (virtual) room full of women who smoked cigars and drank whiskey because from my experience that combination tends to be a little more rare. That led to the discussion about the unwarranted stereotypes about women and drinking and how so many spirits, liqueurs, and sometimes even wines are characterized as “masculine beverages.” Baffled as to where these stereotypes originated from the, “We Don’t Just Drink Pink,” campaign was born. A simple way to say, yes we enjoy cosmopolitans, rose, and rum punch but we also like whiskey, absinthe, bold malbecs, and neat pours of all the other spirits and liqueurs! We don’t get this gendering of beverages and encourage everyone to just drink responsibly!
I am especially proud to be a part of this campaign - more details coming soon - because I wouldn’t ever want someone to pass on a glass of New Dawn because they somehow thought it wasn’t for them. Even those who say that don’t like whiskey, I encourage you to try again because maybe you just haven’t found your whiskey yet. Maybe you haven’t found your gateway cocktail that highlights and elevates the whiskies flavors instead of masking or drowning them out. More importantly, if you haven’t explored whiskey because someone told you it was a masculine beverage I want to assure you that you aren’t going to lose any of your femininity by taking a sip. I encourage you to think of whiskey as sexy, sultry, sophisticated, and classy - adjectives I know we all have aspired to at least once or twice in our lives!
This past weekend I had the opportunity to pour some New Dawn for the owner of a whiskey brand with a tag line, “A man’s drink.” His was a respectable 80 proof sipper and here I was with my 117 proof bourbon and wheated whiskey. I was tickled pink (see what I did there) after he took his first sip. Bless his heart, if you could’ve seen his eyes! I didn’t even have to say anything because the message was loud and clear, “We don’t just drink pink!”
