I’m a teetotaler, but even I’ve heard of J&B Whiskey. However, when you see how J&B Whiskey is marketing itself in the Spanish marketplace, you’ll be so turned off by the product that you’ll never want to spend another penny on it, no matter how much you like it. In a three-minute-long video, J&B wants you to know that transgenderism is multigenerational and that a loving family will instantly embrace it. This is not just a nod to so-called transgenderism; it’s a wallow and grovel, along with a disturbing hint of multigenerational grooming.

For those who, like me, don’t know a lot about J&B, here’s a quick rundown. The company began in 1749, when Giacomo Justerini of Bologna got money from George Johnson, a British investor, to open a wine merchant shop in London. In 1760, Justerini left the business, which continued to grow under Johnson’s aegis, so much so that, in 1761, King George III gave it a Royal Warrant.

In 1831, the Johnson family sold the business to Alfred Brooks, who renamed it Justerini & Brooks—that is, J&B. It now has headquarters in London, Edinburgh, and Hong Kong.

J&B has myriad products, including fine wines. However, its best-known product is its whiskey, probably because Italians embraced it, using it in all sorts of TV shows, according to Wikipedia, “as a signifier of sophistication and virility.” Entertainers such as Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra helped its popularity grow in America. In Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho, it was the main character’s preferred beverage.

Image: Grandpa likes to look pretty. YouTube screen grab; fair use for editorial purposes.

J&B, of course, is no longer a stand-alone entity. Instead, a multinational alcoholic beverage company, Diageo plc, headquartered in London, but with a Spanish businessman at the helm, owns J&B along with other familiar brands: Johnnie Walker, Crown Royal, Smirnoff, Captain Morgan, Baileys, Guinness, etc.  No matter what you drink, the dollars go into the same pockets.

Somewhere in that vast upward funnel of subsidiary and parent corporations, someone made the decision that the way to market J&B Whiskey in Spain was to celebrate multigenerational transgenderism. A three-minute-long commercial shows a lonely old man in a small Spanish town trying to hide from his nosy neighbors that he likes putting on lots of make-up.

At one point, the commercial seems to suggest that he just wants to remind himself of his dearly departed wife by putting on her face (delicate shades of Buffalo Bill or Ed Gein). However, that interpretation is blown to smithereens when the extended family arrives to visit the old man. At that point, he takes his 26-year-old grandson, Alvaro, to a locked back room in the house, makes him up like a tart, and presents him to the ensembled family as “Ana.” The boy, of course, is received with rhapsodic joy.  

The tagline to this little narrative is “La magia no solo está en la Navidad. También está en nosotros.” (The magic is not only in Christmas. The magic is also in us.) And what better way to celebrate this transgender magic than with J&B Whiskey?

Let me say that I will never give J&B Whiskey as a gift to anyone. I hate so-called transgender indoctrination. More than that, though, the commercial has a super-creepy vibe. When I watched it, I didn’t think of sweet multi-generational transgenderism and familial acceptance. Instead, I thought, “Boy, I guess this means that the old man groomed poor Alvaro.” I also wondered if that grooming included rape.

After all, we know that there’s a strong correlation between childhood sexual abuse and that child’s subsequent insistence that he or she is actually a member of the opposite sex. According to one study, 73% of those claiming to be transgender report psychological abuse, 39% report physical abuse, and 19% report sexual abuse—significantly higher rates than among mentally healthy people. And no wonder, given that childhood sexual abuse can cause psychological dissociation. What better way to dissociate than to deny your most fundamental biological identity?

Giacomo Justerini, generations of Johnsons, and Albert Brooks must be turning in their graves at what their legacy has become.