Awkward Wealth

[Bestwifeever]

Riunite was a little pricey for us. Cold Duck, Blue Nun, and Annie Green Springs. For beer, Red White and Blue, and Buckhorn. You could buy all of them and have change for a $10 bill.

 

[NW-Bound]

Pricey? How could that be? I have no idea now how much a bottle cost then (there goes my oft-claimed of "superior memory"), but could still remember the time in 1980, we were newlyweds, I started my 1st real job, we just bought our home, was saving to pay off the money borrowed for the down payment.

Just brought it up to my wife, and she remembered. "Yes, we ate summer sausage, drank lots of Riunite..." And we watched TV from our bean bag chairs, because we had no other furniture, the big 25" console TV that visitors admired and we bought from Appliance TV City on installment. The room had just the TV and the two bean bags.

How was I able to buy Riunite if it was "pricey"? Were there different classes of Riunite that I did not know about? Are you playing with my memory?

But this remembrance! I do not remember when my wife stopped drinking. A long time ago. She drank Riunite with me back then, but perhaps stopped when I started to buy the "real" stuff. Tomorrow, I am going on a quest to find a bottle.

 

[jon-nyc]

Am I the only one that drank cheap beer in college? Genny Cream and Little Kings were preferred. They ruined Little Kings when I tried it again a couple years ago, and I have not been willing to see if the same was done to Genny Cream. I just make my own cream ale now.

We drank Genny Screamers (as we styled them) in High School, but that was a suburb of Rochester so it was a local brew. At college we drank Little Kings.

 

[ccourt9283]

I used my $ to buy an ice cream chiller/ machine. The best money I've ever "thrown away"
, I love it, my wife loves it and my friends love what it makes. But i still look at it as waste.

 

[sayhey24]

Rolling Rock before any one heard of it
Iron City which produced the same results as Jenny screamers
At least I did not have to endure Buckhorn till I moved west.
At absolute zero that stuff still tasted not cold enough.
That was one thing that instilled LBYM.
Who wants to drink crappy hooch the rest of your life
And eat Doritos mixed with hormel chili
Ahhh the good old daze

 

[kimcdougc]

We drank the Blue Nun wine. I remember when we got married (after only knowing each other 2 weeks) we were watching the Superbowl on our 13 inch black and white tv (with aluminum on the antenna) sitting on pillows on the floor drinking our version of Tom Collins. We had the gin but couldn't afford the mix so we used lemonade kool aide as the mix. Those were the good old days. Now we drink a bottle of wine that costs approx. $5.00 on sale. Guess we haven't changed that much.

 

[Live And Learn]

Blue Nun !!! I remember drinking a bottle of it with my boyfriend (now my husband) 35 years ago ! It was the first time I "prayed to the porcelain god" and was convinced I was going to die from alcohol poisoning

 

[Throwdownmyaceinthehole]

Wow! I was offline for a week, come back to this thread, fish eggs to Blatz to Blue Nun, I think I need another glass of wine...

 

[NW-Bound]

I am not a drinker of Blue Nun, but it looks to be still a popular brand, here and in Europe too. I might be wrong, but believe most Blue Nun bottles are of a sweet wine similar to Riesling, hence appeal to people who dislike dry wines.

And speaking of blue nuns, I have not seen one in real life, but have no doubt they exist, as I personnally saw blue monks, who happened to be visiting the same basilica I did. See my photo below. I still have not found out what religious order that is.

 

[steelyman]

I was in Amsterdam and went to the Red Light District one night. There were a bunch of nuns looking in the windows. Red Nuns?

 

[Meadbh]

The producers of Blue Nun were aiming to tap the international market and wanted a simple concept that customers could pronounce. Apparently the blue nun was supposed to be a brown nun but the printer got it wrong and they thought the blue bottle would be a good marketing gimmick. The wines currently produced under this label are less sweet than they used to be.

Curse of the Blue Nun « The Wine Economist

Our tastes have certainly changed. Just look at some of those gross recipes from the 1960s!

 

[Bestwifeever]

Another legendary party we had, New Years Eve 1973, featured a case of Jacques Bonet champagne at midnight--$20 for 12 bottles. At least it sounded French. The corkpopping was awesome. Another "case" of quantity over quality.

 

[NW-Bound]

That $20 in 73 is now $112, for almost $10 per bottle.

I just looked on line, and found at Bevmo this J. Rogét (French enough for anybody?) sparkling wine (not champagne ) for $6.50. Rating: 5-Star by 3 reviews! So, there you go.

 

[FUEGO]

We get a champagne* for $5.50 at Kroger that tastes great (well, if you like sweet champagne). Trader Joe's also offers a nice $5-6 champagne if your tastes in the bubbly remain unrefined like mine.

*champagne = sparkling wine to me regardless of regional provenance rules.

 

[brewer12345]

Our tastes have certainly changed. Just look at some of those gross recipes from the 1960s!

Oh, they can't be as bad as this stuff: LILEKS (James) Gallery of Regrettable Food

 

[NW-Bound]

A serious story.

I recently submitted my neighbors to a taste test of a popular French Cognac, $30 VS grade, and an American brandy, $12. Though they are no connoisseurs of Cognac, she pointed out to me something I did not pay attention to before. "This smells of vanilla, this smells sweet, etc..." And she was right.

And she liked the American brandy better. Now, I was somewhat cagey and told them they would be comparing two French brandies, else she might be swayed by prejudice.

