Ladies and gentlemen, Rick Newmeyer

I want to write about my relationship with Double Cross Vodka. I was first introduced to the product while at work. A representative from one of the liquor companies came into my restaurant and gave me a bottle to sample. This sort of thing happens all the time now, as the market is saturated with spirits of all kinds, packaged in fancy bottles, advertised by Jay-Z, and all doing everything they can to make it onto the shelves of every bar in the world, including bribing bartenders with samples. So, I took the awkwardly shaped bottle to my house, figuring I would have something to guzzle down on those nights when Im looking for a proper tuning before bed. I certainly didn't have the intentions of 'sampling' the vodka and potentially recommending that my restaurant purchase the stuff.





To be honest, Im only a vodka drinker when either it's free or I just want to get the job done really quickly. The taste doesn't do anything for me because there never is a taste. It's boring. Vodka is the only ingested product in the world that we quality rate based on how much it tastes like nothing, essentially.



Anyway, I drank the Double Cross. At first I mixed it with orange juice, and then when I ran out of orange juice I mixed it with whatever I could find, probably salsa or hummus, I really can't remember. Eventually I started feeling guilty about never actually 'tasting' it, and at some point before the bottle was finished I poured a little in a glass by itself and gave it a fair shot. As it turned out, in terms of quality, Double Cross was the best vodka I had ever tried.



The next day I recommended that my general manager purchase Double Cross, which he did, regardless of the disgusting saturation of the vodka market, and I began to sell it to my customers.



About a month after we put it on our shelves a tall, handsome, slick talkin charmer type of fella came into the bar and ordered a Double Cross on the rocks before he even got situated in his bar stool. It was the first time that anyone had ordered the stuff without my recommendation, and knowing how this industry works, I immediately assumed that he was affiliated with the sales of the vodka. We talked briefly about how much I liked the product, and he eventually revealed to me that he was the CEO of the company, just out in New Brunswick checking out the bars that had given his vodka a chance on their shelves.



I liked the guy. I liked him because he seemed to genuinely like to drink, which I think is kind of important if your salary is based on the rest of the worlds desire to drink, and I liked him because he was out personally experiencing the identities of the places that were supporting Double Cross. I also liked him because he tipped me with rare 2 dollar bills.



After our encounter at the bar I continued to sell his vodka, with even greater determination because of his personal appearance that night, and I even sent him an email about a marketing idea that I thought might benefit the company. He responded to my email right away, thanking me for my support, and requesting my address so that he could send me a bottle to my house for personal consumption. I sent him the address, and as promised he sent me a bottle right away with a personal letter attatched. Awesome.



The guy is obviously a very hands on, word of mouth marketer. He's obviously smart as he chose me, a bartender, to charm with 2 dollar bills and 40 proof presents, and he's smart for spending his nights getting to know the people who will be ensuring the success of his company. I would sell his product for that reason alone. Luckily, I can also be confident that anyone who drinks vodka is going to like it, as it probably is the best on the market.