Manufacturer: Mogen David Inc., New York

Price: 3.79 / 750ml.

Alcohol Content: 13%

Found In: Frederick, MD

Presentation: 2/5 – More pink than purple. Could be disguised Vitamin Water.

Taste: 4/5 – Very decent. May have been a rejected Snapple experiment at one time.

Burn: 1/5 – Practically nonexistent; a very easy drink.

Buzz: 2.5/5 – Middle of the road. Definitely more of a “chick” bum wine.

Rarity: 4/5 – Only one out of four stores carrying MD in Frederick County had it.

Value: 3/5 – Fairly good taste (for cheap “fruit” wine), but not enough backbone.

I love a good challenge, but after I’d finally managed to track down Mad Dog’s famed Blue Raspberry (with added bling, bling!) I felt my quest was at an end. Lo and behold I saw Purple Rain up on the fabulous www.ghettowine.com website and knew where my next quarry lay. Not only did it present a truly remarkable color for any beverage, but there was no mention made of what it was supposed to taste like. Just what my bum wine odyssey called for!

Like I mentioned in a previous post, Frederick, Maryland is my one-stop-shop for bum wines close to the PA border. Unfortunately, after this trip I know exactly which wines they stock in Maryland and I may need to turn my attention to venues in Delaware and New Jersey to complete my collection. (For example, you can’t buy Grape Cisco in Maryland?) This second trip to my wine hub netted six new specimens and Purple Rain was among them. Needless to say, I was excited, probably too excited for something like this, but to each his own!

The label indicated that the Purple Rain flavor was meant to be “An exotic blend of raspberries and blackberries.” The picture on ghettowine.com showed the bottle as being a neon-bright, almost Sesame Street purple, but in real life it was a lighter pinkish-purple. The immediate thing that set me off was that it was definitely clear. Clear bum wines tend to suck, but I was willing to give my old friend MD the benefit of the doubt. It is, after all, my brand of choice when it comes to store-bought poison.

After proper chilling, I found this particular iteration of the ‘Dog was very Snapple-esque with lots of processed berry flavor on top of injection molded plastic. There were some faint traces of raspberry left over from the bling, bling mixed with what tasted like Smuckers jelly. I can’t help but wonder if Mad Dog is trying to imitate an alcoholic version of Gatorade Rain. Unfortunately I began this experiment in mid-summer when we had frequent guests at our house that could be considered “decent” folk. Therefore, we generally had to hide the bum wines and sneak in testing whenever possible. The Purple Rain therefore sat on the shelf for a few weeks before being given its official run-through.

Fast Forward to the Olympics …

Let’s face it: I’m never going to win an Olympic medal, but I can drink bum wine in celebration of Michael Phelps defending American freedom with 8 straight gold!

I settled in to the last round of swimming finals with my bottle of Purple Rain determined to use it in salutation to our boy Mike firmly stomping the competition in every event he competed in. After sitting in the fridge for so long, Purple rain lost any sort of Snapple subtleties and instead denatured into pure cough syrup. I hear bum wines compared to Robitussin on a fairly regular basis, but I can firmly say that Purple Rain tastes identical to that fabled medicine.

I tried to balance out the thick, antibiotic taste with a deep-freeze in our downstairs meat freezer which turned this garbage wine into a sugary gas station slushy gone wrong, but even that didn’t do much to muffle the powerful, throat-coating cough syrup presentation that this soured Mad Dog had to offer. Nevertheless, Phelps won his gold and I downed the bottle in celebration, more or less in one long chug. Afterwards I felt somewhat lightheaded, but that was immediately kicked out of the way by the rush of syrup and sulfites that drove me to a straight sugar high. There was no buzz to be had after downing this swill.

Add up all the fruitiness of this bum wine and standard drinkability (at least when it’s not left to sit for two weeks) and I think Purple Rain is aimed more at a female market. Aside from Boone’s Farm, this is about as close as a true bum wine comes to being a wine cooler.

 

I say, I say, you're doin' it all wrong, son! If'n ya wanna get a buzz on like a true Suth'en getleman, you gotta reach for the best!
 

Manufacturer: Mogen David Inc., New York

Price: 3.79 / 750ml.

Alcohol Content: 13%

Found In: Frederick, MD

Presentation: 2/5 – My brain can’t latch on to this strange honey color.

Taste: 5/5 – Tastes more or less like those gummy peach-ring candies.

Burn: 4/5 – Thick and nasty. Definitely needs a proper chill to handle evenly.

Buzz: 3.5/5 – Again, the heavy “cream” MD’s coat your system like 10W-40.

Rarity: 3/5 – I’ve seen it in Pennsylvania, but it’s elusive.

Value: 3/5 – Like a locust-infested Georgia peach farm, it’s not fun to explain.

This review kicks of the first of six brand-spankin’ new bum wine articles from my latest batch of brew heisted from south of the Mason-Dixon. We’ve got three new flavors of Mad Dog to get through and three new variations on Cisco as well. You’ll notice my photographer has changed and the new bum wine mug shots are a bit better quality than you might be used to. I apologize for the extra effort; we’ll get back on target soon.

Now, on to the business at hand:

If you’ve ever bitten too far into a peach, you’ll know that chipping your teeth off the impenetrable iron pit is one of the least pleasurable experiences in humanity’s few short generations of dominance on the planet. Fortunately, Mad Dog’s dreadfully thick Peaches ‘N Cream doesn’t contain any denture-shattering pits to dodge, but the total experience isn’t much of a step up, either.

Possibly due to economic stress, bum wine is becoming increasingly scarce in my home town. Where once I could stop by any one of the four liquor stores in the Hazleton area and get my fix of Orange Jubilee or Wild Irish Rose, now the shelves are bare! I’ve seen this flavor hiding out at the Wine & Spirits shop, but I only recently decided to grab a bottle while I was in Maryland. The color of this wine falls somewhere in the realm of pineapple juice and chicken stock. It’s a really wild off-gold color that this colorblind reporter (I was born that way, it’s not a side-effect of this lifestyle) can not process.

Color notwithstanding, I chilled this bottle immediately before the experiment. I’ve learned from past mistakes and all bum wines should be chilled, but especially ones with “cream” in the name. Upon cracking the seal I was met with penny-candy peach aroma interwoven with that classic Mad Dog dead liquor smell. After a few sips of this customer I noted two things:

1. It was much, much too thick to handle in one sitting, and
2. It tasted exactly like Trolli peach ring candies.

My grandmother goes ape shit for those candies, but I love her too much to subject her to this, no matter how many gin and tonics she pounds down at night.

