With the holiday season upon us, we wish to remind you all of the importance of family and friends—those who support, cherish, and most of all love you. MD 20/20 will love you. It will greet you with a gentle kiss, a splash of color. It will whisper sweet nothings into your ear, grab you by the hair, and smash your nose into the sink. You will wake up in a bathtub full of ice, your kidney gone, and the empty bottle of Mad Dog Blue Raspberry faithfully by your side.
MD 20/20 is produced by Mogen “Shield of David” David in Westfield, N.Y. It’s made from Concord grapes, sugar, flavor and, we suspect, Scrubbing Bubbles toilet bowl cleaner for the color. We can only assume that it’s the terrifying love-child of the Kool-Aid man and a demonic bottle of Welch’s.
We sampled both the dragonfruit and blue raspberry flavors. We’ve never heard of wine pressed from Concord grapes, but the blue raspberry bottle was wearing a necklace that said “bling bling,” so we assumed it was a winner. Both pour vibrant neons: a highlighter left to soak in a glass of water. Light moves through the liquids lazily, the opacity hiding smudges on the glass, broken dreams or our dignity.
The next thing we recognized about Mad Dog was its unique bouquet. A little bit like fresh fruit and a lot like isopropyl alcohol, Motrin and nightmares. For once, the bouquet, or fumes (this reeks), seemed like it was enough. We both felt totally sated with just one whiff of MD 20/20. Drinking it seemed unnecessary. But as we are two dedicated columnists committed to our readers, we ventured forth and dove head first into the gastronomical gutter.
In your mouth, it adheres to every surface, a syrupy tar that begs to be spit out but refuses to let go of your tastebuds. When your wine feels like Robitussin, you know you’re doing something right. To be completely honest, characteristics of this drink are masked by all five senses’ total rejection of it.
This “wine” hits you like a brick to the face. The taste has strong overtones of death with light accents of sugar. Raspberry and dragonfruit were not detectable. Blue and red Sharpie dominate the palette, quickly superseded by a semi-tannic finish. The taste lingers as the burning metastasizes down the esophagus into the stomach.
Blue raspberry was unanimously determined to be the worse of the two flavors. Does this make dragonfruit (red) the winner? Neither of us got past three sips. We actually got nauseous drinking this stuff. We would not it buy again, but MD 20/20 could certainly be a great stocking stuffer for that aunt of yours.
Serve with: Moulton ambrosia salad. $5.25 at Uncle Tom’s.