If Lando Drinks it, then I’ve Gotta Try It!

When it comes to alcoholic beverages, I like to choose what I drink based on two things: advertising and product placement.

I’ll be the first to admit that I am swayed by these. Millions of people are. That’s why you see beer commercials on TV, and why you see product placement all the time in movies and TV shows.

One time I tried J&B after seeing Kurt Russell tote a bottle of it in The Thing. Liked the movie. Loved the J&B.

I wasn’t even an itch in my Dad’s pants when Lando Calrissian (I know that’s not his real name. I’m not an idiot!) was hocking Colt 45 in the 1980s. “It works every time.”

Yep, it works for me too, Lando.

While advertising and product placement can influence me to try a particular drink, it can also influence me NOT to.

For example, if I saw Gwyneth Paltrow nursing a glass of Wild Turkey in a movie, I wouldn’t be interested in trying Wild Turkey, because I think she’s a doofus.

Thank God I’ve never actually seen her drink it.

On the other hand, I’ll try any damn thing I see John Wayne drink in a movie. He could be drinking Zima out of a horse’s ass, and I’d be in line at the Circle K with a case of Zima later that night calling the cashier “Pilgrim.”

Thank God I’ve never actually seen him drink THAT.

You can thank Burt Reynolds for getting me to try the famous Banquet Beer, Coors. Shit, if he and Jerry Reed are driving all the way to Texarkana to pick up 400 cases of Coors in Smokey and the Bandit, then it must taste pretty good, right?

However, I saw a Tecate commercial with Sylvester Stallone once. I still haven’t tried it, because I would rather blow my load inside a garbage disposal than listen to Sly talk now. I don’t have a Mumble-to-English dictionary.