Now, I’m no stranger to cutting alcohol with sodas and seltzer to even out the taste, but honestly I couldn’t think of anything I could mix this with that wouldn’t immediately turn my esophagus into a fire hose, spraying my misery all around the inside rim of the toilet bowl in a wailing symphony of distress. I only drank enough to reach the label and slung the rest in the back of the refrigerator to wait for day when I was feeling sorry for myself to finish it off.

That day came later that weekend when I decided to mope around the house all day in my robe and not do a god damned thing. It was probably a Saturday night and I was either watching a House rerun or playing Wii Tennis and I decided it would be a good idea to finish off the Peach. I started in on it around 10PM and finished it by 11. The taste hadn’t changed much after sitting in the fridge for a week, but I detected a distinct lack of alcohol despite the chemical burn experienced with every sip.

When I went to sleep that night I spent a good amount of time drifting feebly in and out of consciousness as clashing sulfites wreaked havoc on my internal clock. I was tired when I went to sleep and I didn’t feel restless or wired from all the sugar in the wine, but I just couldn’t get to sleep! I finally managed to crash around 3AM and was practically devastated when the alarm rang five hours later signaling the start of a painful day. I didn’t wake up with a hangover, but I was suffering from lack of sleep and the vague peach taste still lingered in my mouth reminding me of the tragic mistake I made the night before.

If it wasn’t for the problems I faced trying to sleep through my body’s valiant attempt to process the liquor, Peaches ‘N Cream may have a place on my side shelf in case of emergency. At the house we don’t even afford bum wines a place on the bottom shelf of our home bar. It’s like the family member we call on Christmas to wish goodwill, but the rest of the year we try to keep him away from the kids for fear of lecherous intent. We need to keep the bum wines separate from the real liquor.

Cheers!

• www.bumwine.com - Just like "Raiders of the Lost Ark", the original is always the best! This venerable website features informative articles on the five great bum wines as well as some field reports of more obscure entries like Buckfast and the utterly unapproachable Jeppson's Malort. Also features some great information about out-of-production bum wines, the article on Ripple being particularly hilarious. Go visit and get in touch with your inner bum!

• www.ghettowine.com - As part of a larger network which includes websites devoted to 40oz's and bottom shelf liquor, ghettowine.com can be forgiven for being less in-depth than bumwine.com, but it makes up for it with the largest collection of different bum wines anywhere on the internet. So vast is their array of alcohol that it covers beyond the accepted five greats to include such entries as Johnny Bootlegger, Red Rooster / Lady 21, and something called After Dark. Their reviews are brief, but straight to the point. These guys are true legends.

Manufacturer: Centerra Wine Co.  Canandaigua, New York

Price: $3.59 / 750ml.

Alcohol Content: 18%

Found In: Wilkes-Barre, PA

Presentation: 3/5 – Dark purplish color similar to grape soda or melted crayons.

Taste: 3.5/5 – Tangier than straight grape wine; stings slightly.

Burn: 4/5 – Grape tends to rape your throat.

Buzz: 4.5/5 – Passing a bottle with some friends resulted in a very fine pick-me-up.

Rarity: 2/5 – Somewhat more difficult to find than standard Red Wild I.

Value: 3.5/5 – A practical, well-rounded bum wine with moderate stopping power.

Wild Irish Rose was pretty low on my list of bum wines to try out for reasons mentioned in my review of the Red variety. According to the Centerra Company's website, Wild I has a history of being the most popular (by cases sold) “fruit wine” in the country. It currently ships about 2 million cases annually spread over five different "flavors." Of course, anyone who has tried Wild I knows that its sales are based solely off of ABV% and not the delightful fruit tastes it fails at recreating. So, when I discovered that there was a Wild Grape variety of America’s top-selling bum wine, I trucked it a half an hour up the road to Wilkes-Barre (about 2/3 of a ghetto, in my opinion) where I was informed by one of my associates at Kings College that I could find a bottle of this particular hooch.

I snagged a bottle of Wild Grape which was sitting next to the terribly unattractive White Label variety of Wild I which I resolved to attempt another day. The color through the bottle reminded me of grape flavored cough syrup or a bowl of unsettled grape Jell-O. (I’m sure Bill Cosby has had his hands on a couple bottles of Wild I in his day.) At the check out an older gentleman with snuff stains in his mustache gave me a pretty dirty look and shook his head when I presented him with my latest acquisition. While he checked me out he attempted to hold a high-toned discussion about various liquors with my associate Nate who was buying a slightly less embarrassing bottle of Bacardi 151.

I didn’t have time to properly chill this bottle of Wild I before the experiment so I’m sure the experience was slightly lopsided. I actually shared this bottle with my group of friends at a Penn State house party and I had finished off about a third of a bottle of Blue Raspberry Mad Dog beforehand. The first warm sip practically stung my mouth like I’d just bitten into a wasp nest. It had a lot of strong, up-front alcohol punch, but this characteristic of Wild Irish Rose to begin with. After the initial blow, the sweet, tangy taste of grape Jolly Ranchers seeped in. This stuff was tart, thick, and ran like medicine. I immediately regretted not icing down the bottle first, but soldiered on in spite of my faux pas.

Between five of us it took about ten minutes to polish off the bottle after which everyone reported a strong, well-maintained sense of superiority over all of God’s creation. Make no mistake; Wild I will inebriate you on the quick. Mad Dog and Cisco both have a tendency to make you drowsy, but Wild I definitely stands up there with Thunderbird for providing a solid buzz. I do have to report that out of all the bum wines I've tried so far, Wild Grape is the only one that made me seriously hungry. I practically had to restrain myself from eating the phone book while we ordered in our pizza.

It tastes like the cough syrup your mom used to spoon-feed you, it provides a strong buzz, and it costs about the same for a whole bottle as one mixed drink at your average bar. Add it all up and it’s obvious why this is “America’s #1 Fruit Wine.”

Manufacturer: Centerra Wine Co.  Canandaigua, New York

Price: $3.29 / 750ml.

