"Hooray, beer!"
That is the famous catch logo for Red Stripe beer, the most famous export from Jamaica after the late Bob Marley.
The beer is named after its red stripe logo (did we really need to wiki that?), and it was first brewed in the capital Kingston on July 31, 1918.
Red Stripe was first imported to the United States in 1985, but it wasn't as popular as initially anticipated. That all changed when the brew began sponsoring reggae events and by the mid-1990s one could even find the beer in grocery stores in places like Mount Airy, NC.
There is also some interesting trivia associated with the beer. Reportedly, it was temporarily banned in America in 1989 because drug smugglers were putting cannibis in several of the brand's brown bottles.
In 2009 during the Beer Summit with Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., Cambridge, Mass., police officer Jim Crowley, President Barack Obama and Veep Joe Biden, Gates initially wanted to have a Red Stripe. But, word spread out and Boston beer lovers and perhaps right-wing hotheads like Rush Limbuagh made an issue of it, so Gates ordered a Sam Adams Light instead. Limbaugh, who is a cigar fan, has probably smoked a Cuban himself!
SIDEBAR: Shocking news out of Turkey as a company in the southeast city of Gaziantep has developed 'instant Turkish coffee' according to Yigal Schieifer with the blog Kebabistan. According to the post/news story, Semesttin Yilmaz developed the new 'Shazili' brand of instant Turkish coffee with both sweet and non-sweet versions to find a unique niche on the market. But, according to Kebabistan, the real thing should be enjoyed at the Mandabatmaz Restaurant in Istanbul. Closer to home, one can drink Turkish coffee at Tallulah's*, a Turkish joint, in Chapel Hill, NC.
*-Alas, it is not spelled correctly on our links!
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