Heads or Tails #122 -- Sweet

In this morning's Heads or Tails, we can discourse on either "sweet" or "sour." Because I am a registered Curmudgeon, Barb and any other occasional HoT visitors might have guessed that (were I to participate... my record is somewhat spotty of late) I would surely choose "sour." But always do the unexpected; that's my motto. That, and keep one eye on the door in case you have to run away. But enough about mottoes; time now for the bitter to write about the sweet....

Soda pop wine. These were sold, at one time, and I would assume still are sold, as wine coolers.

When the public health authorities get serious about curbing alcohol abuse by persons too young to drink, the focus should be on soda pop wines.

When I was but a lad, these were the drink of choice, particularly among the girls my age, for those interested in getting blotto on a Summer afternoon.

Someday the researchers will figure out, after spending oodles of government money, that children are attracted to sweets. As we age -- as those critical synapses link up -- our taste in sweets changes. As a child, I would spit out dark chocolate as too bitter; now I far prefer it over any other kind.

Our tastes change in general: A good scotch tastes like poison to one too young to drink it (instinct, I believe) -- and like the "water of life" (that it truly is) to one old enough to appreciate it.

I seem to recall experimenting with soda pop wines at some point in the course of my misspent youth. They were too icky, sicky sweet for me even then. I remembered what my grandmother told me: "When I take a drink, I want to know there's liquor in it." Southern Comfort tasted like there was liquor in it, surely, but even that was too, too sweet for me. My tastes in those days, such as they were, went to bourbon -- much sweeter than scotch. I'm quite sure that, owing to these youthful experiments, some of the synapses that should have gotten hooked up in my own cranium remained disconnected.

At least that's my excuse now.

I'm unhappy looking in the mirror these days. I complain that, in family photographs, some old guy has been Photoshopped in wherever I was sitting. But there is at least one advantage to maturity: We outgrow any taste for soda pop wines.