There’s been lots of press (WSD among others) about Starbucks testing a concept in Seattle to sell wine and beer in a store location to be named 15^th Avenue Coffee and Tea.

Presumably, if the concept works they will roll it nationally. And if they put spirits on the menu it’s fun to think about what these “bars” might be like.

So, borrowing a page from David Letterman, here are my top 10 reasons I won’t be having a drink (other than coffee) at a Starbuck bar/café:

10. Can’t see myself saying, “I’ll have another please barista-keep.”

9. The new drink sizes called “buzzed,” “blitzed” and “I love you man.”

8. Drinks like the Seattle Slammer made with Frappuccino, Starbuck Cream Coffee Liqueur and Puget Sound Vodka.

7. PIA, the instant Whiskey powder.

6. Martinis served in recycled paper cups with caff/decaf and other shot options.

5. Iced Chai Latte with a shot of Sochu.

4. Bar food choices like oatmeal, hummus and veggies and apple bran muffins.

3. Scotch from Kenya, Costa Rica, Sumatra and Pike Place.

2. You line up to order and wait for the staff to stop talking about their date last night and for the customer ahead of you to search for money. Then you wait again for the drink, complain that they got it wrong and leave in disgust vowing never to come back.

1. The thought of a 90 proof soymilk shot with a beer chaser makes me want to gag.

Okay, okay…so I’ll keep my day job.

Care to offer any reasons of your own?

Lots of readers have commented on the last posting about the Bronfman sisters and their $150 million problem with what has been described in the press as a cult. If you didn’t work there and experience the good, bad and ugly, it’s unimportant. But for those of us who were at Seagram it’s at least interesting to try to figure it out. (The rest of you can hit the back button.)

Comments I received ranged from glee at the 3^rd generation’s continued problems, with many references to “shirt sleeves to shirt sleeves”. (See March 13, 2010 posting.)

One reader took me to task for passing the article along:

Unnecessary to kick them now after all the years they were the Liquor business…it’s not news it’s GOSSIP!

The most interesting comment was this one:

The third generation Bronfmans seems to have a spectacularly pathological need to piss away their fortune. Amazing.

So, after much thought and consideration, I’ve come to the conclusion that what they have done with their inheritance — the company or their personal fortunes — is their business and probably more to pity than to scorn. I found this online in an article from the New York Observer (Aug 10, 2010):

Inherited millions are often fraught with an array of pathologies and dysfunctions. In 1987, Joanie Bronfman, then a Brandeis philosophy doctoral candidate and the daughter of Edgar Bronfman Sr.’s cousin Gerald, investigated the peculiar psychoses of the rich in her dissertation The Experience of Inherited Wealth: A Social-Psychological Perspective. In the course of her research, she attended “wealth conferences” and interviewed heirs and heiresses. Drawing from her own experience of growing up “visibly wealthy” and full of “shame” as a result of it, Ms. Bronfman argued that inheritors of massive wealth tend to be emotionally stunted. They adopt paranoid worldviews and come to see humans as radically selfish. They perceive relationships to be transactional. Their misanthropy derives from the attempts of absentee parents to buy their affections as compensation for outsourcing their rearing to hired professionals. These feelings are reinforced when they interact with the world outside their class and are alternately solicited for donations or mocked as dilettantes by the media. It was that last many-tentacled villain she accused of promulgating a destructive bias toward inheritors, one that she termed “wealthism.”

Could also explain the Busch family.

Maybe it should be called the un-lucky sperm club but I don’t think so.

I’m away this week but saw this lead story in Wine & Spirits Daily today. I’m sharing it with you with permission from Meghan. My comments will be posted soon.

Wine & Spirits Daily

October 13, 2010

How a Cult Allegedly Swallowed $150m of the Seagram Fortune

Dear Client:

Vanity Fair has published a detailed, fascinating account of the Bronfman sisters’ alleged involvement with a so-called cult, resulting in a loss of roughly $150 million over the past 6 years.  The article sums up how the heiresses to the Seagram fortune, Sara and Clara Bronfman, became involved with nxivm (pronounced Nexxium) and its founder Keith Raniere.  It also speculates about their relationship with their father and how Raniere “seems also to have tapped into a complex emotional rift between the sisters and their father, billionaire philanthropist Edgar Bronfman Sr.”  Note that Raniere, Edgar Bronfman Sr., Sara and Clare did not comment for this story.

