Pete O'Connell at vinepair.com has done us the favor of compiling what he calls "The 5 Worst Booze Ads of All Time."
I disagree strongly with the first two I liked: a Falstaff beer commercial from the 1950s/1960s and a Schlitz beer campaign from 1977. I'm such a sucker for a retro aesthetic specifically, and for beer commercials in general, that the feisty Falstaff commercial made me badly want to buy a case even though I've never heard of it, let alone tasted one. I do want man-sized pleasure!
It's interesting that it's not the 1960s/1970s commercials that are problematically tinged with racism. It's the 21st-century commercials that hold that honor, although the 2018 Heineken Light commercial only subliminally and probably unintentionally hints at racism.
But the 2008 Sylvester Stallone commercial for Russian Ice Vodka really stands out. You should lean into each nation's specialty (i.e., Russia and vodka). And when it starts with Stallone insisting on coffee from Brazil and suits from Italy, all seems okay because they are economic points of pride for those countries. But when he points to his employee trimming his hedges and says he insists on Mexican gardeners, it's a real record-scratch moment.
Rounding out the list is a 2004 Bud Light commercial that finds humor in a horse farting a flame into the face of a beautiful woman. They should have dusted this one off when the Right was boycotting them for mentioning a transgender woman to win back the misogynist demographic.
Of course the best booze commercial of all time never aired. It is the outtake reel of a very drunk Orson Wells as he tries to film a Paul Masson Wine commercial.
Previously:
• Ode to monster truck rally commercials
• 90 minutes of Japanese TV commercials from the 1980s
• What commercial do you hate the most?
• Chilean Star Wars had beer commercials edited into the action (video)
• Compilation of old animated commercials for Raid bug spray