’Net Junkie
We were college-age kids who never bothered to get a college education, working minimum-wage jobs by day and looking for the cheapest way to forget our lot in life by night. The bachelor pad I shared was proudly ornamented with large, 40-ounce beer bottles as a sort of absurd memorial to our heedless existence. A steel gut, two bucks and a state ID were all we needed. Malt liquor would get us through our 20s. Memories of malt liquor
Although I don't -- or can't -- drink it like I used to, I'm not ashamed to admit I still have a soft spot for the high-octane, lowbrow potion. Olde English, Mickey's, St. Ides, King Cobra, Schlitz, whatever. It's cheap, strong and readily available. Unfortunately, it's also one of the most repellent drinks you could possibly ingest.
So why these personal confessions in a column that's supposed to be about the Internet? Check out www.geocities.com /NapaValley/3108, http://users.vnet.net/confused/MALT.HTM and http://music.dartmouth.edu/~kov/links/maltLiquor.html for humorous tributes to the beverage some affectionately refer to as "liquid crack." Judging by the amount of typos, fumbled sentences and bleary-eyed frat-boy photos on these sites, it's a good bet these guys were tanked while creating them.
I should mention that the language used on these sites is crude, like the hyphenated expletives I once spat up after taking a swig of Storm, a discontinued drink whose vile flavor hovered somewhere between rotten wine and stale beer. Of course, no one drinks this stuff for its palate-pleasing properties. The golden rule, according to these sites, is: "Don't sip; gulp." The only thing that tastes worse than a cheap 40 is a cheap, WARM 40!
At www.straightdope.com /mailbag/mmalt.html, malt liquor devotee Todd D. wonders why people look down on the drink:"If people drank malt liquor out of crystal champagne glasses instead of brown paper bags, this country would be dotted with trendy malt liquor brew-pubs and malt liquor cigar bars. Then who would be the fool?" To which Straight Dope replies: "If you've got a bud whose idea of quality in alcoholic beverages is (1) it's cheap! and (2) it'll get you drunk faster! ... well, you may cherish this person, but he or she will probably not be the first person you'd think of to take to the palace to meet the queen, you know what I'm saying?"
Net Junkie drops every Monday.
Contact Shawn "Speedy" Lopes at slopes@starbulletin.com.