Of all the disturbing things I saw during last night's episode of The Americans, perhaps most disturbing was the ad for Jägermeister. A crowd of freaks gathers in an ice cavern or some sort of frozen rave (are raves still a thing?). Maybe they aren't freaks—but they're all in masks and makeup, so they're essentially the guests from Eyes Wide Shut. A silence envelops them as they huddle round in a mysterious ceremony. I half-expected to see some poor soul strapped to a chair, waiting to be tortured à la Hostel. Instead, the attendees watch in silence as a bottle of the German "herbal elixir" Jägermeister is cracked open, quite literally: The bottle was contained in an ice block. After enough ice has been chipped away, the bottle is poured into a glass and a Teutonic ice queen takes a sip. She then announces to the crowd: "Of course it's cold. It's German."
Here's the three-minute director's cut:
Of course it's cold. It's German. Is this an admission that Germans are cold people or that Germany is cold or that Germans like cold things? I can tell you Germans don't like ice in their drinks. Ice water is not exactly common. A woman who grew up in Germany told me the reason for this: Her friend's parents said if you had a hot meal and cold water, your teeth would shatter. My host-mother in Trier simply explained that nothing was cold because her husband had sensitive teeth. Fair enough.
Still, what a strange commercial, though I suppose it's better than comedian Dave Attell's idea for a Jägermeister ad:
A guy comes out of a hedge. He's covered in mud and blood. He's holding one high-heel shoe. 'Did I just eat a stripper?' Jäger.
It's worth pointing out that in the early 1970s, Jägermeister sold about 500 cases to the United States. It was a digestif popular in German immigrant communities. (Digestifs are still popular in Germany and Austria. They come in tiny bottles you can usually find near the cash registers at the Supermarkt.) But the man handling U.S. distribution, Sidney Frank of New Rochelle, had an idea:
"I came up with Jägerettes," Frank told Inc. in 2005. "I thought a pretty girl can always help you selling, and I noticed that one girl I had in California would go to 80 tables in a room and say, Open your mouth. She asked, Would you like a Jägermeister? And 80 percent of 'em said yes."
College kids were doing Jäger bombs as a dare—not because they're delicious. (A friend convinced me to try Jäger and Red Bull once. Once.) But it worked: from 500 cases a year in 1973 to 200,000 cases in 1990 to more than 3 million cases some 20 years later. Annually, the Mast-Jagermeister company now does more than 7 million cases worldwide.
The late Sidney Frank was a genius—that idea of attractive young women going around bars asking customers to sample some new product continues to this day. (Frank also invented Grey Goose vodka, which he sold to Bacardi in 2004 for $2 billion.)