Apparently, it’s a glass of vodka, straight up and straight out of the freezer. How very Finnish. His sources of inspiration are “Books” and “The Work of Others.” And vodka, I presume. No word on his turn-offs.
You can see the advertisement for yourself here, though you may have to enter your birth date to do so.
I always enjoy seeing classical musicians in advertisements for some reason. I guess I feel represented. Leonard Bernstein pops up briefly in a new television ad for Mercedes Benz but I don’t see it on YouTube yet, so I can’t share it.
Previously, on drinking (click on headlines to read):
How to make a martini, Old School
St. Patrick’s Day Irish whiskey taste test
classical life 
Like. (The article — haven’t tried that vodka. Yet.)
You should link back to that OCRegister.com article you wrote about cocktails.
OK.
If I drank a glass of vodka, I would be finished too.
A pity he didn’t take a drink or two of this before some of the more thorny concerts at LAPO.
Imagine the results!
I assume you know about the Phil Glass Cutty Sark ad – I posted it here: http://mixedmeters.com/2006/12/philip-glass-enjoys-cutty-sark.html
Rod – how do you know he didn’t? All I ever saw was the post-concert beer in his hand.
His post-concert beer was usually Heineken.
In the summer of 1999, Esa-Pekka attended Valery Gergiev’s wedding in Russia. After the festivities that obviously included lots of imbibing, the two of them went to a famous Sankt-Peterburg cemetery where many Russian cultural luminaries are buried. In keeping with the local custom, they were drinking vodka at each illustrious grave and then spilling a few drops of it onto the ground. By the time they got to Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, they were really dead drunk. Standing there, inebriated E-P was crying and thinking, “Will I also be remembered as a composer who was a fine orchestrator but not inspired or original at all?” His words, not mine: that is how he told the story months later when he was in a much soberer condition.
Great story, MarK! Thanks for sharing.