Another Shot At Free Market Advocacy

The Daily Caller reports on I, Whiskey, CEI's new short film about whiskey, free markets, and innovation.

“I, Whiskey,” is a short film that takes you to a cocktail hour at an upscale whiskey bar, Jack Rose, in the District of Columbia’s hipster Adams Morgan neighborhood. Produced on an $80,000 budget crowd funded from 107 donors, the short has high production values, and looks like either an unusually long high-end whiskey commercial, or like several scenes from a sexy Hollywood drama set in a beautiful venue with shelves of hundreds of brands of whiskey climbing up exposed brick walls to a 20 foot ceiling. The venue, Jack Rose Dining Saloon, hosts a variety of creative events, including Buzzfeed’s annual White House Correspondent’s Dinner after-party.

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The film is a subtle celebration of the creativity and diversity of small start up businesses, like micro-breweries and small distillers – and of free market economies that allow them to flourish.

Producer Amanda France, of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a free market advocacy group, is following up on a 2012 animated short she produced that has received 500,000 views. “This is the second installment in CEI’s acclaimed I, Pencil film series. I, Whiskey is the story of freedom and how the human spirit thrives when it has the freedom to connect, create, and innovate.” Wasmund, one of the whiskey entrepreneurs featured in the film – who met his wife when she asked him what he was drinking and he answered “a whiskey I make” – was interviewed this weekend on RealClearRadio, an interview and news broadcast Ms. France also produces, aired on the IHeart radio app, and 13 terrestrial radio stations around the country. Wasmund’s Copper Fox Distillery now has two plants and employs his mom and several other family members.

France, whose group produced the film with Passing Lane Films, says she hopes to get “a quarter of a million views in the first two months.” Though she thinks the political philosophy of the film, which is so subtle some viewers may miss it, will appeal to the growing ranks of libertarian sympathizers who made Congressman Ron Paul and then Governor Gary Johnson household names and regular TV presences, she says the film has a broader appeal because it is “fun. At CEI we like to work hard and play hard. And I think this film will reach people who like to have fun beyond our usual work with policy studies and legal briefs.”

Read the full article at The Daily Caller.