新浪尚文

　　许多威士忌酒广告都打出威士忌是一种男性饮品的古老观念：男人用尊尼获加赢得岳父的满意，男人在喝下一瓶布米尔威士忌酒后建立兄弟情谊。不过，其中也存在一个类似圣诞节奇迹的现象：一个针对女性的威士忌酒广告。

　　杰克丹尼新的推广活动鼓励女性主办以威士忌酒为主题的节日聚会，聚会上提供小甜饼和鸡尾酒。这个正视女性也可能喝威士忌酒的事实的广告令人感到清新，但同时也显得如此异类又使人感到失望。毕竟，女性多年以来一直在喝威士忌酒。

　　由于其厚重、烟熏味的口感，色泽深，威士忌酒(和其它相关饮品，如苏格兰威士忌、黑麦威士忌酒)仍带着美国早期对烈性酒的文化内涵-主要是认为女性不应当喝这种酒。杜克大学经济学副教授詹姆斯-罗伯特斯在致《新闻周刊》的一封电子邮件称：“威士忌酒与刚毅的联系与对烈性酒危险性的深层文化认知有关，拥有面对和抵挡这些危险的力量和智慧是人们一起饮酒并喝醉相关的刚毅和“男性兄弟情谊”联系的根源。这都与人们消费的酒类的量有关系，其中威士忌酒是首选酒种。“

　　将酒类划分为“男性”或“女性”饮品创造了一种人们应当在一些特定情景下如何作出反应的武断区分，这都是基于陈腔滥调。杰克丹尼威士忌酒大师卢德尔豪森称：“这完全与人们的个人口味有关，就像一些男人不喜欢那种强烈烟熏味口感的威士忌酒，也有喜欢那种口感的女人。”

　　Women And Whiskey Why Not

　　This holiday season, there are plenty of ads that play up the same old narrative we’ve come to expect about whiskey as a man’s drink: guy wins over the disapproving father-in-law with Johnnie Walker, guys bond like brothers over a bottle of Bushmills. But between all of them, there’s a Christmas miracle of sorts: a whiskey ad aimed at women。

　　Spike the Cookies, a new campaign by Jack Daniels, encourages women to host whiskey-themed holiday parties that feature both baking and cocktails (the campaign provide recipes for both Jack and Ginger cookies and Jack and Ginger gimlets). 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。

　　With it’s heavy, smoky flavor, dark, heavy coloring whiskey (and related drinks, like scotch and rye)， still carries the connotations of America’s early attitudes towards liquor – mainly, that women shouldn’t have any. “The association with manliness is related to a deep cultural appreciation of alcohol's dangers; having the strength and wisdom to confront and withstand those dangers is at the root of the association with manliness and of the "male bonding" associated with drinking together and shared intoxication,” says James S. Roberts, an associate professor of economics at Duke, in an email to NEWSWEEK.  "And all this scales with the beverage consumed, with whiskey at the pinnacle。”

　　In other words, it's one thing to have a girly pink cosmo. Those are kind of cute. But whiskey? Totes unladylike. That perception is one that women have played with over the years – witness every Gretchen Wilson song in which she proves her badass, redneck, tomboy ways by doing shots of the dark stuff. But the idea that women only drink whiskey when they want to keep up with the boys is not the whole story. (Which makes the Spike the Cookies campaign almost subversive in it's attempt to brand whiskey as the natural choice for a domestic, girls night in). “For years, women drank scotch, women drank whiskey, even nice, polite women in the south drank bourbon,” says Heather Greene, one of America's formost scotch experts and a spokesperson for the Glenfidich brand. (Those sidecars, old fashioneds, and whiskey neats thrown back by housewives and career girls alike on Mad Men are yet another of the show’s period-perfect details。) Marcy Ruderhausen, the master of whisky for Johnnie Walker brands, notes that scotch has always been popular among women in the Latin American neighborhoods of South Florida。

　　Still if it’s not pink and sugary, it’s not often considered a “girlie drink” – even if it’s imbibed by lots of girls. “It’s not that whiskey isn’t thought of as a whiskey drink, but that sweet drinks like cosmos are considered for women." That’s changing, too: whiskey cocktails are now popular menu items in trendy urban bars。

　　That's good news for whiskey fans and cocktail fans, but it’s not a necessity to get women to imbibe. While “Women and Whiskey” events are currently making headlines, Ruderhausen has been hosting similar events for years. Then, as now, the crowd is mixed but enthusiastic, often one hundred women strong. “You get women who have never tasted whiskey before, those who have tasted it on occasion but don’t really understand it, and then those who are really passionate, who love a good scotch。”

　　And that’s how it should be – gendering drinks as “male” or “female “ creates arbitrary distinctions about how people should respond to certain situations, based on srereotypes. “It’s all about people’s personal taste,” says Ruderhausen. “Just as there are men who don’t like a big, smoky whiskey, there are women who do。”

　　Make no mistake. having hard liquor ads targeted at women is hardly a tentpole of the feminist movement. It’s not progress, it’s marketing: a way to get more people to pay more money for a product that can be dangerous if used to excess. But still, as Christmas day approaches, it’s useful to remember– especially for those totally panicked, last-minute shoppers out there – that the right woman in the right circumstances might enjoy a hastily-purchased, wrapped-in-the-car bottle of whiskey just as much as a man。

　　(新闻周刊)

　　(解雨)