MillerCoors announced today that it is discontinuing the Zima brand.

MillerCoors has pulled — or at least postponed — its planned alcoholic energy drink Sparks Red after 25 state Attorneys General complained.

MillerCoors’ new alcoholic energy drink Sparks Red is creating red flags with attorneys general across the country. So far, 25 AGs (AsG?) have signed on to an effort to stop MillerCoors from distributing the Red-Bull-with-Vodka alternative, citing the negative health effects and the dangers of combining caffeine with alcohol.

Said New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, “By introducing Sparks Red, a higher-alcohol-content and even more dangerous version of its Sparks product, MillerCoors is demonstrating an utter disregard for the safety of young consumers.”

How do you make a Dallas or Chicago MillerCoors headquarters look better to all those Miller employees who have grown so fond of Milwaukee? Make them spend six months in the Westminster Tech Center first.

When Molson and Coors joined to form Molson Coors, you knew they had put the lawyers in charge of the names. And when Molson Coors created a joint venture with Miller and named it MillerCoors, well, you knew the lawyers were still in charge of the names, but that some clerical hiccup along the way made them realize having no space between the names was better. Probably some 8-K filing issue. 

Anyway, Leo Kiely finally tossed his last dart at the board to pick the joint venture’s leadership staff. Expect the joint venture to be based in Dallas or Chicago, the two cities that always end up with companies that Denver wants desperately to land (see United, Boeing, etc.).