Acid League
& Proxies

Did I want to write copy and manage social for a vinegar brand?, asked my former food writing colleague. I don’t know, man—are all modern citrus fruits elaborate crossbreeds of only four original citrus species?

The answer to that is “yes,” by the way—easily one of the coolest things I learned during my time at Acid League, a company where I could gleefully follow my scientific muse and penchant for obscure facts down the rabbit hole. AL was the brainchild of food scientists, and the brand wore that nerdy enthusiasm and spirit of experimentation on its (lab coat) sleeve across product and social copy, newsletters, blog posts, and more. Their zero-proof “not-wine” sister brand, Proxies, retained that sense of worldliness, with a slightly more posh, reassuring tone that helped proved its flavour bonafides and turn skeptical drinkers into brand evangelists.

Acid League’s twin penchants for discovery and design made their brand a joy to work on as a writer and social manager—whether I was branding an entire line of sauces that wound up on Whole Foods shelves coast-to-coast, free-associating the names for a batch of new Proxies, or interviewing fellow vinegar-makers about the pitfalls of producing with foraged pawpaws. But the realities of DTC brand life meant sharpening my CRM and crisis comms skills, too—including the time a forklift accident at the production facility meant we had to cancel the planned release of our gourmet Freezies (really).