Skyy Queen: Mika Makes Like Dino

H/t Doug T. It was all in good fun, but the Morning Joe gang staged a bit of business today suggesting there's something a mite stronger than half-and-half in Mika Brzezinski's cup of, well, morning joe.

After signing off with NBC reporter Tom Costello, Joe Scarborough made much of Mika's absence from the set.  Cut to a shot of Brzezinski at the coffee counter, where she is seen . . . emptying a blue mini-bottle into her coffee mug.  Mika accommodatingly turns the bottle toward the camera so that all can see it is . . . Skyy vodka.

View video here.

JOE SCARBOROUGH: Where is Mika? Seriously, where's Mika?

Close-up of Mika pouring that blue bottle into her coffee mug.

WILLIE GEIST: She's literally getting coffee.

SCARBOROUGH: Oh, dear Lord.

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: What is that?

SCARBOROUGH: Nice. She's drinking coffee --

GEIST: She's not kidding, either.

MIKA BRZEZINSKI: I'm just getting my coffee.

SCARBOROUGH: Is she upset at us?  [Imitating Mika speaking with peeved voice]: "I'm such a journalist."

GEIST: Did you see the little airport bottle of vodka she had there?

SCARBOROUGH: Yeah, I did.

BRZEZINSKI: I just got my tea.

GEIST: No, kidding --

SCARBOROUGH: Keep the vodka away from mommy.

I have it on good authority that it was all a joke, playing off the crew's penchant for teasing Mika over her fondness for the fermented fruit of the potato.  Now, you might have thought that out of respect for her Polish heritage, Mika would have chosen a bottle of Zubrowka or perhaps Chopin.  But there could be a political significance to her choice.  Skyy is headquarted, after all, in that favorite city of liberals, San Francisco, where Barack Obama famously made his bitter-clinger comment.  Na zdrowie!

Note: for our younger readers, the Dino in the headline is a reference to Dean Martin, who often appeared onstage holding a glass of something he would have people believe was booze. According to this bio and other accounts,  it was, usually, just apple juice. For that matter, some of our young whippersnappers might not have picked up the headline's play off Sky King, a '50s TV show.