Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/49694
HISTORY Speaking CANADIAN CLUB HAS ALWAYS BEEN WILLING TO TAKE RISKS IN ITS MARKETING CAMPAIGNS story and photos by John Curley M aybe you remember the Canadian Club ads from a few years back, when the tagline was "Damn right your dad drank it." The subjects were often pictured enjoying an adult beverage at the club or in their parlor, very often draped with voluptuous arm candy. The message was manliness: It was a man's world, and it took a man's man to enjoy Canadian Club—and your father was one of those manly men. The ads harkened back to a time when there were no metrosexuals, when guys enjoyed their women . . . and their whisky. Canadian Club is at it again, popping up in the AMC television show Mad Men and, most recently, resuming its role in the HBO hit series Boardwalk Empire. Boardwalk Empire is set in Atlantic City during Prohibition, those dark 13 years from the 1920s to early '30s when Americans had to break the law to quench their thirst. Canadian Club was said to be gangster Al Capone's drink of choice, and why not? He could buy a case of the booze at the company's headquarters in Walkerville for $7, then take it a mile across the Detroit River and sell it for $75 in the U.S. Easy Canadian Club Master Ambassador Dan Tullio in a "speakeasy" at Taverna Aventine in San Francisco. december 201 1 / the tasting panel / 81