{"id":2468,"date":"2015-05-13T00:56:03","date_gmt":"2015-05-13T06:56:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brutalhammer.com\/?p=2468"},"modified":"2015-05-13T02:48:42","modified_gmt":"2015-05-13T08:48:42","slug":"saluting-the-captain-on-what-probably-is-not-his-birthday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brutalhammer.com\/saluting-the-captain-on-what-probably-is-not-his-birthday\/","title":{"rendered":"Saluting the Captain, on What Probably Is Not His Birthday"},"content":{"rendered":"

Captain Morgan (the liquor company) claims that Captain Morgan (the real 17th-century pirate) was born on May 15th. At least that’s what they said in 2010<\/a>, when the company launched an elaborate<\/a> advertising campaign encouraging drinkers to celebrate the Captain’s “375-ish birthday.” How they pinpointed the month and date of his birth when even the year is uncertain remains a mystery.<\/p>\n

What is known for sure is that Captain Morgan Rum was launched in 1944 as a division of Seagram’s. For the next 40 years it limped along, barely surviving, until it was reborn in 1983 as a so-called “spiced rum,” the first ever of its kind. The “spice” added was vanilla, which was chosen for no better reason than that it worked well as a mixer. (Writer Arthur Shapiro, who was a marketer for Seagram’s at the time, tells the whole story here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

Spiced rum is just flavored rum by another name, but that simple word change made the product sound exotic. The marketing geniuses also came up with the idea of a traveling roadshow: an actor in a pirate outfit to portray Captain Morgan, and a group of scantily-clad “Morganette” girls, to promote the product at live events. A star was born: Captain Morgan took off, challenging stodgy old Bacardi for rum supremacy in North America. In 2014 it finally surpassed<\/a> Bacardi as the top U.S. rum in retail sales.<\/p>\n

But the spiced rum market is now a crowded field, and the aging pirate is constantly hunted by nautically-named knockoffs. Admiral Nelson and Lieutenant Dan undercut the Captain on price. At the higher end, The Kraken and Sailor Jerry have growing followings.<\/p>\n

In response, just this year the Captain released, not a kraken, but… a trio of tropical flavored rums<\/a>: Captain Morgan Coconut, Grapefruit, and Pineapple.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Uh, what? I fear the Captain is sailing in\u00a0troubled waters here. His whole image rests on being fierce and dangerous, images not usually associated with fruits and coconuts.<\/p>\n

Well, Captain, Happy Birthday anyway. May 15th seems like as good a day to salute you as any. But if you want many more happy returns, probably better to stick with what got you here.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Captain Morgan (the liquor company) claims that Captain Morgan (the real 17th-century pirate) was born on May 15th. At least that’s what they said in 2010, when the company launched an elaborate advertising campaign encouraging drinkers to celebrate the Captain’s “375-ish birthday.” How they pinpointed the month and date of his birth when even the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":101,"featured_media":2469,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[739,200,734,733,60,193,737,735,736,738],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brutalhammer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2468"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brutalhammer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brutalhammer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brutalhammer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/101"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brutalhammer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2468"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brutalhammer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2468\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brutalhammer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brutalhammer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brutalhammer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brutalhammer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}