How Fireball Became The Most Popular Shot For College Students

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Everyone’s favorite cinnamon gum-tasting shot, Fireball, has seen its sales soar from a paltry $1.9 million in 2011 to $61 million in 2013, thanks to a brilliant marketing campaign.

From Business Insider:

The $61 million figure doesn’t even include bars, another popular place to consume Fireball.

Fireball, which is described as tasting like cinnamon gum, has become a go-to shot for “young hedonists,” Leonard writes.

The whisky beverage is even close to surpassing Jägermeister, another liqueur commonly consumed as a shot.

Fireball’s marketing team went to bars in big college towns such as Nashville, Tenn., and Austin, Texas, to give out free rounds of shots to the entire bar, banking on the fact that college kids would jump at the chance to get free shots.

The Fireball representatives also encouraged the bars to hold Fireball drinking contests. They thought this was a perfect way to get the college students to drink their whiskey until it ran out.

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The marketing team used celebrities to help promote the hellish whiskey, such as Josh Harris from “Deadliest Catch.” However, Fireball needs to step its game up in the celebrity department. Regardless, bartenders have declared Fireball the “go-to shot” for college students, and one Austin bartender even proclaimed, “Jager is dead.” This is good, because Jager is terrible.

[via Business Insider]

Image via Instagram

    1. beerbong_in_my_pants

      What about Nickleback???(This is sarcasm for you slow ones out there)

      11 years ago at 5:09 pm
  1. IrishMac

    Florida Georgia Line would probably be a decent set of celebrities to endorse Fireball.

    11 years ago at 4:01 pm
    1. American

      Agreed. I think this article fails to mention the influence they’ve already had on the sales of this product. Seems like everybody I know that regularly consumes this stuff does so simply because of them.

      11 years ago at 4:04 pm
    2. Whiskey Warrior

      The issue is that they readily endorse it already, without being paid by Fireball (to my knowledge). Why pay for publicity you’re going to receive anyways?

      11 years ago at 8:38 am
  2. MannyC

    About damn time BourbonNeat changed his horrendously lame bio, still don’t understand how this guy is still writing though

    11 years ago at 4:05 pm
  3. phialphaborn92

    A few rounds of fireball shots throughout the night is great. Drinking and excessive amount of fireball shots and nothing else throughout the night will make you want to jump into oncoming traffic the next morning.

    11 years ago at 4:07 pm
    1. SoPhratSoCollege

      This is correct, but damn have you ever tried walking around a party with a handle of Fireball? It goes down so easy.

      11 years ago at 4:37 pm
    1. HouseChef_TFM

      Durant’s like a Jeffrey: just when you think he’s finally gone, he comes back worse than before.

      11 years ago at 4:42 pm
    2. BROmcy

      I’ll never get the time back in my life that I spent reading this blog post worthy of elite daily…

      11 years ago at 11:23 am
  4. Whiskeysour

    Didn’t you write a shitty article saying how fireball was one of the “4 worst types of shots”

    11 years ago at 4:19 pm