Rummy affair, I thought and concluded that this is what happens when you try to change well-entrenched preferences through promotions backed by excessive incentives. In fact, the rum market in recent times has been unnecessarily roiled by promos that forget the basic reality that new brands and flavours have the best chance of success when they ease themselves in. Try to come across too strong, and things will only boomerang.
Take the case of Jolly Roger, which I discovered not too long ago. I can't recall anyone urging me to try it but I did and was charmed by its lightness and flavour. There was that whiff of Jamaican cane which to me was something new and nice. So I standardised on it for a time till traces of boredom began to emerge. Not yet time to go back to the old faithful, I thought, and so went on experimenting.
Then it was that at the suggestion of one of one of the old waiters at the club I tried Bacardi Black and was almost knocked over. It was like being confronted by a woman who used as much makeup as she could get away with, putting herself at the opposite end of the spectrum where resided the light Jamaican brand which I had been courting lately.
This is ideal for jaded palates, I thought, and let myself be held captive by the strong and the dark. For a time that is. Soon I realised that the excessively powerful is OK but you like to get back to normal life eventually. So I did what can be guessed. I came back to the old faithful, the great median which sways neither this way nor that in response to competition but simply waits for you to keep turning your head until you have come full circle. In sum, back to Old Monk.
It is then, after completing the entire journey of exploration and returning home, that I began to wonder why the death of Old Monk has been so repeatedly foretold for so long. It has been about to die so endlessly that those engineering its demise (yes, I am convinced that there are dark and malevolent forces which are up to no good) should have by now realised that you cannot simply wish death on something as longstandingly robust and expect it to happen at your command.
Old Monk, to my mind, is like Thums Up - which refused to die and was then readmitted into the world of the living and given due respect and necessary attention. I do not know if someone said sorry, or whether you can actually say sorry to a brand for the injustice you did to it. But even if a brand is no more than just a brand, then hearing someone say sorry does make a difference to those who have stood loyally by it through the entire sorry phase.
The problem is, you often cannot get the liquor brand you are looking for in India (I am sure the disappearance is engineered) and that is when you begin to experiment with a vengeance, determined not to fall a victim to the conspiracy aimed at forcing you to settle for the atrocious biggie (you know the one I mean) which to me has always tasted like caramel colour added to some absolute alcohol and water.
If I was a truck-driver and too tired at the end of the day to care for taste and flavour and just wanted something which would hit me hard and hasten sleep on the most uncomfortable charpoi at the most godforsaken roadside dhaba, then that would be OK. But since I am not a truck-driver (I do have the greatest regard for them). I revolt every time I am pushed in the direction of the unmentionable.
The point is, elaborate strategies to kill the eternally living by playing up market-share figures do not work. Neither does paying a bomb during a festive season to shove something down the gullet of the gullible. The three-day wonder is gone as soon as the incentive is. In a free and fair world, distinctive brands should all be available, as also the eternal faithfuls. Then the imbiber can periodically go on journeys of discovery and return to base, to again go off when the mood develops.