Welcome to The Fingers Weekender, a Sunday digest exclusively for paying Friends of Fingers featuring the independent journalism about drinking in America you love, optimized for hungover scrolling. In today’s edition:

And much more. As ever, if someone forwarded this to you, buy a subscription to get next Sunday’s edition straight in your inbox.

There’s a showdown brewing between Anchor’s old workers and its new owner. The Willy Wonka angle is hard to miss in Anchor Brewing Company’s anxiously awaited revival, but when its enigmatic billionaire owner reopens the sadly idled icon, it won’t be Oompa-Loompas working the copper kettles. But who will it be? In my column last week at VinePair I made the case for the loyal local labor Sapporo unceremoniously cut loose nearly three years ago.

Other key stories:

New research shows wine labels designed to appeal to women do in fact appeal to women. A new paper from an Auburn business professor published in conjunction with colleagues at Washington State University in the International Journal of Hospitality Management earlier this year found that when a bottle’s branding signals female vineyard ownership and/or female winemakers behind it, female customers respond more positively to it both on the shelf and in the glass. Women over-index on wine purchases in the United States, accounting for some 60% of the national spend, but the researchers found that masculine branding cues still dominate the languishing category’s labeling. Sadly it would be woke and therefore illegal for wine marketers to do anything with this information. Keep those Stag’s Leaps, 19 Crimes, and Prisoners coming, boys!

Other key stories:

At Diageo, more cuts reveal the "drastic" reorganization. On Monday, the spirits conglomerate underwent another substantial round of layoffs that appear to have been focused on its struggling North American unit. (There are also cuts coming in Ireland, and possibly elsewhere.) Materials presented in advance of the pink-slipping, obtained by Fingers via a soon-to-be-exited employee, give a better sense for how new-ish chief exec “Drastic” Dave Lewis plans to bust the mega-firm's recent malaise. The turnaround strategy includes adopting what slides refer to as a "'Bigger, Better, Fewer' mindset." As always, if you know more about the situation at Diageo, please submit tips to [email protected] or dinfontay.11 on Signal. Anonymity available.

Other key stories:

Nine Loko offers more than twice the Loko of the leading Loko on the market. I guess? Does anybody know the conversion rate between malt liquor and hemp-derived tetrahydrocannabinol? Because the latter is the intoxicating ingredient in the newly launched Nine Loko, which Brewbound reported is being manufactured not by Four Loko parent company Phusion Projects but a third-party licensee named—lol—Chuck It LLC. Sure, yep, that tracks. Obviously, it rules that the brand best known for blacking out entire college campuses during the first Obama administration is now fronting a THC spinoff mere months before the substance is slated to be banned by the second Trump administration. Then again, laws are fake here in the twilight of the republic, so it might pan out anyway: the White House last week made a direct appeal to Congress for new legislation to avert the looming THC death sentence this November… which, of course, President Deals himself just signed into law last November. Loko, indeed.

Other key stories:

Has moved! I’m testing out Buzzwords of The Week as a web-only feature on Fridays, open to free and paid subscribers alike and promoted on social. I’ll include a link to it in Weekenders as well, so it doesn’t just disappear on you. We’ll see what happens! Here’s this week’s installation:

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!

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!