Johnny Bootlegger, on their website, encourages you to "relive the prohibition era!" You know, when alcohol was brewed in bathtubs, regularly poisoned people, and funded the most violent crime in the world. In addition, these two flavors are named after prisons. Because when I think "prison wine," I think "delicious." Essentially, while they may simply be trying for a badass image, they're pretty much just implying that they're going to poison you.
So at least they're honest.
I couldn't find Machine-Gun melon, or I'd be doing a rundown of all three flavors. But as it is, I still got the most candy-ass-tasting ones available. So let's see how this goes.
The both of them are bright, bright colors, the color of children's candy and artificial flavoring. Even worse than the color of the booze itself, though, is the label. The smug-ass gangster on it, grinning because he knows he just conned me into buying this piss, smirking like a motherfucker because he's making money off what is essentially poison.
Sorry, kid. But that's just business.
Also, the label on each bottle is off-center and misaligned. COME ON.
They both pretty much smell like candy. Look, I know I've compared other things on here to Jolly Ranchers before, but that is literally what this smells like. Exactly. Not even similar to, these smell exactly like their equivalent flavors of Jolly Rancher, with a faint undercurrent of musty bitterness.
Ugggggh. If you taste a really small sip of this, it tastes like a Jolly Rancher. Anything stronger than that, though, and the candy flavor gets overpowered by the taste of the really cheap alcohol. It tastes more like a Jolly Rancher that you left out in the sun and is now half-melted and covered with dust. The name is appropriate, as it feels like Connery and Cage are just ramming their boots down my throat and making a Michael Bay explosion of awful.
Ed Harris announces his plan to launch sour apple malt liquor all over the city.
TASTE (SING SING)
When you knock it back, the Sing Sing manages to retain its candy flavor more. But the aftertaste is worse. There's this really powerful burn and a weird tingling all over my tongue, and the feeling that Johnny's trying to claw his way up the back of my throat.
It feels like it's carbonated, but it's not. That's just the skin in your mouth reacting to it. And again, there's some kind of weird musty, cheesy flavor running underneath it all. I don't know how or why, but there is. The gangster metaphor fits, because this feels like a microcosm of 20's society-- cheap, glitzy sugar coating over a seething bed of death and violence and human misery.
Yeah, this is just wretched. Even Jacquin's Peach brandy (probably the worst thing I've ever reviewed...until later this week) tasted vaguely like something related to alcohol. If you just served me this in a glass I wouldn't even know it was booze. It just pretends to be something sweet and friendly, all the while biding its time for the inevitable punch to the gut when you realize how truly awful it is, and then--
Wait-- I think that maybe--
There ain't no Johnny Bootlegger, kid. Never was.