{"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

Thus the clever dive bar tie-in. Calling 7 Crown “the quintessential dive bar drink” might be pushing it, but many people will remember the 7&7 as their first taste in some smoky corner bar. Diageo is counting on that nostalgia factor in giving the Crown another go<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u201cSeagram\u2019s 7 Crown and dive bars go hand in hand, and have for decades, because the two are easy, approachable and share a history of bringing people together,\u201d says Sorley. \u201cOur campaign was born so that consumers 21 and over would feel inspired to gather at their local watering holes, grab a 7&7 or a shot and a beer, and take a moment to appreciate and recognize the simple hidden gems we all know and love.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

For those actually interested in historic preservation, be aware that you can support the National Trust by using the hashtag #savethedivebar on social media, or by purchasing a “Save The Dive Bar” t-shirt — but not by buying a bottle of 7 Crown. All that profit goes straight to Diageo.<\/p>\n

For those more interested in a hazy trip down memory lane, you could do worse than guzzling a few 7&7s.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Old friend Seagram’s 7 Crown whiskey is back in the news. 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, Seagram parent company Diageo launched “National Dive Bar Day,” and pronounced 7 Crown “the quintessential dive […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":101,"featured_media":9216,"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":[2220,2221,2219,200,286,74,208,735,79],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brutalhammer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9215"}],"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=9215"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/brutalhammer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9215\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9218,"href":"https:\/\/brutalhammer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9215\/revisions\/9218"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brutalhammer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brutalhammer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brutalhammer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brutalhammer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}