One of my largest holdings and growing is Diageo plc (DEO), which was one of my 2009 stock picks. At the time I recommended it, I figured that the economy was going to drive everyone to either church pews or bar stools and that rational worked out. Today, in a battered market, folks must be hitting the bottle because Diageo is up when the majority of stocks are down. During the day it touched a new high of $73.63. (Update: Final $72.76)

There are very few stocks that I might say are a must own as a core holding. However, unless you think alcoholic beverages are going out of style, Diageo might be one of them. Trading at a 52-week high and surpassing the market last year and so far this year, too, the metrics are starting to look average. But several things do jump off the page on closer inspection. One is the whopping 46% return on equity and the other is the 3.3% dividend yield.

Constellation Brands (STZ) reported what I thought was a dismal third quarter. The market wasn't too worried about it, though. The stock closed down about one percent. Yes, that's a decline, but I honestly thought the numbers would have been worth a bit more in terms of selling pressure (volume was strong, however).

Then again, the real name of the game is beating the analyst projections. On that count, Constellation was a winner. The company made an adjusted 54 cents per share, two cents better than predictions, according to Earnings.com. So, I suppose Wall Street had to give credit to management for at least achieving some amount of success. This most likely kept the selling in check.

It was announced today that China's sovereign wealth fund has acquired 1.1% of the worlds largest alcoholic beverages maker Diageo PLC (NYSE: DEO), a deal valued at $365 million.

• "The move by China Investment Corp, which manages $200bn of the country's $2,132bn in foreign exchange reserves, makes the fund the UK-based groups' ninth-largest investor."

It was only last week I wrote about Diageo, stating: "the kind of stock you might pick if you only owned one stock in the universe"

Brown-Forman (NYSE: BF.B), a distributor of alcoholic products, including the iconic Jack Daniel's brand, reported results for the fourth quarter on Wednesday. According to Reuters, Brown-Forman did all right for itself.

The top line saw a decline of 12%, but the bottom line did a lot better, coming in at 53 cents per share. It's not that the per-share profit generated was bigger than last year; it wasn't. But the 53 cents beat Wall Street's view on what the company was capable of delivering. The market thought that 49 cents would be the limit of Brown-Forman's success.