Close Menu
News

Drinks brands capitalise on Luke Littler’s birthday

As Luke ‘The Nuke’ Littler turns 18, a number of drinks brands have taken advantage of the publicity the newly-crowned PDC World Darts Champion can bring them.


Littler, whose 18th birthday was on 21 January, first received widespread public attention at the 2024 PDC World Darts Championship when the then-16-year-old Littler reached the final only to lose out to Michael Humphries. In this year’s final, contested against Michael ‘The Green Machine’ Van Gerwen, Littler made up for his defeat 12 months ago, trouncing the Dutchman 7-3.

Much has been made of Littler’s young age, and the fact that until this week he could not legally buy a pint, an irony given his sport’s close association with pubs – indeed, Littler’s meteoric rise to prominence a year ago prompted pub company Amber Taverns to install dartboards in 171 of its locations.

One brand which provided some bling for Littler’s birthday was Au Vodka, the British spirits brand known for its golden bottles and publicity stunts, such as creating the world’s biggest bottle of vodka and supposedly tattooing influencer Jake Paul’s bicep with an image of an Au Vodka bottle before his bout against Tommy Fury.

The brand sent Littler a three-litre version of its golden bottle, complete with a graphic holding his PDC trophy aloft, and a large golden dart with ‘The Nuke’ written on one flight and Au Vodka’s logo on the other.

Image from LinkedIn user Tom Smith (Au Vodka’s sales director for the UK and Ireland).

Also making overtures to Littler was self-proclaimed ‘punk’ brewery and bar operator BrewDog, which posted on Instagram that it had desires to work with the darts star, and provided concept art for a beer created in his honour called ‘Double Nine’ – a reference to his 18th birthday.

Partner Content
Image from Instagram user @brewdogofficial

The caption for the post read:

“The United supporting, kebab loving, world champion darts wonderkid Luke Littler is the big 18 today. Now, let’s make 3 things clear:

YES we very much want to work with you @lukethenukelittler
YES that is why we’ve used your 18th as an excuse to design this can
YES we do want you reading this to tag him and tell him why he should get us to actually make this beer

So… what do you say?

PS. Happy birthday and all that, Luke. Beer’s on us if you stop by.”

However, it seems that Littler was not especially interested in marking his 18th with a big bash, stating: “I haven’t got anything planned really because there is a lot of darts around this time.”

On Sunday he did pay a visit to Old Trafford, where he showcased his PDC trophy in front of fellow Man United fans.

Littler’s relatively low key birthday celebrations didn’t stop others from using the occasion as an excuse to raise a glass, with Jeff Stelling and Shebahn Ahern enjoying a pint on their TalkSport show at 7.22am (Ally McCoist forewent the beer, as he is observing Dry January).

Related news

Verdant returns to London with ‘Verdant in Residence’

db Asia: January in pictures

Heineken named ‘best supplier’ in on-trade report

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

It looks like you're in Asia, would you like to be redirected to the Drinks Business Asia edition?

Yes, take me to the Asia edition No