Whatever your take on the insidious power of the monopoly liquor system, you have to grant Mr. Layton his point. The LCBO has banned or delisted other questionable packages, arguably to the public’s benefit, including sexually degrading labels depicting topless women and a vodka brand called Kalishnikov that was presented for sale in a bottle shaped like an AK-47 assault rifle.
But a smiling skull? I find it kind of cute.
Plus, if British Columbia’s experience with the product is any indication, this may be a tempest in a decanter. BC Liquor Stores have been selling Crystal Head since March, 2009, and have received no public complaints about the spirit or its packaging, said Tarina Palmer, spokeswoman for the British Columbia Liquor Distribution Branch.
Designed by American landscape artist John Alexander, a friend of Mr. Aykroyd’s, the container was inspired by Mr. Alexander’s fascination with Day of the Dead ceremonies popular in Latin America. Its name was inspired by Mr. Aykroyd’s own long-time interest in the occult, specifically the legend of 13 quartz-crystal heads unearthed at various locations around the world.
“Our head is light, it’s bright, it’s smiling, it’s happy,” Mr. Aykroyd said. “It’s not an unhappy head. It’s not a menacing head. It doesn’t have crossbones under it.”
That, he says, is why he chose to call the product a Crystal Head rather than Crystal Skull. “We think a head is a living thing, and we have a vibrant, clean fluid in the bottle, the purest cleanest vodka available now.”
If you’re a fan of traditional vodka, as I am, Crystal Head may impress you. Unencumbered by additives such as glycol, sugar or citrus oil commonly used to smoothen and sweeten other brands (but at such low levels they need not be specified on the label), this one comes as close to the vodka ideal of pure alcohol and water as you’re likely to find. I’d say it makes for a nice cocktail base.
“Crystal Head does not have those oils in there,” Mr. Aykroyd said. “Therefore, our smoothness, which people comment upon constantly, is natural.”
Tinged with a hint of vanilla, it’s also crisp and, dare I say, bone dry, a quality I like.
“This is the only vodka that you can drink with Red Bull and not get that breath, that Red Bull polluted-vodka breath,” Mr. Aykroyd said of the popular caffeine-laced energy drink often used as a vodka mix. “Crystal Head, you can drink it and you don’t get the breath because there are no impurities to interact with the additives in Red Bull.”
But for a clean vodka that contains less rather than more, shouldn’t it cost less? Which raises another question: What’s an empty Crystal Head worth? By my estimate, about 20 bucks.
In the end, the LCBO ban could have an ironic consequence. By imbuing the brand with the cachet of controversy, as Mr. Aykroyd rightly notes, it could breathe new life in sales outside Ontario.
Was that just my imagination or did my smiling, contraband bottle of Crystal Head just wink?
