Viagra Ice Cream versus Gay Wine


Consumer-trends newsletter Springwise illuminates the far corners of the retail imagination, with weekly updates on new business schemes from the socially conscious to the absurdly decadent. In the latter category, this week, we have Sex Pistol Ice Cream, a British dessert shop’s latest plan to pitch this girlie comfort food to the male “members” of the species. The limited-edition flavor is “touted to have the same charge as a dose of Viagra”:

Mixed into the frozen treat are ginkgo biloba, arginine and guarana—all guaranteed to increase blood flow and energy level. Before serving, The Sex Pistol is doused in La Fee Absinthe. And since presentation is key, the absinthe is administered from a drip bag into a pink water gun and fired at a heated sugar cube, which drops into the ice cream. The Sex Pistol is deemed so potent that sales are limited to one per customer, although at GBP 11.99 customers might prefer to split one with a special friend.

If you’d rather heat up than cool down, never fear. From the same newsletter, we get UO! Wines, a Spanish wine brand targeted at gay men:

UO! Ánima Blanca, for example, is a Sauvignon Blanc and Verdejo blend featuring earth tones and “wisps of flowers and fruit – the perfect accompaniment to a gathering of friends on a hot day, whether the heat comes from within or without.” Antinoo, meanwhile, is a Monastrell that’s “young and mature, fruity, elegant, smooth….Mediterranean…. When you try it, shut your eyes and imagine that you are licking rivulets of syrup from his body,” the company advises. Rounding out the line is Oscura Lágrima, a Shiraz and Merlot blend that’s “dark, dense and turbulent.”

Whew. With ad copy like this, who needs Viagra sundaes?