I am not a fan of gimmicks.

To me, gimmicks are a clever way of distracting the consumer from the fact that your product is lame and, well, needs a gimmick. An unnamed fast-food chain uses a gimmick to trick children into eating their McShitburgers, a mini-car company uses a gimmick to fool men into thinking they’re driving something respectable, and a certain vodka brand uses a gimmick to fool people into drinking garbage water that may or may not be handmade.

So when the good folks at Medea Vodka offered to send me a few Bluetooth-programmable bottles of vodka, my answer was resounding “fuck no.” They sent them anyway… and I’m really glad they did. The vodka is incredibly smooth — I swear, I tasted vanilla and honey as it glided across my palate and danced down my throat. Turns out, the good folks at Medea are serious about their vodka and brew/make/cook/distill(?) it at the House of Herman Jansen under the auspices of some serious Dutch vodka ninja.

Once I had a few in me, I started to play around with the LED bottle, which is super easy to use. You can program up to ten messages per bottle, and it comes preloaded with a few generic ones: “Happy Anniversary,” “Happy New Year,” and other bullshit that I deleted immediately. Instead, I loaded the LED display with some better ones: “Drink Your Feelings,” “Kiss A Girl,” “Slap the Perv,” and a few others that were bound to get me in trouble with HR (again).

This message-on-a-bottle technology has a ton of applications, but wishing my parents a happy anniversary isn’t one of them.

Then I marched into the marketing department and pulled out branding gurus Ella Nova, Alana Cruise, Charlotte Cross, and Edyn Blair to take one of the bottles for a spin. Literally. I made them “taste” a few shots… you know… for work… and engaged them in a meaningful game of spin the bottle. See, I think this message-on-a-bottle technology has a ton of applications, but wishing my parents a happy anniversary isn’t one of them. However, programming naughty things that the all-female marketing team must do when the magic vodka bottle points to them? Now that is the lord’s work.

Because we were at the office, things started out pretty tame. We all did a few more shots and got comfortable on the conference room floor. Then Charlotte realized her panties were inside out, so she flipped them while we were sitting there. That doesn’t have anything to do with the story, but I thought it was awesome. The rest of the afternoon is a blur. I think Alana shot vodka down my throat with a squirt gun, Edyn slapped the glasses off my face, one of them started twerking, and I got a lap dance from someone else? Then (I think) everyone started kissing each other, which (I think) was wonderful.

I wish I remembered more about the afternoon, but it looked like I had a great time from the photos that Mo took. (Note to self: Don’t bring Mo to any more marketing meetings because he takes pictures of everything and uses them as blackmail.) After a short nap, we were all ready to test the second bottle.

Medea Vodka $30 medeavodka.com