Little Vodka Infused Customer CoCreation Vignette

"Bloghers! We loved meeting you all last weekend in San Jose. You’re all such clever/inspiring/lovely/saucy people... We of ThisNext were floored!

Speaking of floored and saucy, let’s talk about VODKA. Here are the winners of the Modern Spirits Vodka drawing. We noticed that each superspecial vodka bottle is hand numbered. Wow, talk about small batch!"

So starts Alyson Wilson's breezy woosy email. I knew I liked Alyson, ThisNext.com community director, when she had a 'dark and bitter' (chocolate of course) category on her ThisNext list. And it was cinched when I saw she loved Charles Chocolates so much that owner Chuck Siegal was part of the closed beta listing his own favs.

ThisNext is a new entrant into the social commerce space (in closed beta until August 21st, but I got a demo). Based on my chat with Alyson my intuition tells me this is a curious Web 2.0 company to watch: They have wads of women working there, for starters. But this ain't a post about ThisNext. Nowthat's later.

This is about Modern Spirits' story direct from their website. Lessons on heeding the women's market, your lover as muse (yeah, I saw Cyrano de Bergerac last night), using your own life as great raw material, and writing romantic intimate stories abound:

Can true love start a business? You be the judge.

Melkon Khosrovian has long enjoyed Sunday meals with family, sipping vodka with spicy grilled meats and Mediterranean salads.

Melkon's wife, Litty Mathew, a foodie with a classical French cooking education, hated the taste and burn of straight liquor.

So he concocted little vodka infusions with fruits, spices and even tea that she could sip at family meals. She not only drank them, she enjoyed them.

Soon the couple's friends who also disliked the taste of hard liquor—including a few burly cousins who will remain unnamed—clamored for their own signature flavors.

Melkon infused celery and fennel seed for one, lavender and honey for another and an inspired chocolate-orange vodka after a party faux pas where he spilled a box of chocolates.

Soon after, Modern Spirits was born. An act of love, don't you think?

Bonus: Talk about customer co-creation and innovation: "Vodka Hits New Haute. It may cost millions to become a vintner, but for $15,000, you can produce your own superpremium vodka. Southern California-based Modern Spirits, which recently launched its own line of Haute flavored vodkas (more about them in a moment), invites those with a passion to create their own unique flavored vodka to belly up to the distillery. There, they can create their one-of-a-kind flavored spirit. The company leads clients through a five-step process to produce their custom creation, starting with a flavor profile that identifies their passions, personalities and palates." - The Nibble

Bonus Deux: ThisNext.com's PR and marketing diva raved about "Experience the Message: How Experiential Marketing is Changing the Brand World" (and if David Wolfe likes it, I'll like it.)

Wordplay: Cyrano de Bergerac's final word in the film: Panache. Stanford Summer Theater festival actor Fabrice led a post-screening discussion and I quote since his French is far and away better than mine: "Panache is personal flair, your own plume, your signature." I'd add your unique swagger. Etymology: Fig. sense of "display, swagger" first recorded 1898 (in translation of "Cyrano de Bergerac"), from French.

Comments

[Lev]

Good to see some more development in the co-creation of spirits. Ladybank Distillers (www.whisky.co.uk) are currently setting up their own Scotch Whisky distillery in Scotland, where members can be involved in the entire creation process of their own Scotch - from fermentation to maturation. These developments can only be good for the overall innovation process of fine spirits.

[Nicole]

Awww. Thanks for calling me a diva. That book is great! I hope you enjoy it. Nice meeting you and look forward to seeing your picks on ThisNext.