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American folk culture: Street wine


Don Giovanni

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American folk culture: Street wine

Click On Me

Could this correlate to the high rate in alc.'s now and the economy...???>...

Street wines, born of the Great Depression, are an integral part of American folk culture, appearing in many songs, movies and television shows. These beverages, popularly known as hooch, are inexpensive fortified wines that usually include added sugar, colorings and flavorings among their ingredients. They typically contain from 15-20% alcohol by volume, which is a lot of bang for the buck. Let’s take a look at these cultural curiosities. There are five dominant brands in the U.S. market.
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So that's what hooch really means.

I like fortified wines for a lot of reasons -- taste, tradition, value, etc. I've never had one from a can and I don't recognize the ones in the Examiner article except for Bright's Dry Sherry. There was a recall a few years ago.

Peter Gamble aka "Peter the eater"

I just made a cornish game hen with chestnut stuffing. . .

Would you believe a pigeon stuffed with spam? . . .

Would you believe a rat filled with cough drops?

Moe Sizlack

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So that's what hooch really means.

I like fortified wines for a lot of reasons -- taste, tradition, value, etc. I've never had one from a can and I don't recognize the ones in the Examiner article except for Bright's Dry Sherry. There was a recall a few years ago.

It's a good thing they did find this , it's a slow way to go...

Ethyl carbamate

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Studies with rats, mice, and hamsters has shown that urethane will cause cancer when it is administered orally, injected, or applied to the skin, but no adequate studies of urethane-caused cancer in humans has been reported (IARC,1974). The International Agency for Research on Cancer has stated that urethane can be “reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen based on sufficient evidence of carcinogenicity in experimental animals.” (NTP 2005). This evaluation has led to the following US regulatory actions:
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So that's what hooch really means.

I like fortified wines for a lot of reasons -- taste, tradition, value, etc. I've never had one from a can and I don't recognize the ones in the Examiner article except for Bright's Dry Sherry. There was a recall a few years ago.

It's a good thing they did find this , it's a slow way to go...

Ethyl carbamate

Click On me

Studies with rats, mice, and hamsters has shown that urethane will cause cancer when it is administered orally, injected, or applied to the skin, but no adequate studies of urethane-caused cancer in humans has been reported (IARC,1974). The International Agency for Research on Cancer has stated that urethane can be “reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen based on sufficient evidence of carcinogenicity in experimental animals.” (NTP 2005). This evaluation has led to the following US regulatory actions:

Is this problem a function of the drink itself, or because the makers are producing large quantities of inexpensive product? There are plenty of $50+ fortified wines out there -- are they equally susceptible?

Or do you simply get what you pay for?

Peter Gamble aka "Peter the eater"

I just made a cornish game hen with chestnut stuffing. . .

Would you believe a pigeon stuffed with spam? . . .

Would you believe a rat filled with cough drops?

Moe Sizlack

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  • 2 weeks later...

Ah yes, one of my favorite overheard conversations on a street in San Francisco, years ago: A man taking a big swig from a bottle in brown paper handed to him, "Don't make me drink this! You know it makes me crazy!"

I think factors as to why this is an American phenomenon are the tax structure and liquor laws. In a number of places it is easier to buy wine than hard liquor and isn't fortified wine taxed more like unfortified wine than distilled spirits? Maybe in other countries table wine is so inexpensive you might as well drink that if you are "on a budget".

In my younger days we preferred various flavors of Cribbari (sp?) because of the photo of Papa Cribbari on the bottle and because the flair in the neck kept it from slipping through your grasp.

As an old song says, "I just don't feel well without Muscatel".

It's almost never bad to feed someone.

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