Awkward Wealth

[youbet]

No one has mentioned Richard's Wild Irish Rose.......

You know, I was at Sal's Liquor Emporium just yesterday and spent $176 stocking up on some odds and ends. I don't know what I was thinking but none of the wine-treats mentioned here wound up in my basket. I'm going back!

[Andre1969]

Quote:

Originally Posted by NW-Bound Never had Boone's Farm, but in looking it up on the Web and seeing the picture, I recalled seeing it in a store somewhere. I thought it was some kind of Italian soda syrup, but apparently not. Here's what I found in a Web site. Drinking Boone's Farm is kind of like snorting glue, but in a bottle. Boone's Farm - which contains so little alcohol and even less reputation - makes Mad Dog 20/20 look like Dom Pérignon. And they warn that you will not get drunk with so little alcohol, but with the sugar overload, may fall into a diabetic coma.

Well, I'll never accuse those kids at Papa John's of exactly being Mensa material! One of them had a '72 Pontiac Catalina that wasn't in bad shape. Not a showpiece, but just a nice old car. He knew I liked old cars, and one day he asked me if I wanted to buy it. Told him I wasn't interested, as I had too many at the time. Well, he ended up selling it for eight Ecstasy pills.

When I found out he did that I hollered at him "Hell, I would've given you $200 for it!" And he responded that I said I wasn't interested, but hell, if I knew he was going to let it go that cheap...

[NW-Bound]

Quote:

Originally Posted by youbet No one has mentioned Richard's Wild Irish Rose...

I happened to see that precious beverage mentioned on that Web site too. So, these are all popular drinks that I am the last to know.

What they say:

"The thorn in your hangover is a wild rose from Ireland ...definitely has some secret additives that go straight to the cranium. Another web page claims that this ... beverage is a conspiracy by the Republicans to kill the homeless... It's called "wild" for a good reason... sure to light a fire of drunken rage in your soul."

Definitely worthwhile to add to one's arsenal. Here's the lineup. With drinks like this, who needs narcotics?

[aja8888]

Quote:

Originally Posted by NW-Bound Is your avatar a photo of you pouring it? I thought you were mixing up some fuel additives. Well, same difference, probably.

No, I'm mixing a cocktail of Marvel Mystery Oil in the rocks, which is ONLY made in Rye, NY. Nice aroma and pretty smooth!

[aja8888]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ronstar I need to snag some Night Train to serve the relatives during the holidays. We're always looking for a new wine to serve and since I don't drink wine, Night Train seems like an entertaining choice.

Some info for you (the black label is no longer available):

Night Train Express, usually abbreviated to Night Train, typically contains 17.5% ABV. Night Train Express has been condemned by some civic leaders who think inexpensive high alcohol content drinks contribute to vagrancy and public drunkenness.[4] Night Train no longer carries the Gallo logo or other indication of this source on the bottle; instead the vintner and bottler is printed as "Night Train Limited".


Night.jpg


“*Night Train: Let me ask you this. Do you hate the $hit of your family? If the answer to that question is yes then Night Train is for you. This isn’t the last train to Clarksville. No one’s going to meet you at the station. In fact, it seems the only people on the train are the original members of Guns and Roses. They love the stuff. They can never get enough. How does it pair with turkey? Horribly. But after just two sips you won’t give a $hit anyway. Also, you know that cousin you hate. Night Train will give you the courage you need to beat him or her with a baseball bat repeatedly. Just make sure you have a place to get rid of the body because that’s one thing Night Train doesn’t do, hide murdered family members. I contacted the PR department for Night Train and they agreed that is a shortcoming in the formula they have professionals working around the clock to fix it.”

[steelyman]

Choo-choo!!!

[Amethyst]

I vaguely remember hearing radio ads for some monstrous concoction called Yago Canned Sangria.

Amethyst

[NW-Bound]

Thanks to this forum and the Web, I have expanded my horizon beyond expectation and in subjects I never dwelt in.

Talk about this current bum wine lively discussion for example. I have always thought bums imbibe strong liqueurs, but now stand corrected. They drink bum wine, which is fortified but still less potent than vodka or whisky. So, why, if the goal is to ingest as cheap an alcohol as one can buy? So, I look for the answer myself, and here's what I have found.

A bottle of Everclear, a spirit that is almost pure grain alcohol at 151 proof can be purchased for $18 at Bevmo, and used mostly to mix drink. The price works out to $32/liter of ethanol.

The lowest price on the Internet that I found for the infamous Night Train is $3. At 17.5 proof, it works out to $45/liter of ethanol.

So, fortified wine is more expensive than pure grain alcohol. But the former is loaded with flavor to be more palatable, some possible additives for extra effects, sugar for some nutrition, with water for hydration. Most importantly, it can be bought in smaller units. It may not take long for a beggar to get $3 to get a bottle to quench his thirst. What's not to like?

This kind of fortified wine has been around even before 1900, and has been serving this market very well. It will continue to be around.

