Days of Fortified Wine and Malt Liquor

The late teens and early twenties are when you make your more "adult" type mistakes. It's your first experience with the kind of freedom that marks the rest of your life. But you also still have a lot of residual immaturity and poor impulse control of childhood, couple that with the complete inability to recognize those things and that's a recipe for disaster.

My mom told me recently, "In your early twenties, I was afraid you had a drinking problem."
I said, "Nah, I was just in my early twenties."
I was a bit more inexperienced by the time I had turned 20 than most people I knew. I had gotten puke-encrusted drunk when I was 16 and I actually heeded my day after promise to NEVER DRINK AGAIN! For a year or so. In that time all my friends got a lot better at it, but I caught up eventually.

This led to questionable decision, like drinking fortified wine; Sisco to be exact. I only drank it a few times, but those were the times when I did the things that I wouldn't take responsibility for (until I discovered Gin and Tonics). Once I bought some at a 7-11 and the guy behind me said, "Sisco? That stuff made me quit drinking." If someone said that to me now, I would probably get something else. But then:"All Right!"
Two hours later, I was trying to unhook a friend's front-hook bra with my teeth- with her consent- 20 feet from the front door at a bar that I had expected my girlfriend show up at any second.

Malt Liquor was a much more gentle mistress. Sometimes I still will drink a Mickey's to revisit my misty watercolor memories, but it vividly illustrates how much more sophisticated my palette now. Mickey's was one of the only malt liquors that didn't have some sort of "wink, wink" marketing. Colt 45 had Billy Dee-of course- but a lot of their names had parody built right in: Crazy Horse, King Cobra, Power Cylinder, Hurricane and Haffenreffer (you even say it, you sound drunk). Eventually they went too far with the menthol flavored ones, but I still gave it a try. One word review:Yikes!

It got a lot easier to buy this stuff after I turned 21 and not just because of the legality of it. I could never talk any of the people that bought beer for me to be seen buying King Cobra (my all-time favorite).

Sometimes, even now, I'll pick up a forty because it was a good ration size for staying out of trouble and it's a fantastic conversation piece. Once, at a pool party, my friend Jay and I got 40's and somebody said, "Wow, 40's!"
I said, "Yep, we're not messin' around."
A few minutes later, someone else said, "You guys aren't messin' around!"
I said, "Glad to see the word's getting out."

Awesome Parody (NSFW)

Update: I went to to store right after posting this and found a 40 of KING F'N COBRA! I bought it and it went down smooth. Or as smooth as it ever did.