Vodka, Swedes and Natural Gas

As I sit in the office on another slow January afternoon - I grab today's Wall Street Journal and start paging through.

The first headline to grab my attention - "As Vodka Sales Skyrocket, Many Newcomers Pour In" - falls on page one (although below the fold). As a vodka-sour and grey goose on the rocks consumer, I'm obviously interested in this story....if nothing else than to have some useless knowledge for later tonight. So, I never would have guessed that in the last 5 years there have been 260 new vodka brands introduced into the US. I wonder how many made it past the first batch. Smirnoff sold 21.4 million 9 liter cases in 2005 to Absolut's 9.2 million. The next few drop off significantly after that. The article stated margins for top end vodka products could be as high as 40% (hmm, just like concrete - kidding...my god, 40%...that would be rediculous for us) Finally - as a grey goose fan, I was unaware of the fact that they were bought out by Bacardi for $2 billion dollars. Amazing.

Next up was a small story titled, "Study of Super-Size Diet Yields Surprises in Swedes". As a partial Swede and regular eater, this on interested me. Apparently a Swedish researcher decided to put a little more science behind the method taken by Morgan Spurlock's "Super Size Me" experiment and movie from 2004 (a rediculously anti-fast food movie from the start). Fredrik Nystrom (as a sidebar, I'm guessing there are about 1,000,000 Frederik Nystrom's in Sweden) put 18 healthy volunteers through a similar 1 month, fast food only, little exercise diet. A wide range of results were found, some near Mr. Spurlock's results, but others with little to modest change. Mr. Nystrom's comment - "In cold areas, people might have adapted more to cope with temperature and be more likely to burn off excess calories." Hmm, I think the local northland McD's could spin that into an advertising campaign.

Finally..."Natural Gas Slides Amid High Supply". Good I say. My furnace, water heater, stovetop and oven are all natural gas. Last month I burned a lot of wood in a small basement woodstove to supplement the gas heat and actually had a 33% lower gas/water bill in December than in November. So when the WSJ reports a 7% drop in natural gas futures, I say, good for the market....and good for me.