Booze Stupidity Down Under

Buffalo Trace Newsletter had a reprinted story today from an Australian newspaper (Perth Now) that really is one for the books.

Here’s the headline:

THREE WA (Western Australia) men suffered horrific burns after branding themselves with novelty branding irons given away as part of a Jack Daniel’s promotion.

Apparently these geniuses branded their backsides with the words “Old No. 7 Brand” which was part of a barbeque promotion. Not surprisingly they ended up in the hospital for surgery and emergency skin grafts.

Also not surprisingly, The Royal Perth Hospital surgeon called the promotion “an irresponsible cocktail for disaster.” The event also engendered a series of calls for legislation to “halt irresponsible alcohol promotions.” I suppose that they think that before launching the promotion, the Brown Forman Australia folks sat around saying, “I wonder how many idiots we can get to burn themselves with the branding irons.”

It reminds me of the case in Texas where someone drank a 750 ML of Jack Daniel’s in one sitting and then died of alcohol toxicity. The family sued. The courts said something like, if you are dumb enough to drink so much alcohol in so short a period of time, no warning label will stop you.

In Australia, a government official said, “…At the end of the day, how can we legislate against that level of stupidity.”

The branding iron has a warning sticker that says – this can cause serious skin burns; do not touch metal parts with fingers, skin or any flammable material; branding iron will remain hot long after being heated.

They forgot one important warning:

ONLY A BLOODY IDIOT WOULD BRAND THEIR ARSE, SO BE CAREFUL

The culprit
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