My son started a company called Kombucha Brooklyn (KBBK) that makes a fermented tea beverage called Kombucha. He and his wife are the CEO and CFO. You can learn more about the drink (which I love) and the company (which supports them and Rider) from their website. Here is an email he sent me last week.
Babu,
We are close to getting all of our labels reprinted, and launching two new flavors. The Watermelon Lime flavor is holding us up. Neither my design team nor J and I can come up with a name that we like. Here are some of the ideas our design team came up with:
Watermello
Summerlime
Summer Dayz
Watermelon Twist
Water Mellow
Take a look at the label I attached. It holds a wealth of ideas. Our design team is pushing to come up with something better and I agree. Look at our other flavor names:
Blue Green Envy
Urban Passion
Straight Up
Grape Equalizer
Red Ginger
They are all different and funky, but still convey what is inside the bottle. That is very important. The name has to relate to the flavor in some way. People shouldn’t have to search for the flavor. But as Kombucha Brooklyn, we need to represent ourselves in the word game. You dig? Anyway, give it a shot. We are looking to get these to print ASAP, so you kinda really have only one, maybe two nights.
Here is the verbiage on the label he mentioned:
Our signature craft-brewed kombucha skinny dipping in a pool of watermelon juice…with a slice of lime. Get your party on! It’s always summer in this bottle.
And under the name of the product: Tart-N-Juicy Summertime Splash
Other verbiage on the label, generic to all of his Kombucha flavors: Seduce your mind, Restore your Body, and Kombucha Lives! You can too, and A Living Probiotic Drink, and, finally, A Detoxifying and Energizing Elixir. I actually wrote several of these when the company was still very new.
Why am I mentioning this now? Because coming up with names is word play for me, a literary exercise. Really, it’s a fun literary game. My goal was to come up with ideas that included the concepts of watermelon, lime, summer and a Brooklyn attitude. Here is the email I sent him with the list of names I came up with. I knew some of the names weren’t workable, but I write everything down when I brainstorm. Often the unworkable leads to the solution!
Dear E,
I like the ones toward the end better. I am sending this whole thing, hoping your team will see a word that sparks another idea. Sadly, neither the word melon, nor the word lime are very easy to use in this context. Also, the description on the bottle mentions skinny-dipping, thus I’ve included a few possible names picking up that theme. At this point, I’m leaning toward Mellow & Squeeze, or Mellow, Meet Squeeze. By the way, I like the word mellow in this context since your flavor names all convey an attitude. Also, I’ve tried to stick with summer references. Here’s the list:
Mellow Water
Melon Tropic
Limelon
Naked Lime
Nude Melon
Citrimelon
Water Gimlet
Melon with a Squeeze
Tight Squeeze
Bare Melon
Free Melon
Mellow Lime Melon
Mellow Melon
Melon Patch
Nude Melon Patch
Melon Heaven
Melon Heaven with a Twist
Died and Went to Melon Heaven
Melon Ferment
Scoby Dooby-Doo*
Put the Lime in the Melon
Li-Melon
Li-Melon Dream
Melon with a Squeeze (Melon without a squeeze is like a pie without the cheese… mention this to mom)
Limelon Delight
Melime
Melime Pie
Mellon Lime Pie
Key Melon
Melon Breast Stroke
Melon Freestyle
Melon Dream
Sexy Melons
Sexy Melon
Sex in the Melon Patch
Melon on the Beach
Weekend Lime Melon
Kick Back Melon
Melon Lime in the Shade
Cool Summer Delight
Summer Dreams
Secret Water Hole
My Melon Heaven
My Mellow Heaven
Made in the Shade
Shady Delight
Sensual Summer
Lime it Up
Beach Party
Summer Beach Party
Endless Summer
Forever Summer
Forever Mellow
Mellow Summer
A Dip in the Sun
Secret Skinny Dipping
Cool and Easy
Smooth Sailing
A Different Drummer
Put the Lime in the Melon Nut
The Lime in the Melon Nut
(What color is the new flavor? Try inserting that color in the following ideas)
Mellow ____
Mellow ____ on the Beach
Summer ____
Naked ____
Cool ____
Pretty in ____
Skinny dipping ____ Heaven
Vacation ____
Melon Vacation
Mellow Vacation
Vacation Breeze
Endless Vacation
Naked Vacation
Afternoon Nap
A Squeeze in the Hammock
Burst of Vacation
A Sip of Vacation
Melon Escape
Melon Getaway
Mellow Getaway
Mellow on the Beach
Mellow Sip
Sip of Mellow
Mellow with a Squeeze
Mellow & Squeeze
Mellow, Meet Squeeze
Put the Lime in the Mellow Nut
Mellow Nut
Lime in the Mellow Nut
My ____ Mellow
Summer Mellow
Mellow Escape
Mellow Breeze
*Kombucha is a non-alcoholic, fermented tea. The culture the brewer puts into the sweetened tea to make the process happen is called a Scoby, thus the humorous, but obviously unworkable name idea.
