The TLA/GFC/RTD Nexus

Maybe it is the pre-mixed can of Bogun and Coke talking, but I reckon that RTDs are still on a roll. Despite our Federal government's tax attack on these evil, binge-drunk, violently-behaved beverages, they are still being created, as if from some kind of unstoppable torrent. Indeed, in so many different colours, flavours and silly names do they come that even a company like Hyundai would be shocked.

And the reason RTDs are still selling comes down to an odd nexus: TLA/GFC/RTD.

A Three Letter Anagram / Global Financial Crisis / Ready To Drink nexus.

Taken singly none of these TLAs really matter that much; but combined they bring to bear the power of everyone's inner bogun. That redneck snapping at each and everyone's heels. The linguistic shortcut that an anagram provides leads us straight to the antidote to fiscal uncertainty. Drink. Drink mixed with other drink. Drink and other drink mixed together in a can. An RTD. All you have to do is buy it and open it and drink it. Six of them. Then you swear at the government, fight with your mates, get thrown out of the pub, and - how should it be put? - become belligerent in your domestic environment.

This news is in no way new, however.

RTDs have their roots in cynical marketing and the stupidity of the masses. There is a neat Latin phrase for this, of course: Coca-Cola.

And if we are talking Latin, we might as well be in Atlanta. In Atlanta in the 1870s a druggist called John Pemberton was successfully selling an RTD called French Wine Coca. Successfully at least until the city of Atlanta decided to bring about a prohibition of all alcohol. The ban never went ahead, but in the lead up to its supposed enforcement Pemberton had to find a way to keep his business going. He removed the wine from his wine coca recipe and added distilled fruit essences. The formula already had kola nut extract in it, so Pemberton called the new drink Coca-Cola. Without the wine, the thing was a real winner, not too mention a real upper. Because it was a soft drink full of the coca plant's key attribute: cocaine. With no legislation for control of such drugs until WWI, it took off. Coca-Cola deny that their drink ever contained cocaine. I wonder if one day the RTD manufaturers of our own time will deny that their beverages ever conatined alcohol. Or that kids drank them. Or - worse than anything else - the drinks were really awful. To drink.

But they shoot Vegemite, don't they...