Malt Liquor
 

When I was a poor young college student, we bought the best beer we could afford, which wasn't much. Fort Schuyler was $2.99 a case and Canadian Ace was $0.69 for what looked like a half gallon. Both were putrid and you had to drink a lot to get a buzz and that usually meant driving the porcelain bus later in the evening. Consequently, we looked for bang for the buck and that often meant malt liquor. Colt 45 would have been a splurge. Schlitz had a brand that was also beyond my means most Friday nights. The drink of choice was Haffenreffer Private Stock. Back in the day, it only came in 16 oz bottles. It was nicknamed "green death" and "green meanies". I think the alcohol content was around 7% and a six would leave you in the gutter. I remember occasionally looking for a fellow student to split a six pack with.

Today I hear the term "high gravity" and the prices match the gravity in many cases. Yes, the ones I've tasted are far superior to any malt liquor I used to drink. You could almost picture the Falstaff brewers dipping a live skunk in the vat. I drink beer for the taste today and haven't had a malt liquor in 30 years at least. Would any FTer step forward and admit to drinking one in the last year?

Party hearty! Drink a 40!**

**One brand of malt Liquor came in a 40 ounce bottle.

I suspect few if any FTers are familiar with ML, the province of a cultural subset which normally consumes them standing, outdoors, leaning against a building wall, the bottle in a paper sack. Simply "beer" brewed close to the alcohol level allowed by state law for the next category of alcoholic beverage, and not brewed for discriminating palates only alcoholic appetites.

From ML, the next move up is to "Thunderbird" or "Mad Dog 20/20" (non-vintage, screw top, modest price).

The folks at Delaware's Dogfish Head Craft Brewery half-jokingly brewed a craft malt liquor at one time.

Details on the defunct "Liquor De Malt" are from their website.

Gotta admit I haven't had it in quite a bit longer than a year, but I am quite familiar with Mickey's Big Mouth -- very efficient for getting wasted fast.

Cheers,
T.

I think it's certainly more than "few if any".

I don't think I've drank malt liquor since high school, when we would occasionally find someone with an older sibling to buy us some 40's of Big Bear.

College was a lot of cheap beer (Natty Light, Keystone Light, Mil Best Light, etc.)

agreed

Yes Sir, and the "old school" Mickey's had that horrible pull top lid design that almost every time Mickey's was being drunk, someone would slice their thumb. I saw some Mickey's the other day, same bottle design but the top is one big screwtop.

I would if I had, it just seems that malt liquor is not the drink of choice nowadays.

Other cheap beers:
Rhinelander (HAVE to collect the bottles to get the case deposit back!!)
Grain Belt
Falstaff
Red, White & Blue

But then Stroh's came out with the 15 pack vrs the 12 (as well as a 30pack vrs the typical case size). If price was the same, Stroh's was bought, after all, more beers !!

My holy trinity was:

• Buckhorn
• Schlitz
• Blatz

Cheers,
T.

oh yeah!

it all begins and ends with the crooked I, st. ides malt liquor! 8.2% alcohol.

cheers! *clink*

:stepping forward:

I've got several bottles of Red Horse in my fridge - Philippines finest malt liquor.

Singha and Chang are also malt liquors.

+1 for Mickey's Big Mouth

I think that this is pretty well marketed for malt liqour, and it made you look while drinking it. Well, maybe not. But, it was college, so you took what you could get.

This is quite a coincidence...after reading this thread, I had an email form a friend to an nytimes article that in the first paragraph mentions Red Horse. Two completely un-related references to something totally random that I've never heard of and within 10 min of each other :D

ML must be paired with a suitable low-end fortified wine. The more sugar and artificial flavoring the better. ;)

I'm amazed! All these suave and sophisticated up-scalers 'fessing up to have drunk malt Liquor in the penurious days of their youth. Elelavte "few" to almost "many" FTers.

Cheap beers? In Texas, 1950s, back then dominated by Lone Star & Pearl, at 7-11s, Muehlbach and Southern Select were among the cheapest overall, but the chain of convenience stores used to offer "Specials", Regal and Edelweiss (Both from KC?) at $ .78 - $ .89 a sixpack, steel cans, church key required. Shiner (Bock only) was cheaper then then LS or Pearl, no cult status and with a narrow spectrum of convicted guzzlers, mostly older from Middle/Eastern European communities.

"Micky's" must have been among the original "easy opens", a pioneer of pull-tabbery.

My church key still hangs from an old key ring, and somewhere I've a couple of old Shiner wooden hulls for returnables.

Ah yes. There was a time when Annie Green Springs was the nectar of the gods. Boones Farm was a slightly less palatable alternative.:)