Premium tequila. I have to be honest; those are 2 words I never thought I would put together. But after attending a special event sponsored by premium tequila brand Tres Generaciones, my perspective has changed.

The event I am referring to was a small, intimate dinner organized by the Zocalo Group, who is working with Tres Generaciones (or 3G as I’ll call it for brevity) on social media strategies. It was held at Rick Bayless’ Frontera Grill in Chicago in one of their private rooms. I had never been to Frontera Grill before and was very impressed by the food as well as the service. It was attended by about a dozen people, including 3G’s brand manager and brand ambassador, who gave us a world tour and history of tequila and 3G.

Prior to the tour we enjoyed margaritas made with the 3 varieties of 3G – Blanco, Reposado and Anejo – and following it enjoyed Frontera’s signature cuisine. I had a Topolo Margarita, shaken in my presence. Of the 3 tequilas, which range in color and intensity (my term, not theirs!) my favorite is the Reposado, which has a light, caramel color. The blanco is clear and can substitute for vodka in a drink, and the Anejo has a darker color and could fill in nicely for a scotch, though I would have to have one accompany a good cigar to completely confirm it.

When I thought about this event beforehand, two other events came to mind of which I have attended in the past.

Back in the early 1990’s I attended what was one of the first rounds of Johnny Walker scotch tastings. You had to know someone to attend, and my invite was through a friend whose invite was through a VP of a big Boston financial firm. It was at the Harvard Club in Boston and everyone was wearing suits. The brand ambassador was a Scotsman wearing a kilt, and everything tied in with the experience of enjoying scotch, whether it was Johnny Walker or the single-malt scotches that are blended to make it. This tour was accompanied by a buffet of fine gourmet foods. This introduction to scotch is one I still appreciate today.

Earlier this year I attended the first-ever Nokia OpenLab, which if you are a regular reader of The Hot Iron I have gone into at length. Again here was an event that was about an experience, this time Nokia technology. It was a small, intimate setting of about 35 people from around the world sharing their thoughts and backgrounds of technology and beyond. Coming away from that I gained unique, global perspectives on communication, and was sold on the Nokia brand.

With this in mind, I was not disappointed with the 3G experience. At the opening of the event I had the opportunity to talk with Derek Sauls, the 3G Brand Manager. He gave me the background on the brand and name, which evolved from celebratory tequilas to mark the 3 generations of the Sauza family. Derek also told me 3G is in the process of a rebranding which will be launched in February 2009, complete with a new bottle design and marketing campaign, including social media. Their foray into social media is something new for them, which explained why the attendees were people involved in various forms of social media.

Following dinner we had good conversation around the table, which included 3G’s brand ambassador Jaime Rodriguez. We talked about perceptions of tequila, and as well what we do for the majority of our days to make a living. I recall my first indulgence in what we would call “to kill ya” and it would always be a group of us doing shots. Granted you can do this with any liquor, but the concept of it as a premium drink, and the fact there are other varieties of it, was a new and welcome concept. Our conversation also included the idea of social media in general, and I definitely learned more than I contributed to it.

As it is relaunching in February, 3G now has a new blog, Thirst for Wisdom and a profile on Twitter, Don Cenobio who was the founder of the Sauza. Their Web site has a “coming soon” message, but no links to either of these. I am interested in seeing what comes from this event, and how it evolves. I am also interested in seeing the new bottle in action – they had some empty ones there, but they asked us not to take pictures of them as it hasn’t been launched yet. But I can tell you it is a nice looking bottle, displaying “coins” of the 3 generations, indentations to represent the blue agave plant from which tequila is made, and a cool-looking metal design at the top of the bottle.

Thanks again to Derek and Jaime for hosting, as well as Michael Stern and Andy Angelos of Zocalo Group for inviting me to this unique experience.

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Recently I was interviewed for an article about using US-issued credit cards overseas, for in some countries if you do not have a country-specific PIN code on the card, it may not be accepted. My lovely wife and I experienced this first hand in Denmark a few years back, and it forced us to make more ATM withdrawals than we had planned.

