¶ Alcopop Nostalgia and Early Tastes
For all my tired and tested folk, this is the place to be. If you went from perky tits to killing nits, then listen to me, to me, to me on my pumpkin. Fake a blast, oh! Fake a blast, find the best! Fake a blast, fake a blast, oh! some X-Factor vibes there babe you really went for it I could just see your mum and dad I could see Sandra and Morris standing at the side of the stage going she gets it from us I was trying to do my best my best easy good easy good
This week, I thought, because it was sunny yesterday, and that hasn't really happened, has it, over summer? And as I was sitting out in the garden, I thought to myself, oh, do you know what? I could just fancy, just as the temperature was just quite right. A Bacardi Breezer. I mean, personally, not sure I was thinking the same thing at the same time, but you know.
The orange one, an orange Bacardi Breezer, because it was, I would say, like a nice little happy medium between a melted Calippo and an alcoholic beverage. And I thought, oh, that is what it was like. a melted calippo exactly what it was a melted calippo with a bit of booze in and i quite like a bit of rum um even now as an adult i'm just half pirate um so i would i could i could have gone for that i mean it's raining today obviously um because you can't have more than one
consecutive day of sun in the uk do we think we are australia absolutely not know your fucking place english people but yeah so now now i'm back on a coffee but um i tell you what on a sunny day bacardi breezes that's where it's at um but it did get me thinking about all those old classics that we used to drink behind the bike sheds. What age do you think you were when you last had a Bacardi Breezer?
Oh, I don't even know if they still make them. Probably 15, 15, 16. That was probably it. It was probably that they probably not allowed to make them anymore because they were fluorescent, weren't they? And I imagine probably the same properties that were in them were actually the same as what was in Sunny Delight.
And so they had to take the beta carotene out of everything because everyone was just walking around jaundice. A Bacardi Brisa was the first drink that my... dad bought and put in the fridge for me when it was when it was an occasion when there was a special occasion I remember he would get a couple of Bacardi Breezers and I was like oh my god oh my god I've got Bacardi Breezers oh my god guys i'm so cool my dad used to let me have a shandy when i was about eight
You look back at some of the things that happened when you were a child. It's like, oh God, no, I don't think I'd do that now as a parent. Steve's been drinking non-alcoholic beer of late. He's on a bit of a health kick. He's on a health kick. He's given up the booze, but he is still drinking non-alcoholic.
beer and I personally I don't see the point I know that you bought me non-alcoholic alcohol no yes yes you know that's the way around is it non-alcohol alcohol when I was pregnant with Nate and I was a bit like oh thanks but I just I I'd just have a glass of water, do you know what I mean? I don't see the point, to be honest. It wasn't just any non-alcoholic alcohol. It was a really, really exceptionally well-made non-alcoholic margarita mixers. Yeah, it was. But still, no kick.
it was there was yeah there's no there's very little point to a mug unless it's got a hefty dose of tequila in it you know i mean then you're just kind of just drinking lime juice and and and that's it really lime juice and and water isn't it really so um you may as well just have a calippo fair fair um so Bacardi Breezers uh were very much like a melt calippo also what about what about a reef
I couldn't have too many reefs because they'd give me the shits. Well, they were more like a sunny delight, weren't they? Well, they were just pure orange juice and vodka, I think, weren't they? So you couldn't have too many of them. Just go right through me.
¶ Underage Drinking and Alcopop Culture
Do you know why I used to drink all of these amazing drinks? In the local Yeatsies! Did you have Yeatsies? Yeatsies! Was Yates as a bar thing up by you? Or was it just... It was Yates in Newcastle. Did you call it Yatesies? Oh, yeah. It was still Yates bar. Yates wine bar. Let's class it up here. Let's call it for what it was. wine bar guys okay they used to sell what oh god they used to sell Aussie white do you remember Aussie white as a drink
What was that? Really cheap white wine. It was a horrid, it was, it was the kind of thing that tasted the same going down as it did coming back up once it had mixed with your stomach acid. It was the same, same, same, same. Yeah. Oh my God. Bit of Aussie white, but yeah, we used to go to our Yatesy. and I would get in underage.
about 16 I was back in the day when 16 year olds I don't I don't you know you look at a 16 year old now they look 35 but everyone's onto it now so you get ass friday everywhere I mean but back in the 90s slash noughties if if you're a teenager you look like a teenager but the doorman didn't give a shit what we used to have to do is my friend abby her brother was three years older it was like who can who can hold a boy yeah
We used to get them by the arm. I think on one occasion, Abby had to walk in arm-in-arm with her own brother like they were on a date. Not weird at all. Not weird. Nothing to see here, guys. And then we used to stroll in with them. And I think maybe once I was asked for ID and I think I flashed the bouncer my lifestyle's gym pass.
You got to be 18 to join the gym, guys. And then in a saunter, it's just no question. I think about this and I had a friend. Well, my boyfriend was a bit older than me. My first boyfriend, his friend was dating a girl who was. must have been 19 she used to let me have her birth certificate And I would go around with her birth certificate. And by the time I was actually 18, I gave it back to her. And honestly, it had holes.
in it from it being open and closed so many times her actual birth certificate what was she thinking like what was she thinking I sometimes one of my biggest anxieties in life that just comes over me sometimes is I don't know where the kids' birth certificates are.
And they're like, oh, my gosh, oh, my gosh, oh, my gosh. And then I'm down rooting around and all the boxes of, you know, special things trying to find the bloody birth certificate. Couldn't just be handing it out to shit face Lucy to go and go on. Also, what was the purpose?
in the birth certificate because it had no photo ID on it just look at the year I was born yeah and go okay do they also also used to ask like what your star sign was as well when they quiz you at the door I'm pretty sure he wasn't trying to chat you up. Well, Isora went to the gym, so he knew I was buff. So, you know. So, what's your star sign? What's your star sign? Yeah. Oh, stop. You're a steadhead as well, are you? What's your star sign, babes? Let's go and bench each other. Yes.
