can you get buckfast anywhere in london

http://imgur.com/Xz2t1.jpg

never tried this and can't remember having seen it around.....kinda amiss not to have at least tried the fav drink of a neighbouring nation

keep meaning to open a shop in london that only sells buckie, square sausage, tablet, tunnock's tea cakes and happy hardcore cds

you can get it at the convenience store near my house (im in hackney)

What does it really taste like and just how much caffeine is in it. These are the questions I'd want answered before I try it.

It tastes, from memory, like a mixture between cheap port and cough medicine. Bear in mind I haven't tasted this for about 20 years.

Ward - I'm sure you can get a tax break to help make that dream of yours a reality.

Tastes like Calpol, if you guys ever had that medicine. It's v v sweet and sticky. People in Ireland are pretty wild for it, lots of people seemed to combine it with drugs IME.

tunnock's tea cakes

Oh you can already get those in London, as well as the caramel wafers ("14 million billion trillion made and sold every day!") and snowballs.

based on experience I reckon giant/super well-stocked Tescos will have it, not sure where those are in London tho

most central off-licenses sell this shit, I have had to restrain my curiosity a coupla times

nakhchivan if u wanna get buckwild and trash the cbd w/ me i am game

My brother drinks a cocktail of Buckfast and milk (!!!) before heading on a night out. Similarly, the slogan for a night out in my high school was "let's get Bucky & crack" - God love the west of Scotland. Bucky is rank, but it's good for getting you in the mindset of "who's up for a dance and a fight?"

It really upsets me that you can't get square sausage south of the border - it's a dietary staple for me, especially on hungover Sunday mornings. I buy a block from the butcher's and cut it myself, so I can have thin slices and make it last longer.

someone in the pub yesterday was talking about mixing buckfast and guinness on a recent trip back to ireland - "it makes both of them taste better!"

Have had Bucky, it's pretty sticky, drinking anything with milk is pretty fuckin savage imo

baileys and guinness mix together like a choc milkshake, for the 5 seconds before they curdle. you have to drink them v quickly.

my local used to do these little shot glasses of baileys and guinness, it ws good iirc

There's a drink here that involves dropping a shot glass of Baileys into a pint of Guinness and chugging it before it curdles that called an irish car bomb :/.

Is that because it goes off in your mouth?

erica yep i've heard people call it that...a lot. it's actually surprisingly nice, a chocolatey guinness.

Yeah, they're actually delicious.

A lot of restaurants here do Guinness ice cream floats which people say are amazing but I've yet to try. As a lover of both Guinness and ice cream I'm pretty sure it would be awesome even if it seems like an odd combination.

I've still never eaten haggis, keep meaning to rectify this.

Never seen a plain loaf down here mind, anyone?

i know a somewhat dumb american who asked for an irish car bomb in a northern irish pub. iiiiiit didn't go down well.

my work colleagues used to buy me them in my last job at the bbc, as "the only irish person in the office" i was forced to take on a more irish persona than i'd like.

You can get square sausage and plain bread in Bristol, pretty much only in speciality Irish stores though for some reason. Saying that, Morrisons has both from time to time, although it calls them Irish too. Never seen tablet though, for shame.

Never seen a plain loaf down here mind, anyone?

^^this. I miss plain bread.

i know a somewhat dumb american who asked for an irish car bomb in a northern irish pub. iiiiiit didn't go down well.

― Antoine Bugleboy (Merdeyeux), Saturday, November 20, 2010 1:13 PM (22 minutes ago) Bookmark

Reminds me of when I went into an 'Irish' pub in Australia that had a picture of the Queen on the wall.

Tastes like Calpol, if you guys ever had that medicine. It's v v sweet and sticky. People in Ireland are pretty wild for it, lots of people seemed to combine it with drugs IME.

― I see what this is (Local Garda), Saturday, 20 November 2010 10:42 (2 hours ago)

cool i used to love that stuff!

now other ppl have heard of it i can finally use...

haha all britishes parents have heard of that shit i think

lots of people seemed to combine it with drugs IME.

Speaking of drugs, I've heard the Scots boil up big vats of lucozade and ecstasy pills before a party.

that's like the caledonian version of the blood libel

unfair and untrue

Tasting like Calpol surely not a problem for a British drinking population that happily uses Red Bull as a mixer.

when i was an impressionable teen we used to do a few shots of Benylin before a night out. have been known to hit the codeine-ated or benzedrine-ified sizzurps as a grown-up too.

Plain bread - if you mean the TALL loaf in wax-paper wrapping - has always been available at the Sainsbury's at the Angel and I'm sure you can get it at the King's Cross Tesco, Alba.

I don't remember Bucky tasting like Calpol. I've always wanted my dream cough syrup and booze fusion CALPAHOL to be a real product.

You don't get potato scone outside of Scotland, do you?

Suzy, thats good to know, describing a plain loaf to most people often feels like trying to make a convincing argument that your best friend is a unicorn.

There are a lot of Scots in WC1, almost as if they didn't range too far from King's Cross once they left the train, so it's a good bet to look around here for Scottish treats. Potato scone is perhaps called something else by Sassenachs but you can get a version in Waitrose or M&S. Square sausage is worth asking for at McKenna's butcher on Theobald's Road in Holborn - they will order most things people request if they don't have it.

square sausage isn't irish...is it? never had a square sausage in my life.

think it might be an Ulster thing

i.e. Scottish

Square sausage and a potato cake on a roll: breakfast of hungover Scottish champions.

Never heard of square sausage either...worth starting a thread on McDaid's Football Special?

Actually, I'll just paste the whole Wikipedia entry - every detail is crucial:

McDaid's Football Special is a soft drink produced in Letterkenny and Ramelton, a company based in County Donegal, Ireland. Two flavours are produced: banana, and the most popular one, which is made with a mix of seven secret flavours. The company uses their own private water source to produce the beverages.

