Copycats in Alcohol
 

So I'm sitting here, sipping on a Citrona, which is a citrus flavored alcohol beverage made by Stolichnaya.

I don't know how it is elsewhere, but in the States, these new citrus beverages have started popping up like mad in the last 6 months. Zima has been around for 50-11 years of course, but Smirnoff, Skyy, Bacardi, Stoli, and now, Sauza have put out these Zima-like beverages.

I've had Smirnoff Ice, Skyy Blue, and Stoli Citrona. And I can say this much--they essentially taste the same. The sweetness varies a tad, but they're all the same.

Don't get me wrong...I like them as a whole. I like the flavor...and most of them are 5% alcohol by volume. But what the hell is this about? An attempt by the liquor companies to open themselves up to a younger hipper crowd that's not very big on liquor?

They better not bet on it here in PA, not at $9 a 6-pack.

Not to mention, I can't really see people in my area buying this. For that matter, I can't see many people in Philadelphia buying this. They seem like beer-drinkers to me...the kind of folks that'll have a bbq with friends on Sunday, with a couple of cases of Yuengling iced up in the coolers.

Flavored water?
 

Have you tried DNA yet?

I am a scotch man myself, with a Guiness fetish, and a Malt habit.
Now if I could only get Steele Reserve 211 where I am.
I find it highly ironic that I currently reside in the heart of the bootleggers and moonshiner country, yet it is a dry county.

Sigh, I suppose the local cops, and the county need the kickbacks, so I am destined to stay unsatisfied until I recieve a transfer back to some resemblance of civilization.

Re: Flavored water?
 

DNA...I can't say I've heard of it.

I'm a huge Guinness fan myself.

211...ugh! *gags* That shit is nasty. :)

Re: 211
 

from sycamore
Only if you let the smell get to you, but at 8.9%, I can live with the smell.

holy shit. that stuffs like 5.99 here. im not a big fan of it myself, but i know people who swear the best way to drink zima is to pop one open, throw a jolly rancher (your choice of flavour) into it, let it sit in the fridge for 15 minutes and 'enjoy'.

~james

Pennsylvania has an interesting system for purchasing beer and alcohol. You've probably seen some of us rant about it before. It's much cheaper in NJ and DE. The sauce is heavily taxed here in PA. A 12-pack of Bud Light runs about $10-12. A bottle of Boone's Farm runs about $4. In Missouri, those same items run $8 and $2 respectively. Cases here aren't too bad though ($16 for a 30-pack of Coors Light).

thats about what it is here, give or take a buck depending on where you go. im personally a beer drinker, and that works out well because we have a couple of nice microbreweries in the area. New Belgium has a real nice wheat beer called sunshine wheat. if you can get it, its worth a taste. as far as zima goes though, they have the citrus zima now, in the green box, and i like that better than the original.

~james

They're party drinks, UDLs, stolies, Ruskis, all the same. All 5% or so vol, all rather expecsive. Very popular ehre for parties and sutff, no need to mix, easy to drink, i'm well accostumed with many, many vaarieties of these and entertaining things you can do with them(bulldozer!!!)

do tell...

~james

I don't drink beer as much as I used to, but I still like it every once in a while. I'm a Guinness fan (and that's expensive pretty much wherever you go). I honestly haven't drank Zima in years, and prefer the sweeter taste of Citrona or Skyy Blue. I might have to try that Citrus Zima though.

Re: Flavored water?
 

I have similar problems. What kind of scotch? I've been working on a bottle of Jura here but tend to prefer less abrasive stuff like Glenlivet/Speyburn. I've really cut back on the beer side since I'm shedding pounds for the MS ride but Yeungling does the job. Guiness I usually drink when out it just doesn't bottle/can that well. I've never done much of the citrus stuff outside of cramming fruit into weak Mexican beer.

Re: Re: Flavored water?
 

Yuengling is probably the best cheap American beer I've ever drank. Seriously...it just has a great taste to it. They need to market that nationwide.

I actually liked Guinness in the can (used to drink it like water when I lived in St. Louis), and the new easy-pour bottles are good too. I can't drink the extra stout though...that's just too much.

Now, I have heard people who have been to Ireland say that they will never drink Guinness in the States ever again b/c it tastes so incredibly fresh over there. Well, unless I win my own pub in the Guinness contest, I don't anticipate heading over there anytime soon. :)

Guinness was on strike during my only Ireland trip. :( The wife and I made the best of it, packing away pints of Beamish Stout (sweet and smooth) with pub lunches and during evening entertainment, while bicycle touring in the West.

I was unimpressed with Beamish the one time I had it, although I'm sure the Irish version tastes a lot better.

I really wanted to win that pub contest Guinness holds every year. I just think it would be incredibly cool to own one. Of course, I'd hire someone else to run it. Let me sit there and run it, and I'll drink myself out of business. ;)

Scotch is wonderful for its subtleties. I recently tried a bit of smokey Oban. Made me warm all over!:) I'm kinda liking the sweetness of Irish whiskey- Jameson, Bushmill, but havent explored much more...This is what carries you through a northern winter. I'm also intrigued by port.Any recomendations? Go to Portugal? That sounds good.

I have never had scotch before...I should try it.

I do like a good vodka tonic or gin and tonic...heavy on the sauce of course. ;) I will NEVER EVER EVER EVER touch Jim Beam again after a particularly nasty experience in college.

i used to say that about tequila. :) lemonade and cheap tequila with table salt do not a good margarita make.

