The Heat Sheet
Port pops, a celebrity floatie, and a toot for the New York Post
Dear Media Friends (and random internet strangers),
It’s too hot to think, so consider this less a Hot Sheet than a Heat Sheet: a short one, written at roughly 40% brain capacity. If your inbox has gone quiet and your pitches are echoing into the void, that’s not failure; that’s July. The industry melts every year around now. Plan accordingly; forgive accordingly, or simply forget to hold a grudge.
But before I go lie down in front of the air conditioner, I need to tell you about the ice pops.
pops culture
Sandeman, the Portuguese Port house with two centuries of history behind it, teamed up with Tipsy Scoop for a limited run of Port Pops: dairy-free berry sorbet push-pops spiked with Founder’s Reserve Port. They’re available for July only and ship nationwide via Goldbelly. They sent samples. My eyes pricked with actual joy when I opened the box (or maybe that was the dry ice stuck to my fingers). Moving right along. Push-pops are pure childhood; Port is pure grown-up. Getting both in one frozen package mid-heat-wave is the kind of small perfect thing that can undo a person, in the best way.
And here’s the occupational hazard everyone reading this shares: you can never just enjoy the ice pop moment. Somewhere between the freezer and my mouth, the other part of my brain kicked in — the part that can’t stop asking why something works. Even half-melted, in every sense, I was taking notes. So, briefly: right product, right season, right recipient, right week. National Ice Cream Month plus a heat wave created the urgency for them. The pairing itself is the story. And the samples delivered on the pitch, which is rarer than it should be.
Even the Goldbelly box arrived dressed for the occasion, with America 250 materials and a gold seal reading “In American Food We Trust.” When the shipping partner’s insert copy outclasses most brand campaigns, everyone did their homework. Yes, $84.95 for six is a splurge. It's also what you send when flowers feel expected, and you want giddy instead. The port pops delivered.
from brain freeze to brain melt
How melted am I, exactly? This melted: my Teddy Swims interview went live on Yahoo this week, and when his team first sent over the assets for his White Claw partnership, I scrolled right past a blow-up teddy bear pool floatie without registering that the teddy bear WAS Teddy Swims. The floatie was the pun. The heat ate the puntastic visual. Decades of looking at (and writing) press assets, ladies and gents, and I initially missed the sheer genius of this piece of merch (Also noted: that’s two alcohol brands in one newsletter getting summer exactly right. The category is having a moment.)
toot toot (hey) beep beep
With apologies to the late great Donna Summer, the heat is claiming everyone, and yesterday it reached the Senate floor. Which brings me to this edition’s toot: Chris Nesi at the New York Post, whose write-up of Chuck Schumer’s unfortunate motion from the floor is the week's best tabloid craft. The article opens with the senators yielding it back without objection and only ascends from there. As I told my sister after she shared the story with me, Nesi’s article is a masterclass in writing about passing gas. A ridiculous story with not one lazy sentence in it — that’s harder than it looks, and it’s the whole job. And let’s face it. It’s a huge relief to chuckle about the gaslighting by a senator rather than the Cyclospora outbreak.
That’s it. That’s the newsletter. Full strength resumes when the temperature drops below broil.
two pitch requests:
If you represent companies that specialize in dessert wine or ice wine, please send a pitch my way. Same if you have some lippies to suggest for National Lipstick Day.
Please send an email to rcwprpitches@gmail.com
Stay cool, or at least stay hydrated,
Rachel
Should we discuss the summer industry-wide meltdown? Leave a comment, and I promise to try to stay vertical long enough to respond.