Football Special is one of McDaid's oldest and most distinguished products, winning two awards for excellence in 1984 and 1989 from the London Beverage Society.

James McDaid Jr., the CEO of the company was also on the founding board of Swilly Rovers FC, one of the most decorated junior football clubs in Ireland, and, as such, wanted to celebrate winning trophies by filling the cup with an exciting but non-alcoholic beverage. They created a drink and named it "Football Cup". Later, the name was changed to Football Special.

"I'll tell you what sir, it's hard to beat a glass of vodka and football special. In fact make it a double because I am in such a good mood."

Football Special! Fucking love it. Was gonna start an import business but I believe they're selling it over the internet now.

At one time you could only get it in this little 10 mile square of Donegal, I believe.

McDaid's Football Special is a soft drink produced in Letterkenny and Ramelton, a company based in County Donegal, Ireland. Two flavours are produced: banana, and the most popular one, which is made with a mix of seven secret flavours. The company uses their own private water source to produce the beverages.

oh man why did nobody tell me about this before I went to Rathmullan

I wonder if the "own private water source" is to avoid the brown tapwater you get in that area, or if this is a special, even browner water

Don't believe I have seen square sausage in NI, but my native guide is on the phone right now so I can't ask

is tablet the fudge-like thing which is tough on the outside and v crumbly underneath that, basically made of butter, sugar, a little vanilla extract and nothing else (maybe substitute treacle for sugar, I forget)? I bought some of that in a sweetshop in twee village Burford, Oxfordshire only last week. Also remember making it as a kid, from a children's cookbook which wasn't Scottish as far as I can remember

Tablet is more grainy than fudge, but yes, basically what you say. Burford is where my grandparents lived!

this thread is v.fascinating

also:

Bucky is rank, but it's good for getting you in the mindset of "who's up for a dance and a fight?"

There's a drink here that involves dropping a shot glass of Baileys into a pint of Guinness and chugging it before it curdles that called an irish car bomb :/. - ime the shot glass is filled half w/ Baileys & half w/ Jameson. Unfortunate name aside, downing a few of these is a delicious and efficient way to tighten the screws on yr revelry.

benylin >>> calpol, and calpol is nice

calpol's just paracetamol tho, no bang for your buck

hey, those arrows indicate benylin's superiority

basically supports my theory that buckfast = fourloUKo

― undervalued aerosmith memorabilia I have appraised (bernard snowy), Saturday, 20 November 2010 17:32 (51 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

no you've basically got it there - afaict the meaningful differences are of the social class it's associated with (ie Buckie has a class association)

I'll probably regret bringing this up but it's struck me for a while that the UK has not managed to establish a "hipster drink" a la PBR

Thanks suzy, I'll check that out.

love this guy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcHKoOm4FYE

dude's acting it. not sure i can be bothered youtubing for some proper neds, might be too depressing,

key to bucky -and i'm a seasoned drinker, 2 and a half bottles last weekend for instance - is to drink it freezing cold, just out the freezer.

The drink has also entered the popular culture lexicon in Scotland leading to it being given a number of nicknames, including "Wreck the Hoose Juice", "Commotion Lotion" and "Mrs. Brown".[3] Other nicknames are "Bucky", "Lurgan Champagne", "Yak", "Buckshweng", "Devil's Water", "Tonic", "Toni- C", "Sauce", "Spice Weasel's Blood", "Bannside Brandy", "Stingy Pish", "Coatbridge Table Wine",[4] "Ton-Ton" and "Bo".

BBC doc on Bucky

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfBaGZD9DlI&feature=player_embedded#!

looking forward to Ken Burns' take on the history and culture of Four Loko!

i would watch that ken burns show. cuz then you would get taj mahal doing waka flocka flame songs on the banjo.

no you've basically got it there - afaict the meaningful differences are of the social class it's associated with (ie Buckie has a class association)

― an exciting but non-alcoholic beverage (DJ Mencap), Saturday, 20 November 2010 18:31 (Yesterday)

i'm kinda confused now because i'm certain i already said this but i don't see it anywhere. although i'm not sure that's quite the right distinction. it seems that the american (right-wing) press have something of an obsession with demonising four loko and saying that it causes all of these awful things (in fact, i had a friend who's living in france say she saw something about it along those lines too - a prominent news person drinking some and vomiting to show how awful it was?), but the difference with buckfast is that it really is very much linked to all kinds of social problems.

it seems that the american (right-wing) press - actually, I've seen quite a bit of Loko hate & ban-readiness on the left as well, as it seems to have spurred the ire of puritan moralists and health (nutrition?) nazis alike. Could Four Loko be the issue to bridge the partisan divide in American politics?

I'm not sure how everyone latches onto Buckie rather than any of the other super-strong horrible booze that also get you ratted (El Dorado, Thunderbird, MD20/20), other than it just becoming a self-perpetuating thing via publicity and connotations.

Ah man, Thunderbird Red is an American classic. Didn't realise you could still get it over here.

Thunderbird was the equivalent when I was a teenager in London, but it never seemed to be nearly as big a thing as Buckie is in Scotland.

Haven't looked for it for several years, but fairly sure it's still widely available in the West of Scotland.

Going by the broken bottles you see, it is, as is Mad Dog 20/20. But the kids round here moved on to alcopops long ago.
Pop into airdrie/coatbridge and bucky is as popular as ever. You can even phone this taxi company in Airdrie who will go to an off license to buy it for you and deliver it straight to your door.

The bucky documentary was pish. A friend's friend's dissertation totally contradicted all the things it was trying to say:that it was linked to crime more than other booze,that it's bottle US used as a weapon more frequently etc. Scaremongering tabloid shite.

Is even. Damn phone.

You can even phone this taxi company in Airdrie who will go to an off license to buy it for you and deliver it straight to your door.