~james

Backwoods margaritas, eh? ;)

One night, my friend's mom was out of town, and she allowed some of us to stay over. So, my friend decided we were going to have a strict "cheap beer" party. No A-B or Miller products allowed. The beers of choice that night were Hamm's, Olympia, Black Label, and Stag (a St. Louis favorite). Truth be told, I didn't feel too bad until I tried to eat something the next day. That cheap shit will do a number on ya. ;)

yeah the margaritas were bad enough. the part that really sucked tho, was the next night we still had half a bottle of tequila but no more lemonade. whats a poor college student to do? shots, of course. oh well, i made my peace with the vile liquid, and now i can enjoy margaritas again, but in moderation.

~james

The Mrs and I like to swim the Cuervo Especial waters, usually in margarita form but sometimes just for sipping. Cheap beer, cheap whiskey, cheap gin and cheap wine are all fine but cheap tequila can't be good for yah. hmm I almost started a little ditty there... na its to early.

Tequilla in moderation, in a good margarita-Fresh lime only....rocks, and salt, ya gotta have salt! but shots.....shheesh...It hits like no other spirit.:3eye:

I think I'm going to try that new Sauza drink tonight...might as well give 'em all an equal shot.

Okay, so I bought the new Sauza drink, called Diablo. It's not bad...it definitely has a different taste than the others...it tastes more lemony. I think I like the Smirnoff/Skyy/Stoli variety better.

Someone apparently was playing with the 6-pack, because there was one Captain Morgan Gold beverage in the pack. Blecch! That shit was nasty. I'm not really a fan of rum to begin with, and this just had too much of a rum taste to it. Although, I would imagine that it has no rum in it...otherwise, it couldn't be sold in a "beer" store here in PA.

Red bull and usually something like a cruiser. More..powerful version is 25% vodka, or 50% vodka and red bull. Best not to have more than bout 5 though, can be deadly.

Ah....tequila slammers...the flavour equivilent of a thermonuclear explosion....fun......Many mighty hangovers from them.

I still can't enjoy G&ts after gettin g a 2 day hangover courtesy of those and rum&coke, learnt my lesson never to mix spirits. That was a bad, bad night. Lets the few bits i remember.

Subtleties? Try Glenmorangie. Tullamore Dew is nice too, but hardly in the same class.

It's so wonderful they lowered the drinking age in AU...the lads who measure the quality of a drink by the hangover were missing out on so much. :-)

Jag...ever heard of a Nuclear Fizz? You pour grain alcohol over dry ice to make a slushie, then eat it with a spoon. while it's still smoking. I'm told you can get a positively gut-wrenching amount of alcohol down before it all melts at once in your stomach. :-)

Its acltually legal to drink at any age here - just not to buy it or be caught with it in public. Same applies with smoking, except you're allowed to smoke in public.

Its pretty rare that i have more than a couple of drinks this year - too much school to spend a day in bed.

edit: you can eat dry ice?

I suppose you could, but at -109 degrees F, I wouldn't recommend it. :)

Definately do not eat dry ice. It's the slushy grain alky that's eaten. Probably can give you the Mother Of All Brain Freezes too.

In fact the entire stunt is very much something to watch *someone else* do.

I remeber walking home with some friends from a party during my (very brief) college career. One of the boys had had some Nuclear Fizz and was doing just fine...until he suddenly lost the ability to walk or stand up in the middle of a Philadelphia street on the Penn/Drexel campus. Good thing he had friends with him to get him back to his apt.

This is apparently a recycling of the name of another drink also from Philadelphia SF fandom of two decades earlier:
<blockquote>
NUCLEAR FIZZ (Bob Pavlat) The fannish mixed drink. "Here's what a Fizz is, and how it came about. It is: 1 ½ shot gin, 1 shot
cointreau, 1 shot lemon or lime juice (and a lemon-lime mixture is better yet), 2 shots soda, 2 or 3 drops bitters. If you like them sweet, add more cointreau, and vary the amount of soda to suit your taste.
"And here's how it came about. At the PhilCon I, Chick Derry and I [Bob Pavlat] were drinking with Tom Hadley of the Buffalo Book Company... we liked the looks of Hadley's drink, and ordered one from the bartender. Hadley gave the bartender the formula... the Nuclear Fizz formula. I don't know where Hadley got the drink, but fandom obtained it from Hadley.
"As to its popularization: Derry and I remembered our drink (it was ours by right of discovery, if not invention)... shortly after the CinVention, Boggs wrote that Kerkhof and I had saved his life at the con by dragging him into the bar and feeding him a drink. I don't remember whether he used the name Nuclear Fizz [yes -- ed.] but that's what it was, and if he did that was the first appearance of the name in the fan press. The occasion of the drinking was the first time any fan other than Derry or I had silped a Fizz, Boggs and Kerkhof being introduced to it simultaneously.
"The drink was introduced to the rest of WSFA after our return from the CinVention... and various WSFA members had a small Fizz party during the 1952 PhilCon." From this, and the propagandizing of WSFAns, the Nuclear Fizz spread over fandom. "Two final facts: as far as I can recall, the name Nuclear Fizz is my creation. Silping was the invention of Lee Jacobs, who perfected and named the art." -- Bob Pavlat in SPACEWARP.
Tho not a needful part of the drink, Karen Anderson's custom of putting vegetable coloring in it as a warning measure is well advised. Variations include vodka instead of gin, making a Nuclear Fuze; vodka and gin, a Nuclear Fuss.</blockquote>

http://www.sff.net/people/diccon/NOVEMBER.HTM