Do you know what? I obviously know my own style. I'm a Taurus. What are you? What's your star sign? I'm balanced. Right. Okay. Quiz for you. What are the boys' star signs? Saji Saji. They're both Sagittarius. I could not tell you what my kids start signs are. I could not tell you. No idea. Well, Evelyn Talibra. She's October. She's middle of October.
But sometimes, no, they cross over halfway through the month, don't they? Because you can be born in May and not be a... Yeah, so I couldn't... So if my kids were going to be ID'd on a door with a birth certificate and they were like, what's your star sign? They'd be absolutely fucked because they're like, mum never told me.
Well, no, I never knew. Never knew. What's a star sign is what they'd say. Right, we've had reefs. The hooch was a classic. I honestly never had a hooch. I've never had a hooch. So I think hoochies were big. And then Bacardi Breezas came out just as I hit 15. Oh, and they picked them. And that became that the Bacardi Breeza kind of took.
stepped into the shoes of hooch and then all the reefs and everything and then we kind of went into the alka-pop heyday right what was that all the supermodels at the time that was like skinny what was heroin chic wasn't it we were all we were the alka-pop girls
We were just full of sugar, just like that film that you had on your teeth after you'd had an alcohol pop. You just have to scrape the sugar off your teeth. You couldn't be snogging, no boy, could you? With, you know, your teeth were... three inches thicker because of all the grime off your Alka-Pops.
So no wonder we were all getting sucked in because they basically made alcohol taste like juice. Well, it's like vaping, isn't it? Nowadays, I guess they're making all the vapes taste like maybe there's a whole Alka pop section of vapes. Now, I wonder whether...
pops are even still a thing i'm gonna have to google this i need to know whether kids today is still well kids say they don't even drink do they because they're vaping and and doing sit-ups and shit instead um they don't they don't get pissed on park benches anymore which is a disappointment i'm not gonna lie right passage yeah and they'll never know that you know when you're going on a first date and you get your your raspberry arches aqua
See, I don't think I ever had, I just, if I was going to have an Archer's, I was just going to have an Archer's and lemonade. I don't think, I don't remember it as an alcohol. So they did Archer's, they brought out the Archer's Aquas, which was first of all, the... the original was the peach and then they brought a raspberry one and I swear to god it just tasted like
a raspberry gummy sweet it and it was fizzy on it I do not want to know how many calories were in one of those and how many calories I consumed on a Saturday night because I must have had about 12. Dance them off, so it doesn't matter. I remember being double parked with my Smirnoff ice, Smirnoff ice in one hand, dancing to two times. Absolutely bust.
Busting shapes in me eight seas bar. Do you remember when everyone used to do straw pedos? Yes, because you always got more drunk if you drank it through a straw for some reason. I don't know why. I could never do it. Could you straw pedo? No, could a fuck. Just open the gullet and just... No, no. Well, I'm not a pelican. I can't just consume just in one gulp, just down the hatch. Depends who you're chatting up. Yeah, who's asking?
¶ Exploring Buckfast and Cider Aversions
Oh, all right there, Thor. Yeah, good, actually. One thing that we heard, weirdly, so it comes from Devon, but it's like a real Scottish thing, is I think called Buckfast. Did you ever have Buckfast? Buckfast. like breakfast but not yeah yeah no so buckfast is a tonic wine Oh, classy. And it was made by, or still is made by, the Benedictine monks in Buckfast Abbey in Devon.
right? Oh, are they 7,002? How old are these monks? They're still cranking out. What is a wine tonic? So it's a red wine-based aperitif, but this is what... Like sangria. Yeah, really delicious red wine-based aperitif. Honestly. The monks are there chopping up all the fruit going, they're going to love it. Honestly, this is the most disgusting drink. And people used to go around going, oh, have you got any Bucky? Have you got any Bucky? And it was, it looks like tar.
It's so black. It's almost like port, that consistency of port. It's black. And once you've tasted breakfast, you will never untaste it. It feels like it's got some kind of medicinal qualities to it, though. It feels like that. It feels like that was maybe what the monks invented it for, like to cure syphilis or something back in the 1700s, maybe. Oh, my God. You can get it in a can now. Buckfast and lemonade. Is he?
A fizzy, like a fizzy, like a tinny, like a gin tinny, but a Buckfast. So how funny is this? Bear in mind, it's made in Devon. It says, discover the legend now in a can. Buckfast is unique tasting tonic wine, equally rich in heritage as it is. is unique in taste. Buckfast's enjoyment is rivaled only by its versatility. Introducing Buckfast Original and Buckfast and Lemonade in ready-to-drink 250ml cans. Now available in Scotland in all convenience format stores.
Nowhere else in the UK will have it. They're like, just give it to the Scots. They'll fucking drink anything up there. Absolutely off their heads they are. They don't give a shit. They'll nail it. Obviously you would have done a bit of cider out of a plastic bottle though. no actually i don't like no i i'm actually very opposed to cider um just the smell of it the smell of cider reminds me of
The next day, like a Sunday morning, walking past a Wetherspoons as they're cleaning it and the doors open. Do you know what I mean? Do you hear that smell? That smell that comes off the carpet. To me, that is cider. And I've never been able to drink it. Steve really enjoys a cider, like a fruity cider. No, it just always tastes a little bit.
like piss that's gone off yeah like pissy carpet that's gone off and someone puked on it and then they've got the bleach on it and then all the smells have amalgamated and then they've thought oh cider and popped it in a bottle