― pfunkboy (Herman G. Neuname), Sunday, 21 November 2010 12:45 (2 hours ago)

lol

I suspect any taxi company would do that, easy fare innit? I use taxi companies to deliver stuff at work all the time. But home delivery fast food places only charge you like £1 to deliver your stuff rather than having to pay the cost of a taxi (several delivery places round here will do fags and groceries and beer and whatever if you ask them).

i have a taxi buckfast story:

i am 26 and i look young, so that occasionally i get id'd for alcohol. about a year or two ago i got a taxi round to a friend's house. female taxi driver who my friends and i dislike because she can be pretty short with you and hates having to stop for you to use cash machine or buy booze. needs must however and i needed to buy a cargo. went to a spar to buy 6 beers and a bottle of buck. when i got to the till it transpired that they'd started the "challenge 25" thing where they id anyone who looks under that age, so of course i got id'd. i never carry identification - the only id i have is my passport and fuck carrying that around and inevitably losing it. so i went outside and hte taxi driver asked "where's your booze?". "i got id'd", i replied. "What are you wanting? i'll go in and get it". When i told her she said "buckfast, i hope nobody sees me!"

When she came back in she said to me "i hope your mother isn't going to be phoning up complaining that i got her boy a carry out."

oh also, the bucky ritual. i don't know how localised this is, i know it's wider than my group of friends, but i also know that if i go anywhere outside of the two adjacent towns i lived in growing up nobody knows what i'm talking about. anyway, it entails giving the bottle to someone else to hold by the neck and swing up and down a few times in a 90 degree arc from holding it straight ahead, bottle upright, to holding next to your ear, bottle horizontal and taking the first scoop from the bottle. this is sacrosanct and if anyone fails to do it it's rare and invariably commented on.

oh and also the number: each bottle of buckfast has a number embossed on the glass on the side around the bottom. this number ranges from 1 to something like 29. the lore is that the lower the better. this is apocryphal. i've had a 1 once.

the number thing is more widely known.

didn't know abt the number thing! it's like i hear how iron bru shld only be drunk from glass bottles cos the glass improves the taste, and how doctors doing xrays are always finding that neds' stomachs glow in the dark cos they drink so much bru

was down at the barras today and saw big heaps of clootie dumpling, now what the fuck is that?

do they still sell cds and records and bootleg cds at the barras? Not been there in 10 or more years. Used to go every few months to buy 3 live bootleg tapes for £5 in the mid-late 90s.

there are a cpl of indoor stalls selling crappy legit cds. one of the stalls also has a fairly uninspiring selection of live dylan/stones etc legit-looking bootleg dvds and cds. i've only been going to the barras for abt five years, but i too remember a better selection of bootlegs than now. there are also the usual fly-by-night setups selling shitty discs of the latest movies, chart albums, games and software. and CIGARETTES TOBACCO

clootie dumpling = stodge in cake form (is a boiled suet pudding, basically)

I once bought a promo CD single for White Town's Your Woman way back when it was a radio-only thing and you couldn't buy it, from a stall which appeared to solely consist of the dregs of the guff record companies sent to Radio Clyde, was all full of CD singles by terrible best-forgotten-if-ever-heard-of-in-the-first-place acts. I used to look just in case I got something good, and that one CD was it.

I have no buckfast stories to share with the group, I'm afraid, other than I tried it once, and I was very ill indeed. And it didn't even taste nice. If I'm going to get wrecked, I'll do it on stuff that doesn't take my teeth out while I'm drinking it, ta.

(first story relates to the barras btw, which I haven't been to in forever, though a very lovely woman with a stall in there ordered me in loads of ribbon for my wedding favours/cake, etc, and left it with the security man for me to pick up through the week since I wasn't going to be able to go back and pick it up at the weekend. She was lovely.)

The glass/plastic bru dichotomy is down to different bottling plants and their local springs I understand. Plastic bottles are bottled in Manchester, glass indicates superior Glasgow water.

Certainly, wherever I am in the world and I want to sample fine waters, I always make sure I tip tons of sugar and orange gunk in first.

Don't get me started on people drinking those see-through fruity sugar drinks and calling them "water".

i'm not sure if i'd like calpol/buckfast these days, the days of getting through a pint of haagen dazs and still itching for more sugar are sadly past ;_;

Don't get me started on people drinking those see-through fruity sugar drinks and calling them "water".

― a ticker tape of "must not fuck up" (Noodle Vague), Sunday, 21 November 2010 18:10 (1 minute ago)

at least the aspartame should start killing off these savages w/in 20 years or so [via carcinoma]

had always thought the jeggy bottles of irn bru tasted better, just thought i was being daft, surprised and delighted that there's apparently an actual reason for this!

The sole reason is the anticipation of the 20p you get back on the bottle, afaic.

was having a conversation the other day, i seem to remember the bottle costing 50p and the return being 10p when i was a lad. though i'm not totally sure.

bloody inflation

No-one has answered the important caffeine content posed at top of the thread...
http://img.thesun.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01163/SNA1306E--380_1163485a.jpg

Or the fact that it is made in Devon!

By monks!

all about the phosphates imo

those fuckin' monks have a lot to answer for.

is there a case to answered for monastic hypocrisy wrt their selling of a beverage that fuels violence/social decay/fun?

those bell ringing bastards are just raking in the cash and spending it all on beiber memorabilia.

red bull contains 80mg of caffeine per 250ml volume. buckfast has 93.75mg per 250ml volume.

yes it's made by monks. Benedictine goodness.

also take in to consideration that red bull is being diluted by caffeineless booze when you drink it.

with booze

According to Wiki the brown bottle version has even more caffeine. And the monks says it's not their fault most of their customers enjoy it responsibly (especially the ones they see out of their cell windows in Devon).

eggs benedictine- four deep fried scotch eggs, ham, hollandaise sauce, buckfast coulis and scones

tattie scones, surely. Or fried bread for proper West of Scotland grim authenticity. And none of yr hollandaise pish, just melt a block of butter on the fucker.

scares me to think that there are men out there who start their day with 'bruckfast'. fittingly, big man st benedict was the patron saint of europe, students and kidney disease

wd drink pentatonic wine

repenter's tonic wine

dmac?