[eta2020]

Beethoven was a lover of fortified wines more then 200 years ago . Today you would call him alcoholic...given his daily consumption.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/29/ar...c/29skull.html

[FUEGO]

Wow, my in laws buy some of that stuff and consume it in a non-ironic manner. "Mmmm, FUEGO, come try this Boone's Farm. It's so good and sweet!".

[Gumby]

When I was a teen, my preference varied between Richard's Wild Irish Rose and Hiram Walker Blackberry Brandy. Oh, and National Bohemian beer.

[jon-nyc]

Quote:

Originally Posted by calmloki Gallo. I recycled an over-great quantity of that onto a large white shag rug after a college spaghetti feed. Alcohol laced purple food coloring. Not a proud time. Did not get laid. Where's the mint julep recipe!

Simon Bolivar Buckner Jr shares the formula, nay, CEREMONY for mixing the mint juleps so enjoyed by Theodore Roosevelt. aka, the best mint juleps in the world. (They were his favorite tipple)


My dear General Connor,

Your letter requesting my formula for mixing mint juleps leaves me in the same position in which Captain Barber found himself when asked how he was able to carve the image of an elephant from a block of wood. He replied that it was a simple process consisting merely of whittling off the part that didn’t look like an elephant.

The preparation of the quintessence of gentlemanly beverages can be described only in like terms. A mint julep is not the product of a FORMULA. It is a CEREMONY and must be performed by a gentleman possessing a true sense of the artistic, a deep reverence for the ingredients and a proper appreciation of the occasion. It is a rite that must not be entrusted to a novice, a statistician, nor a Yankee. It is a heritage of the old South, an emblem of hospitality and a vehicle in which noble minds can travel together upon the flower-strewn paths of happy and congenial thought.

So far as the mere mechanics of the operation are concerned, the procedure, stripped of its ceremonial embellishments, can be described as follows:

Go to a spring where cool, crystal-clear water bubbles from under a bank of dew-washed ferns. In a consecrated vessel, dip up a little water at the source. Follow the stream through its banks of green moss and wildflowers until it broadens and trickles through beds of mint growing in aromatic profusion and waving softly in the summer breezes. Gather the sweetest and tenderest shoots and gently carry them home. Go to the sideboard and select a decanter of Kentucky Bourbon, distilled by a master hand, mellowed with age yet still vigorous and inspiring. An ancestral sugar bowl, a row of silver goblets, some spoons and some ice and you are ready to start.

In a canvas bag, pound twice as much ice as you think you will need. Make it fine as snow, keep it dry and do not allow it to degenerate into slush.

In each goblet, put a slightly heaping teaspoonful of granulated sugar, barely cover this with spring water and slightly bruise one mint leaf into this, leaving the spoon in the goblet. Then pour elixir from the decanter until the goblets are about one-fourth full. Fill the goblets with snowy ice, sprinkling in a small amount of sugar as you fill. Wipe the outsides of the goblets dry and embellish copiously with mint.

Then comes the important and delicate operation of frosting. By proper manipulation of the spoon, the ingredients are circulated and blended until Nature, wishing to take a further hand and add another of its beautiful phenomena, encrusts the whole in a glittering coat of white frost. Thus harmoniously blended by the deft touches of a skilled hand, you have a beverage eminently appropriate for honorable men and beautiful women.

When all is ready, assemble your guests on the porch or in the garden, where the aroma of the juleps will rise Heavenward and make the birds sing. Propose a worthy toast, raise the goblet to your lips, bury your nose in the mint, inhale a deep breath of its fragrance and sip the nectar of the gods.

Being overcome by thirst, I can write no further.

Sincerely,
S.B. Buckner, Jr. (1823-1914)

[Walt34]

I remember National Bo, but I preferred Schiltz which then was a good beer. Well, anything with alcohol in it was good.

[Gumby]

Natty Bo's were the cheapest around. Even cheaper than Schlitz.

[Walt34]

Even then sometimes I sprang for the good stuff.

[Ronstar]

Used to drink Boones Farm as a high school kid trying to pick up girls. The girls loved the stuff. Wild Mountain and Strawberry Hill. Also TJ Swann. I haven't had any since the mid 70's, but I've probably had more Boones Farm than any other wine.


Sent from my iPad using Early Retirement Forum

[eta2020]

Beethoven´s Best Friend/The wine that Beethoven loved so much/History

Intelligent people like wine. It is not easy to be intelligent..........

[aja8888]

Our rule as "young drinkers"....As long as it wasn't Mennen Aftershave, it was fair game.

[steelyman]

jon-nyc: Classic! That's like how Michelangelo described sculpting!

[FUEGO]

Ah crappy drinks and high school. A buddy and I used to fill a large McDonald's cup with Thunderbird or Mad Dog and sneak under the laboratory tables during AP Physics class to partake of the fine fine fortified wine. The teacher mostly didn't care (or at least never said anything to us). That would have been really awkward if the teacher found out what we were doing, since we didn't have enough to share with him.

Somehow we both turned out okay.