What Do You Remember About Sly Fox Wine?
We got an email from a gentleman named Terry who is looking for a for details for a brand of wine called "Sly Fox." We've got our compatriots over at Cheap Fun Wines doing some research, and we've been doing some digging of our own, but we thought we'd ask you, oh handsome and brilliant reader, if you know anything about it. Here's an excerpt from Terry's email:
I am looking for a product of growing up in the 60's and what a time/era it was. Back then we could get a wine called "Sly Fox" that was absolutely great!
In trying to relive the less harmful times of the 60's I started looking for it but I feel the company who made it is out of business. I have had a few Internet hits on it but it was mainly people who remember it like me but alas no product to find.
Do you know of Sly Fox and if it is available? If not do you know of a similar substitute? I guess it fell into a category of the Boons Farm,Thunderbird, Richardson "fortified wines".
We've found a site that calls it
nasty stuff in a green glass bottle, a reference on another site called
Bum wines, and even
a poem that refers to it, but we can't find any particulars. If any of our loyal readers (or maybe your parents) know anything about Sly Fox wine and possible substitutes, please add a comment below or email us at news at
liquorsnob.com.
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Posted by Liquor Snob at August 2, 2006 7:15 AM
Sir,
I clearly remember the wine known as SLY FOX.( Circa 1965-1972) It came in one gallon green bottles and sold for 89 cents a gallon. It was known to fool even the most experienced drinkers. The first taste was terrible ~ but then subsequent sips and swallows as I can remember actually tasted good or so it seems. Culmination usually was passing out or so messed up one could hardly move or respond to any sort of stimulii. We use to say even the garbage men would not venture to drink this stuff. It was for hippies and young people. Also we use to have a custom that whenever a partial jug of SLY FOX was discovered on the ground it was appropriate to search the surrounding area in a minimun of 200 plus meter radius looking for victims. It was rumored that upon tossing the jug the "OLE SLY FOX" could be heard a laughing ~ ~ I am quite surprised that so little information is recorded for historic purposes and trust that this true account be added to the record for posterity.
Written by a bonifide consumer of the "FOX"
September 11 , 2006
SLY FOX-yes ,I remember(to a point)drinking it while in the Navy in Virginia Beach between 1967 & 70.I did not recall the green bottle & think it was available in quarts (or fifths)very cheap.The label had a cartoonish smiling(sly) fox & I think it called itself a "grape" wine. Terrible hangovers!
As a '60's barroom musician in Norfolk Virginia, the most solid block of bars in the world, I remember the cartoon purple and blue Sly Fox Wine label. I covered a Harmony Bass guitar with the labels. I remember that the wine was a little cheaper than Thunderbird and MD 20/20 and was used in several "wine cocktails" sold in sailor bars, as liquor by the drink was illegal.
Sly Fox! Yes, I remember it very well. As a teenager living on a military base during the early 60's. Fort Eustis, Virginia and we would put out nickles, dimes and quarters together and ask some soldier to buy it for us right outside the main gate. It was part of our rite of passage, becoming a man and all that. We thought it tasted great, but what did we know. I recall soaking a few of those labels off the bottles and putting them on my wall in my bedroom. As I understand, it's no longer in production... I now live in California, but when I went back to VA in the 80's, a liquor store worker told me that.
Oh ya...Hampton, Norfolk, Va Beach & Sly Fox. The best bang for the buck, it actually made your tounge purple. Another favorite amgonst us pop bottle deposit buyers was Boars Head Sweet Apple Wine. Does anyone remember the Boar???
Yep, I remember Sly Fox wine. I first got to know the Sly Fox in 1962 in Norfolk, VA as a young submariner that couldn't afford any thing better for a cheeeep drunk. The other cheap brands were Golden Spur, Three Bears, Old Padre And some other brand that had a roster on the label. They didn't taste very good but they made the bar girls look better. I went back to the Portsmouth, VA area in 1969. They were still selling most of the stuff but my taste buds had gotten a little more particular by then. I bought a bottle and had about 2 swallows of it and put it out for the trash men. Suddenly my garbage cans and covers began coming back to my back yard like they were supposed to do any way. Every 2 months I would leave a bottle of cheap wine on the top of the trash cans and everyone was happy.
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