Question for my British flist:

[spikendru]

Does anyone know of a cheap wine, available in the 1970's, students would be likely to drink? It can be fairly horrible, as long as it's cheap. Something akin to the Ripple, Boone's Farm, or MD 20-20 that American students drank with abandon back in the day.

Thanks!

Comments

[jillyjelly]

I was student in the 70's and the Party Four (4 pints of beer in a large can )was at all the parties. I also remember Black Tower, and Mateus Rose, don't think there was Lambrini then but there was Asti Spumante, eeewwww

[spikendru]

Whoa! Four pints of beer in one can? Sounds like a huuuuge can! Hee! Asti Spumante! Around here, they advertize that as a special Christmas holiday wine - with carols playing in the ads, and snow gently falling. Tee hee!

[gillo]

Hey, students I knew sometimes managed a Party Seven! (Those cans were big enough to use with planks when empty to create a makeshift extra bookcase.) Newcastle Brown was the manly drink of choice - cider's a bit girly.

[curiouswombat]

We drank a lot of Mateus Rosé - then used the bottles to put candles in and thought ourselves very avante garde. Other wine drunk a lot was liebfraumilch, as someone else mentioned. Blue Nun sometimes, but favourite was Mateus Rosé.

But we probably drank a lot more Newcastle Brown ale, or Bacardi and Coke.

[spikendru]

Hee! The bottle as candle holder! I remember that. And you had to keep using different colors of candles, so the cascade of candle wax down the side would be multi-colored!

[curiouswombat]

Oh absolutely! Ethan would have had the odd bottle simply to be able to do that in his Hall of Residence room. (UK students do not live in 'dorms' - only children at boarding schools would have slept in dorms - they are open plan with ten or twelve beds in. Students in the 70s would have been 'in Hall' and had either a single room, or less likely, a double one.)

[gillo]

I was a student in the seventies. We used to buy a bottle of Tonino - red or white - for 55p and share it six was at a meal. If we were desperate, Concorde British wine was even cheaper, but actively disgusting, while Tonino was drinkable. Blue Nun (generic German-style Euro white wine) was a standard at parties, and I recall a deeply disgusting Australian import red called Kanga Rouge, which actually tasted better the next morning after being open overnight with a cigarette end floating in it! Mostly we drank beer or cider, though.

[spikendru]

Heh! Your deeply disgusting Australian import is probably equal to my equally disgusting Hawaiian Pineapple wine - in which the bottle came netted in yellow plastic like a frozen turkey. Uni students will try almost anything, huh? Especially if it is cheap!

Oh, and there's a poll! Be sure to vote.

[ozma914]

Ah, Boone's Farm. Those were the rotgut days ...

[spikendru]

Oh, they were indeed. See, this is why I like having contemporaries on my flist - they get what I'm talking about when I mention Boone's Farm or Mad Dog 20/20! *eg*

[ozma914]

My internet friends range in age from 16 to the 60's, which is a great way to keep in touch with all the generations -- not to mention other parts of the world!

[spikendru]

*nods enthusiastically*

ITA! As a matter of fact, the youngest person on my flist is 16, and the oldest is 68. Variety is most definitely the spice of life! And the ability to travel virtually via snapshots posted by people all over the world is truly life enriching. I've certainly been blessed by the people who have friended me.

*snuggles*