Alcohol Content: 18%

Found In: Frederick, MD

Presentation: 3/5 – Nearly identical in color to Blue Raspberry Jolt.

Taste: 2.5/5 – Much, much fouler than the similarly flavored Mad Dog. Too tangy.

Burn: 4/5 – A very harsh drink to be sure. My nickname: Blue Razorberry.

Buzz: 3/5 – Much less of an up-front face-smasher than other Cisco’s.

Rarity: 5/5 – Found along with Orange at a shady liquor store in Maryland.

Value: 2/5 – Too many mediocre scores leaves this one in the dust.

Now, I’m no expert, but I've heard news reports that kids in Texas are drinking some kind of street drug called "lean" which is made of hydrochloride cough syrup, codeine, and soda. I get the feeling these kids probably tried Cisco first and thought they could do better on their own ...

Anyway, while on my stupendous trip to Maryland I decided to snag a few bottles of Cisco and it was a hard sell between this and Black Cherry. I almost went the latter route because I had already secured several samples of MD’s Blue Raspberry variety with copious amounts of bling bling. Of course, I knew Mad Dog wouldn’t let me down, but Cisco (already the perpetrator of several drunken wretch-fests) would most likely end up tasting like its trademark Fruity-Pebbles-inspired, hollow, disgruntled self.

Nevertheless, I let the Black Cherry go for another trip and grabbed up a bottle of this dark blue after-market medication. Before I give my admittedly biased review, let me post for everyone’s pleasure, the actual sales pitch for Cisco listed on the Centerra Wine Company’s website. Most of my past posts have noted that Cisco was produced by the Canandaigua Wine Company out of New York, but apparently that company was either bought out or merged with several others to create this new one. Centerra is an umbrella company that encompasses not only Cisco, but also Wild Irish Rose, Arbor Mist, and some "real" liquors like VSOP Brandy and some higher end wines. You can visit their website at www.cwine.com.

“Cisco is a Beverage Dessert wine for people who like a strong, great-tasting sweet wine at an affordable price.”

I just thought the rest of the world should know that the perpetrators of Cisco are either truly delusional, or their marketing staff is detached from reality. I have yet to taste a sample from this brand that falls in the category of acceptable, let alone "great." Anyway, I chilled this bottle straight away and gave it a good chug later in the night. The taste was more in the ballpark of true, sour raspberries whereas Mad Dog leaned towards 8-year-old sugar-fix Slush Puppy syrup raspberries. The holdover pseudo-carbonation in Cisco made it taste a little bit like Blue Jolt, but without any of the added benefits of an energy drink. This customer was definitely tougher to swallow than Mad Dog’s engagement.

I will report that this is the only Cisco I’ve tried to date that has actually gotten better the longer I’ve suffered with it. Berry & Strawberry were just too awful to sit through and Orange was somewhat relieved by a shaking gimmick, but the more I drank of the Blue Raspberry Cisco the better it became. It’s like sucking on a Jolly Rancher for a very long time. Eventually it just rips up your tongue and numbs your entire mouth to the point where you don’t remember how bad it is.

Nevertheless, kudos to an all-around pointless bum wine!

• MD 20/20 Peaches 'N Cream
• MD 20/20 Lemon Ice
• MD 20/20 Purple Rain
• Cisco Black Cherry
• Cisco Peach
• Cisco Green Apple

Manufacturer: Canandaigua Wine Co., New York

Price: $3.29 / 750ml.

Alcohol Content: 18%

Found In: Frederick, MD

Presentation: 3/5 – Looks pretty much like any orange soda out there.

Taste: 3/5 – So far it’s the best Cisco I’ve tried, possibly because of a gimmick (below).

Burn: 2/5 – Not quite as harsh as the last two in this family that I sampled.

Buzz: 5/5 – Completely murdered all of my senses in a very short time.

Rarity: 5/5 – Found in a real dive liquor store in Frederick, MD.

Value: 3.5/5 – Today I discovered why they call it “liquid crack”

I apparently just can't take enough abuse to learn when I'm wrong. Now, there have been studies done in “real” scientific work that attempt to explain why people do dumb things. Okay, so maybe there haven’t been any studies. Anyway, it seems like there should be a study done. If you’ve been keeping up to date on my bum wine odyssey, you’ll know that my last two run-ins with Cisco were nothing short of appalling. This brand of bum wine is aimed solely at people who can no longer taste anything and for whatever reason still feel the need to buy flavored liquor.

So, when I was in Maryland I spied a cooler full of bum wines and picked up a flavor of Cisco that I was still somewhat interested in trying; after all, how can you screw up orange? When I got the bottle home I chilled it for a while before twisting off the cap with a generous amount of force. For some reason Cisco is really bottled tightly, probably to keep whatever biological weapon the liquor is laced with from dissipating into the atmosphere. My first few sips were, as predicted, completely horrifying. The first taste is of nothing at all, just empty, rotten alcohol, followed by a chaser of what seemed like orange soda that had gone flat months ago. Figuring that I’d just punished myself (again) for no reason, I shoved the bottle back in the fridge and moved on to more experiments.

Fast-forward two days.

I opened the fridge and saw the bottle of Orange sitting there like the proverbial lump of coal in my Christmas stocking and suddenly I got an idea: shake the bottle. Cisco has a very slight carbonation component to it and for whatever reason I thought maybe that was contributing to how horrible it tasted. So, I grabbed it and shook the hell out of it for a few seconds. I braved another sip and was completely relieved to find that it wasn’t nearly as bad as it had been a day or two before. I don’t know if it was just my frame of mind at the time or a placebo effect from shaking the bottle, but I managed to down this Cisco in about an hour’s time and suddenly … chaos.

Cisco’s old motto (Takes you by surprise!) hit me like an abusive uncle. I was utterly wrecked by this stuff and I couldn’t think of anything else but where my next bottle of Cisco was going to come from. I drank this early in the day and in the evening when the last licks of the lasting buzz finally wore off I experienced the most horrendous come-down in alcohol history. I felt like a building had fallen on me in the middle of the desert. Every muscle hurt and I was so dehydrated I was acutally considering calling an ambulance. When I finally managed to fall asleep around 10PM I was shaking and jittery and didn't sleep much at all. The next morning I decided it would be best to skip class and spent another six or seven hours in misery before the Cisco finally worked itself fully out of my system.