I remembered the explanation I heard for the numbers-on-the-bottles thing: supposedly it gets brewed/fermented/cooked-up in vats holding about thirty batches. The creme-de-la-creme gets scooped off the top and into bottles marked '1'. Second batch has a little more gunk and toxins and goes into bottles marked '2', and so on down to '29'. '30' must get used for making driveways or something.

is there a case to answered for monastic hypocrisy wrt their selling of a beverage that fuels violence/social decay/fun?

― calpolaris (nakhchivan), Sunday, 21 November 2010 18:35 (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

saw a BBC programme a few months ago where a dude went to the abbey and tried to do just that - got fully stonewalled and eventually escorted off the premises - monks be monkish

Maybe those bottles are made into girders, and those girders get made into Irn-Bru?

(iirc the show was called, slightly hysterically, something like 'The Worst Drinks In The World' and also tackled Special Brew and 'half-price' supermarket offers on wine which is never actually sold at the full price claimed)

Can anyone report back on experiences with Special Brew or other insanely strong lager? I've never had the guts to try it...

it's insanely strong and kinda rank and doesn't get you drunk that much quicker

^ this.

rank in the sense of tasting too alcoholic?

I don't mind the taste of Tennents Super tbh. Had some the other day to toast a friend's dad who used to drink it.

^^^ cider is much more efficient for getting drunk fast.

^^^old rosie all the way

rank in the sense of fucking foul obv

Special Brew is for boys - Crucial Brew was the thing. Not great stuff but if it was cold enough it would do the job.

Oh, turns out Special Brew was stronger than Crucial Brew.

No, it just tastes like really horribly bad beer. I suspect taste has been sacrificed in the making of the alcoholicness. I mean, it's less abv than wine or liqueurs which can be swigged fairly readily.

xxxposts

When my mate was moving to London a few weeks ago, we bought him a survival kit, one item of which was a tin of Tennents Super so that when he got off the train in Kings Cross he would be easily identifiable as Scottish :-)

^ possible candidate for uk hipster drink?

Old Tom is very strong and rather lovely but a whole different kettle of brew to this stuff.

Strong IPA: the Special Brew it's socially acceptable to drink?

While we're on the subject of ill-advised boozing- has anyone been to the Coronation Tap in Bristol, where they will only serve certain of the ciders in halves?

fuck bristol, drink cider in hereford where the pints are full and the taps are cold as ice

if one is in the business of comprehensively unravelling their life in the space of a few hours
http://www.crets.org.uk/Images/Crets2008/BlackRat.jpg

saw that in a pub in Wiltshire the other day, was tempted.

Thread calling aldo, aldo to thread, etc.

do u ever get buckfast in pubs in scotland?

Aye

cider counties ranked: 1. somerset 2. herefordshire 3. wiltshire

with Worcestershire for Perry.

and lowland scenery

http://www.worcesternews.co.uk/resources/images/59152/?type=display

beautiful

not sure abt the aubergines

could use some cider rite now tho

I am drinking some red wine. Do you think I should improve it by diluting with red bull and a bit of benylin?

http://rlv.zcache.com/i_get_buck_tshirt-p235685203370222271q6wh_400.jpg

can you get buck, fast anywhere in london?

not sure abt the aubergines

― calpolaris (nakhchivan), Sunday, 21 November 2010 20:16 (9 minutes ago)

suggest scrump

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Broons-Family-Album-Collection-Favourite/dp/B0042ESYX0/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1290372230&sr=8-2

CD Description

Scotland's first family "The Broons" make their first ever assault on the chart. The iconic comic strip family from Glebe Street who first appeared in the Sunday Post as far back as 1936 , will have the support of Beatles record label, namely the mighty EMI, in releasing A Braw Collection O' The Broons Favourite Tunes on their own Family Album .

The Broons Family album itself is a five CD set of the Broons music favourites, mainly from the '60s.

It's a collection of songs that includes....The Broons Favourite Movie Themes from their many nights "at the pictures" , The Broons Favourite TV Themes, Their favourite pop songs by the original artists (which includes over 20 UK No 1's) .....as well as Hogmanay party classics and a relaxing selection of tunes enjoyed by The Broons at their favourite holiday hame "The But an Ben"

As an extra bonus to this unique album, the artwork on the cover and in the booklet will be the work of original artist Dudley B Watkins.

important q. what has historically ushered forth more ruin & bane - the apple or the grape?

Never heard of square sausage either...worth starting a thread on McDaid's Football Special?

Coming from Letterkenny, i practically grew up on this stuff. My little sister used to continually perplex waiters by ordering it when we went on holidays. It's incredibly volatile too, even the slightest bit of shaking will result in an brown/orange fountain when you open it. Unfortunately they changed the recipe slightly in recent years (possibly due to more stringent health regulations) and it's not as good anymore. The banana version is one the vilest substances known to man. I mean...a fizzy banana drink?

haha, OK, I thought you were talking about square sausage to start with and was v. confused.

Yeah, i realized that was a bit confusing after i posted it

Oh and you can get pitchers of Buckfast (with optional Red Bull) in Dublin hipster hangout The George Bernard Shaw.

important q. what has historically ushered forth more ruin & bane - the apple or the grape?

helen wasn't won by a golden grape, but then the bacchae weren't goin' bucky on cider, so greek mythology has them about 1-1

Hendrix left us on red wine and pills I believe - not aware of any rock stars checking out on scrumpy

wait how did nick drake depart this sphere

Adge Cutler

xpost

pilled up and miserable

Wurzels all still with us then?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adge_cutler

ah, OK, I am an idiot. hook me up with Ricky Gervais and send me on flashy holidays plz.

