Women Urged To Get In The Kitchen And Have A Whiskey

Though whiskey is usually marketed as the manliest of drinks, there’s a new Jack Daniels campaign that targets the ladies. Apparently it’s now okay for women to ingest hard liquor, but only if they’re using it to bake cookies.

Newsweek‘s Kate Dailey is pretty excited about the new lady-friendly ads, which feature the slogan “Spike the Cookies.” She writes that it’s,

Refreshing to see a campaign that addresses the fact that women might like whiskey, too — and it’s dissapointing that it’s such an anomoly. After all, women have been drinking whiskey for years — and some of them even leave the kitchen to do so.

See, that last bit presents a problem. It would be exciting to see a non-condescending ad that acknowledges many women enjoy whiskey. Instead, the Spike the Cookies Facebook page features this ad:

Adding a splash of Jack sure makes for some EXTREME baking! The site also encourages women to host whiskey-themed parties, where they can gab with their girlfriends and follow the provided recipes for Jack and Ginger cookies and Jack and Ginger gimlets.

There’s nothing wrong with women enjoying baking, drinking while baking, or consuming one of the many fine culinary offerings from TGI Friday’s “Jack Daniels Grill.” However, it seems this ad was concocted by male ad executives trying to come up with a way to make whiskey less scary for women. Though Dailey calls the ad, “almost subversive in it’s attempt to brand whiskey as the natural choice for a domestic, girls night in,” showing women baking is actually the most stereotypical route imaginable.

This may shock you, but women have always enjoyed scotch, whiskey, and bourbon — Newsweek has proof! Dailey found a woman who works for the Glenfidich (sic) brand, consulted her Mad Men DVDs, and noted, “scotch has always been popular among women in the Latin American neighborhoods of South Florida.” (Miraculously, the article does not include a reference to Ke$ha brushing her teeth with Jack.)

Newsweek concludes, “Make no mistake. Having hard liquor ads targeted at women is hardly a tentpole of the feminist movement.” In fact, it’s just another example of how advertisers don’t know how to market products to women without relying out outdated stereotypes. Though, the Spike the Cookies campaign is successful in that it makes us want to start drinking heavily.