My personal malaise aside, this is by far the most tolerable iteration of liquid crack on the market from the stock that I've tasted. I don't know how Black Cherry or Grape will fare in that regard, but if you're stuck in a pinch and want a quick throw-down to get yourself perked up, this might be the Cisco to reach for. I'd sooner reach for rat poison, but hey, to each his own.

Manufacturer: Canandaigua Wine Co., New York

Price: $3.59 / 750ml.

Alcohol Content: 18%

Found In: Hazleton, PA

Presentation: 2.5/5 – This “red” variety looks a lot like cherry Kool-Aid.

Taste: 2/5 – Similar to 20/20’s Red Grape Wine, but without the Boo-Berry subtleties.

Burn: 2.5/5 – Nothing to concern yourself about.

Buzz: 3/5 – A stronger hit than most bum wines, but it takes a while to get there.

Rarity: 1/5 – Available at just about every Wine & Spirits shop I visited.

Value: 2.5/5 – No real outstanding characteristics. A painfully average bum wine.

I had been hesitant to sit down and try Wild I (Sometiems billed as Richard’s Wild Irish Rose) on the premise that, out of the five greats, this was the one that seemed to want to mimic real wine the most. There’s an amusing, endearing quality to struggling through a bottle of cheap, fruit-flavored alcohol that used to be wine at one point in its life, but it’s quite another to just drink a bottle of a cheap, corner-cutting vintage that is simply atrocious at trying to be wine. I found it humorous that Wild I enjoys a spot on the shelf on the very bottom as far over in the right corner as possible.

I got the bottle home and chilled it as best I could before settling in for the day’s experiment. Upon cracking the seal I found that Wild Irish Rose had a similar smell to the 20/20’s Red Grape Wine but was distinctly sharper. The first sip, like all bum wines, was revolting, but managed to hold its own. There was definitely a wine-inspired flavor there and it took on the characteristics of spoiled grape juice pretty well with lots of harsh, oregano-like overtones. I also detected some faint metallic traces, possibly mercury.

Wild I drank easily enough and after about two thirds of the bottle I was starting to feel pretty good about the world around me. Finishing the bottle proved to be a chore as once things got down to the wire the wine was room temperature again. Wild I is definately the worst when it comes to that final, valiant struggle. This stuff is just way too thick and tart to stomach more than once or twice a lifetime. I will say that after the bottle joined the rest of its bum-worthy realtives on my Wall of Shame, I was stumbling slightly and hand a lot of difficulty typing my preliminary review.

The prevailing notion I had about this selection that was, all things considered, it was the most average of all the wines I’d tried. There isn’t one particular characteristic that stands out above the rest. Thunderbird has its heritage to fall back on, Cisco is powerful and putrid, and MD 20/20 rounds the group out with serviceable facsimiles of real flavors. Wild Irish Rose is just sort of … there. Wild I is like that one friend that you sometimes hang out with who can be fun once in a while, but most of the time he's as boring as piss. When your other friends are in the room he kind of fades into the background.

There is a second variety of Wild I available at my liquor store called Wild Fruit with Ginseng, but I’m extremely wary of trying it. Where ginseng goes, energy drinks tend to follow and I could just imagine the physical havoc on my body from taurine and shit trying to clash with alcohol. Not to mention the fact that the exceptionally bland Wild I, when infused with “wild fruit” would most likely mutate into something so vicious and brutal that Cisco Berry weeps with inadequacy.

Manufacturer: Mogen David Inc., New York

Price: 3.59 / 750ml.

Alcohol Content: 13%

Found In: Frederick, MD

Presentation: 1/5 – It’s black and has a picture of a bunny with antlers on the label.

Taste: 3/5 – Does a halfway decent job of representing black licorice.

Burn: 2/5 – A pretty smooth one going down. If only it would stay down …

Buzz: 1/5 – Nothing to be found in this bottle but a very mild sedative.

Rarity: 5/5 – Haven’t seen it anywhere in the Northeast

Value: 2/5 – Not a viable substitute for Jager, but might be fun for lumberjacks.

My personal bum wine odyssey has been progressing pretty well over the last few months. By far the most substantial trip I've taken included a layover in Frederick, Maryland where I scored a half dozen bottles of various bum wines that I'd yet to ingest. Among the pile of brightly colored bottles promising vague representations of fruit and liquor, I found this pitch-black bottle of bile sludge.

Of all the flavors Mad Dog has come up with over the years this definitely ranks as one of the strangest. Jagermeister isn’t a very palpable liquor to begin with, so a knock-off can’t be much better. The label on this bottle (which contains a brackish-looking liquid reminiscent of the “Black Oil” from the X-Files) writes Buck Bunny in a very Germanic, Jager-looking font and there’s even the signature Jagermeister stag … or possibly a jackrabbit with antlers. The ingredients on the back list oak extract.

This should be good …

I sat down with this bottle after a good long chill and performed my test with a fairly open mind. I noticed that after I opened the bottle there was a slight mist that formed on the top of the liquid not unlike what happens when you unscrew the cap off a Coke. My first taste was a little lopsided and tasted more like pencil shavings than anything else, probably from all that yummy oak extract. A few more sips later and I actually started to taste the licorice which on the label is touted as Twisted. Recalling a dreadful experience with Jager-bombs last summer, my mind began to formulate possible proportions for a “Bunny Bomb” but it didn’t really get past the planning stage as I suddenly began to gag.

It took me by complete surprise at first but my brain managed to piece together why my esophagus had suddenly lurched into reverse. The unfortunate thing about Buck Bunny is that far too much of the grape flavor from when this beverage used to be wine is left over so you get a horrible clash of bittersweet liquor, cheap licorice, wood, and sour grapes. If that’s your thing then you’re good to go and you should seek medical aid, but if not you’re in for a hard ride. I attempted to suffer through the rest of the bottle, but the clash of flavors got worse as I went. I attempted to null some of the pain out with several generous handfuls of pretzels, but all it did was make me thirstier which led to an obvious cycle. I breifly thought about deadening my senses with a couple other drinks in the interim and seeing how the Mad Dog treated me, but alas I shelved Buck Bunny for the night with the mind to move on to more experiments.

