Schreck's Photo Diary: Unholy Yule-Time Flavor Combo

Readers, it's been too long since our last booze shopping adventure over at everybody's favorite liquor store: Schreck's Kentucky Liquor Store Drive-In! This time around the stand out product was the Old New England Chocolate Egg Nog, a bargain(?) at $5.99. I have to say, it always impresses/surprises me how fast the turnaround is at Schreck's on these pre-mixed novelty type things--there's always something new to gawk at! Whoever does the ordering there seems to try to keep things fresh by continuously replacing stock with newer, weirder offerings touting what would rightfully be considered ill-advised ingredient match-ups--do you remember the Chocovine "wine" they were selling a few months back? Euw.

According to the label, Old New England Chocolate Egg Nog is "freshly made," which is a good start I guess. Interestingly, this product does not seem to warrant its own website, so any other claims from the manufacturer are not known at the moment. I am no fan of egg nog, and though I am quite a fan of chocolate I don't see how including it into the mix could do anything other than ruin otherwise perfectly fine chocolate. What really impresses me here is how ahead of the game they are at Schreck's--how heartening it is to be looking at holiday-oriented beverages already! I've been completely over our shitty summer o' hell for several months now and any reminder of impending winter (and winter-related imbibing) is a welcome sight for me. So, just strictly based on timing, meteorological conditions, and my own emotional state, Old New England scores a point with this shopper.

However, I am calling the manufacturer out for a big missed opportunity regarding the name: if you're going to try and go for that quaint, old timey feel, for gawd's sake add an "e" to the name! "Old" egg nog just sounds gross, but "olde" egg nog adds that extra little flourish of class, wouldn't you say? A rookie mistake like that steals any possible surface cred from that suggestive little sepia pastoral scene on the label, which is kind of a shame (they probably paid some poor art student 30 bucks for that painting).

The final verdict, based solely on these observations: this product reminds me a lot of Chocovine; I would venture to put them in the same category of chocolate-plus-spirits products. So it would not be too presumptuous to assume that they are direct competitors for whatever audience there is for cheap, chocolate-infused libations (probably the cheap, holiday party-going prankster set). Thus, I would have to say that, based on slicker marketing and a more handsome, European-ish label, Chocovine would likely snag most of the customers who are in the market for alcoholic Yoo-Hoo.

Schreck's Photo Diary: $.99 Wines!*

*NO REFUNDS

Welcome to the official first part of our ongoing photo series here at MM: the Schreck's Photo Diary! On tap today is a fine selection of wines in a "Merlot" (I think), a grenadine and a strawberry margarita daiquiri. I'm not sure about the "wine" classification as it is applied here (those Jero things are clearly labeled "cocktail mix"...), but who are we to argue with professionals? I'm sure "wine" is just one of those industry jargon words that can be used as a blanket term in certain situations (like when selling jake-leg inducing swill for outrageously deep discounts).

Anyway, this sign would not have really caught my attention had it not proclaimed that there would be no refunds. Really? Who would think they could get a refund on shitty wine? And since there is no similar sign on other products in the store, could I expect to get a refund on one of them if they don't meet with my standards? I've never thought to demand repayment for something like cheap booze--or anything else, honestly. If you can't see for yourself what you're getting into with these types of products then I think you should just have to eat the 99 cents.

Mercy Missiles Presents: The Schreck's Photo Diary

Readers, it has long been a goal of us here at Mercy Missiles to find some sort of over-arching theme or vignette to include to our usual brand of hard-hitting posts about things like Louisville, Kentucky, libraries, baseball, food and drink, Abraham Lincoln, and other such exciting topics. So in the "spirit" of that sentiment, I present to you today our new, reoccurring and semi-regular column: the Schreck's Photo Diary!

Schreck's is by far my favorite place to shop for beer, wine and spirits in the city of Louisville. It's located on Newburg road, not far from where I attended college (Bellarmine University). It is the very place where I purchased, for myself, my first alcoholic beverage with my newly minted drivers license at the age of 21. It is the store that has the very best bargains on the craziest sounding, below-the-bottom-shelf potent potables that may or may not have been created, marketed and distributed in another dimension (ask me about the time I actually passed up the opportunity to purchase, for 99 cents, a 12 ounce plastic bottle of fluorescent orange "liqueur" called Television! and now, 9 years later, no amount of Googling will validate my claim that this stuff ever existed...). It is also the place that, no matter how frequently I shop there, seems to have a completely different selection of the absolute worst crap everytime I go in (think: black licorice flavoring, red dye #5, and high fructose corn syrup).

But also keep in mind that they have an astoundingly comprehensive and impressive selection of (very) fine bourbon and whiskey (they had a bottle of Sazerac rye whiskey from Buffalo Trace's elusive Antique Collection the other day), not to mention a very reliable and respectable chilled beer case selection (imports along with domestic micro brews--even some local ones). You can also watch a tiny flickering T.V., listen to the 20 year old radio, buy lottery tickets and novelty lighters and all the other accoutrement that you'd expect from a normal liquor store, but with the added excitement of finding something truly and remarkably outlandish and/or horrible for almost no money. All this in roughly the same amount of space as your average public restroom. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Schreck's Kentucky Liquor Store Drive-In!