Friday, June 3, 2011

Cheerwine Fever Descends On Me Brooklyn


*I would like to preface this post by saying that having all but abandoned this blog for various reasons related chiefly to personal laziness, it's a testament to the sheer ecstatic delight brought on by the discovery that has inspired this missive.

So I'm minding my bidness, just popping into my local bodega-cum-overpriced grocery store. The purpose of the trip: to procure a run-of-the-mill style sodypop for my ailing boo. I approach the refrigerated case, hoping they'll have Mexi-coke in stock rather than the average HFCS-spiked garden variety. As I peruse the shelves, scanning them for unfiltered ginger-ale and yerba mate, I spy the unmistakable pinky-red Cheerwine logo. My heart skips a beat -- nay stops entirely. A feather could push me over. I've found the Promise Land. And it ain't flowing with milk and honey. It's flowing with sweet, fizzy, pink Cheerwine.

Let me explain for the uninitiated. Cheerwine is not, as the name may imply, an alcoholic beverage. It is a soda akin to -- but much much more delicious than -- Dr. Pepper. It was, until very recently (as in the last week or so) available in only a handful of places in the immediate vicinity of its home state of North Carolina.

I was first introduced to the wonder that is Cheerwine when I went to the Outer Banks of North Carolina with my best friend Ms. Adrian Amaro neƩ Rose in 2007. We drove from Virginia to the small beach town of Manteo for a week of sunbathing, eating Low Country Boil, bicycling, playing viciously competitive Scrabble and surveying the horizon for pirate ships. Our first stop? A little roadside market selling fresh produce (borang) and Cheerwine, which I'd been hankering to try ever since Miss Ad-sales alerted me to its transcendent awesomeness. We loaded up our baskets with the former, and grabbed a case of Cheerwine to take to the beach house. I cracked open a can immediately and let the pink, bubbly goodness roll around in my mouth. Like Coca-Cola, it was a perfect amalgam of familiar yet unidentifiable flavors, intoxicatingly sweet and perky, like a Southern belle all primped and ready for her deb ball.

For the remainder of our trip, we meted out our cans of Cheerwine with as much restraint as we could muster, rationing them carefully with the abstemious precision of Scrooge McDuck counting out his gold pieces. We allowed ourselves to splurge on a particularly hung-over morning during which nothing but Cheerwine could settle our embattled stomachs.

I came back to New York thirsty for more. Whenever Adrian went back to NC, I begged her to sneak a few cans in her bag for me. A summer romance with a Carolinan fellow two years ago found me smuggling cases back with me whenever I went to visit said gentleman. When the relaylay crashed and burned I found myself mourning less for the boy and more for the loss of my direct line to Cheerwine

Recently my girlfriend Stephanie, a grade A foodie, soda aficiondo and quasi-Southerner celebrated a birthday. I had recently discovered, to my horror, that she had never experienced the joy of Cheerwine. Inspired by a recent Serious Eats post extolling the virtues of this geographically bounded delicacy, I decided to visit the brand's website and see whether, by some miracle, there was a place in the New York area to find these treats. As of ten days ago there was not, despite rumors that Cheerwine would be planning to expand its reach as part of a celebration of its 100th birthday. I begrudgingly decided I'd have to special order it.

And then yesterday happened. Ladies and gentlemen, perhaps it's premature, but the massive amounts of sugar I've consumed since my discovery yesterday morning are arming me with a particularly devil-may-care attitude. Therefore I hereby declare this the Summer of Cheerwine. Only don't tell anyone, because if the mass hysteria catches, I'll be reduced to stockpiling and rationing and wind up on Hoarders and nobody wants that right? Let me revise that statement: I hereby declare this the Summer of Cheerwine. Shhh.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Even if it is the "Summer o' Cheerwine," you will always have a secret Ladyfriend willing the ship you all the Cheerwine you're little heart desires.
xo,
LL (current location: home of Cheerwine)