As I busied myself rooting around in the refrigerator for another bum wine to try, I realized I was moving somewhat sluggishly and felt far more tired that I should have at that moment. I absentmindedly felt around the inside of my mouth with my tongue and found that I couldn't taste anything and my gums felt slightly numb. Whatever regrettable additives were in this syrupy black hooch were depressing all my senses and sapping the energy right out of me. I tried to snap myself out of the stupor with a straight chug from the Pepsi bottle and then moved on to my next workout for the night while the caffeine worked its magic.

However, just when I thought my bout with Buck Bunny was over, my stomach started to do somersaults and I made a mad dash for the porcelain god where I knelt in reverence and confessed my sins for a good twenty minutes. I certainly wasn’t drunk, and I hadn't really eaten anything substantial that day from which I could have contracted food poisoning either, so it must have been the Buck Bunny’s awful concoction at work. It was a pretty miserable experience from start to finish with this one, but my overall score is tempered simply because after some analysis I think I might have been allergic to something in this wine. I had a similar experience, as mentioned before, with Jager-bombs. "Herbal" flavored liquors and I apparently don't get along too well.

As for this iteration of Mad Dog, for those of you out there who like a vague licorice taste and don’t mind mixing that flavor with hard wine and wood, Buck Bunny might hold some interest for you. For everyone else, just steer clear unless you’re Norwegian.

Manufacturer: Canandaigua Wine Co., New York

Price: $3.29 / 750ml.

Alcohol Content: 18%

Found In: Dover, NJ

Presentation: 4/4 – Pleasant color could be mistaken for something far less damaging.
Taste: 2/5 – Kind of tastes like a melted strawberry lollipop soaked in Everclear.

Burn: 4/5 – Strawberry is to throats what Captain Crunch is to the roof of your mouth.

Buzz: 3/5 – Lesser buzz than Berry. Made me sleepy.

Rarity: 5/5 – Again, Cisco is tough to find and nonexistent in Pennsylvania.

Value: 1.5/5 – Only a small step up from Berry for not tasting like straight antifreeze.

I'm a man who prides himself on learning from his mistakes, but nevertheless, like an alzheimer's patient, I decided to have another go at Cisco because I enjoy pain. This Strawberry sludge was purchased at the same time as the horrendous Berry flavor. I was hoping for a slightly less nauseating experience with this variant on the legendary “liquid crack" after my experience with the near-excellent Strawberry Cream from my good friends at Mogen David. I started in on this bottle after letting it sit in a freezer for two hours and the smell instantly reminded me of Starburst. Unfortunately the recognition didn’t translate into taste as well.

This Cisco was just as bad as Berry in terms of its ghastly flavor. I honestly don’t understand how anyone can drink this stuff with a straight face. Of course, I’m not downtrodden and homeless so I guess I can’t speculate. By the time I’d downed enough to reach the label of the bottle I was feeling giddy and kept commenting about how bad the drink was. I was seriously beside myself with the humor of the situation and I think I entertained the idea of actually becoming a bum just so I had people to talk to about Cisco, since nobody in Pennsylvania knew what that hell I was talking about.

I tried to counteract the effects of the alcohol by eating a big meal with lots of bread and heavy foods beforehand but I still managed to get sufficiently sloshed about halfway through the bottle. With Cisco in hand I settled in to watch Seven Samurai, but found myself drowsy and falling asleep very quickly. I found it extremely odd that a liquor with such a high sugar content was putting me to sleep, but I didn’t fight it. The next morning, despite not falling asleep drunk, I awoke feeling groggy with joint pains. I also didn’t take a leak until about mid afternoon even though I drank most of the bottle. 

Fast forward for the second experiment ...

Anyone familiar with Penn State will tell you that early in March the main campus has a thing they call State Patty's Day because we don't get the real holiday off for some reason. I was invited to a party with some of my colleagues where there was liquor and Bud Light promised. But of course, like a true sport I loaded up a large Staples Copy Paper box with fifteen bottles of bum wine (with the word WARLORD scrawled on the side of the box) and hoisted that bitch onto my shoulder when I walked into the party and promptly scared the hell out of everyone with its ghastly contents.

Most of the other folks in attendance at the party ignored our antics, but as the night wore on more and more people started plunging into the deadly contents of the Warlord. At about 2AM my buddy Eric (pictured below, already sauced on beer and a corncob pipe) picked up a bottle of Strawberry Cisco and invented a drinking game whereby he began to name every Civil War general he could think of, toasting and drinking deeply to their honor. I saw him slinging back Cisco, completely unaware of what he was guzzling, and very briefly feared for his well-being. However, I didn't intervene in the insanity for the simple fact that I really wanted to see where this would lead.

This one's for the man ... who LOST the Civil War! GENERAL SIBLEY!

After the party had died down we walked back to Eric's apartment. Along the way we were stopped by a vagrant asking us for marijuana and Eric promptly stumbled off the road, pointing at a darkened Church, professing loudly that the Church probably had weed for this kid. We arrived at his apartment around 2:30AM and Eric made a bee-line straight for the bathroom and we didn't see him again until 8AM the following morning. He mutilated the toilet and the sink of the bathroom, destroyed the kitchen sink, and we have photo records of him hanging out his 2nd story window vomiting onto the cars below. The Cisco had worked its magic ...

As entertaining as it can be, Cisco is by far my least favorite of the five great bum wines. What it has in pure alcoholic content it lacks in taste. I find it absolutely undrinkable under any circumstance, especially when there are easier ways to get buck wild. Perhaps if I were already drunk and didn’t know what I was being served my opinion might change, but I hope I’d retain enough presence of mind to turn this shit down. Still, if you need a hard fix, or you're drunk enough not to care what you use to sustain your buzz, reach for a bottle. You might just shit yourself!

Ohhhhhhh yeah! Brooklyn, Brooklyn! We're bringin' the 'hood to you! Gather around, thugs! Mad Dog is in the house with blue raspberries so blingin' it'll power your hooptie, dawg! 

Manufacturer: Mogen David Inc., New York

Price: 3.59 / 750ml.

Alcohol Content: 13%

Found In: Frederick, MD

Presentation: 3/5 – Cloudy pale blue like over-chlorinated pool water.

Taste: 4.5/5 – Very similar to blue raspberry Icee --but not as sweet-- with cheap vodka.

Burn: 2/5 – Surprisingly smooth, very chuggable take on the classic Mad Dog.

Buzz: 1/5 – For as quickly as I drank the bottle, it hardly did anything for me.

