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Horlicks, a drink Brits go to bed with and Indians wake up with

bbc.com

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Re: Horlicks, a drink Brits go to bed with and Indians wake up with

#41

Post by raverbashing »

drcross wrote: post #37
rayiner wrote: post #8

We used to drink Horlicks in Bangladesh, where it was - like in India - a breakfast drink. Of course, Horlicks has no special powers to do anything, certainly not any of the things it is marketed as doing. It's a potent example of the insidiousness of marketing: pretty much everywhere in the U.K. and the former British Empire people associate this product with qualities it simply does not possess. Not only that, they…

>Kids in the U.K. ... really don't need to be drinking milk fortified with wheat and barley. Old attitudes from when food was scarce will pervade for a few years to come until populations come to terms with food security. In times past many food items like Guinness and Lucozade were recommended for health benefits. I suspect they were more of a justification for people to spend money on extra food items because if yo…

I can understand Guinness being recommended (at the time), now Lucozade seems just a modern marketing gimmick

Re: Horlicks, a drink Brits go to bed with and Indians wake up with

#42

Post by pasquinelli »

draw_down wrote: post #28
torrent-of-ions wrote: post #26

It is pretty odd that a drink of concentrated simple carbohydrates/sugar would be taken before going to bed.

In my experience ingesting calories before bed is never a wise idea, but especially so if milk is involved.

What happens, in your experience?

Re: Horlicks, a drink Brits go to bed with and Indians wake up with

#43

Post by DanBC »

hprotagonist wrote: post #3

Not the same drink at all, but : As a child i read the James Herriot memoirs (all things bright and beautiful, etc..), in which he waxes rhapsodic about the restorative powers and deliciousness of Bovril. I had no idea what it was, so I was free to invent my own idea of what it might taste like, or be, or consist of. When i discovered he was so happy about diluted beef stock, i was more than a little let down.

The bovril name is interesting. It's a mix of Bos (ox) and a super intelligent alien race from science fiction stories.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bovril

Beef tea isn't to everyone's taste. I wonder how they'd react if given the chevril variant?

Also, Bovril is one of the only products to have the Pope in its marketing.

Re: Horlicks, a drink Brits go to bed with and Indians wake up with

#44

Post by sonabinu »

sealjam wrote: post #20

There is an extremely similar drink in the UK (and probably elsewhere) called Ovaltine which is marketed as an energy drink. I always thought it was odd that two such similar drinks were marketed in such contrary ways. Horlicks to make your sleep and Ovaltine to give you energy. Perhaps that was the point at which I realised marketeers weren't always scientific in their advice :(

oh the amount of Ovaltine my mother made me drink as a kid !!!

Re: Horlicks, a drink Brits go to bed with and Indians wake up with

#45

Post by d-crane »

slurry wrote: post #14

The occult writer Arthur Edward Waite - of Rider-Waite-Smith tarot fame - used to work for Horlick's, a fact for which he was much mocked by Aleister Crowley.

That's interesting! As a former occult-type guy this was news to me. I can definitely see AC ribbing Waite over this endlessly.

Re: Horlicks, a drink Brits go to bed with and Indians wake up with

#48

Post by tmd83 »

rayiner wrote: post #8

We used to drink Horlicks in Bangladesh, where it was - like in India - a breakfast drink. Of course, Horlicks has no special powers to do anything, certainly not any of the things it is marketed as doing. It's a potent example of the insidiousness of marketing: pretty much everywhere in the U.K. and the former British Empire people associate this product with qualities it simply does not possess. Not only that, they…

I have been seeing this. It was bad before but for the last couple of years it has become sickening. They even make ads where they talk about doing actual scientific experiment and proving that it actually makes kid taller, stronger, sharper. They are basically selling it as a miracle food. I think the whole product and the marketing group should be banned and jailed for such ads. I'm sure there are a lot of people who are buying this instead of better/cheaper food and as a result is actually getting sub-optimal nutrition.

I feel these are as bad or even worse than medical bribes that makes doctor give excess meds (and the companies get fined billions of dollars) given the sheer number of people affected.

Re: Horlicks, a drink Brits go to bed with and Indians wake up with

#49

Post by smacktoward »

OJFord wrote: post #24
smcl wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's such a common one! It's even worse that there's a chocolate bar in the UK called "Turkish Delight" which is nothing like the proper "Lokum". It's not very pleasant :)

Turkish delight (not Cadbury's chocolate bar) is delicious. The chocolate bar is just crap mass-produced Turkish delight wrapped in chocolate. I agree it's not very pleasant, but I don't know what else one could expect.

It's not that real-world Turkish delight is bad, per se, so much as that Lewis makes it sound so life-changingly incredible that the real-world version is bound to disappoint by comparison.
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