The history of the Gray Kangaroo as originally printed in Synthesis Magazine
Feb 21 2005
Pink Elephants are a thing of the past!
Personal liquor filters will have drunkards everywhere seeing.
-By Alan Weibel
It’s the end of the month and bills, food but mostly alcohol have drained your funds. Like a resourceful student, you save money by skipping breakfast, maybe lunch, and hitting up the cheapest taco trucks for dinner. All this sacrifice just to be able to buy the most booze you can, to keep the buzz flowing throughout the weekend’s events. Taaka, White Wolf, and even Ray’s own brand of gin and vodka are by far the cheapest alcohol-in-quantity handles you can find. But wait! There is something you can do to ease the strain on your liver and stomach, while making the liquor taste top shelf all at the same time. Revolutionizing the drunkards one lush at a time, the Grey Kangaroo is making an impression on college students everywhere.
The Grey Kangaroo is sweeping the nation. This compact, foot-long carbon filter removes unwanted organic particles left over from the distilling process. Remember in elementary school when your teacher attached a pair of two-liter bottles together with a plastic piece, shook the water in them and created a tornado? The GK works like that, except the plastic piece is a little bigger. Take an empty liquor bottle, place the GK on top, then insert the full bottle of liquor you are filtering upside down, so that the filter’s “nipple” (The Synthesis loves technical terms) is in the bottle neck. In about a minute’s time, your fifth of White Wolf will evolve into a Gray Goose. Vodka can be filtered up to six times, while other liquors like gin and whiskey can only be filtered a few times before they lose their distinctive flavoring. The GK also helps prevent hangovers. You know they way you feel after buck night, drinking all those no-name brand well drinks? That can now be a thing of the past, as the GK filter also gets rid of the sediments that, when in your bloodstream, can cause headaches and nausea.
Nick Esposito, creator of the Grey Kangaroo, breaks it down. “When you pay for booze, you pay for two things: you pay for the process to make the booze, and you pay for the marketing.” Vodka recipes are all very similar. Taaka can easily be distilled slightly differently and be labeled Absolut. Esposito created the first GK prototype a few years ago and called all his friends and friends’ friends to get together and “extensively try the product.” After a non-stop three day “testing” event, he definitely earned himself some drunkard cred, Chico status. Esposito then went on an advertising binge and toured with the Vans Warped Tour for three years, hitting over 60 venues. Drinking with the likes of Atmosphere, Bad Religion, My Chemical Romance and Ozomatli, Esposito hosted post-concert “Drink-A-Q’s” while Stretch Armstrong acted as bouncer and had to hold back Yellowcard and Good Charlotte from parking in the 21-and-over fun. With such a good response from the tour, Esposito began production on new Gray Kangaroo models with advanced filters.
Thinking big during one of his many days on the advertising tour, living out of a bus, Nick Esposito knew that he had to follow a formula of success in promoting his product. He had a kangaroo suit tailored and asked his 38-year-old bus driver to try it on. “The second he put it on, it was fate,” says Esposito. He had found his GK spokesperson. “We realized something that we didn’t notice before-he actually looks like a kangaroo.” Esposito signed his bus driver to a lifetime deal as the Gray Kangaroo spokesperson, and Tornado Jack was born. “Jack has the personality and energy that represents the Gray Kangaroo. With a thick New York accent, Tornado Jack confesses, “I remember putting on the suit and going out for the first time. I was a little nervous. I’m a little shy and I didn’t know what kind of character I was going to portray. So I threw back a few drinks, got a little drunk and really came out of myself. Being a kangaroo and encouraging people to drink brings me back to a second childhood.” Tornado Jack sounds like the perfect man for the job. At night Jack suits up, goes out to clubs and bars and promotes the GK to college students and partiers around the northeast. He is the life of the party. Even though Tornado Jack is fully equipped with a baby joey (and flask of vodka cranberry) in his pouch, he says he has still been mistaken for a bunny, dog, and even a bear. When asked, Jack explained that the only political future he has in mind is president of the GK company. Until then, watch for Tornado Jack all up in the mix at spring break parties.
After straining the impurities from Palm Springs, Tornado Jack and Gray Kangaroo are planning a west coast tour. They will be in California from April 14-20 at screenings of another affiliated project, Punk Rock Holocaust, a slasher/zombie comedy that shows the brutal of over 23 bands and audiences from the Vans Warped Tour. Nick Esposito is also coinciding a California special from February 27-March 7, giving $5 off all purchases of the Gray Kangaroo filter to all California residents. You can get a Gray Kangaroo personal liquor filter at www.graykangaroo.com.
Broke students’ problems are solved. Stay on gulp while you’re porching or at a party. Get those shot scroungers and moochers scared away from your stash by keeping your Kettle One-tasting Taaka in its original bottle after filtering it. Save your money, impress your friends, stop cringing after a shot, and prevent hangovers. Pink Elephants are a thing of the past. The future of booze is seeing Gray Kangaroos.
