The funniest April Fools’ Day spirits news

It’s the one day of the year when the drinks industry lets down its hair to refreshingly ridicule itself, giving us the opportunity to gather the funniest April Fools’ Day spirits pranks.

April Fool’s Day has SB feeling like this sometimes too

As journalists, 1 April is always welcomed with trepidation, as we filter through the day’s news with a keen eye for bulls***.

Some fake news sent out to fool us all indeed does just that, and in the past we have fallen for the odd piece of tripe.

That said, the imagination of the industry knows no bounds, and this year’s barrage of April Fool’s Day fakery has delivered a fair few laughs from the SB editorial team.

Now it’s your turn. Flick through the following pages to discover our pick of the funniest April Fool’s Day news for 2015, and please let us know if you came across any other instances of devious deceptiveness this 1 April.

Southern Comfort Drones

The first to appear in SB’s inbox was this drone delivery service from Southern Comfort, which despite arriving on 31 March, stood out a mile as an April Fool’s Day joke.

Coming direct from Brown-Forman’s PR department was this new, cutting edge SOCO-2-GO drone fleet, designed to deliver the brand’s new Caramel Comfort to consumers across the US. “The future is here. The future is now. And frankly, the future is delicious,” says Jennifer Powell, brand director.

There’s even a video showing how Southern Comfort did some maths to create the drone.

Cambridge Sky Gin

Ever been stuck on a sun-drenched beach or faced with the New York skyline and been desperate to catch a glimpse of what the sky looks like in Cambridge, England, at any given time?

Now, thanks to the geniuses at Cambridge Gin, all you have to do is look at a bottle of Sky Gin, which contains such unique botanicals such as Stulte aprilis, that reflects the colour of the Cambridge sky, no matter where you are in the world. Just call it a juniper-flavoured crystal ball.

Apparently, Will and Daisy Lowe, owners of Cambridge Gin, are well behind the trend: “The French have known this about the grapes they grow for their wines for centuries,” the distillery claimed in an April Fool’s press release.

The Winston Class, Whistlepig

It’s always refreshing when whisky producers prove they are capable of laughing at themselves, and this is perhaps the best satirical video we’ve ever seen. Behold The Winston Class from Whistlepig – an “ultra, ultra, ultra-premium, premium” whiskey, which being free-range and caressed by a life coach and personal masseuse, is available for US$20,000 a bottle.

Perhaps it’s the fact the prank comes from Whistlepig, which has been the subject of controversy over transparency (the whiskey is distilled in Canada and matured in Vermont, US), but the video is pretty side tickling.

CEO and founder Raj Bhakta even finds time to knock the trend of ultra-premium whiskey releases: “Click on the link below after contacting your wealth advisor,” he says. “Bottoms up to the top 1%.”

Diageo to purchase Scottish island to solve peat crisis

The fellas over at The Whisky Exchange blog put a lot of effort into their 1 April prank today, with what could have been a perfectly reasonable post on an impending peat shortage. Bravo to them, as with a few diagrams, historical facts and quotes from upstanding industry personalities, they declare the Scotch whisky industry to be in crisis.

Fear not, for Diageo – they claim – is purchasing its own island (Ailsa Craig) to keep its Caol Ila and Lagavulin whiskies revelling in peated glory for the foreseeable future.

Read the full blog post here.

Jim Beam cologne

Everyone’s creating items of clothing that smells like whisky, so how far-fetched is Jim Beam cologne really? If it weren’t for the fact that this tricksy piece of news was released today, we’d be keen to write a “Top 10” on whisky-flavoured garments and accessories.

Master of Malt closing down

Online retailer Master of Malt announced today it was closing down, due to protests from “environmental group made up of students, people who make their own clothes, and the unemployed”.

According to the retailer, a rare species of Colobus Owl was found nesting in the roof of its warehouse. As such, Master of Malt has been forced to vacate the premises with immediate effect, forcing a sale of its entire stock before midday today.

The situation, they claim, has left them feeling like the image above.

From 2 April, its website, www.masterofmalt.com, will simply redirect to an online bingo site.

A bit of a dangerous prank if readers simply spy one of their tweets!

World Whiskee Day

The new owners of World Whisky Day felt it necessary to end widespread confusion over how to spell the word whisky. Do you use an ‘e’ or don’t you? Why do different countries spell it differently? What a conundrum. The answer? “To prevent any further confusion between whisky or whiskey, we’ve come up with a new spelling for all whiskee around the world.” That sorts that then.