Questionably-talented “musician” T-pain promoting the bile-inducing beverage that is Moskato Life, pushing for it to become the new Rappers’ delight.
And the Good Food Revolution Award for Unpotable-and-yet-legally-available-alcoholic-liquid Of The Year goes to:
Moskato Life, Original and Rosé, Flavoured Malt Beverage, United States $6.95 at The Beer Store
As I sit in the GFR office sipping from a couple of wine glasses of the two “flavors” of the new-to-market Moskato Life, I hold my head in my hands and seriously wonder “Is this what my life has amounted to?”.
As both an abstract concept and as a “Flavoured Malt Beverage” reality, Moskato Life is everything that is wrong with The Beverage Industry all wrapped up in an undeniably tacky 750ml bottle that just verges on Jeff Koons-esque high kitsch: Matt silver and gold peacock feather decals upon a matt black background… Seriously. I ask you, who on earth green lit this project?
Oh, after a little research I discover that it is manufactured by Chicago-based Phusion Projects, the minds behind that utterly repulsive, and recently (2010) banned, amalgam of alcohol, caffeine, taurine, and guarana that went under the name of Four Loko, a vile concoction that someone once bought me as a joke in a New York City nightclub after telling me that the bar had run out of beer… I did not sleep for days.
As described by the Urban Dictionary:
Legalized cocaine in a can. If you consume Four Lokos you can expect to encounter the same results typically associated with snorting a small mountain of cocaine.“My dealer isn’t picking up” “Okay whatever we’ll just get some Four Lokos instead”
Now, back to the subject at hand, the malternative that is Moskato Life. You see it is a malt beverage, meaning that like beer it is made from malted barley. To this fermentation is added both natural and artificial flavours in order to make it taste and appear like the zeitgeisty gateway wine, Moscato. The thing is, this awful abhorration bears no resemblance to wine whatsoever.
Please allow me to explain how this stuff tastes.
Imagine a night where you have consumed a few too many industrial strength beers, and then ending up at a nightmarish house party where an overzealous but well-meaning host foists a glass of sickly, syrupy commercial Moscato upon you whilst slurrily communicating that they had heard you were a wine connoisseur, and so you have to sip politely.
Now imagine violently regurgitating the aforementioned  drinks violently through one’s nose into a fancy wine glass that you then place in the fridge to chill overnight. Then picture falling asleep in the corner of their kitchen only to awake the next morning in a puddle of your own making, slowly opening the fridge to retrieve your sweet bodily effluent and give it a little taste. Lightly sparkling.
This, dear readers, is the Moskato Life experience. Avoid at all costs.
Zero apples out of five.
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Edinburgh-born/Toronto-based Sommelier, consultant, writer, judge, and educator Jamie Drummond is the Director of Programs/Editor of Good Food Revolution… And he suffers so as you don’t have to.Â
You sound like a wine snob, this malt beverage tastes pretty good if one is into sweeter drinks. No it doesn’t taste like moscato but there are notes that remind you of it. It doesn’t taste like regurgitated wine. It tastes yummy fruity and crisp. I love it. You should try it for yourself and form your own opinion. 🙂
But I did try it for myself… and above is my opinion.
Each to their own, but I think that this stuff is utterly foul.