Top Ten Lists. Feh!

Could there be nine things any more annoying?

I don’t know about you, but I’m glad 2011 is over. Unless you’re an undertaker or a bankruptcy lawyer – or working for Goldman Sachs, perhaps – 2011, much like several preceding it, has not been exactly –  how shall we say this? – rewarding. So, I say – Ring in the new!  Enough already!

But there’s something else I’ve had enough of – surprised? – and it has nothing to do with 2011 in particular, or the first decade of this already-threadbare century. I have had it up to my keister – to paraphrase America’s oldest president – with end-of-year top ten lists and retrospectives.

This journalistic junk is everywhere! As a single example of the many, witness Time magazine. On their web site you will find a Top Ten of Everything for 2011 – a list of 54 top ten lists! Among these fifty-four are gems like Top Ten Fleeting Celebrities (are we supposed to care?), Top Ten Worst Fashion Moments and Top Ten Worst Tweets (Wouldn’t those constitute Bottom Ten lists?) and Top Ten People Not Running for President! OMG! And this sort of nonsense is being perpetrated on a national, regional and local basis in every medium there is. Please! Make it stop!

Maybe it’s just me, but this year-end multi-media tidal wave that crams every possible facet of human events into a Top Ten list smacks of three of my most unfavorite things – at least when I observe them in other people – laziness, utter subjectivity and a total lack of discrimination.

Lazy? These lists are the journalistic equivalent of baked Cheetos. A little artificial flavor, a lot of artificial color, lots and lots of air, very little texture and no nutrition whatsoever.

I realize no one wants to work during the month of December, and reporters and news writers are no exception. But really, is there so little going on in the world that we get to fill air time and the news hole with recycled “news” looking back at the year almost-past – as if we’d want to – or mashing all this fondly – or not-so–fondly – remembered stuff into a bunch of totally contrived lists of ten? Or fifty? Or one-hundred?

With a relative few notable (and some even noble) exceptions, I’m wondering if journalists are really working all that hard during the rest of the year anyway. In an era when “journalism” has descended to lows unseen since William Randolph Hearst simply made things up – when the network morning shows do 2.5 minutes of “news” per hour and fill the rest of the time with folksy features and icky, uncomfortable interviews, when dogma-screaming heads on Fox News pass for commentary and when wire service reports fill the remaining, though ever-slimmer, local dailies across the land – I have to wonder. What are they doing that requires an end-of-year break?

Subjective? Well who says all this stuff is top ten, bottom ten, best, worst or anything else? Who are these people that I need their take on the Top Ten New Species for example? What if I think the micro moths discovered in Costa Rica aren’t really all that cool? Or I think the Brazilian zombie ants (yes, you read that right) belong two places ahead of the leaping beetles from New Caledonia? What criteria are being used here? Is there some vetting process perfected by the staff of Time to determine things like the Top Ten Oddball Stories or Top Ten Feuds?  Ummmm – doubt it. Much more likely someone is picking things out of a hat after a few beers on a Friday afternoon.

Sports and elections and other areas where there is something approaching an objective standard are one thing. Though it may be lazy, it’s not completely arbitrary. But really – really! – Top Ten Feuds? What am I supposed to do with this information? Besides which, who wouldn’t like to put a recent break-up or possibly one’s latest divorce on that list? Should we call the people at Time?

Indiscriminate? Well, if it keeps up like this, it won’t be long before everything in the entire world will be on a top ten list of some sort.

It’s only a short jump from Top Ten Awkward Moments to Top Ten Semi-Awkward Moments, and from there to Top Ten Moments That Weren’t So Great, But Really Couldn’t Be Described As All That Awkward Either. And from there to Top Ten Totally Unremarkable Moments. And from there … God only knows!

As a starter, perhaps, for a Top Ten Clichés list,  I’ll paraphrase Andy Warhol and say – In the future everyone will be on a top ten list for fifteen minutes.

So does this apply to marketing in any way?

Well, of course it does! Duh! Doesn’t everything? And it’s really not all that complicated. You’re probably way ahead of me here.

Lazy? If you don’t challenge, engage, excite or otherwise snag your customers’ attention, they won’t be listening. This implies a bit of hard work on your part – making sure the message is what your customer wants and needs to hear in the first place, and then keeping it fresh, yet consistent. That last part can be tricky, but it’s necessary. Your audience will detect laziness in your marketing, just as they will in product development or customer service. You snooze, you lose. And yet, the message must also be consistent. Confuse ’em, and you also lose ’em .

Arbitrary? Be very, very careful of drawing people’s conclusions for them. Much better to ask questions, present facts, make comparisons and let the customer decide. You can, and should, imply that you are different and better – the right choice – but in the end, it has to be your customers’ decision or they won’t own the decision. And if they don’t own it, they won’t stand by it.

Indiscriminate? We’ve said it before – in June of this year to be precise – and we’ll say it again: When everything is special, nothing is special. You cannot include everything. Edit. There has to be emphasis and priority in marketing, or it becomes one big, dull, unremarkable blur. Not the best thing for attracting new customers in these frazzled times.

Cocktails? But of course!

You may notice that we have not, nor will we ever, have a year-end cocktail retrospective or top ten list. That might seem obvious since we have featured only 20 cocktails so far, but I doubt that would deter some of the hell-bent top-tenners out there in news and features land.

Moving on …

Since this is still the season for festivity, and ringing-in the new is just around the corner, another champagne cocktail just seemed right. And I’ve got a new one that will get you all the way to festive in a round-and-a-half, and probably beyond that if you start in on round three.

It’s called a Sparkling Ginger Daisy, and it resembles a French 75, but we goose it up with an extra twist of flavor via ginger liqueur. You will love this one. Guaranteed.

That name requires a bit of explanation. Despite sounding like some candy-assed, cloyingly sweet concoction dreamed up by a Food Channel “chef” who uses a lot of marshmallows in her cooking, the Daisy is a actually venerable family of cocktails dating back to the mid-19th Century when cocktails were in their infancy. According to David Embury* a venerable cocktail hound who only dates back to the mid-20th century, but really knew his stuff, a traditional Daisy is a drink sweetened with grenadine and containing citrus juice, a liqueur and/or a distilled liquor. And that’s exactly what we have here – plus champagne, hence the sparkling in the name.

Historical accuracy notwithstanding, my son William Paine and I both feel like Sparkling Ginger Daisy is a ridiculous name, so you have our permission to call it a Tool Belt. We felt that had a certain macho appeal.

So, run right out and get yourself a bottle of ginger liqueur plus a bottle or two of dry sparking wine – doesn’t have to be champagne – and toast the new year as well as yourself for being such a smooth operator.

Tool Belt – née Sparkling Ginger Daisy

For each drink, combine the following in a shaker:

• 1 oz Gin
• 1 oz Ginger Liqueur – I use Domaine de Canton because that’s the brand I find on the shelf, but I’ve seen other brands online.
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon grenadine

Shake with ice, pour into a flute and top with a dry sparkling white wine, cava, prosecco, champagne, whatever.

Woohoo! Happy New Year!

* And, get yourself a copy of The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks by the late David A. Embury, a respectable Manhattan attorney and who was a cocktail expert on the side. Originally published in 1948, reprinted several times, and republished in 2008, it’s 300 pages of cocktail history, recipes and – often very funny – commentary about drinks and how to serve and consume them.