Drink 97: Et tu, Potato

I clean out my spam folder every couple of days, but I always check to make sure that I’m not inadvertently filtering out any real messages.  Today that paid off.  Sitting in my spam folder was an invitation to participate in a blogging contest.  The rules for the contest are also available online.   The prize is a $100 American Express gift card.  That is a great prize, because I can use it to buy almost 20 gallons of gas.  Before I write my entry I thought we should go over some of the rules.

We're inviting the blogosphere to participate in a contest to create humorous posts about how potatoes are a boring alternative to STOVE TOP Everyday Stuffing Mix.

That should be easy.  Everybody knows potatoes are boring.  Do you ever reach into the pantry, pull out a potato and take a big bite?  Of course you don’t.  At the very least you would add a little salt or some butter buds first.

Just in case you don't understand the premise, STOVE TOP helpfully provides some examples to help get you started:

Example 1: An image and story of talk show host potato that has put its guests to sleep.

Hmm. That happens every time I watch Jay Leno on the boob tuber and it really isn’t that funny.

Example 2: An image and story of a potato totally underdressed in it’s [SIC] plain old skin for an event.

As far as I can tell, that one is funny because the potato doesn’t know the difference between “it’s” and “its”.

Example 3: Showcase kids talking about how boring potatoes are and how they love STOVE TOP Stuffing Mix.

Oh man, that is hilarious.  Give me a minute while I compose myself.  Okay, I’m back.  I’m not sure how I could top that one, but let's continue.

Example 4: Showcase how potatoes don’t cut it – they’re so worthless to eat – doorstoppers, brick-fixes (spoof on home entertainment show sponsored by Stove Top)

Even Stove Top isn’t sold on this one.  They didn’t even call themselves STOVE TOP.

After the examples, they give this final tip:

Seriously, the more creative your posts and images are (as well as appropriate and non-offensive) the better! If it helps, think of the type of humor found in The Onion (http://www.theonion.com) and incorporate that style of comedy into your story.

Why didn’t they just say so?  It is no problem for me to write comedy like The Onion.  I do that all the time.  I usually do it right after I play guitar like Jimmy Page, make some food like Thomas Keller, and run some sprints like Usain Bolt

Darth Tater would like to have a word with that box
of delcious STOVE TOP Stuffing Mix

Using those hints I still have to be sure I follow the official rules:

At least 200 words with your “story” about the STOVE TOP Stuffing Mix being the “HERO” over the BORING POTATO.

I was going to write a story but I guess I have to write a “story” to qualify.  I also have to send a tweet, a Facebook post, or a YouTube video with the hash tag #unpotatofest.  That is a lot of rules, but I’ll do my best.  Without further ado, here is my “story”:

BORING POTATO does not understand viral marketing 

One day there was a BORING POTATO who worked at Kraft.  He toiled away day after day trying to come up with new ways to sell American cheese.  He once pitched an idea to Lowe’s Home Improvement for marketing a new paint color called “American Cheese Artificial Orange Coloring” but like most of his pitches, it fell on deaf ears.  At times like these the BORING POTATO wanted to bury his body in the dirt and die.

The BORING POTATO’s career was going nowhere.  Just when he had given up hope, he read a story in his daily newspaper about something called “viral marketing” and he thought he would give it a try.  At the next sales meeting, he proposed a plan to try to get web loggers to write about a Kraft product in a humorous way.  He suggested that something in the style of Ziggy would really take off.  They would offer $400 worth of prizes and generate at least twice that much in publicity.  It was a plan that seemed great to the BORING POTATO. 

Luckily for Kraft, there was a new member of the marketing team.  Her name was STOVE TOP Stuffing Mix.  She pointed out that this  idea was a transparent attempt to get people to work for very little remuneration.  Also, it was a ham-handed effort to tap into so-called social media that was not very clever or fun.  Not only that, it was the BORING POTATO’s job to make sure that all apostrophes were used properly in marketing materials and he had recently made some embarrassing gaffe’s.  He really needed to focus on that instead of coming up with half-baked potato ideas. She promptly mashed his idea and saved the day.

The End

No taters here

Oh yeah, I almost forgot that we also had a drink to share with you.  It is called the Mocha Mint and it is a combination of  STOVE TOP Stuffing Mix and turkey gravy.  Ha ha! That is not what is in the Mocha Mint.  That is my second favorite food to eat on Thanksgiving.  My favorite food is mashed potatoes.

The Mocha Mint is made from coffee brandy, crème de menthe, and crème de cacao.  It was a little syrupy, but the flavor was nice, almost like a minty Frappuccino ^TM.   I was about to mention to Mrs. Bottle that I could taste coffee until I remembered that the Mocha Mint had coffee brandy as an ingredient.  You can bet that STOVE TOP Stuffing Mix would never make such a mistake.

Overall Rating for the Mocha Mint

Taste: 4

Presentation: 4

Ease of Preparation: 4

Drinks Until Blackout: 5 - 28% Alcohol

Ingredients

.75 oz Coffee Brandy

.75 oz Crème de Menthe

.75 oz Crème de Cacao