You can read the full article on CreditCards.com. I enjoyed talking with the journalist Allie Johnson and she represented my thoughts well.

Yet another thing to think about when traveling.

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Years ago I read an interview of Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee where he said he was surprised people and business would promote URLs, displaying them in print, advertising, et. al. Not surprising as the idea of the Web is all about linking. Some URLs are better for this as they are short and easy to remember, and others are long and cumbersome.

It is the long URLs that are made easy with services that all you to create a unique, short URL that redirects to the long one. This presumably started to make them easy to type and handle, and they became exponentially popular with short messaging services like Twitter. And Twitter actually automatically rewrites short URLs using the original service, TinyURL.

But have you seen some of these URLs? Where in some cases you can pick a text string, most common ones are taken and the new URL is structured as a domain name followed by random characters. It is short but not memorable. And do you have control over it? Unfortunately no. That is, unless you manage your own.

This is exactly what I decided to do – create a Web application for creating and managing short URLs. I call it psURL.com. For example, the short URL to the Dunkirk Systems, LLC Web site is http://psurl.com/dk. You’re probably wondering why anyone would want to do this? Here’s a few compelling reasons:

• Control your own destiny – I have written on controlling your own destiny before and it something I firmly believe in, especially in turbulent economic times.
• Brand your short URLs – You can choose your own domain name to synchronize branding with your company and give further meaning to them.
• Choose the URL string – No need for random characters, as what goes after the domain name is under your control.
• They can be changed – Did the long URL itself go away, or do you want to redirect the short URL to something else? You have the ability to easily change the destination URL.
• They are measurable – From basic logging and reporting to third-party analytics tool integration, you can measure them like any Web page or Web site.
• You can monetize them – Where this is not in place right now, it is possible to add interstitial pages to display ads before redirection is complete to the final URL.

Dunkirk Systems, LLC has developed the first release of its short URL application and is offering this as a hosted service. Of course you would have to choose your own domain name, but many good names are still available. Whether you choose to manage your own short URLs or not, it is good to know this is an option that works to your advantage.

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A while back I wrote on a Budweiser campaign for their Bud Light Brand and questioned the promotion of the 'drinkability' of the beer. Apparently I wasn’t alone in this query, as it has been one of the top-read posts on The Hot Iron! The other day I saw a commercial for Bud Light, which appears to have been created in response to queries like my own. You can view it here, or by clicking the screen shot of the video from the Bud Light Web site. Note you will have to enter a birth date to prove you are over 21.

According to the percentages they present, nearly two-thirds of people who responded to the ad said drinkability described the physical capability to drink the beer. The ad concludes by saying the brewer’s definition is about taste.

In other words, this is a commercial about commercials. The word drinkability already has a definition to most people and this fact was missed in the development of this ad campaign. I am sure Budweiser will continue to try to drive this point home, and good luck to them. In the meantime, my preferred brand will continue to be Harpoon, where the question of taste or drinkability has never come into question.

And the guy from Boston they refer to in the video, I am sure I know him.

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Recently I responded to a question about email newsletters through LinkedIn from Kathryn Neal Odell, the CEO and Founder of Sales-Onsite, LLC, a Chicago-area business development, sales lead and sales nurturing consulting firm. I was pleased to find out I was included with others in a white paper published on the topic. You can find and read the PDF white paper here.

You can find my thoughts at the top of the second page under the heading Content. For those who know me or read The Hot Iron, you would not be surprised I pulled the answer up to the 50,000 foot mark, ensuring to address the needs of your target audience, then execute appropriately. My statement reads:

It really depends on your target audience. Many people are just learning about blogs and RSS. Some have issues with Web 2.0 usability, especially those who are visually impaired. A happy medium is to have your newsletter be an aggregation of content posted on your Web site, blog, other Web sites, etc. Content is not "locked" in the newsletter, and is searchable on the Internet.

It is with this in mind I am planning on launching my own email newsletter in 2009 for Dunkirk Systems, LLC – watch for it!

Thanks to Kathryn and her team at Sales-Onsite for including me with this great group of thought-leaders.

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