Fingers Newsletter

There’s a chill in the air and Mariah Carey’s soprano on the breeze. Thanksgiving is in the rearview mirror, and the Days of Nog approacheth. It’s time once again for Fingers’ Bad Holiday Gift Guide for Heavy-Drinking Frenemies™. Now in its fifth (!!!) running, the boozeletter’s annual shortlist of sipping-related schlock has distinguished itself in the halls of drinks-industry public relations firms as the least-desirable press placement of the holiday season. Maybe? I don’t know.

Editor’s note: Welcome to The Fingers Weekender, a Sunday digest exclusively for paying Friends of Fingers featuring the independent journalism about drinking in America you love, optimized for hungover scrolling. In today’s edition: • City Brewery is on the verge of bankruptcy; And much more. If someone forwarded this to you, buy a subscription to get next Sunday’s edition straight in your inbox.—Dave.

As of December 17th, 2024, Fingers has migrated to Beehiiv, and is no longer operating on the Substack platform. For more on this decision, click here. If you found this post, and want to read my independent journalism about drinking in America, please subscribe here: If you’ve got questions, reach out anytime: dave@dinfontay.com.

One of the less glamorous aspects of Prohibition was that a lot of people got poisoned by bunk booze.

Editor’s note: Welcome to Breaking Fingers, a fast-follow feature on timely news for paying subscribers only. Please subscribe to read this and all my independent coverage about drinking in America.—Dave. LL Cool J has long advised against calling it a comeback, but with respect to James Todd Smith III, there’s simply no other word for it. Jack Owoc, the colorful, chaotic, cringeworthy founder and former poster-in-chief of Bang Energy, is launching another energy-drink venture.

Money in politics: it’s a thing, and it’s suffocating democracy beneath an avalanche of billionaire cranks’ cash. Not ideal. One small silver lining is that federal campaign finance laws haven’t been gutted beyond utility (yet), so we can get still some sense for how corporations and trade groups are spending money to influence elections.

Editor’s note: Welcome to The Fingers Weekender, a Sunday digest exclusively for paying Friends of Fingers featuring the independent journalism about drinking in America you love, optimized for hungover scrolling. In today’s edition: • Duckhorn and Duck Pond are in a legal flap; • Stoli’s US subsidiaries went bust after a geopolitical cyberattack; And much more. If someone forwarded this to you, buy a subscription to get next Sunday’s edition straight in your inbox.—Dave.

Editor’s note: Welcome to The Fingers Weekender, a Sunday digest exclusively for paying Friends of Fingers featuring the independent journalism about drinking in America you love, optimized for hungover scrolling. In today’s edition: • Monster’s brewing division was down again in Q3; • SipSource sees another tough year ahead for US liquor sales; And much more. If someone forwarded this to you, buy a subscription to get next Sunday’s edition straight in your inbox.—Dave.

Much has been made in recent years about how “artificial intelligence” is going to change society. Here’s one way that it will not: robot bartenders. In our lifetime, you will not see the widespread adoption of “autonomous” machines with articulated limbs that use “deep learning” and “neural nets” to serve you drinks. Anybody who says otherwise is dumb, lying, or both.

Editor’s note: Welcome to The Fingers Weekender, a Sunday digest exclusively for paying Friends of Fingers featuring the independent journalism about drinking in America you love, optimized for hungover scrolling. In today’s edition: • Is Southern Glazers Wine & Spirits still… doing the “wine” part?; And much more. If someone forwarded this to you, buy a subscription to get next Sunday’s edition straight in your inbox.—Dave.