Facebook discussions and ongoing activities have unearthed people and friends from my past that I haven’t thought about in years.   Such recollections have also rekindled long lost memories.  Some are wonderful memories of happy times, while others have dredged up painful and unpleasant images that I could have done without.   

Then again, some memories bring about instantaneous grins… like, “Which was the drink of the ages in my day… Boone’s Farm Wine or Ripple? “   

These days BYOBB means a wide variety of things.   Everything from 'Bring Your Own Bible Baby' to 'Bring Your Own Beautiful Body.'   But in my day, it stood for 'Bring Your Own Brown Bag'... and the expectation was that you would have a bottle in the bag according to your alcoholic preference.  Boone's Farm or Ripple were two of the most likely candidates.  

I was never a big wine drinker.  So in all cases, wine was one of the social experiences of my youth.  I was either hanging with the guys, or hoping the girl would get loose enough to free her mind and whatever items of clothing that might possibly be forthcoming. (Grin) 

I remember that the late 60’s and early 70’s was laced with Boone’s Farm Apple Wine incidents. It worked for me, because it was too cheap and not sufficiently potent to result in intoxication.   I could drink Boone’s Farm with anyone and I remember feeling as if this was a safe party-drink because it didn’t work on me!”  

As I recall, Ripple was even cheaper.   When you couldn’t afford Boone’s Farm, you might still be able to afford Ripple, except that it really didn’t work like that.   Ripple was for hard drinkers with no money.   Even as kids, we had friends and associates our age that had problems with alcoholism, only we didn’t know it at the time.  Even when Ripple was repeatedly featured and referenced on ‘Sanford and Son’ back in the day, it still didn’t seem to be much more than the least cost alternative to an innocent buzz.   In retrospect, it probably ruined a lot of people.

It also seemed to be more of the Inner City beverage of choice.   The folks that came up to the Bronx from Manhattan seemed to be more inclined toward Ripple.  I believe the first time I drank Ripple at a party, I got drunk and copiously sick.  

I stuck to Boone’s Farm.  

Frankly, it wasn’t much of a relationship.  Boone’s Farm was cheap, but we were still kids.  Most of the time, we were simply passing around a bottle.  It was a simple matter to tip the bottle up to your lips and simply not drink more than a drop or so, but even when I did take a full share of the bottle or bottles… as long as it was Boone’s Farm, I was safe.  

It was so long ago, that I wasn’t even sure that Boone’s Farm was still sold in stores today.  I also didn’t think that people would know what I was talking about.  I didn’t feel like going to the store to check it out personally, but Wikipedia says that today it is sold as a flavored malt beverage instead of the wine-based product from my past, because of changes in state laws.  As for Ripple, you can’t find that rot-gut anymore, but there are surely new replacements available to address market demand.  I can’t tell you what they are, but I would guarantee that they are out there.   

It really was cheap stuff… but my memories of the day make me smile.  How about you?