It was a car crash and I wd like to make it very clear that there is not the slightest suggestion that scrumpy was involved.

Yeah, Adge Cutler died on his way back from a gig in Hereford where he may well have been caned.

Cider is seriously dangerous for the initiated. The Exhibition they sell in the Corry Tap is only the same strength and sweetness as that exceptionally violent batch of Rich's 5 years ago. You don't actually need to go that far south from Bristol for some really good stuff, although mug someone else into driving and you can be at Roger Wilkins' in no time ergo HAPPY DAYS.

Hereford is not brilliant. There are some good small people (including a bathtub bloke in Moreton) but in the main it's barely passable.

Sorry, first sentence second para should read uninitiated.

You can buy Black Rat in nearly every Moles' pub btw. I live about 100 yards from one.

Strong IPA: the Special Brew it's socially acceptable to drink?

Well, for a start it's not as cheap, and often v. expensive in pubs esp. compared to, oh I don't know what the young 'uns drink to-day, that WKD stuff what's on the telly? But also it doesn't really lend it itself to downing in one. But, yeah still does the same thing at the end of the night.

Anyone had this?
http://www.brewdog.com/sink_the_bismark.php
I like their Punk IPA, a mere 6%, can't imagine what 41% tastes like.

Ooops - too much wine...
http://www.brewdog.com/media/beers/bismark/bottle.jpg

Ha! No wonder I've never seen any it's £40 a bottle. That will put off even this Ned.

got to tip your hat to BrewDog imo for the effort they put into basically trolling beer nerds

aren't beer nerds their customers?

i guess they troll beerists

microindustrialist community salesman and nerd david keenan is a staunch & passionate advocate for brewdog iirc

I look forward to passing up the chance to buy it directly from him at twice the price one would expect

He stocks up on them then sells them later for 5 times the price when they're not available elsewhere anymore?
xp

Brew dog make terrible beer imo

Talk about special brew upthread. The one time I drank it straight it was confiscated from a friend's uncle - who had previously had feet amputated by getting drunk and soiling/wetting himself from a drunken 3 days without rising from his seat (lol larkhall). Oh and once had it diluted in a turbo diesel: special,frosty jack,a shot of vodka and blackcurrant.

I hate that Buckie has such a skeezy reputation these days as it's pretty good way of getting fucked up really cheaply without passing out.

A couple of choice pubs in Inverclyde have Buckie and Eldorado on the optics right next to the spirits. If anyone's ever in the area I recommend trying a Coffin (originally called a Coatbridge Coffin iirc) - a half gill of Buckie in a half pint glass with lots of ice & lots of soda water. Tastes like cola-cubes (the soda kills the cough bottle sweetness), knocks your head off, costs about £1.30. Double all of that into a pint glass for a Family Coffin :)

I don't think Buckie drunks are anywhere near as belligerent as Eldo drunks. We used to call Eldo a bottle of "Who are you looking at?" for the effect it has on people. Nice warm drunken glow before the rammy starts though :)

Oh, and the Buckfast Monks don't make it - they import it from France and bottle it.

I was disappointed in the gift shop at Buckfast Abbey (went on a pilgrimage a la Rab C Nesbitt a couple of years back) - there were no fancy Buckie bottle of presentation boxes, looked like a Glasgow offie tbh.

(*bottles* *or* presentation boxes)

Didn't know the monks don't make it,takes away some of the romance.

I'm coming for a cheap day out in Inverclyde to try that coffin stuff out some day when I can't afford nice booze :-)

Oh and you can get pitchers of Buckfast (with optional Red Bull) in Dublin hipster hangout The George Bernard Shaw

optional ecstasy too probably.

Served with a laudanum chaser.

they sell glasses of bucky in nice and sleazys in glasgow but you feel like you're getting totally bumptied since it's like £2.50 for a wee glass when a bottle is only £6.

Booze being marked up in pubs non-shocker.

can you get buckfast anywhere in london

I was in a pub in Woolwich celebrating Celtic winning the league in 1998 (CHEERIO TEN IN A ROW!) with a load of Scottish and Irish guys - everyone was passing round bottles of champagne (or £6 fizzy wine) and someone appeared with three bottles of Buckfast. So there's an off-sales somewhere in SE18 that sells it, or did 12 years ago :)

still on the look out for it

got a feeling there's a cache of the stuff in some nondescript suburb

like that naija guiness which u seldom used to see but quite a lot of inner london off licenses have it now

Dunno about England, but they sometimes have it under the counter in Ireland. Just give em the old nod and a wink.

http://img.thesun.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01184/woman-main_1184255a.jpg

shes only 15 but that's what you look like when you drink that shit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NK6YMaL6gU&feature=player_embedded

can't tell if it's a parody or an alarmingly accurate take on Scottish culture to be honest.

http://i.imgur.com/ECK31.jpg

You should never ever pour Buckfast into any kind of a receptacle. It just looks wrong.

haggis pakora

http://www.thecourier.co.uk/img/photos/biz/photo_2258_wide_crop.jpg

just found this at a shop near me, never noticed it there before

£7.50 tho! for that price u can buy a nice marsala dolce from most supermarkets, and with ~20% rather than 15% alcohol

loads of offies in london sell this. £7.50 is taking the piss.

finally fucking purchased some of this, heading to dorset for the weekend, see some fucking nature

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckfast_Tonic_Wine

most illustrative set of pics here

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20111110044047AAeHQut

what is 'tablet' per usage in ward fowler's first reply?

Glycerophosphate is used in intravenous drip solutions as a source of phosphate, a biologically important ion used in energy-requiring reactions.

it's like hard, grainy fudge

tablet

thx :)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckfast_Tonic_Wine

most illustrative set of pics here

― goole, Friday, 8 March 2013 19:41 (1 hour ago) Bookmark

lol

Photo of an empty bottle of Buckfast Tonic Wine in a park in Glasgow

lordamercy

two fucking buzzards and a chaffinch

From 2008 to 2012, Buckfast was mentioned in an average of 2,893 crime reports per year in Strathclyde Police’s patch, which works out at just under eight a day.