Rarity: 5/5 – Definitely the most difficult MD 20/20 I tracked down.

Value: 4/5 – One of the better Mad Dogs on the market

Now this is a review I’ve been waiting to write for quite some time! When I first learned that MD 20/20 had a blue raspberry flavor (a king among Jolly Ranchers and Air Heads) I immediately started hounding every liquor store clerk I could find to get some of this sauce on an incoming shipment, but it was all for naught. It wasn’t until an emergency road trip to Frederick, Maryland that I managed to snag two bottles of “Bling Bling” Blue Raspberry at a place called DJ’s Liquors.

You'll notice the gold chain on this bottle proclaiming "Bling Bling" which is apparently Mad Dog's way of trying to score some sales away from Hypnotiq. For those of you who don't know, Hypnotiq is a light blue liquor made from vodka and fruit juices which has become an increasingly popular "entertainment" drink. Pretty much every drink made with Hypnotiq is an ice-blue color similar to what you see in this bottle of Mad Dog.

Now, on to the trials at hand: After reading some other reviews across the internet I was expecting a very sweet, syrupy raspberry taste, but after opening the bottle I was met with a milder, melted slush flavor on top of typical Mad Dog thickness and hard liquor. I have to admit that I wasn’t won over with my first few sips, but after a day of sitting in the fridge I had another go at this long awaited soldier and the Bling definitely grew on me. I managed to power my way through the bottle in record time, but even after sucking all the sulfites off the bottom of the glass I wasn’t feeling in the least bit buzzed. It was disappointing, but about all that told me was that I could drink more!

 
Stay with me, now. About a week later I opened my freezer and found the second bottle of Blue Raspberry that I'd completely forgotten about. I was already sailing a bit off some gin and tonics that I was mixing up at my desk so I decided to take on the bottle for another round. Let me say this: when frozen to sub-zero temperatures on top of an already stiff buzz, this bum wine is actually pretty damn good. I know it's a sacrilige to even suggest it, but I could easily find myself drinking this casually with more people in the room than just myself and my legion of insecurities. Chilled so well it was actually refreshing and tasted pretty decent. There was no alcoholic burn or remnant grape taste to be had, it was just straight, chilly raspberries (so blingin'!).

My trip to Maryland scored me quite a few new bum wines to review, but I was definitely looking forward to this one the most and in the end I’d have to say it didn’t disappoint. I was really hoping for a lot more sugary goodness in this bottle, but I suppose that can be added with a shot of simple syrup, especially when cooled to proper temperatures with a generous application of liquid nitrogen. Carbonating this might actually make a halfway appetizing party beverage, but at that point you’re probably only partying with yourself or some other closet alcoholics. As always, stay away from the bum wines except as a novelty.

Add up the valiant attempt at a blue raspberry flavor, smooth drinkability, and the triumph of finding a pretty scarce 20/20 offering and this wine makes a name for itself among the greats.

Prost!

Manufacturer: Canandaigua Wine Co., New York

Price: $3.29 / 750ml.

Alcohol Content: 18%

Found In: Dover, NJ

Presentation: 3/5 – Robitussin.
Taste: 1/5 – Practically unbearable. Tastes like an air freshener.

Burn: 3/5 – Harsher than most, but nothing you shouldn’t be able to handle.

Buzz: 4/5 – If you can suffer through it, Cisco will get you amped up on the quick.

Rarity: 5/5 – Cisco is pretty tough to find outside of a true ghetto / reservation.

Value: 1/5 – The only thing that saves it is the buzz factor. Fuck Cisco.

GIANT WARNING: If you intend to drink Cisco, be prepared to suffer. In my experience, this wine is intolerable on its own. However, if you are sufficiently motivated by other available liquor, this "beverage" may actually start to taste appealing. Do yourself a favor and accompany a Cisco binge with excessive amounts of water. Thank you.

Ah, Cisco, the legendary "liquid crack." This sauce has been around for a while and anyone who has tried it can affirm that the drug's liquor's old catchphrase of "Takes you by surprise!" is in no way exaggerated. I say "old" catchphrase because the FDA ordered Cisco to drop that slogan and print a big warning on the label that lets people know it's not a wine cooler. One drop of this high-octange hooch should be able to tell somebody that, but hey, people can be stubborn.

My first experience with Cisco was frighteningly unpleasant. I managed to find a few bottles in Dover, New Jersey and they endured the ride back to PA where I cracked one in my buddy’s driveway. The smell of “Berry” alone was ghastly and I feared taking a sip. The bouquet of sulfites in this horrible concoction falls somewhere in the realm of air freshener marinated in antifreeze. In other words, a car accident waiting to happen. I'm pretty sure that cherries, cranberries, and other similar subjects are the idea here as when held up to the light Cisco presents a dark reddish hue.

Cisco is renowned for its two-day hangover and after only a few sips I could tell why. This stuff hits you pretty hard. There is nothing at all redeeming about this drink, especially taken as a stand-alone experience. 20/20’s flavors at least try to mimic real taste sensations but Cisco just throws convention to the wind. Retconning my previous assumption, I can’t imagine exactly what berries they were shooting for when they concocted this vile sludge, because I’ve never encountered a berry that tastes even remotely this grotesque. There is nothing fruity or berry-licious about Cisco, it all sucks.

I should mention that there is a slight carbonation component to Cisco that adds to its wholly unwholesome nature. First of all, the cap is practically sledge-hammered onto the bottle; it's very difficult to twist off. Cracking the seal results in a release of a hiss that signals the carbonation. It could just be some sort of gaseous preservative, but there's a distinct, tingly, soda affect that accompanies every disturbing sip. The strong "berry" flavor lingers only momentarily and is replaced by pure alcohol leaving an aftertaste in the neighborhood of battery acid. I can't stress enough how awful this booze tastes.

I suffered through about a third of a 750ml bottle before I had to start cutting it with straight seltzer to balance the impossible flavor at which point it started tasting like Boone’s Farm Mountain Berry gone horribly sour. There is definitely something wrong with Cisco as after only a few mouthfuls I was already feeling the booze taking a tight hold on my senses. I’m ashamed to admit that I couldn’t down the whole Berry bottle which was disappointing considering I soldiered through two bottles of plain old Grape Wine MD 20/20. With a little more than half of the bottle left, I passed it off to my buddy Nate who polished it in short order and spent several hours naked by the toilet.

