Maker of Absolut Vodka Cuts Ties With Bullfighting, PETA Celebrates With Shots

Pernod Ricard Drops Financial Support of World’s Biggest Bullfighting Organization

For Immediate Release:
January 27, 2020

Contact:
Moira Colley 202-483-7382

Following campaigns by PETA, PETA France, and other animal rights groups, Pernod Ricard—which owns over 90 wine and spirits brands, including Absolut Vodka, Malibu, and Ballantine’s—has confirmed that it’s ending its financial support of the Union of Paul Ricard Bullfighting Clubs, the largest bullfighting organization in the world.

To celebrate this historic victory, PETA threw an Absolut Vodka party at its U.S. offices and sent a box of delicious vegan chocolates to Pernod Ricard’s New York City office in thanks for the company’s compassionate decision.

“Bullfighting is on its way out as kind people object to tormenting and killing sensitive bulls for ‘sport,’” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA is raising a glass of Absolut Vodka to Pernod Ricard for pulling its financial support of and dealing a blow to this bloody industry.”

Each year, thousands of bulls are killed in bullrings around the world. Humans taunt, exhaust, and stab each bull with a lance and several harpoon-like banderillas until he becomes weakened from blood loss. Then, the matador stabs the exhausted animal with a sword, and if the bull doesn’t die straight away, other weapons are used to cut his spinal cord. Many bulls are paralyzed but still conscious as their ears or tail are cut off to be given to the matador as trophies.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment”—opposes speciesism, which is a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org.