If you woke up tomorrow and all of your followers were gone, could you go back to being you?
That’s what a recent Netflix documentary about social media asked its viewers. It’s a line that’s been stuck in my head since I first watched it because it’s exactly what I’ve been trying to do for the last two years: go back to being a guy who just likes to drink and have a good time. In the Spring of 2018, after more than a decade of working wine and spirits retail, writing daily a blog about alcohol, researching new brands, and making the study of booze my end-all be-all, I decided to quit. In the wake of one difficult decision, all of my social media followers were effectively gone overnight. Yet, as the question above alludes to, it’s not always easy to transition from having thousands of people asking you for your advice one day, to having absolutely no one care about your opinion the next.
For those of us who obsess over booze, why it tastes the way it does and where we can find our next exciting fix, the curation of alcohol impacts our daily life. Everything in my world revolved around what I was going to drink that day, and the diversity of what was in my liquor cabinet was like a global passport. There was something new and interesting on the menu every night because my generation had completely eschewed brand loyalty in the name of drinking better stuff, searching out the most exciting new drinks from the world at large. Yet, in a twist of irony, our endeavors made us even more label conscious than our predecessors—without any of the loyalty.
What does that mean exactly? It means that rather than stick to our favorite brands like our parents did, we became devotees of the data—and there’s a lot of data to mine in the booze world. Instead of asking the bartender for a pour of our favorite label, we asked if there were any whiskies on the menu above 52% ABV, ten years or older? We thought the specs would help us weed out the good stuff from the mediocre because understanding the data points of alcohol helps create a simplified formula for quality assessment. And it did. At first.
As time went by, however, I had more customers asking me about the numbers on the label than the actual liquid in the bottle, as if they could crunch those numbers into a qualitative calculation from just the specs alone. Pretty soon, finding a new whiskey seemed to be more about winning than drinking. Winning a debate. Winning a contest. Winning the internet. With data.
To me, however, turning alcohol into hard statistics always made me feel like I was losing. Losing my passion. Losing my career. Losing myself.
For the last two and a half years, I’ve been working behind the scenes with bartenders, restaurants, and various retailers, trying to figure out if anyone still cares about flavor. It used to be that we tasted something, decided whether we liked it, then worked backward to figure out why. Our exploration started with enjoyment and ended with intellectual fulfillment. Today, however, many of us have flipped that approach, impacting our ability to simply enjoy our beverages. I’ve met and known many a drinker who, before even tasting a spirit, has already made up his or her mind as to whether it’s worth drinking.
What’s the ABV? 43%? Too low.
What’s the age? 7 years? Too young.
What’s the percentage of rye in the mash bill? 13%? Too bland.
How many bottles did they make? 10,000? Too many.
We tell ourselves we’re simply investigating a potential new purchase, using data to drive our decision making, but instead I feel we’re boxing ourselves into a prejudice. In deciding whether a product has merit before we’ve yet raised it our lips, we’re making judgement calls about quality based on numbers rather than our own taste buds. It’s no different than buying a wine based solely on a 90+ point score.
That’s not to say that one can’t determine a number of characteristics about wine or whiskey based on hard data, like the level of alcohol or the age and vintage. It’s true that these numbers give us an early idea towards the likelihood of our eventual appreciation; hence, their importance to the modern consumer. But I think flavor itself is getting lost in all the math. Higher numbers, like age statements and ABVs, equate to higher prices, regardless of whether they actually taste better. Because consumers have now been conditioned to seek out these specifics, booze companies know they can charge more for something based on stats rather than flavor. That’s why there are so many mediocre whiskies out there from a single barrel at cask strength that would have tasted much better as part of a larger blend.
Flavor is becoming less relevant to wine and spirits marketing because it’s hard to quantify (that’s why the 100 point Parker system exists). Personal taste is subjective, so it’s increasingly tossed aside for numbers that are easier to sell. Flavor also can’t be captured in a photo and plastered all over Instagram as a bragging point for the validation of others; we need something more concrete that can generate likes and retweets. As the aforementioned documentary points out: the dark path to despair on social media begins when you start to believe your happiness depends on the approval of strangers. I would argue that the same dangers have become prevalent in the world of wine and spirits, where drinkers are increasingly anxious about how their beverage rates online.
I think a large number of consumers are ready for a reboot, or a back-to-basics approach that puts drinking at the center and flavor at the forefront. That’s why returning to retail with Mission Wine & Spirits and working with real consumers once again has me so excited. Our team is driven by a genuine passion for great tasting products and we love sharing that enthusiasm with our customers. We’ll have all the data too, but it will always point back to flavor and why exactly you might want to try something new and delicious. Mission carries just about everything, which means I have a lot of catching up to do (and a lot of product descriptions to start writing), but there’s nowhere else I’d rather be than here, with this company, doing what we do best.
To answer the initial question posed about social media: yes, you can go back to being you once you lose all your followers. You can also go back to a time when alcohol was something you looked forward to, rather than something you agonized about after spending two hours on Reddit arguing with a bunch of geeks. You can drink alcohol just to drink it, without the perfect food pairing or a three course meal. You can add ice if you want. You can drink from a plastic cup. You can do whatever you want because ultimately this is life, not a competition. Data does not equate to happiness. If you’re not enjoying yourself, you don’t win.
Alcohol should taste good and make you happy—pure and simple. To paraphrase Marie Kondo, the act of drinking should spark joy. If it doesn’t, you need to get rid of the clutter. That’s what this blog is here to help you do.
If reading this initial entry has you thinking to yourself: who in the hell cares this much about alcohol?! That’s fantastic. Don’t change. We’ll keep you up to speed with some fun stuff here at our new site. But if you’re looking to get the most out of each bottle you purchase, I’m here to help make drinking a bit more fun. It starts right now.
Welcome to the new booze blog.
-David Driscoll