Booze: it really sells itself. But you can always buy more booze, and liquor companies have been honing their sales pitches for decades. Below, seven ads for-bluntly-cheap rotgut booze, from the 1940s and 50s. Maybe this stuff was classy way back then? Gay undertones, exotic racism, sexism, and international flair are all in there! I think you'll prefer this brand of rotgut to booze costing "up to $1.00 more," assuming you're a white man!

Did you know that in the UK it's actually illegal for liquor companies to imply that their product will help you achieve "seduction, sexual activity or sexual success"? Crazy, right? But the byproduct is that even George Clooney-the sexiest man alive (according to women or whatever)-has to play like a good boy in his European ads for Martini vermouth. Oh, he's so couth. He just wants to twirl that fake mustache and meet you later on to get to know the real you. Don't believe the hype, ladies; he can't love you like a blogger can. Scoff at his act, after the jump:

Activists in Philadelphia are upset about an ad campaign for Colt 45 malt liquor—specifically, its cartoonish wall murals in poor neighborhoods showing party people living it up while swilling 40s, with the slogan "Works Every Time." One woman tells the AP she wouldn't want her daughter looking at it because "She might think it's cool." Which is a reasonable response from a parent to ads for everything from malt liquor to Bratz dolls. One would think that companies in the vice industries would have learned from Joe Camel that there is nothing to gain but backlash from cartoon-style ads, but apparently not. Colt 45 has an equally objectionable website full of cartoons, which also shows a fundamental disconnect with the rotgut company's own customer base; bird watchers (educated guess, here) are not really a cost-effective target audience :

Popular Page Six gossip hack Paula Froelich had a party thrown in her honor last night, complete with her own signature cocktail: the IZZE FROLIC. Awww! She sent an email to all of her contacts saying, "It seems someone has decided to name a drink after me. I think we can use it as a good excuse to go play." But when the party happened, one boldface name was conspicuously absent: New York Post reporter Paula Froelich! So what happened? Bothersome ethics, of course.

The high-end liquor market is crowded these days, so Belvedere came up with an idea so crazy that it just might work: an advertisement that implies that drinking their brand of vodka could get you a blowjob from an attractive woman. And they even got sexpert and James Frey collaborator Terry Richardson to do the photo! Might this radical notion of using an image to subconsciously connect their brand with the idea of sexual conquest in the minds of consumers actually serve to boost their sales and, consequently, their revenues? Stranger things have happened. [Copyranter at Animal NY]

Global liquor conglomerates, take note: a hastily constructed website is calling for a boycott of Absolut. Run a humorous ad in Mexico and face financial ruin, Pernod Ricard corporation! "Absolut vodka is trying to sell liquor to Mexicans that aspire to control the Southwest United States," reveals boycott organizer William "Yosemite" Gheen. Now if he can only get Matt Sanchez on his side...Despite its insistence on spelling the company's name "Absolute," the website has already attracted more than 120 visits and nearly 7 comments. But its visual and documentary evidence of the brewing Mexican separatist movement that threatens American freedom may be its most powerful tool:

Absolut ran an ad in Mexico showing the pre-1848 map of that country with the tagline, "In An Absolut World." The ad agency explained to the LA Times, unnecessarily, that "The campaign taps into the national pride of Mexicans." Now I see! Well, true patriots in this country aren't about to stand for some Mexicans reconquering the American Southwest via a liquor advertisement. Some internet users—even Long Islanders!—are calling for an Absolut boycott [LAT via Drudge]. That's fine with us. Xenophobes don't need to be drinking in the first place. The full version of the treasonous ad is below.

Gays: Here is one of the plainest insights you will ever get into how you are perceived by the liquor industry, and, by extension, by the advertising industry that gets paid to understand consumers such as yourself. Pictured here is an ad for Basil Hayden's whiskey that was placed in "general market" publications. Its tagline reads, "When you walk into a bar, you're on stage." After the jump, the tagline for the version of that same ad that was placed into Gay/ Lesbian publications:

Why won't THE MSM leave Choire Sicha's liquor store ALONE! [Radar]