In January 2010 a BBC investigation revealed that Buckfast had been mentioned in 5,638 crime reports in the Strathclyde area of Scotland from 2006–2009, equating to an average of three per day.

^progress

There seemed to be a severe Buckfast shortage on Stoke Newington High St last Saturday. In desperation someone bought Sanatogen, much to everyone elses disgust.

gotta have standards

this was the most disgusting thing I've ever put in my mouth btw, and that includes *checks watch* my my, it's 2013, I don't post like that any more

if you know where to look you can buy some actually quite good wine for less than a bottle of buckfast and spend the difference on red bull

maybe the vice dude who i c&ped last week could return to the greater glasgow area and take the local kids to a discount superstore so they can get wasted with all the distinction of a young gentleman in his wiltshire manse

The wine, which comes in distinct brands depending on the market, has achieved popularity in working class, student and bohemian communities in the United Kingdom and Ireland. In the Republic of Ireland, Buckfast is packaged in a darker bottle, has a slightly lower alcoholic strength, and lacks the vanillin flavouring present in the British version. Buckfast sold in Northern Ireland is the same as the that sold in the rest of the UK.[1]
Buckfast has become associated with anti-social behaviour in Scotland and has entered the popular lexicon with nicknames such as "Wreck the Hoose Juice", "Commotion Lotion", "Mrs. Brown",[2] "Buckie Baracas" and "Coatbridge Table Wine".[3]

student and bohemian communities probably explains why lj is acquainted with this and other varsity society hijink faves

the one english person i've seen take on a bottle of buckie ended up falling asleep with his head in the toilet. ye jist don't hiv it in ye.

au contraire nakhers read a few posts up

oh yeah, i meant the trailing of some sort of ----phagic boho bantz that will not be expanded upon

think I found out about it from the internet, idk

how much u pay for this shit? also you could have gone to their damn abbey in devon, done a chateau tasting sesh, prime cuvees too powerful to be inflicted on glaswegian bampots

buckfast has always been weirdly expensive. Still, nothing else will quite do when you're acting the cunt down the Spanish Arch at three o'clock on a Saturday afternoon

like £8 or £9? might have been less. tasted foul

I'm really into alcoholic drinks for the taste & nothing else so Buckfast was a noble error

srsly?

ive bought champagne cheaper than that

yeah it was no stone's ginger wine. much fouler too. ginger wine is a secret drop of mine now and then

nothing wrong with sgw

might have to go and buy some tomorrow, running low on sipping material

that's how I drink nowadays btw - sipping strong liquor from the bottle. probably something like 0.005 units per day. not endangering, but it keeps me company

you like to think of yourself that sips strong liquor straight from the bottle but unforch yr english so pretence must suffice imo

my current sip

http://www.industrie.lu/im/i/g/028Pitz-2.jpg

Maagbitter Buff
Prepared according to the prescriptions given in a manuscript of the famous professor and herbalist Herman Boerhaave (1668-1738) from the University of Leiden (Netherlands) Exclusively made of exotic plants combined in carefully dosed quantities, Maagbitter BUFF is drunk with sparkling water as "APPETIZER" and neat or on ice as a "DIGESTIVE".

http://www.buff.lu/media//test.jpg

Dr Herman Boerhaave

Professor Herman Boerhaave was a Dutch botanist, humanist and physician of European fame. He is regarded as the founder of clinical teaching and of the modern academic hospital.

In 1709, he became professor of botany and medicine, and in that capacity he did good service. Not only to his own university, but also to botanical science, by his improvements and additions to the botanic garden of Leiden, and by the publication of numerous works descriptive of new species of plants.

In 1728, he was elected into the French Academy of Sciences, and two years later into the Royal Society of London.

http://www.buff.lu/media//test.jpg

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-x_qmyc8sqiU/To0Ms0gIVwI/AAAAAAAAAoo/pAxmu53z3YE/s1600/Aberlour12yrsscotch.JPG

i dunno what mr aberlour did and i dgaf but this is good

beaten by 3%

nakhers I refuse to get into whiskey until you meet me in person & show me the ropes

i mean really what is that dickensian plate print and whimsical biographical shite but the innocent smoothies aesthetic of its day, or worse again as i suspect of a day far later than the supposed timeline as purely to afford innocent smoothie aesthetic qualities

My bottle describes it as an 'Elixir stomachic'. If that's Innocent Smoothie then frankly bring on Innocent Smoothie

from his own mouth, ladies and gents, from his own mouth, my lords

says the dude drinking from a bottle with a fucking signature on it

That Maagbitter Stuff looks excellent, will have to try it out. If you haven't had Fernet Branca before I'd definitely recommend it as an acquirable taste in the sipping domain - it even has its own thread!

btw the Lëtzebuergesch word for "website" is "Websäit"

:D it is a weird one isn't it

Fernet Branca? Will investigate. Maagbitter is exactly that - very bitter - but it does grow on you

Have you tried the Hungarian liqueur Unicum?

There's a vulgar joke to be made there, but *checks watch again* yep, still 2013

The wackiest liquor I've had is Stroh, which practically took my throat off

http://media.mlive.com/kzgazette/entertainment/photo/9746928-large.jpg

do you have stuff like this in the UK?

I do not think so. Most of our alcopops are vodka or ethanol with mixers rather than malt drinks.