Fast-forward two weeks ...

I had the opportunity to sample Cisco Berry again when I was at a party at State College. By the time the bottle found its way into the room I was already pretty well toasted from some kind of jungle juice that tasted like Ecto-Cooler. I took a swig of the Cisco expecting more of the same, but I was completely taken aback by the fact that it didn't taste like sewer. I detected faint traces of Snapple-esque berry flavor underneath layers and layers of sugar sludge. I actually managed to drink most of the bottle solo before other people at the party wanted in on this strange brew.

Three hours later I stumbled back to my friend's apartment where I assaulted a case of bottled water in a balls-out attempt to keep myself from becoming acquainted with the inner working of his plumbing. I managed to pass out with no ill effects, but the next morning I was dry. Another round with H2O kept me afloat, but Cisco proved itself as an anti-diuretic. I didn't take a leak all day and I have no idea where at least a gallon of water went. Make no mistake, the two-day hangover is real, but it can be avoided through persistence.

Still, since this study is based on bum wine as a solo food group, I stand by my original asessment: Cisco is damn near undrinkable on its own. Pair it with a night of shots and Natural Ice, however, and it definately stands against the strongest competition.

• MD 20/20 Red Grape Wine
• MD 20/20 Orange Jubilee
• MD 20/20 Strawberry Cream
• MD 20/20 Blue Raspberry
• MD 20/20 Buck Bunny
• MD 20/20 Sour Apple
• Cisco Berry
• Cisco Blue Raspberry
• Cisco Orange
• Cisco Strawberry
• Wild Irish Rose (Red)
• Wild Irish Rose Wild Grape
• Thunderbird

Manufacturer: E&J Gallo Wineries, California

Note: E&J Gallo, a fine wine distributor, disguises involvement with a product of such horrendous quality with a front company, Thunderbird Ltd. Don't get caught unaware!

Price: 3.99 / 750ml.

Alcohol Content: 17.5%

Found In: Chester, PA

Presentation: 1/5 – Disgusting off-white color reminiscent of piss.

Taste: 3/5 – Far better than the rumors claim. Tastes like a dreadful white wine.

Burn: 4/5 – There’s not much to protect you from the pure alcohol.

Buzz: 2.5/5 – Right down the middle. An “American Classic” stupor.

Rarity: 3/5 – Difficult to find outside of the larger cities.

Value: 3/5 – Surprisingly drinkable bum wine with an illustrious history.

 
Thunderbird is just about as 'hood as you can get, in my opinion. The story is fairly well known, but I'll retell it here for the masses: When prohibition ended, the Gallo brothers (Ernest and Julio) set about to make a name for themselves in the wine industry. They began marketing Thunderbird to low-income neighborhoods in a bid to become the "Campbell's Soup of the wine industry." Sales took off presumably because in the 1930's people didn't know what wine tasted like and this was the best they could get. My research is somewhat sketchy ... of course, everyone remembers that famous jingle:

What's the word?
Thunderbird!

The search for Thunderbird led me to the ghetto of Chester, PA. It’s hard to find bum wine in Pennsylvania the way it is with our stringent liquor laws, but the ‘Bird was easily the most difficult to track down. At almost $4 per bottle it was easy to see why PA doesn’t have any difficulty controlling vagrancy. Buying bum wine in this state is just too expensive to be economically feasible for your average urban drunkard.

I got home with my bottle of T-Bird and I was anxious to try it, but I restrained myself in favor of super-chilling it first. After a few hours in the freezer, I cracked the twist-cap and took a swing, instantly surprised by what I tasted. For all the legend and hype surrounding this booze and its Clorox-like qualities, Thunderbird wasn’t nearly as harsh as I was expecting. It retained a flavor of poorly fermented grapes and, aside from the burning and industrial-strength smell, actually tasted like a really, really, really awful white wine. It was intensely sugary and presented an aftertaste that fell somewhere between ginger ale and cough syrup.

Wanting as many people as I could to indulge in a cultural "experience," I got on the phone and called in the troops. I shared this bottle with my friends the best way I could think of: in lip-cutting tin cups around a fire contained in a fifty-gallon drum. I got varied reactions from them and I’m sure one or two reconsidered being my friend after drinking Thunderbird, but it was entertaining to me nonetheless. Some of them noted that the wine reminded them of stuff they'd had in church, reinforcing my fact that the Catholic church cuts costs everywhere it can. I don't think there's any rules written down about what kind of wine needs to be blessed to become Christ's blood, but I like to make boldface claimes with little emperical evidence to support them.

Of course, I procured a second bottle in the interest of science and hammered through that one on my own time. It took me about an hour and a half while sitting at my computer watching House to get through the whole thing. After I polished off the mighty bottle I felt buzzed, but I was twitchy and jittery instead of feeling a heightened sense of reality. Granted, it was pretty late and I was tired when I started in on the bottle and that most likely affected the experiment. I suffered through a terrible night's sleep, kept awake from the intense amounts of sugar and sulfites in the booze and the valiant buzz that held on until the very end. The thought of purging the vile drink from my system with the two-fingered salute crossed my mind, but I soldiered on in spite of it.

With Thunderbird crossed off my list I felt like I accomplished one of my lifelong goals. I resolved to pick up a bottle every time I was in the Philadelphia area which equates to maybe once or twice a year which is more than any sane person should be able to stomach of this ungodly drink.

UPDATE: There is currently a hilarious commercial from the 70’s on Youtube featuring a bunch of black people at a disco bar “shaking ‘em up” with Thunderbird and grapefruit juice. Send your test results to gfh110@psu.edu in the name of science!

Price: $3.99 / 750ml.

Alcohol Content: 13%

Presentation: 4/5 – Interesting, opaque orange color that screams Sunny Delight!

Taste: 4/5 – When sufficiently chilled, can almost pass for a miserable Screwdriver.

Burn: 4/5 – Worse than other 20/20 varieties, probably due to the “citrus.”

Buzz: 3/5 – Mild to moderate, much like the rest of the Mad Dog catalogue.

Rarity: 2/5 – A little tougher.  PA markets seemed dominated by Strawberry-Kiwi.

Value: 3/5 – A half-decent alternative to drinking Listerine for a pick-me-up.

