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Honoring a life in beer

Plus: The Fingers Shop is almost sold out!

Author

Dave Infante
December 14, 2025

Editor’s note: Today’s edition of Fingers is less of a Weekender, and more of a hodgepodge, for reasons that will become obvious when you scroll down. Sorry for the switch; I’ve been on the road and on the phone quite a bit more than normal this past week. Regular programming resumes next week. Thanks for your patience.—Dave.

Nick Infante (second from right) in the St. Pauli Girl years.

My father, Nick Infante, adored the American beer business. A week ago, he passed away. My latest column at VinePair is a tribute to his lifelong passion for the trade, and a challenge to its contemporary leaders to hold close all that makes it unique. Here is an excerpt:

Who will tell beer’s singular stories in this “total beverage” market? Who will make the case for the industry’s romance, its “high drama”? Who will inspire the next generation to love not just the liquid but the legacy, warts and all? Such boosterism is not my business. But if the Beer Institute, the Brewers Association, and the National Beer Wholesalers Association wanted to make it theirs, producing oral histories with the industry’s veterans might be a good place to start. My dad’s stories about the beer business, and his passion for it, will only live on because his son happens to publish things about it for a living. Imagine the thousands of others whose stories will be forgotten, or were never told in the first place. These memories are the soul of the trade. They may not be its path forward, but they can help light the way. They are what separates the beer business from the broader CPG sector. Nobody really sings songs of the sunscreen industry’s splendor.

The column went live Friday morning at VinePair. Since then, I’ve heard from a few of my father’s former colleagues in the beer industry. If you worked with Nick Infante on St. Pauli Girl, Guinness, Rolling Rock, or any of the half-dozen other brands he marketed in the Eighties and Nineties (or just happened to cross paths with him somewhere along the way) and you have stories to share, I’d love to hear them. Please get in touch. Special thanks to VinePair editor-in-chief Joanna Sciarrino for giving me space for this column, and to everybody who has reached out to offer their condolences and memories about my dad and the industry he loved.

🎁 The Fingers Shop is almost sold out

Inventory of the boozeletter’s inaugural merch run is running very low after a flurry of orders from all over the country last week! Don’t wait, grab one of these embroidered 100%-cotton hats for you or somebody you love before they’re gone:

All prices include shipping in the US. All proceeds go towards publishing more independent, award-winning, AI-free journalism about drinking in America. Makes a great gift for the bartender at your local who’s been putting up with your shit all year!

🔗 Keep the Bad Holiday Gift Guide submissions coming

The FingersTip Line™️ is abuzz with brutally bad gifts this year.

Fingers’ annual open call for overpriced, subpar, and/or just plain stupid bar-cart junk is juuuuust about wrapped, but there’s still time to drop links if you’ve got ‘em. Whether you’re a paying subscriber not, hit that comments section on the original post:

Here’s a quick refresh on the ground rules for first-timers:

  1. Don’t send links to actual booze, no matter how obscenely expensive it is. I’m looking for drinking paraphernalia—beer bongs, wine keys, Blanton’s stopper displays, etc.

  2. That said, whiskey stones are also off-limits, because they’re just too easy.

  3. As always, special preference will be given to troop- and/or cop-humping Etsy garbage, shimmering baubles so pricey they could start a class war, and self-evidently useless gadgetry in search of a pouring problem to solve.

Don’t overthink it. If it’s gimmicky, self-important, or corny, and it has to do with drinking in America, it should be in consideration. Submissions open for just a few more days!

Editor’s note: The (🎁) indicates the link is a gift link. I get these on Bluesky—there’s an entire feed of them. Pretty cool!

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