The Great Real Ale and Gin Hoax: Why Taste Has Nothing to Do With It

Our distinctive blend marries the crisp, honeyed citrus fruit of Chenin Blanc with the plush body, soft floral and juicy peach notes of Viognier for a lush, versatile and delicious wine. What does that even mean? Here’s another one. Barefoot Cabernet Sauvignon is a jammy wine with robust flavours of wild berries and currants. Hints of toasted oak and clove enhance the velvety smooth finish. It sounds like something I would use to paint the walls or wash my hair. I grew up on a council estate in Reddish Stockport called Poets Corner and then moved to a working-class mining community called Ogmore Vale. You don’t drink wine in these places. Posh people drink wine. People like us do things like this. There is a story in the fabulous book Mindful Eating by Brian Wansink, where a WWII cook on board a naval vessel told the crew he was going to pick up some strawberry jello the next time they were in port because they were fed up with eating lemon jello. Upon arrival at the harbour there was no strawberry jello, so the chef adding red food colouring to the lemon jello and placed it on the menu as strawberry jello. The sailors thanked him for picking up the strawberry jello. There are many reasons we eat and drink the things we do, and ‘taste’ is a minimal part of the equation. In the same Wansink classic, he demonstrated if you gave cheap wine, an expensive label, and placed it on a fancy looking menu, in an expensive restaurant, people would rate the quality higher than expensive wine, with a cheap label, on an affordable menu, in a dive of a restaurant. Drinking wine is a status gig, and marketers of wine know this. The rituals of swilling and spitting, the wine rack at home, the hobby of collecting expensive bottles, the trips to Napa Valley - it’s all geared up to say one thing to your friends - I am a person who knows my wine, and that means I am a sophisticated human being (more sophisticated than you). But it’s difficult for the wine industry to impregnate the working class structure. The only wine we drink is three bottles for a tenner down the off because of the price. Step forward and take a bow the real ale and gin industries. These geniuses have tapped into the smarts of the wine industry to create two ranges of products that the working class can act all cool and hard while drinking. The same rules apply. People like us do things like this. The same illusion exists. It’s all a lie. We don’t drink alcohol because we like the taste of real ale or one of a thousand flavoured gins that light up the bar like an acid trip, and that’s the topic of today’s podcast. The Truth About Alcohol We Are Not Alcoholics, and We Refuse to Be Anonymous Join Us & Our Community TTAA Taster: http://www.thetruthaboutalcohol.co.uk/p/TTAA%20Taster TTAA Intensive: https://www.thetruthaboutalcohol.co.uk/p/TTAAIntensive Strive Community: https://strive.thetruthaboutalcohol.co.uk/