Crappy Consumer Reports: Cheap Booze Taste Test
A comedy article
by Randall Cleveland  43,809  9
08/03/2009 10:37 PM 63634 views
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The economy might still be in shambles, but that doesn't change the fact that you've still got financial obligations to meet. You need a reliable car. You need comprehensive health insurance. You need to be able to get blind drunk, and you need it on the cheap.
That's where I and my panel of objective, dedicated judges come in. We're rating the best-tasting cheap booze across the three main branches of alcohol: beer, wine, and malt liquor. We'll taste for quality, but more importantly we'll rate for price.
Ironically, the drinks at this place are overpriced.
The panel: When my friends Sandy and Jackie called me up asking about my plans for the weekend, I realized I had the perfect volunteers to judge this taste test. Not only were they avid consumers of beer, but they were fun to hang out with and had an extra bed I could crash in. When I ran it by Sandy I mentioned I had to rate the three categories of beer, malt liquor, and wine; I asked which we should try.
"Why not all three?" he replied with an almost adorably-nafve confidence. We were in it to win it.
It's comforting to shop at a liquor store that's been around since Prohibition.
The selection process: Local grocery stores carried too many imports and priced things at a too-respectable level. The local wine shop gave me a disappointed frown when I asked where I would find the cheap stuff. Even Wal-Mart, bastion of cheap-ass redneck fuel, carried mostly Budweiser-related products. No, if we were to really inform you, my dear ignorant consumer, it had to be the corner liquor store.
Since we were tackling all three types of hooch at once, I took some time to acclimate myself to the store (which, sadly, frowned on my camera). The place smelled like a nursing home: cigarettes and stale urine. The fluorescent light accented the bags under everyone's eyes. While I stood at the door to the fridge eyeing my options, a line four deep formed behind me.
"Oh, sorry guys, have at it," I said as I ducked aside. I tripped as I stepped on someone's two-year-old. I immediately apologized to the little guy.
"He's fine," his obese mother/guardian/possible abductor told me. She handed him a few 40 oz bottles to carry, and they were off.
A model mom.
The goal here was to be as frugal as possible, so with the beer I limited myself to a ceiling of $1.19. This actually allowed me to be pretty selective, and I soon had three options. Because comedy comes in threes. Also, because I wanted to limit my consumption of Shakespearety beer tallboys as much as possible.
I figured things would pick up in price from there, but the malt liquor was actually cheaper on average, and I didn't even have to crack the 99-cent mark for each of my three reviews here.
Wine was a little different, as even notoriously-affordable Boone's Farm had risen to a respectable $2.29 since the last time I had bought it. That would've been 1996, when I was 15, so I figured that was an acceptable adjustment for inflation. I had my three higher-priced but higher-classed wines selected, and I made the three separate trips to the counter to lug all my alcohol up.
"Oh, honey," the kind old Indian woman behind the counter clucked, "this is what the winos buy."
"Really? I'm doing a review of the best booze for your buck. I'm going to try these to see which is the best." She didn't seem to believe me. "I'm going to have help drinking all this, though. Don't worry."
"Honey, is someone paying you to do this?"
"Well, sorta. They're paying for the alcohol." She quickly carded me. I assume she was checking if my license had some sort of restriction for mental impairment. Convinced that I wasn't taking all this out to some guy in a windowless van, she gave me her expert opinion.
Note 17.5% alcohol content. Later, my blood alcohol level would also approach 17.5%.
"Listen, I'll tell you what's what," she held up one of the tallboys. "They buy this because it's cheap," she set it down and grabbed a bottle of Thunderbird, "they buy this because it Frosts them up for five dollars," she smiled and grabbed my Wild Cherry Boone's Farm, "and they buy this because girls like it."
"Do you think it'll help me get girls?"
She eyed my wedding ring with a knowing suspicion. "No. It won't."
With that informative lecture and a box full o' booze, I was off to Sandy and Jackie's to begin sampling. Little did I know what I was in for. Keep reading for Part 2.
Next: The Best Cheap Beers!
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Like This? Rate It!
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Hilarious
28 votes
4.2
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Funny
1 votes
3.0
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John Hargrave 116,629  19
08/03/2009 10:39 PM
This article made me laugh.
It also made me thirsty.
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0 votes
0.0
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Maruti Driver. With healthy nuts! 349 6
08/03/2009 10:49 PM
Don't forget to try those wine bags that come in a cardboard box.
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0 votes
0.0
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Maruti Driver. With healthy nuts! 349 6
08/03/2009 11:00 PM
Oh, and I once saw a liquor store selling little baggies of whiskey, tequila and rum, for about 75 cents (of us dollar). See if you can stomach those, I'm sure they must be foul.
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0 votes
0.0
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Your What?! Hurts? 2,691 5
08/03/2009 11:31 PM
Anyone got the number of the preggo chick? She's hot, and is clearly a cheap date. Plus her kids can get us some more booze.
Nice article, by the way.
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Hilarious
1 votes
4.0
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peoriagrace 5,962 9
08/04/2009 01:59 AM
WTF is that sign in the first picture? The one that says OFF
LICENCE
ON
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Hilarious
1 votes
4.0
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Alarm Clock the Pretired Robot 5,980 4
08/04/2009 03:55 AM
WTF is that sign in the first picture? The one that says OFF
LICENCE
ON
I think it's U.K. speak for "this liquor store is open". A tip for easier translating: On is translated to Open, and also spelled Open in both versions.
