BevBlog

Economic commentators frequently point to thriving dollar store sales as a symptom of a suffering economy, and the surging supply chain that carries energy drinks to those stores may suggest coming bad news for producers of caffeine-laden beverages.
Jon Auspitz, president of Wham Food and Beverage Company, said his company buys food and beverage products nearing their expiration dates at fire-sale prices, and then sells them to charities or discount stores.
“Basically, when they have nowhere to turn, when they were going to have to pay to destroy their product, they have us pay them for the product and get…

Looking for a real estate deal? Talk to Rockstar Energy – or at least its CEO, Russell Weiner.
Maybe it’s due to the flagging housing market. Maybe it’s due to the distribution deal Rockstar distributor Coca-Cola signed with Monster, but, either way, Weiner is selling his California home for the low, low discount price of just under $3 million.
Okay, you’re probably not going to find that kind of change by returning soda cans, but the Los Angeles Times reports that that price tag for the elevator-equipped 4,414-square-foot home just above the Sunset Strip fell by $2 million.
Interesting that…

PureSport, a powdered sports drink brand, launched in a Sports Authority in Chicago last week, and they brought their new spokesman: Michael Phelps.
More than 1500 fans turned out to meet the eight-time gold medal winner, but the story here is that Phelps signed on to promote a relatively small brand instead of a category standard-bearer like Gatorade.
Phelps has already appeared in a number of promotions not typical of Olympians – like Frosted Flakes, AT&T Wireless internet connection cards and Rosetta Stone language learning software. Phelps said he personally used Rosetta Stone to learn Chinese prior to the Beijing…

This one may just right the economy. Or kill Dr Pepper. Or Both.
Axl Rose finally set a date – November 23… – for the release of his 17-year-in-the-making album Chinese Democracy. His managers said that they’d launch the album with a monumental promotion campaign. Maybe the combination of promotional money hitting record stores and hard rock nostalgia on Wall Street will be enough to return the economy to the tech-boom state that accompanied the release of Guns N’ Roses’ The Spaghetti Incident in 1993, but if that’s not enough, Dr Pepper is there to help.
The Dr Pepper Snapple

These days, beverages from teas to juices boast about their antioxidant levels. It’s the new “in” thing – like wearing two different colors of Converse sneakers when America had a Punky Brewster sense of style – but at least one company took it took too far, according to the National Advertising Division of the Council of Better Business Bureaus.
The NAD investigated Bossa Nova’s advertising claims that their product contains the more antioxidants than anybody else, and suggested that the juice company not make such claims in the future. The fancy charts they use in their promotions show that acai…

Beverage manufacturers have bottled a lot of unlikely drinks over the years – pickle juice comes to mind – but Jon Wilt may have the strangest idea in recent history.
He’s bottled blocks of ice.
You read that right. Blocks of ice. Mr. Wilt is doing the same thing you’ve done in the past – sticking a bottle of water in the freezer ahead of a hot day – but on a large scale.
Under the name Fria Frozen Water, Wilt has gotten his product into 12 stores, and is working on more, according to the Arizona Star. Wilt says…

In one of the stranger quirks of the now-global “Cola Wars,” Pepsi and Coke squared off over the rights to promote themselves on the hopes of an Olympic boxer from Thailand.
Reuters reported that a Thai Pepsi distributor beat Coke to the punch by setting up promotional tents at Worapoj Phetkum’s home. Coca-Cola’s Thai agents countered by cutting a deal with the boxer’s father, Thaweep. Thaweep declared that both companies can stay, as long as they behave.
“If they make problems, both will have to leave,” Thaweep told Reuters.
In other words, he wants a good, clean fight.…