If you watch TV, you have probably seen him.  He looks like a cross between Orlando Jones and David Letterman with his crazy dark hair, gap between the front teeth, British accent, and a martini glass or shaker in hand.  “Are you ready to Tanqueray?”, he says swankily.  Personally, I find the commercials very amusing, they are fairly original, they certainly stick in my head, and somewhat surprisingly they are preaching moderation in the middle of an alcohol ad.  What I find absolutely amazing is that Tony Sinclair doesn’t exist except in the land of Tanqueray.  What is even more amazing is that he has a back-story!  Go to Tanqueray.com (if you are of legal age of course) and hit the Tony Sinclair side of the site.  There are many pictures of him participating in some “global” adventures.  It is a waste of 20 minutes of your life, but at least it is amusing.

Personally I don’t drink gin, and even Tony Sinclair with his suave attitude and British accent, isn’t going to make me start drinking gin.  It was close, but I’m Byron Olsen, how do you reach for the Skyy ? I say with Absolut confidence...  Yeah, I am a vodka drinker, I could be the vodka spokesperson but I don’t have a funny gap in my teeth.  I do however somehow have a reputation of being a vodka drinker, it seems that I can’t go to a party with my friends without one of them saying, “What are you drinking Byron?  Oh, wait, that must be vodka.”  That’s a conclusion, feel free to jump to it, everyone else jumped off that bridge last week.

Now, I know that the alcohol industry in order to advertise has to preach moderation.  That’s a tricky thing to do when you want to sell gallons of your product at a time.  To put this into perspective, lets think of a bottled water company telling you to drink our water, but only drink 1 glass a day.  That is a hard concept for most to swallow, but I think it is good for Tanqueray to provide a public service announcement during their commercials whether they are forced to or not.  I don’t think that their message of moderation is going to reach most people, but it will give everyone else a warm fuzzy feeling.

Hard alcohol has come back into style.  Let me qualify that by saying martini’s and other drinks that you would sip out of a delicate glass are back in style.  This isn’t to say that beer has gone out of style.  I mean, how can we expect the general masses and the multitude of college students to give up a cheap means of getting drunk.  Somehow drinking a 40 of St. Ides straight from the bottle does not look as cool or trendy as sipping a drink from a martini glass.  There is definitely something a bit higher class about it anyhow.  Unfortunately for me I am rarely caught sipping my drinks out of something classy, usually for me it is a shot glass or tumbler… maybe there is some connection between the martini glass and moderation.  I don’t think I am qualified to make that judgment…

Did I lose the plot here?  Have I lost you?  Apparently not since you are still reading.  So why does Tony Sinclair have nothing on me?  Honestly just because he isn’t real, and vodka is better than gin.  Can I back that up? Sure, try me, I have tried at least 40 different kinds of vodka, all of which are a varying shade of rubbing alcohol to most people.  I have also tried a few different types of gin, Tony Sinclair however has only tried one type of gin to my knowledge, so what’s his comparison.  Overall Tanqueray has done a great job with this marketing campaign, enough for me to write about it.  I say keep preaching moderation, and keep creating clever spokespeople whether they exist or not.  I hope to see more Tony Sinclair commercials in the future and can only hope other companies will create smarter more clever advertising.  I just wish I liked gin…

I'm Byron Olsen, how do you reach for the Skyy?, with Absolut confidence of course.  Think Skyy or Absolut will hire me anytime soon? Probably not while I am crossing those references, but I will keep drinking vodka anyhow.  Cheers!