White Mule Farms Spodee

It wasn’t the first concoction of wine and chocolate to come along but it was the one that finally got me. It’s hard to remember when the odd combination first registered in my consciousness – probably during the Nineties – but I do recall seeing chocolate-milk-colored bottles of “wine beverage” on PLCB shelves in recent years, including a conspicuous appearance at the annual Taste festival in King of Prussia – one in the cavalcade of offenses witnessed that day.

I was snagged by Spodee, a fortified wine with chocolate flavoring. According to its marketers, it’s the modernized version of ubiquitous, homemade wines made in post-Prohibition America, spiked by moonshine and other spicy or herbed stir-ins. The stuff is created by Brotherhood Winery in New York’s Hudson Valley, the country’s oldest winery – so they claim.

It was probably the container: Wine colored liquid in a retro-styled milk bottle. The unexpected yield of familiar packaging.

Much the same can be said of the contents. Once freed, the alcohol puts off a chocolate-soaked, cough syrupy aroma. Less a sense of wine than liqueur.

Spodee can be taken straight, over ice or with mixers. Once in the glass, it’s medium bodied with the opaque, cranberry coloring of a Pinot Noir. On the palate, it initially conjures a Port – in the way today’s Jack Nicholson resembles his Five Easy Pieces incarnation.

What follows is turbo-sweetness, heat (18% alcohol) and an injection of pure liquid Tootsie Roll. Again, the medium is familiar but the experience throws a curve – like cake icing from a tube of toothpaste.

I asked my wife to taste it blind and she winced visibly as it went down, declaring it “overwhelming.” She was having no more.

Following the bottle’s neck-hanger instructions, I mixed the stuff with cola (in my case, “throwback” Pepsi made with “real” sugar) and the result was a dense and muddied blend. I can’t say I’m a convert.

Having had it straight up and on ice, Pepsi-fied, I’m indifferent. Sure, it might sell well behind the bar at Johnny Brenda’s but, to me, it’s a gimmicky cocktail mix. Despite its current (and relatively painless) $7.99 price point in Pennsylvania, I would’ve been happier putting the cash toward a reasonably priced Tawny Port. For now, I’ll take the cola and leave the Spodee for the guy with the Rollie Fingers ‘stache and the too-skinny jeans.