Yankees star’s fragrance swings for the fences

Brian Tracey Business Editor • Profile

Celebrity-endorsed colognes and perfumes have become all the rage lately with P. Diddy, Britney Spears, Paris Hilton and Jennifer Lopez selling signature scents. So apparently Avon thought it wasn't a wild pitch to have New York Yankees All-Star Derek Jeter take a swing at his own cologne called Driven.

Driven will be available in November, at a cost of $25 per bottle. It is the first in a series of men’s grooming products with Jeter’s name.

Designed to capture ambition, courage, passion and confidence, Avon said Jeter was involved throughout the development process. The fragrance is a blend of crushed leaves, black pepper, chilled grapefruit, rhubarb, lavender, spearmint, bamboo, driftwood and oak moss.

What, no pine tar and old leather?

Avon apparently thinks in the idea of a baseball player endorsing a cologne is not out of left field, coincidentally the place where most of the superb shortstop's hits land.

“We are thrilled to be partnering with Derek Jeter — a man whose career and community accomplishments make him an outstanding fit for the brand,” said Liz Smith, executive vice president of global marketing for Avon Products. “This partnership will truly take our men’s business to the next level.”

We hope next on deck: Barry Bonds Juiced.

Not-so-bad ideas

• With the temperatures soaring this summer, there's no better way to beat the heat than with a glass of your favorite drink filled to the brim with ice. But one company thinks frozen tap water is just not good enough for your discriminating tastes; thus AquaICE was born.

Profiled in the Wall Street Journal last week, "AquaICE brings bottled-water-quality to ice in conveniently packaged ice cube trays,” says a press release quoting founder and CEO Peter Moenickheim, a Princeton graduate who has spent the last eighteen years perfecting the product concept which has been awarded a U.S. patent.

AquaICE comes in its own sealed ice-cube trays using purified municipal tap water in plain, lemon and lime flavors.

It sells for about five dollars for a package of 50 cubes, the Journal article said. Ten cents for a piece of ice may sound expensive, but your single-malt scotch will thank you.

• Speaking of adult beverages and exotic frozen water, the BBC reported this week that a brewery in Greenland is making beer using H20 melted from the Arctic ice cap.

The new dark and pale ales, made in a microbrewery located 390 south of the Arctic Circle, uses water from ice that is claimed to be at least 2,000 years old and is free of of minerals and pollutants.

The beers are currently being sold in Denmark, but the brewery has eyes on the German and U.S. markets as well.

It currently sells for $6.35 a bottle.

Arctic ice aside, it's that price that's giving us the chills.

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