Strawberry wine, orange flavored vodka, berry flavored beer. All of these sweet, candy flavored alcoholic beverages can be appealing to minors and coax them into an early habit of drinking. Even though possession and use of liquor is illegal by those under 21 in most situations in the U.S., such flavors can mask the otherwise unpleasant taste and “burn” of alcohol and be appealing to the younger crowd.
To protect our children from a lifetime of use and addiction to the vice of liquor, should flavored alcoholic beverages be banned in the U.S.?
No. As China Guy says some adults like it. Nor does mere flavoring strike me as something particularly aimed at kids; it’s not like someone started selling, say, teddy bears with unscrewable heads and vodka bottle stuffing. And I’m not aware of any clear evidence that drinking early starts people out on a life of alcoholism anyway; on the contrary, I’ve heard any number of people speculate that our attempts to make it into an adults-only thing is what has made it such a problem. As opposed to places where they start their drinking young, bit by bit; say half a glass of wine during a holiday dinner.
We have I think turned drinking into an adulthood ritual, without really meaning to.
Even if you did, people could just put vodka in kool-aid or jello. Vodka in the frappuchino drinks is pretty similar to a white russian. People put booze in their sodas all the time. I’d guess the liquor companies got the idea of selling flavored drinks from the home made mixes, not vice versa.
Can this same logic be applied to adding say, Coca Cola to say, Jack Daniels too? I mean, Coke is huge favourite amongst the young people. Clearly JD and coke (perhaps, shock horror, with a bit of lime too) is going to turn the kids to liquor.
Besides, drinking alcohol isn’t a vice. It’s quite possible to simply drink socially and not become an alcoholic, if you weren’t aware. I’d think actually teaching kids how to drink responsibly would be far more effective than trying to actually ban the stuff.
Seriously, if kids don’t suffer the pangs of lime vodka OD, how are they ever going to learn to drink in moderation?
You put em in a cage, and they automatically start prying on the bars.
Absolutely. Good whiskey and Coke is an abomination not to be tolerated. If we’re going to be inspire children to drink, we should at least inspire them to drink properly.
Everyone knows that sweet-flavored high-alcohol drinks aren’t marketed to underaged drinkers. They’re marketed to college-aged men who are trying to get college-aged women drunk.
Why stop at only sweet flavors? Straight Whiskey has a distinct taste. Maybe we should only legalize injections of straight ethyl alcohol into the blood stream? (In government approved quantities, of course)
I don’t drink that crap, but if they don’t drink beer then there’s more for me. I know Boone’s Farm and Mogen David (“Mad Dog”) are popular among kids, but is it really a big “gateway” alcohol? I would hazard that most people start on cheap lagers. In parts of Britain, Buckfast is popular among kids, and it is anything but sweet.
And then you ban Kahlua and amaretto because they are also sweet. Make sure to get rid of Triple Sec - cheap orange flavored alcoholic sugar water. Get rid of Asti and Cold Duck. Port. …