Are you a lemon cowboy?  

You might soon be. While savvy consumers are spending less on food with organic labels (though the market is growing, due to un-savvy  consumers) and no one believes in 'natural' claims any more, "authentic origins" is just vague and healthy-sounding enough to resonate in marketing campaigns. It will surely be the cliché of 2013 in food circles.

Wyoming-based Dust Cutter Beverage Co. sells all-natural, Western-style lemonades - I don't know what western style is and it doesn't matter because it has "authentic origins". The company's founder, Eric Green, saw his grandparents, who owned the Warm Springs Ranch in Jackson Hole, give lemonade-and-whiskey "Dust Cutters" to guests coming off the trails of the dude ranch.

The family no longer has the ranch - for bonus authentic origins cred, it was sold in the 1960's to become part of Grand Teton National Park and people who love to talk to friends about the authentic origins of the lemonade they just bought also love stories where landowners get rich selling stuff to the government - but Green wisely copyrighted the Dust Cutter name, secured investors and set about developing alcohol-free lemonades that would still cut some dust. 


Yes, that is a cowboy riding a lemon. It's not as ridiculous as what Madonna had cowboys doing in her "Don't Tell Me" video. Link and credit: Media Post

Bonus: just 80 calories per 16 ounces. And the cost is $20 for a 12-pack, which is sure to make the elite 1% who can afford to buy organic food tinkle with delight. It's also a rodeo for the taste buds, they say.

I don't know about the lemonade but I am already a fan of the company and I want to be first on the friends and family list for the IPO, thus my linking to it here; the man raised venture capital ... during the financial quagmire of 2011 ... using an idea to sell lemonade his grandparents once made ... for 5X the price of what regular lemonade costs. When a business is run by a guy that savvy, it cannot fail.

Read more: New Dust Cutter Lemonades Stress Authentic Origins by Karlene Lukovitz, Media Post