Stroh is nice in hot chocolate. I could not, in good conscience, recommend Unicum but it is an experience.

you can get pre-mixed lowbrow cocktails if that's what's in that photo, don't feel like it's hugely prevalent tho my world of young ppl is p unmapped nowadays

Stone's Ginger Wine rules fuiud

get the republic of ireland and their tasteful buckie

Thunderbird and MD 20/20 both available in any shitty off-license in a multitude of flavours. Boone's Farm, not so sure.

get the republic of ireland and their tasteful buckie

Fuck taste, let's fight

I hate that Buckie has such a skeezy reputation these days as it's pretty good way of getting fucked up really cheaply without passing out.

A couple of choice pubs in Inverclyde have Buckie and Eldorado on the optics right next to the spirits. If anyone's ever in the area I recommend trying a Coffin (originally called a Coatbridge Coffin iirc) - a half gill of Buckie in a half pint glass with lots of ice & lots of soda water. Tastes like cola-cubes (the soda kills the cough bottle sweetness), knocks your head off, costs about £1.30. Double all of that into a pint glass for a Family Coffin :)

I stand by this. I can't drink it as it comes because the sweetness is horrible but Coffins are ok and handy for when you're too fucked to drink anything else because they're an instant second wind.

I think the main reason for the violence is that it keeps very drunk people wide awake. If you were equally drunk from beer or whisky you'd be passed out drooling in a corner but buckie has you whizzing around thinking you're still sober but with all the judgement of a drooling drunk. Same applies to spirits mixed with energy drinks ime.

I drank a lot of this recently it tasted like shit and did not fuck me up as promised, wtf scotch monks

DEVON monks.

Buckfast is definitely an acquired taste, but once that stage is reached, it is essential once you get beyond 4am. Protip: the warmer it is, the better it tastes.

Oh also in re upthread, you can get lorne sausage here in Cambridge so I'm sure you can elsewhere in England

Unicum

oh I have a bottle of the other variety of Zwack (I think) at home, it tastes of cough mixture tbh.

iirc the difference was that one has citrus extracts as well as the herbs but I became quite confused while reading http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zwack_liqueur and no longer know what I've been drinking

ive had shots of unicum i think but rly by the time one is on this kind of tack the landmarks become vague and hazy

lj (or anyone in the know): where can I get hold of Maagbitter Buff in the London area? Google isn't in the mood to help.

https://scontent-a-lhr.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-frc3/1375986_10151664808366746_277764488_n.jpg

aw he's so proud

I clearly have some work to do before visiting London (2014 or bust), as I thought buckfast must be some twee manner of saying breakfast.

2014 or breakfast or buckfast

That is amazing.

dunno seandalai, only ever gotten it from Luxembourg Airport

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fVSxw2AJqI

surprised this didn't show up above

NOT FAIR. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-25236076

"That's not fair. I'm not producing drugs, which I know are going to be used abusively."

just alcohol and caffeine you berk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9tdcGmBefM

:D

"Inside the abbey's winery, opened in 2011, gleaming metal tanks about 100ft (30m) high, each able to hold 125,000 litre, stand like missile silos."

Nice bit of impartial imagery from the BBC.

NOT FAIR (again): http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-25989700

POV from someone who grew up in the shittiest bits of North Lanarkshire:

http://www.theguardian.com/society/shortcuts/2014/feb/03/buckfast-triangle-alcoholic-drink-monks-west-scotland

drank a bottle of Buckie on Friday night, those nearby stayed unmurdered afaik. anecdote >>>> data

Reading the comments brings back memories of tipples favoured by heid-the-ba's from an earlier era: Eldorado, Lanliq... I would say "happy days" but...

Everyone I know from that part of the world has a fortified wine horror-story.

Mencap, plenty of nice, comfortable people drink a lot of evil shit without it ruining their lives. I'm really not sure what point you're trying to make in saying you're one of them. I'm not left with that confusion after reading what Damian had to say.

if they ban buckfast they will just google this thread and buy a bottle of marsala dolce for about the same price and dissolve a few caffeine tabs and you'll have the same social breakdown but it will taste better

net +

I wonder what all the pissed up violent arseholes outside the Buckie triangle are drinking.

I don't know but they must be kicking themselves (and other people)

ALCOPOPS

Vodka and Red Bull.

POV from someone who grew up in the shittiest bits of North Lanarkshire:

http://www.theguardian.com/society/shortcuts/2014/feb/03/buckfast-triangle-alcoholic-drink-monks-west-scotland

― baked beings on toast (suzy), Tuesday, February 4, 2014 6:38 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

That's a great bit of writing. I live in a place where people like me are curiously intertwined with buckie bandits, and I was once fully part of that world. I clicked on the link expecting the usual jibber-jabber, but it's tight. I recognise this: "It's the poisonous green bottles smashed all over the streets of the estate I played on – the evil emeralds I picked out of my knees." Well put.

I think it's a load of pish. People up and down the country have been getting drunk and starting fights since forever, with our without Buckie. Other people have been drinking Buckie for decades without starting fights. That people in a certain part of the UK use Buckie to fuel their fights instead of Stella, vodka & Red Bull, Special Brew, Newcastle Brown, MD, Thunderbird, El Dorado or whatever doesn't make Buckfast the problem. The vast majority of post-pub/club barneys do not involve Buckfast. The problem is people not knowing their limits and being aggressive arseholes when they're pished.

Buckie, like Red Bull, does make people drink that bit extra as the stimulants mask the drunken feeling so I accept that it can exacerbate the problems but neds aren't going to stop getting pished and punching people if you take their Buckie away.

Mencap, plenty of nice, comfortable people drink a lot of evil shit without it ruining their lives. I'm really not sure what point you're trying to make in saying you're one of them. I'm not left with that confusion after reading what Damian had to say.