But what did I like better? I was not sure. I think my palate has been shot, as I did not care that much. It may not matter anymore what I drink.

PS. I am going to put my neighbor to the next test, involving a couple of $150 bottles of XO cognac, with lower grades mixed in.

 

[brewer12345]

A serious story.

I recently submitted my neighbors to a taste test of a popular French Cognac, $30 VS grade, and an American brandy, $12. Though they are no connoisseurs of Cognac, she pointed out to me something I did not pay attention to before. "This smells of vanilla, this smells sweet, etc..." And she was right.

And she liked the American brandy better. Now, I was somewhat cagey and told them they would be comparing two French brandies, else she might be swayed by prejudice.

But what did I like better? I was not sure. I think my palate has been shot, as I did not care that much. It may not matter anymore what I drink.

PS. I am going to put my neighbor to the next test, involving a couple of $150 bottles of XO cognac, with lower grades mixed in.

Another fun game to play is a triangular tasting. Have someone else serve you and the other players of the game 3 glasses of your poison of choice. Two are the same beverage, one is something else. See if you can figure out which one is the non-duplicate.

 

[Moemg]

This thread is bringing back so many memories . A few years ago I was invited to a Woodstock party & I brought Boone's Farm Strawberry wine . Also in college we used to sneak out for cheese steaks & Colt malt liquor ! Keep this thread going ! It's a hoot !

 

[Meadbh]

Here is a quiz posted today on an Irish website:

How Posh Are You? Are you posh totty or common as muck? Take the quiz to find out. How Posh Are You? · The Daily Edge

There's absolutely no point in taking this quiz unless you are familiar with Irish cultural references. My result was "Not Posh At All". But the real anti-Posh result would have been "Common as Muck".

 

[Bestwifeever]

A serious story.

I recently submitted my neighbors to a taste test of a popular French Cognac, $30 VS grade, and an American brandy, $12. Though they are no connoisseurs of Cognac, she pointed out to me something I did not pay attention to before. "This smells of vanilla, this smells sweet, etc..." And she was right.

And she liked the American brandy better. Now, I was somewhat cagey and told them they would be comparing two French brandies, else she might be swayed by prejudice.

But what did I like better? I was not sure. I think my palate has been shot, as I did not care that much. It may not matter anymore what I drink....

Your palate is obviously craving caviar to go with the cognac.

 

[MBAustin]

So my first bad drink memory was "Sloe Gin Fizz" which is what all of the other girls ordered when we went out to a dance club that let us drink underage ('70s). Horrible stuff.

Then got to college and became acquainted with the aforementioned "Purple Passion" aka "Purple Jesus". Worse stuff.

I'll take 2-buck-Chuck any day.

 

[Moemg]

I got Common as Muck ! They must have found out about the Boone's Farm wine .

 

[NW-Bound]

Another fun game to play is a triangular tasting. Have someone else serve you and the other players of the game 3 glasses of your poison of choice. Two are the same beverage, one is something else. See if you can figure out which one is the non-duplicate.

That could be interesting. Never a connoisseur of anything, but I think my palate was finer when I was younger. I had a strong preference for a certain gin among the ones that I tried for example, though I drank it infrequently. And when I did not have a preference, at least I could tell there was a difference. Now, I wonder if they all taste alike.

Something to check out and to experiment in the holiday season ahead.

 

[brewer12345]

That could be interesting. Never a connoisseur of anything, but I think my palate was finer when I was younger. I had a strong preference for a certain gin among the ones that I tried for example, though I drank it infrequently. And when I did not have a preference, at least I could tell there was a difference. Now, I wonder if they all taste alike.

Something to check out and to experiment in the holiday season ahead.

The big problem I have is allergies. Wake up stuffed up and it is a long time before I can really smell or taste what I know I am capable of.

Triangular tastings are kind of a standard warm-up exercise for trained tasters. Another game is to serve everyone the same unmarked sample and have them write down their impressions in silence and then compare notes. This is standard practice at beer judgings ("calibration beer").

 

[CaliforniaMan]

A serious story.

I recently submitted my neighbors to a taste test of a popular French Cognac, $30 VS grade, and an American brandy, $12. Though they are no connoisseurs of Cognac, she pointed out to me something I did not pay attention to before. "This smells of vanilla, this smells sweet, etc..." And she was right.

And she liked the American brandy better. Now, I was somewhat cagey and told them they would be comparing two French brandies, else she might be swayed by prejudice.

But what did I like better? I was not sure. I think my palate has been shot, as I did not care that much. It may not matter anymore what I drink.

PS. I am going to put my neighbor to the next test, involving a couple of $150 bottles of XO cognac, with lower grades mixed in.

Reminds me of a wine tasting I was invited to many years ago. The host was kind of a wine connoisseur (self professed of course) who also "invested" in cases of various wines and aged them to sell later. He invited some of his friends over for a "serious" tasting. He had a series of whites first and reds later. As I recall the cheapest white wine won and one of the mid-priced reds won. And there was a large difference in price. Of course none of us really knew wines, but we did know what we liked. Brewer's idea of making one a duplicate sounds like a great idea to do at any tasting.

It would be interesting what you find out about the cognac. The good ones are so aromatic I would certainly expect to be able to tell the difference. By the way, I used to gargle VSOP cognac when I had a sore throat. It really did seem to work better than anything else. However, the cheaper (less aromatic) ones didn't work at all. (Or could it just have been an excuse for cognac in the morning?)