This was my first experience with a true bum wine. I’d been drinking Boone’s Farm as a novelty for a few weeks before stepping up to the major leagues and this version of 20/20 just about doubles Boone’s alcohol content, even though it rings in at 13%, a solid 5% lower than most other bum wines. I was expecting a flavor experience not unlike chewable Flintstones vitamins and Maalox, but the promise of “orange” tempered my apprehension to actually try it.

The first sip or two, as is the case with any bum wine, is harsh and foul. Only after you’ve sufficiently numbed you tongue on the nameless sulfites can you truly start to appreciate what this drink has to offer: not much. My initial reaction to the arguable orange flavor was that it tasted like a bad screwdriver. After a few more drinks I concluded that it was similar in taste to Sunny Delight mixed with cheap vodka. It was actually kind of amazing that there wasn’t a hint of grapey wine taste at all. If bum wines succeed at anything it’s passing themselves off as wine without retaining a single characteristic thereof.

The drink was surprisingly smooth given the fact that any citrus-based alcohol lends itself to being uncompromisingly harsh on the tongue. There was a lot of up-front orange-cleaner taste with notes of Skittles, but this sauce leaned more towards Turpentine than Tropicana. This drink paired surprisingly well with Domino’s breadsticks, but I’m not suggesting you try it. Can produce a half decent buzz if you don’t mind slugging down mouthful after mouthful of poor imitation citrus abortion.

My biggest mistake drinking this bottle of MD was that it took me too long. The longer you work on a bum wine, the warmer it gets, and the more grotesque it tastes. By the time I polished off the bottle it was room temperature and nearly undrinkable. That’s not saying much given that most bum wines border on undrinkable to begin with. All in all, Orange Jubilee made for a more interesting experiment than plain old Grape Wine and if you’re in need of a semi-palpable quick fix, this one’s for you.

Manufacturer: Mogen David Inc., New York

Price: $3.99 / 750ml.

Alcohol Content: 13% - 18%

Presentation: 3/5 – Looks like a bottle of thick grape juice.

Taste: 3/5 – Tastes like a bottle of thick grape juice and a really bad merlot.

Burn: 2/5 – Bearable, but stronger in the 18% variety.

Buzz: 3/5 – Mild to moderate. Can’t drink it slow, it warms up fast.

Rarity: 1/5 – Found pretty much everywhere 20/20 is sold

Value: 3/5 – A good place to start for people used to “real” wine.

As the flagship “flavor” of MD, I was expecting pretty much what the name promised. Now, I’m not a big wine drinker, but I’m fairly certain that if your company needs to specify that your obviously red wine-product is made from red grapes then you probably have deeper issues to worry about than taste.

True to its name, this tastes like a shitty red table wine. I get the feeling that churches on the cheap might be slipping 20/20 into their chalices as I’ve had sacramental wines that are just a step above this brew. Interestingly enough, this is the only flavor of Mad Dog that comes in the kidney-blasting 18% variety. Unfortunately I was only able to acquire the weaker, 13% variety so this review lacks the full-bodied explosion of a true Mad Dog experience. 

Speaking of, my experience with this wine may be slightly tempered because MD 20/20 has a reputation for warming you up and I had a few chugs of the Dog right after I came in from shoveling snow on a particularly cold winter day. It did the trick better than hot chocolate or coffee could do and after a few draughts I was back in action and ready to roll.

20/20 definitely gets the blood flowing hot and heavy. My temperature rose after drinking this stuff, but it didn’t give me much of a buzz straight off. I had to get about halfway through the 750ml. bottle before things really started to take off. Even so, the buzz was fairly dynamic and I had to keep taking regular swigs to keep the flame alive. Luckily, it was a pretty easy drink and didn’t overpower with horrid aftertastes. MD 20/20 is definitely a drink for the drunk on the go. It comes in small, easily portable bottles that fit the hand well and with its toned-down flavors, seems well-suited to mobile bums.

For all the other fruity flavors out there, Red Grape Wine was surprisingly drinkable and I ended up buying another bottle the following week. After the novelty of drinking “wine” to warm you up after shoveling the driveway wears off, however, you realize just how much this stuff sucks.

Well, for a lack of anything productive to do with this space on LiveJournal, I've decided on this! Welcome to the great "bum wine" review!

In this ongoing article I will be posting my reviews and opinions on a variety of cheap, fortified wines, popularly known as “bum wines” or “street wines.” As a precautionary measure, I urge all readers not to engage in their own experiments lest you find yourself suddenly waking up in the gutter carrying your life’s possessions in a Hefty and muttering paranoid non-sequiturs derived from the voices that only you can hear. None of the wines listed herein should be consumed by humankind.

There is a strenuous rating system in place that judges each wine based on color and physical traits, taste, how much it burns on the way down, the buzz it produces, how easy / hard it is to find, and its overall “value” as a bum wine. In this context, “value” translates into a risk vs. reward equation where the risk of spending in and around $3 dollars for a bottle of wine is outweighed by the reward of nearly instantaneous inebreation.

Here is the breakdown of how the rating system works:

• Presentation: Scored out of 5 points. The higher the score, the better it looks.
• Taste: Scored out of 5 points. The higher the score, the better it tastes.
• Burn: Scored out of 5 points. The lower the score, the better, and less of a burn.
• Buzz: Scored out of 5 points. The higher the score, the better the buzz is.
• Rarity: Scored out of 5 points. The lower the score, the easier it is to find.
• Value: Scored out of 5 points. Overall “worth” of the wine.

(Please note that a majority of these values are arbitrary and not based on any sort of scientific method or practice.)

This study is aimed at bum wine enthusiasts located in Pennsylvania. Because of our stringent (read: moronic) liquor laws, at least two brands (Cisco and Night Train) are impossible to buy at the Wine & Spirits shop. Additionally, some flavors of MD 20/20 are not available in Pennsylvania and the rest of the usual suspects can be difficult to come by in their own right and are generally outsold by Manischewitz.

In response to the difficulty of finding test subjects in our own state, the perpetrators of this experiment have gone to great lengths to bring the ‘hood to you. We have risked life and limb to venture into the urban jungles of Camden, Trenton, and Chester to track down samples for use in our great work. We would ask that anyone with information on where to more easily procure these products contact us at gfh110@psu.edu.

Thank you for your consideration in this most influential of studies.