Coming Next: Absolut Gimmie Back the Louisiana Purchase

Hot on the heels of their Katrina based Absolut New Orleans, the vodka maker has roiled up some controversy with their latest ad campaign: Absolut Do Away with the Border Established by the Mexican American War cause Mexico Rocks! The campaign en español: In an Absolut World.

The ad attempts to capture the imagination of the immigrant population of the American southwest, not to mention the thousands of people who hope to one day sneak across the border to freedom. In a cross promotional campaign, Absolut has provided free individual size bottles and promotional foam-fingers reading Absolut Numero Uno to smuggling coyotes on the Mexican side.

The thinking? When you’ve spent your entire life savings to crawl across the desert – nothing quite hits the spot like a refreshing Absolut screwdriver. Perhaps except for water. In a sign that the company recognizes this market potential, they are charging $4 a bottle for newly branded Absolut Agua.

The anti-immigrant community of the U.S. was so incensed by the ad that they’ve attempted to organize a boycott. They issued a press released entitled “Are you Too Drunk to Remember the Damn Alamo” which decries the spirit maker’s lack of patriotic imperialism. They’ve gone so far that they’ve organized a protest event at the actual Alamo. They plan to drink bottle after bottle of Ketel One while heaving the empties at piñatas filled with back-issues of The Nation (this is meant to symbolize the systemic rape of America’s social services by undocumented foreign workers).

The protesters have included an accommodation for those who cannot make it to the actual Alamo. You can join them in spirit by projecting the 2004 Touchstone Pictures film of the same name onto the side of your house. They add “be sure to get wasted on some freedom loving vodka – not commie Stoli, and not border jumpin’ Absolut. Make us as proud as Billy Bob Thorton’s portrayal of Davy Crockett did.”

The company promised not only to pull the Mexican ad, but to rush to production its “long planned” patriotic campaign: Absolut ‘Merica. Hoping to appeal to the very niche that has instituted the boycott, the magazine glossy features a Mexican parent being arrested by an INS agent as their American-born child looks on in horror. The copy reads: Don’t worry about the boy. He’ll be able to enjoy Absolut one day. He’s a citizen. God bless the U.S.A.