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0 votes
0.0
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Reverend Dave Rodriguez 2,330 0
08/04/2009 04:41 AM
I am a true drunk, I need no review. For beer, it must be the one and only 'High Gravity' malt liquor, at 8.2 percent alcohol in a 22 oz. and there is always at least one place in any town selling it for 99 cents per can(Not to be confused with 211, which is a Poe-ass 8.1% alcohol).
Wine would be good 'ol Two Buck Chuck, or Charles Shaw wine at Trader Joes.
Something that can not really be classified would be Mad Dog 20/20, or MD 20/20, which has something like over 20% alcohol content for under 5 bucks.
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0 votes
0.0
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Azeroth Exile 127 1
08/04/2009 04:45 AM
I love this idea. My second year in college (2000) I had a good strong core of drinking buddies and we all preferred beer over liquor or wine. We actually broke out the calculators and figured the cheapest beer (that we could ingest without melting our stomach lining - no Busch or Natural Ice). Stroh's beer was 51 cents per can in the suitcase (can't remember if Stroh's was an 18 or 24) and PBR was 53 cents per each (in a 24 case).
Damn, I love PBR. For a cheap beer, it tastes like sweet nectar.
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0 votes
0.0
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peoriagrace 5,962 9
08/04/2009 10:43 AM
Whoops, open not on my bad. That sign looks like it doesn't light up.
The cheapest way to get drunk; be a cute or pretty girl. Then it's free. Just watch out for the octopusses.
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Funny
3 votes
3.3
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Randall Cleveland 43,809 9
08/04/2009 04:03 PM
Hargrave pointed out the irony of having an old Indian woman advising me on booze at the liquor store, but sadly she was Gandhi not Geronimo. Still, I'm going to suggest they change their name to Old Indian Spirits Guides.
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Funny
3 votes
3.0
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Whistler P. McManus 141,677 23
08/04/2009 08:29 PM
I haven't had any alcohol since 1990, but in the 15 years prior to that, I was almost always looking for a budget buzz.
I believe it was the summer of 1982, and I was sharing a big old run-down house in upstate New York with six or eight other guys. We drank Carlo Rossi wine from gallon jugs, Schmidts beer, Mad Dog 20/20, and whatever else we could scrounge up on the cheap. Then the local supermarked had a sale on a beer called Old Fort Schuyler. It was $4.99 a case. 24 twelve ounce bottles for $4.99. That's less than twenty one cents each. We pooled our resources, filled a couple of shopping carts and brought it home.
There were three toilets in that house. The next morning, we found out that three was not enough. Everyone had a case of the runs. We tried to chalk it up to whatever we had eaten the night before, because we still had a lot of "Fort" left, but after four or five days of continued experimentation, there was no denying it. Fort gives you the Shakespeares.
A year later, I came down with a ferocious case of colitis which I left untreated for a month, and truly, my bowels have never been the same since. This may or may not be fair, but I have always blamed that week with the Old Fort Schuyler beer for my troubles.
Everything has its price.
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Funny
2 votes
3.0
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The Dwork in Woodworking 979 4
08/05/2009 05:03 AM
Sounds kind of like our college go-to, the tactfully misnamed Milwaukee's Best, which spawned the phrase, "When you ain't Shakespearetin' right, you've just had Milwaukee's Best Light."
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Hilarious
2 votes
4.0
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Frogpop 155,678 12
08/06/2009 08:05 AM
This article was promising until I found out that Sandy is a dude.
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Funny
1 votes
3.0
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Cyco Chainsaw Massacre 9,095 6
10/13/2009 12:42 AM
I gotta lay off the Thunderbird. I swear I'm seeing weather charts up in here.
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0 votes
0.0
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Lenni Pooklan 0 1
10/20/2009 11:06 AM
Cool!
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0 votes
0.0
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Delicious & British, it's Marmite! 5,619 5
10/20/2009 09:23 PM
Long time no see you Frosters. (HI!)
I drank rice wine many years ago, bought from a proper Chinese shop, and it came in small plastic bags. That's hardcore.
And yes it ripped me right off my little 16 year old titties.
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0 votes
0.0
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Amityville Ravos 34,425 10
10/20/2009 09:32 PM
I still have some Soju someone brought me from Korea. It comes in these small, juice-box sized boxes. I could drink it on the bus and nobody would have any idea apart from the smell and the look on my face from the vile drink.
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Chuckleworthy
1 votes
2.0
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Delicious & British, it's Marmite! 5,619 5
10/21/2009 01:49 AM
and the piss-stained trousers, puke dribbled shirt and wild roving eyes didn't blow your cover....? Wino.
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0 votes
0.0
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okokino 0 1
01/08/2010 02:55 PM
It is a very nice picture, may I use it at my SEO blog?
online films smotret
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0 votes
0.0
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TimmyTheTalkingToilet 11,543 13
01/09/2010 03:07 AM
Somehow I don't see this ending well.
It reminded me of the times that I was drinking Old Crow straight, and drinking the 40s of malt liquor, just to see how bad it actually was.
Oh and you forgot to get some Steel Reserve while you were at it.
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