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"Empathy-First"
It's your Fingers Buzzwords of The Week!
Dave Infante
March 20, 2026
The wide and weird world of nonalcoholic drink-alikes (“elastic drinks,” in previous boozeletter coinage) is a reliable source of inscrutable neologisms, in no small part because the products tend to be fairly inscrutable themselves. And so it is perhaps not surprising that 2026’s first Buzzwords of The Week winner pulled from a proper press release—as opposed to an earnings-call transcript or court record—hails from said category. The other day, a colleague forwarded me a pitch they’d received for…
Empathy-First, Female-Founded Dealcoholized Wine
…which as far as I can tell is just grape juice that’s hOlDiNg SpAcE for alcohol. Heyo! No but seriously, this is not how words work.
If you see beverage-alcohol corporatespeak in the wild that deserves to be the next Fingers Buzzword, submit it for consideration to [email protected]. All submissions anonymous!
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