“What seems clear, from court documents and interviews with ex-nxivm members–and those who have come into conflict with the group and its mysterious guru–is that Sara and Clare Bronfman could be in serious trouble,” says the article.

The author, Suzanna Andrews, says that as much as $150 million was taken out of the Bronfmans’ trusts and bank accounts over the past 6 years, according to legal filings and public documents.  $66 million was allegedly used to cover Raniere’s losses in the commodities market, $30 million to buy real estate in Los Angeles and around Albany, $11 million for a private jet, and millions more to fund “a barrage of lawsuits across the country against nxivm’s enemies.”

A number of people have reportedly come forward in recent months with stories about nxivm regarding “private detectives allegedly obtaining bank and phone records of nxivm opponents; stories of its critics being followed and threatened and, in one case, reportedly run off the road by a black limousine; accounts of a motherless three-year-old boy, brought into the group as a newborn under mysterious circumstances, and about the circumstances behind the Dalai Lama’s visit to Albany.”  In all, there are “multiple lawsuits” today involving the Bronfman sisters, with allegations of possible blackmail, perjury, theft and “a conspiracy to forge documents.”

Here’s a link to the full article: http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2010/11/bronfman-201011?currentPage=1

A reader wrote an interesting comment on one of the Crown Royal postings. The question was:

Why do you think Crown launched Crown Royal Black? I’ve seen a lot of consumer comments comparing Black to Special Reserve (as opposed to the cheaper versions of the brand). Would they be risking cannibalization of their higher end product?

Got me thinking. As some of you know I’m a wannabe playwright and I imagined this totally fictitious scene whereby the decision to introduce the line extension took place.

Messing with the Jewels

Characters:

Boss, Marketing Maven and Planner

The Boss enters the room and joins the others at a conference table.

BOSS

OK, what have you got for me?

MARKETING MAVEN

We’ve got a good idea to help the brand.

BOSS

Good? Not great?

MARKETING MAVEN

Just want to manage your expectations, chief.

BOSS

Look… the brand is slipping. Line extensions haven’t helped. So let’s go back to basics; why are we losing sales? (Pause) How do you intend to fix it?

PLANNER

Well, there are two factors at play among consumers.

MARKETING MAVEN

And a sales issue.

BOSS

What kind of sales issue?

MARKETING MAVEN

Our guys are the best in the business but they don’t understand the brand and what makes it tick…

BOSS

(Interrupting) Because of those damn line extensions. I don’t get it either.

MARKETING MAVEN

I’ll get to that in a minute. The other sales problem is that the brand doesn’t get enough focus. There are too many other priorities.

BOSS

That’s nonsense. Aw, all you marketing guys just want to blame sales. When I want an opinion about sales, I’ll give it to you. I repeat, what’s the problem and how are you going to fix it?

PLANNER

Consumers are drinking more whiskey but it’s Bourbon and flavored Whiskey.

BOSS

Okay, what else.

PLANNER

Consumers are confused about all the variations. In focus groups they tell us that they don’t understand the differences and we’re pissing them off. It used to be simple — better and best. Now we have original, best original, different betters, best better, saved recipe, and so on. Some believe it’s all marketing hype.

BOSS

Okay Maven, you created this mess. What are you going to do about it?

MARKETING MAVEN

Borrow a page from our Scotch brothers.

BOSS

Are you nuts? Don’t tell me you’re thinking of a Scotch line extension?

MARKETING MAVEN

No, no … Our Scotch line extensions are easy to understand. The price and quality vary by color… red, black, gold, and blue. We don’t talk age we talk color. Easy choice for consumers.

BOSS

So…?

MARKETING MAVEN

We’ll introduce Black as a line extension then gradually change the names of the other extensions to other colors. Wait until you see Purple.

BOSS

All right. Start with Black and show me a plan for the rest of the line.

The Boss leaves.

PLANNER

You got to be joking.

MARKETING MAVEN

Why?

PLANNER

That’s just going to add to the confusion.

MARKETING MAVEN

Nah, it will work. Besides, in a year, I’ll be off the brand and working on that Vodka.

PLANNER

Listen my friend, if it doesn’t work, a year from now you’ll be lucky to be handling the Tequila brand.