― baked beings on toast (suzy), Tuesday, February 4, 2014 6:59 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

was merely referencing the BBC link Tom posted

http://www.thearches.co.uk/cafe-bar-restaurant/evening-menu

The ‘Bucky’ burger, pork meat infused with a Buckfast & soy reduction, root vegetable coleslaw, served with hand cut chips and Arches pickle £8

jesus

imagining a Buckfast "reduction". It'd be like tar

splashed some Buckie in pasta sauce some time back (you'd put red wine in, you'd put sugar in, what could go wrong) but it was honest-as-the-day-is-long improvisation rather than for fleeting lolz

Yes, £8 is a bit steep (xxxp)

arches pickle = underage ecstasy death

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/hundreds-mourners-pay-tribute-murdered-3485098

http://i2.dailyrecord.co.uk/incoming/article3485594.ece/alternates/400x/Connor-Cleaves-tributes.jpg

is this the real scotland thread now

Hundrreds is average tbh

real scotland

http://m.stv.tv/news/west-central/275705-buckfast-owners-announce-controversial-tonic-wine-to-be-sold-in-cans/

Next stop nightclubs.

new branding

https://twitter.com/StewartWilson19/status/471915679621189632

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BoyUzuCIEAA6Mfe.jpg

I'm buying the first one I see.

lol @
"Stewart Wilson @StewartWilson19
The approved Twitter account for Buckfast Tonic Wine."

didnae even register an official @buckie

http://waterfordwhispersnews.com/2014/05/20/powdered-buckfast-to-be-sold-in-wraps/

http://i.imgur.com/WUKGShS.png

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/02/world/europe/buckfast-abbey-tonic-wine.html?ref=dining

I have still yet to taste or even see buckie in a can.

this article could have run at any time in the last 20 years

English Abbey’s Caffeinated Wine Gains Popularity and Scrutiny

“At the end of the day it’s not different from any other alcohol,” she said. “In Scotland, they make whisky; it’s all about responsibility.”

it's different from other alcohol in that buckie bottles are the only kind which get lobbed over my back fence and smashed in the garden

In Scotland, A Turbo-Booze To-Do

In Gutter, Evidence of Tradition

brb gonna start a petition to introduce decaf buckie

I clearly have some work to do before visiting London (2014 or bust), as I thought buckfast must be some twee manner of saying breakfast.

― eclectic husbandry (Dr Morbius), Monday, November 4, 2013 11:56 AM (1 year ago)

every time this thread comes back up i misread it as 'breakfast' and feel a moment of deep pity for ppl who live in such a sad fucked up place that there's no breakfast

decaf coffee is pointless enough

Eldorado - previously a rich white fortified jakey wine - now comes in a £5.99 bottle of caffeinated "tonic" in a blatant play for the Buckfast market

http://www.unitedwines.co.uk/tmp/uploads/cms_image/rs-300x500/1413204801-88.jpg

in a fit of curiosity i bought a supermalt last night

lasted about three sips. probably even grosser than buckfast

Yeah, it's very much a Caribbean staple but you lasted two sips longer than i did.

reckon it might have been ok with maybe 10% of its sugar content, but sweetened malt fizz feels like the opposite of health and efficiency

some caribbean staples i can't get enough of, btw - i get through about three aloe vera juice bottles a week. i've also recently developed a liking for that foco tamarind juice stuff. having a backstreets cornershop as my only nearby source of sustenance is great fun tbh

yeah my dad drinks supermalts, I remember when I was young really wanting to like them but they made me feel ill. I don't like excess maltiness in beer either (eg the erdinger alkohol frei)

carribean junk product he got me into that I still love and consume unhealthy amounts of = encona sauce

oh, one cricket team we played served sarsaparilla during the drinks breaks. i could very, very easily get hooked on that stuff

I'm pretty sure my dad puts Encona on every meal he has.

Milo is more palatable than Supermalt if you absolutely need to have sugary malt drinks.

Are there any malt drinks that just aren't sugary?

I'm not so into sweet drinks luckily but when hungover I love root beer & that Arizona green tea you can get in the states, wish we had that here

good disgusting sweet corner shop can drink you can get here: that thai drink with basil seeds in it

I'm pretty sure my dad puts Encona on every meal he has.

SAME! My mum used to boggle at how he'd slather it all over a roast dinner

the Arizona green tea IS here! you can get it in my cornershop!

whaaa

why did we waste so much of this thread talking about shitty buckfast

just fished an empty bottle of arizona blueberry white tea from the recycling and an admiring its ornate patterning rn

*am

I'm fuckin hangin this am, could do with a can

it really does pay to scan the entire drinks shelf

I've got a soft spot for arizona arnold palmers

obviously when it comes to nectars & from-concentrate juice drinks, poland is host nation and tournament winner. dr witt alone has to be worthy of some sort of prize, let alone frugo, tymbark etc etc

Counter to that is krakow non-alcoholic coffee beer which is one of the worst things I've ever tasted

I'm having a Bloody Mary rn and they put pineapple juice in it 😩

and they put pineapple juice in it

disgusting savages

It was an unwelcome surprise :-(

Why not stick some battery acid in the hungover person's stomach while you're at it

A trip to the polish shop has reminded me that the horrible coffee beer brand is karmi, not krakow

Dunnes Stores are selling naggins of Buckfast now. Just doesn't look right.

That size has been around for ages. I've yet to encounter a can on my travels though.

My cornershop soft drink import of choice is S. Pellegrino Melograno e Arancina 'sparkling beverage'.

i don't drink anything bad for me unless it's got alcohol in it

really into these tallboy cans of kern's nectar they have at the 7/11 now. because what kern's nectar needed was one of those giant arizona style cans. the 80 difft kinds of monster energy drinks skeeze me out though.

I've had a few cans, all delivered to me by Edinburghers though. I'm trying to keep them for special (rare) occasions though.

Special occasions = Saturday nights.

Dunnes Stores are selling naggins of Buckfast now. Just doesn't look right.

i would get these all the time, much more often than a full bottle because the caffeine, and the booze tbh, were generally more than i wanted before going out to the pub/club. glasgow being what it was both my friends and many of the retailers would disparage my choice and suggest i go for a full bottle.

https://i.imgur.com/PF61ZDV.jpg