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Comment by teej | Hacker News Reader

It’s not that hard to fathom. Literally tens of millions of people know the name Grumpy Cat. Maybe 1% of that number know about Grenade Beverage.

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In 2009, I bought a bottle of Barack Obama hot sauce I discovered at the local grocery store, just for the sheer novelty of it. I have no idea if it’s any good, as I never opened it. I keep it as a memento.

Grumpy Cat is a big enough phenomenon that they could probably make back the fee just on purchases like that. Let alone people who would actually drink the stuff.

It's surprising how throwing a random name on something will make you want to buy it. A local pub near my office sells Trooper, a type of ale "created' by Iron Maiden, and the novelty of it seems to result in most people trying at least a pint of it.

For those that are interested, it's alright, but not my favourite. I'd recommend trying it if you get a chance.

I think a lot of it comes down to having many choices with no good way to choose. If I’m faced with a large array of unfamiliar beer, well, why not go for the Iron Maiden one? At the very least it’ll be interesting, and your chances of getting something good are about as high as they would have been anyway.

When I was in Germany, I bought a bottle of Gorbatschow vodka to bring home.

I thought the name was something to do with Mikhail Gorbachev, but it isn't - the brand has been produced in Berlin since 1921 after its founder Leo Gorbatschow left Russia during the October Revolution (thanks, wikipedia).

Fairly decent vodka for the price though; would drink again, but since Stolichnaya and bisongrass vodka are also much cheaper in Germany than the UK they're a better candidate for limited luggage space.

I did the same with an energy drink featuring Tupac Shakur on the can.

Grumpy Cat is a world-wide phenomenon. I seriously doubt that 1% of the people who know Grumpy Cat have ever come across Grenade Beverage.

If a billion people are aware of Grumpy Cat, and 1% of them come across the beverage, that's a lot of brand aware people.

This is the same fallacy as "our TAM is $500 trillion so if we just get 1% of 1% of 1%....!!!!"

I don't know, it worked really well in Office Space. Potentially too well.

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