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It’s the hottest thing on the red carpet, sucka!

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Kim Kardashian is a fan of product placement and overpriced candy.
Photo: Sugar Factory

It’s the hottest thing on the red carpet, sucka!

Wondering what a $25 lollipop tastes like? Just ask Britney Spears. Or Kim Kardashian. Or Criss Angel. They’re just a few of the many celebs toting Sugar Factory’s Couture Pops down the red carpet. These gourmet, glamour suckers are popping up in Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New York and beyond, thanks to a healthy celebrity following that also includes the gals from The Hills, Carmen Electra, DJ AM, Zach Braff, Ice-T, Nick Cannon, Perez Hilton, Mickey Rourke and pretty much anyone who’s ever been on reality television. Also—strangely—Sting!

Celebrities like Denise Richards also enjoy chew toys and hanging their heads out of a car window.

Celebrities like Denise Richards also enjoy chew toys and hanging their heads out of a car window.

For just $22 apiece, you can snatch up the latest edible (and completely customizable) accessory, which is sooo much cooler than the Ring Pops and candy necklaces of yore. First, select one of seven bejeweled handles on sugarfactory.com. Our fave is the “Tiffany.” It comes with one lollipop head and plastic protective cap, your choice of green apple, cherry, bubble gum, blue raspberry, creamy orange, piña colada or watermelon, and three-pack refills are available for just $12. There are also $25 signature pops like the four Britney Spears Circus Tour pops, Kim Kardashian’s Silver Rainbow or champagne pops or the very Vegas Pussycat Dolls PCD Tour pop. Our Britney Spears Big Top pop should be arriving any day now …

But wait—there’s more

So why Sugar Factory lollipops? Why not some other overpriced celebrity chew toy?

Well, besides the fact that they taste good with cocktails, ease those pesky detox jitters and call attention to a recently plumped-up pout, these pops have one major ace in the hole: the return of Stevie D.

In researching the Sugar Factory phenomena, the Weekly discovered that the man behind the pops is none other than former Pure Management Group managing partner Steve “Stevie D.” Davidovici. According to the Nevada Secretary of State website, Davidovici is listed as manager of Sugar Factory, LLC; the company was officially formed in August of 2008, just six months after IRS agents raided Pure, LAX and the offices of Pure Management Group, the nightlife behemoth Davidovici owned and operated along with partner Robert Frey. In April, Davidovici listed his five-bedroom, six-bath home in Spring Valley for $1.199 million; his Sugar Factory, LLC is still listed as operating from that address.

Attempts to contact Davidovici were not answered.

On the Sugar Factory website, the photo gallery features a lineup of celebrities and red carpet locations that hint at continued relationships between Davidovici and former employees, colleagues and talent wranglers. Davidovici is also making good use of his new posh new nightclub, Griffin, in Manhattan’s Meat Packing District; that’s supposedly where Sting and Rourke were snapped getting their lollies.

As was written recently of Griffin on UrbanDaddy.com, “Nightclub owners are notorious risk-takers, gamblers and cowboys.” Those who have known Davidovici know him to be D) all of the above. So while the IRS kerfuffle continues to sort itself out, it is likely that we will not see a Davidovici-owned Vegas club again for some time. But thanks to Sugar Factory, a cunning Davidovici is getting the last laugh on the red carpet of every nightclub in town.

He shoots, he pours

“Make it fresh … keep it simple.” and with that, Southern Wine & Spirits’ Director of Mixology Armando Rosario accepted his trophy (a cocktail shaker atop a marble mortar) as winner of the United States Bartenders’ Guild’s 2009 Nevada championship. Then, on May 12, Rosario represented Nevada in the USBG’s national championship at the Drake Hotel in San Francisco … and won!

Between Las Vegas and San Fran, Rosario says, he tweaked his recipe slightly. To the already superb cocktail, a blend of Sauza Tres Generaciones Plata, fresh lime juice, agave nectar, cucumber and dill—alternately called Dill or No Dill or The Real Dill—Rosario added a half-ounce of vodka, reducing the tequila by half an ounce.

As the national winner, Rosario will go on to represent the United States at the International Bartenders Association (IBA)’s prestigious annual World Cocktail Competition in Germany. “I am excited to have the opportunity to represent the U.S.,” says the native of Mozambique, “and am confident that the simplicity and beauty of the drink will be appealing on a worldwide stage as well.”

DEEP THOUGHTS

BY JACK COLTON
 On the subject of strippers hanging from poles: you have to respect a girl who’s paying off her mortgage even when her assets are upside down."

Between San Fran and Germany, Rosario says he’ll actually invert the spirits, using more Absolut 100 than Sauza to change the drink’s profile and let the cucumber and dill show through more clearly. In other words, it’s dill rather than no dill.

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