"Lemonade....that cool refreshing drink...."
Posted on 04/28/2008 7:58:13 AM PDT by mombyprofession
If you watch much television, you've probably heard of a product called Mike's Hard Lemonade.
And if you ask Christopher Ratte and his wife how they lost custody of their 7-year-old son, the short version is that nobody in the Ratte family watches much television.
The way police and child protection workers figure it, Ratte should have known that what a Comerica Park vendor handed over when Ratte ordered a lemonade for his boy three Saturdays ago contained alcohol, and Ratte's ignorance justified placing young Leo in foster care until his dad got up to speed on the commercial beverage industry.
Even if, in hindsight, that decision seems a bit, um, idiotic.
Ratte is a tenured professor of classical archaeology at the University of Michigan, which means that, on a given day, he's more likely to be excavating ancient burial sites in Turkey than watching "Dancing with the Stars" - or even the History Channel, for that matter.
(Excerpt) Read more at wzzm13.com ...
In my town (Springfield, MO) Jones is sold in all five of our Super Wal-marts and in Pricecutter stores. Pretty popular here.
They aren’t the only soda that packages like that, just the first one that popped in my head. In fact IBC, Orange Crush, and Stewart’s Root Beer and Orange soda are also sold in bottles like that. Again, in all the Super Wal-marts and Stewarts is sold at Cracker Barrel by the single bottle or six pack.
It’s not that uncommon around here.
The kid probably has a different take on it than that.
"Lemonade....that cool refreshing drink...."
The shape of the bottle is generically indicative of beer or other alcoholic beverage - like Smirnoff Ice, Zima, Bacardi Breezers, etc.
That bottle shape, in the USA, is visual shorthand for an alcoholic malt beverage.
I'd never heard of hard lemonade, until I saw this article.
Please do.
Please do.
Well here is your problem both parents were professors of archaeology at the University of Michigan.
I think the kid goe hammered though. It was heard that he threw the bottle on the field and told the Ump to get Bent. LOL
Plus it would be discriminatory for a college professor to be treated any differently than an unmarried teen crackhead. It helps their case if they're able to respond to challenges with "See? We treat college professors the same way!"
Actually, the specialty sodas are packaged that way all the time. Four pack, glass bottle, twist off top....
I’m almost 57 years old and I wouldn’t have known it. I would have just thought it was a specialty lemonade. Sorry, I’ve just not been around alcohol much. Sometimes I think I’m the only American over 50 that’s never been in a bar. Only alcohol I’ve ever had was some fruity wine several years ago.
That's the conceit of the packaging and why a chain like Cracker Barrel markets it - for its old timey feel. And when distributors and supermarkets see how much Cracker barrell is selling, they'll stock it too.
Again, my point was that while I am sure Mr. Ratte made an honest mistake based on his personal obliviousness to pop culture, the Mike's Hard Lemonade people were not using deceptive packaging.
To me, it tells me that Mr. Ratte may never have even attended a cookout - pretty much every one I've attended or thrown in the past decade or so has required the presence of Mike's Hard or Smirnoff Ice to satisfy the ladies present.
That's a pretty rarified individual.
Great. Then we'll acknowledge the truism that if you are served a beverage in a ballpark that comes in a longnecked glass bottle, it's an alcoholic beverage.
Ratte didn't know that. Every other adult in attendance that day did.
I’m not claiming deceptive packaging, I am claiming that he is very likely telling the truth that he was completely unaware that ordering a “lemonade” can get you an alcoholic beverage handed to you.
As for cookouts, I throw probably six to eight a year for my close circle of friends and I have never had an alcoholic beverage at one. Not everyone drinks alcohol.
The shape of the bottle is generically indicative of beer or other alcoholic beverage - like Smirnoff Ice, Zima, Bacardi Breezers, etc. That bottle shape, in the USA, is visual shorthand for an alcoholic malt beverage
When was the last time you shopped at a supermarket?
See Posts 59 and 60.
The "long neck" shape means nothing.
The "twist top metal cap" means nothing.
I have yet to come across a beer bottle that had the shape of a lemon embossed in the glass.
“In every bureaucratic system, the shifting of responsibilities is a matter of daily routine, and if one wishes to define bureaucracy in terms of political science, that is as a form of government - the rule of office as contrasted to the rule of men of one man or of the few, or of the many - bureaucracy unhappily is the rule of nobody and for this reason is for this reason perhaps the least human and most cruel form of rulership”.
- Hannh Arendt (Re: Eichmann and his role in the holocaust) -
The bottle looks like a beer bottle... or a bottle that might contain any number of popular local beverages that are sold in my area.
Although the ubiquitous plastic Coke and Pepsi bottles may comprise 99+% of soda sales (actually, they don't), they don't comprise 99+% of the shelf space for soft drinks and related non-alcoholic beverages that I see in my local grocery store.
I'd have mistaken the Mike's Hard Lemonade for a bottle of regular lemonade.
In fact, I didn't know that there was alcoholic lemonade and that it was called “hard lemonade” until a year or two ago, when an employee came into my office drinking a Mike's, right in front of me. It was only later that another of my employees pointed out to me that it was an alcoholic beverage did I retrieve the bottle from the trash and look closely at the label, and then proceed to fire the other employee.
Sorry, I'm a little older than this professor fellow, and “hard lemonade” just wasn't in my lexicon. I watch a bit more TV, probably, then this fellow, but have never seen an advertisement for “Mike's Hard Lemonade.”
The label of the bottle, and the coloration of the beverage, suggest to me “bottle of lemonade,” not “alcoholic beverage.” In fact, what comes to my mind is that it's designed to attract young people, whether of legal age or not.
Verdict: Mildly deceptive packaging.
sitetest
Indeed. But notice it is the "specialty" sodas.
Not the sodas that account for more than 99% of US soda consumption.
If you spoke to the consultants who were behind that specialty packaging, they would likely tell you that theyw anted to create a mental association in the minds of potential buyers of their specialty soda with beverages - like craft beers - that are usually more expensive than your typical 99-cents-for-2-liters cola.
And the beer companies that sell beer in plastic bottles (like Budweiser) specifically maintain the shape of their glass bottles in order to remind people that it is still beer even if it's in plastic and to avoid getting in trouble with regulators by not going with the cheaper, less-plastic-intensive soda bottle shape.
Sheesh! The kid was just trying to mellow out after a stressful week at school.
Mike’s Hard Lemonade is the perfect accompaniment on a warm day at the ballpark.
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