Back in the day, Jeff 'The Frugal Gourmet' Smith used to say that you should never cook with a wine you wouldn't drink and I've always tried to hold to that. Years later Smith endorsed a wine and it was cheap and actually pretty good.
On the other hand I've never had less respect for Rachel Ray and Rick Bayless than I did when they appeared in ads for those horrifyingly lame Burger King Baguette Sandwiches. I can still recall buying one and as I walked away from the counter having to check the bag to make sure there was something actually in there. That's how small they were. And, as evidenced by their rapid disappearance from the menu they were as disappointing as they were expensive.
Needless to say I find the whole Alton Brown endorsing Miller Lite brew-haha to be just as disappointing as Bayless and Ray's endorsement faux pas. Yes, we've all picked on Tyler Florence for his Applebee's gig but at least he's making the pretense that he's trying to produce something worth going in to Applebee's for.
Brown's endorsement on the other hand says to me, "Hey, you've watched me on TV and I'm all about flavor and good ingredients, but please buy this weak horse piss you wouldn't serve to your worst enemy. But at least I'm not trying to get you to buy Killian's or Coors Lite."
Image from realbeer.com.
4 comments:
How disappointing! If his show had been Good Drinks, instead of Good Eats, Miller Liter would never have been on there.
Oh Alton, no! I just pray it's some hack lookalike, but I know better than that. At LEAST promote something that tastes better - say, Guinness or even Negro Modela!
The weird thing is that there's no trace of this promotion/endorsement anywhere on the web. Not on Miller's site, not on his site. But it's discussed on three completely different sites/forums and Miller is running a Bring More Taste to the Table promotion. Plus, he was doing a promo tour around the holidays touting recipes to make the holidays more "manly" using -- you guessed it -- Miller Lite.
I haven't seen the display myself though now I'd like to just to feel better about accusing the guy of selling out!
Agree, agree, agree. I like his show(s) and have always looked upto him as a guy who knows good food. A real man's man. I picture walking into his house and him offering me a nice imported stout and us having a conversation about its nuances and which foods it would go well with.
So much for that.
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