{"id":9215,"date":"2018-10-09T02:12:43","date_gmt":"2018-10-09T08:12:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brutalhammer.com\/?p=9215"},"modified":"2018-10-09T02:12:43","modified_gmt":"2018-10-09T08:12:43","slug":"7-and-7-still-adding-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brutalhammer.com\/7-and-7-still-adding-up\/","title":{"rendered":"7 and 7 Still Adding Up"},"content":{"rendered":"
Old friend Seagram’s 7 Crown whiskey is back in the news<\/a>. This year on July 7th (7\/7, get it?) 7 Crown reappeared with its first advertising campaign in over ten years. Teaming with the National Trust for Historic Preservation<\/a>, Seagram parent company Diageo launched “National Dive Bar Day,” and pronounced 7 Crown “the quintessential dive bar drink.”<\/p>\n In other words, Seagram is pitching 7 Crown as scruffy and cheap. Which, when you think about it, seems like a smart move. Nobody is opposed to supporting dive bars, and 7 Crown has little to lose after nearly fading into oblivion.<\/p>\n Old-timers might remember the days when 7 Crown was king. It took a while to seize the throne. The brand started out in the 1930s, in the days after Prohibition when the Seagram Company wanted to launch a new whiskey blend. The story goes that Seagram CEO Sam Bronfman was given a range of flavors to choose from. The seventh one he tasted was the one he liked best, and so was born 7 Crown. (Another flavor, Seagram’s 5 Crown, was discontinued during WW2.)<\/p>\n When Seagram’s marketing department got the idea to team 7 Crown and 7Up, things really took off. Seagram’s 7 was the first brand to hit 100 million cases sold, according to booze historian and former Seagram employee Arthur Shapiro<\/a>. In the 1970s, the 7&7 became America’s go-to cocktail, the safe choice that even casual drinkers could enjoy and order with confidence. By 1983 Seagram’s 7 went over the 300 million case mark, and even today it sells enough to hang on among the top 30 spirits brands.<\/p>\n That’s not because of great taste. 7 Crown has always been made with 75% grain neutral spirits, which doesn’t leave much room for actual whiskey. Mixing it with 7Up will at least make it taste like something. It’ll suffice as a shot, but the best thing about it is it’s cheap.<\/p>\n