Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Cherry nice indeed


Lots of songs over the years mention cherry wine or strawberry wine. But does this actually exist? I've never seen it in Morrison's. I don't believe such a thing is real. I think it's just convenient for songs, it's heady and exotic and forbidden. But you can't buy it anywhere. Unless you know different.

Surely they don't mean cherry brandy. It reminds me of my grandma, a real old people's drink. And revolting to boot. No one's going to be delightfully intoxicated and amorous after a few glasses of that. More like piles of red sick outside the social club after overdosing on Mon Cheri.

13 comments:

Phil Norman said...

Planning a Jermaine Stewart evening chez F-C? Ooh la la!

Perhaps it was actually 'sherry wine', ie. sherry, with the superfluous 'wine' added to help the line scan, in the same way Omar invites us to 'sip a glass of cold champagne wine'?

So, Emva Cream all round. (Or should it be Dry Fly?)

A Kitten in a Brandy Glass said...

I have often wondered the same thing. I guessed they didn't mean they were drinking Cherry B (wonder if you can still get that?), and assumed it was something homemade that you drink out in the country (i.e. when you're miles from the nearest offy).

However, it turns out that a fair amount of fruit wine is available in the USA, which might explain it, but it still sounds fairly horrid and granny-centric to me.

Jon Peake said...

Sherry's not very rock and roll though is it.

Tommy James and the Shondells did Sweet Cherry Wine, so there must be something in it.

Jon Peake said...

Look at all that wine - and cherry wine too!

I might have to buy some.

Not sure about apple pie wine though. I'm bilious at the thought.

Suzy Norman said...

Creme de Cassis is made from cherries. This can be added to wine to make a 'kir' or champagne to make a 'kir royale'. I often add a drop to some borked plonk to give it that extra je ne regrette rien. Perhaps that's what they were talking about? After all, good wine never used to be so readily available did it?

A Kitten in a Brandy Glass said...

No, creme de cassis is made of blackcurrants. It's like a classy Ribena.

Suzy Norman said...

Creme de Cerise is cherries. Damn liqueur world is so confusing. Perhaps they ran out of Cassis and opted for Cerise instead.
Love to be a fly on the wall at Jermaine's party when the Cassis ran out.

Clair said...

I saw some coconut beer in a pub in Walthamstow the other week; too nasty to even contemplate late in the evening.

Mondo said...

There were several 'Happy Shopper' type places near me that used to sell fruit wines, all with a large print picture of a fruit on the front depending on the flavour- peach, plum and I think cherry too.

But these were the 'fortified' type, and shelved next to Thunderbird (blue and red), Old Steamer (20%!!! strength) and MD 20/20 in it's Slush Puppy style flavours - so don't know if fortified counts (a bit like Barley Wine)

There's a lovely pub near the Hope and Anchor that sells loads of fruit beers - most are delish.

Kolley Kibber said...

I've had a sparkling strawberry wine that I bought from a shop at Lulworth Cove. It was surprisingly nice; like a light cocktail that you could swig straight from the bottle as soon as you got outside the shop.

Jon Peake said...

I'm not a lover of fruit-flavouried alcohol. Grand Marnier makes me wretch.

I can just about stretch to an Amaretto.

I don't like beer with fruit, I'm not a fan of fizzy drinks generally and never have been. As a child, I only drank water.

I've broadened my horizons, but they don't include fruity beers or Hoegaarden, which is vile.

Matthew Rudd said...

Tom, son-in-law of Reginald Perrin, would know all about this.

Tim Worthington said...

Three possible theories I have long mulled over:

1) Cherry Wine is actually the wine used in that there Christian practice of communion; this would tie in with a) it not tasting like any other wine in the known universe, and b) the pesudo-religious overtones Tommy James & The Shondells were fond of at the time; indeed, on the lyric sheet of the original LP, the line is printed as "Sweet Cherry Wine, to altar your mind". Hmmm.

2) Tommy James and his merry minstrels were making some sort of a coded reference to some way in which LSD was covertly distributed in those days, for example, possibly on little card squares bearing innocuous illustrations of fruit machine-esque cherries, on a frequency so high that it could only be detected by dogs and Charles Manson.

3) Jermaine Stewart was a halfwit. And resembled a cross between Dwayne Dibley and the piano player off Ragtime.

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