Yesterday’s Metaphors Can’t Carry Today’s Beverages
Non-negotiables for drink brands looking to transcend
A few months ago, my college advisor, Stacy Pies, passed away. Stacy was an incredible inspiration; it was through her encouragement that I found the bravery to pursue a career in beverage some twenty plus years ago. She recognized that opportunity is rarely just a function of passion—it is a function of courage. She helped me find that within myself.
At Stacy’s remembrance, her colleague George Shulman remarked that she often taught that “metaphor has the power to turn things into signs.”
That is exactly what appealed to me when I first embarked on my professional trajectory. Stacy’s worldview informed me that wine wasn’t just alcohol; it was wonder. It was Homer’s sea and Robert Louis Stevenson’s “bottled sunshine.” It possessed the ability to intoxicate the imagination.
It’s easy to dismiss these ideals as romanticism at a time when the alcohol industry is reeling from changes it has yet to fully understand. It’s lazy to assign blame and say that too many drink brands exist in a vacuum, void of cultural context and personal connection.1
I firmly believe that most brands have stories, narratives built atop all manner of metaphor. The problem isn't a lack of story; it's the reliance on tired ones. Yesterday's metaphors cannot carry a brand into tomorrow’s culture. In speaking with many successful drink brand founders, the one thing today’s winners share is clear: they are telling new stories. They are drafting their own fates.
If a brand is to exist, it must possess three things:
A Specific Audience: A brand should not—and cannot—be for everyone. If you are speaking to everyone, you are whispering to no one.
An Intentional POV: A brand must be a risk-taker. Its perspective should inform everything from its visual aesthetic to the way it handles difficult conversations with employees and consumers.
Metaphorical Context: A brand must anchor itself in the world. It must move beyond the “thing” on a shelf to become a sign.
How does a beverage transcend commodity? How does it embrace meaning and harness metaphor?
There’s no one route, no singular way, but here are some provocations:
For your beverage, place of origin is not the setting of its story, but the author. A setting is interchangeable; an author is unique. If your brand’s story could be told with a different zip code and remain the same, you haven't harnessed a metaphor.
Consumption occasions must evolve into “ceremonies,” develop into traditions, or tap into pre-existing rituals.
The pack must be beautiful or ugly, but never forgettable. Is it a trophy, a canteen, or a calling card?
A trophy is conspicuous, a totem to display. Examples include The Dalmore, Don Julio 1942, Clase Azul, and Ace of Spades (Armand de Brignac) Champagne.
A canteen is something that sits on the table. It is ergonomic, tactile, and unpretentious; it begs to be passed around and sipped from. Examples include La Gritona or the stubby, utilitarian bottle of Red Stripe.
A calling card is is a silent introduction. It is a signal of taste and tribal alignment, meant to be seen in your hand or on your bar to tell others exactly who you are without saying a word. Examples include the minimalist elegance of Grey Goose or the rebellious, counter-culture aesthetic of Liquid Death.
Flaws are not failures; they are fingerprints.2 Standardized perfection is a commodity.
The price is a gate, not just a number. Is your pricing a barrier to protect a community, or an invitation to join one? A brand must decide if its meaning is found in its exclusivity or its accessibility.
Brilliance is born through iteration. If your brand isn’t evolving, it’s dying of irrelevance.
Every detail matters. Every choice an opportunity to mean something to someone.
If you aren’t creating a metaphor people use to understand their lives, you aren’t brand building. People don’t understand their lives the way they did 10 or 20 years ago.
Meaning isn’t an accident, it’s the purposeful authorship of metaphors.
Stacy taught me that. Her life was a sign, richly textured, unafraid, filled with conviction and love. Gone too soon, she’ll be missed, for all she was and all she meant to those who knew her.
In the preface to his 2003 book Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto, Chuck Klosterman writes: “In and of itself, nothing really matters. What matters is that nothing is ever ‘in and of itself.’”
However, we must not mistake lack of effort for character; distinction is earned through intent, not through error. As David Rees writes in How to Sharpen Pencils, “One of the dysfunctions of our age is the conflation of shoddiness with authenticity...”
A great read to start the new year!