Artisanal Liqueur Jumps The Shark With Spodee!

Do you plan your cocktail hour 20 days in advance? Are you just cuckoo for quasi-historical alcoholic novelties? Be honest now… Have you been pining for a wine-like beverage that both your hipster and hillbilly friends can feel equally patriotic about?

If you answered yes to any of those questions, mark May 9 on your calendar. Because according to a press release I received this afternoon, that will be your first chance to catch a whiff of Spodee. Well, the attached invitation actually requested an RSVP, so you might have to arrive impersonating a member of the food media, but that’s not hard. Just show up rubbing your gut and arguing about ramen.

But anyway, back to Spodee. The press release is… is… oh, fuck it. Years from now, when pop-culture historians are trying to zero in on the moment when the artisanal liqueur business finally jumped the shark, they could not land on a richer document. Check it out, in all its exclamation-pointed glory:

I hope you can join me on May 9th, for the launch of Spodee!  Spodee isn’t your average wine; it is a wine fortified with high proof moonshine, that you mix into cocktails, like a spirit!

Historically inspired Spodee harkens back to a Depression era hooch that was a deceptively strong, sweet, easy-to drink beverage made from a mix of country wine and whatever else was lying around the farm-fruits, herbs, spices and of course moonshine. Typically, it was made in trashcans or bathtubs and served at parties and backwoods get-togethers. This version is a potent 36 proof and comes in an old timey milk bottle. The kind the milk man used to deliver! Spodee will become available for purchase in PA and NJ stores in early May.

I know what you’re thinking: Dude, how could I have I dropped my last $22 to get Hipstamatic in time for the Rolly Derby doubleheader when I could have spent it on this?!?

I mean, what could be more awesome than “country wine” and moonshine mixed with “whatever else was lying around”? Um, duh: Country wine and all that shit mixed up in a trashcan! And delivered in old timey milk bottles! By a milk man who, even at this very moment, is heading next door to bonk the neighbor’s wife after a splash of Spodee and OJ.  Or “Spodee N’ Sody,” because as the website says: “Cola, sasparila [sic], orange, cream… Is there a soda pop flavor Spodee doesn’t mix well with?”

Now, I can’t yet attest to how Spodee tastes. But come on, does that even matter for a fortified wine that’s got its own trucker hat?

By this point everyone knows (or should know) that liquor companies distill nothing quite so skillfully as marketing mythology. But you’ve got to give it to Spo-Dee-O-Dee, LLC. It’s one thing to spin yarns about beret-wearing Alp dwellers handpicking blossoms to make elderflower liqueur. It’s quite another to work that mojo on a beverage that sounds like nothing quite so much as wine-cooler concentrate.