I saw a clip of the comedian Tracy Morgan on the David Letterman program, and he told a joke about drinking Mad Dog 20/20.

The mention of Mad Dog surprised me for some reason. I hadn't thought about that particular ... ahem, "wine" ... in ages. And I realize now that I'd kinda always thought of it as a regional thing. I'd assumed that Mad Dog was produced in and probably for just a few select states ... and that Virginia was one of the "lucky" few.

For those of you who might not know, Mad Dog 20/20 is a cheap, bottom shelf wine that tastes like cough syrup mixed with antifreeze and exists primarily for the purpose of getting young people really drunk, really fast. It's marketed in bottles with a label that says "MD 20/20", and after your first experience with it, the mere sight of those distinctive bottles might be enough to make you feel sick.

It's godawful. The flavor is terrible and drinking Mad Dog always lead to feeling awful the next day. I never liked to drink it even when I was a 20-something kid and drinking very irresponsibly. As I remember it, nobody ever pretended to enjoy the taste of Mad Dog. The only reason to drink it was to get drunk quickly.

I always wondered what the MD on the label really stood for. And what's the 20/20 all about? Now, searching for trivial information like that is what the internet is for, right? Here's what I've learned:

• There seems to be some dispute about the name of the company that makes Mad Dog...


• The website Bum Wine says that Mad Dog is bottled by the 20/20 Wine Company. Everything2 agrees. They're wrong, though.


• Wikipedia says that Mad Dog is a product of Mogen David Wineries in Westfield, New York. I checked into it, and this is the correct company. So that's what the MD stands for, I guess.


• Mogen David Wineries doesn't have it's own corporate website. I actually called them and asked. No surprise. I don't think they need to rely on the internet to reach their customer base. The people who drink Mad Dog have probably always heard about it from older kids and probably always will.


• Mogen David is not the name of the guy who started the business or anything like that. Apparently, Mogen David is a name for the Star of David. That's right, Mad Dog is named for the traditional symbol of Judaism. I'd never have guessed that.


• Does't it seem kinda sacrilegious to reference the Star of David on a bottle of cheap rotgut wine? Not that I'd know, I'm not a Jew. Maybe the Jewish faith doesn't see sacrilege the same way that Christians do. But Judiasm is the "Big Brother" of Christianity and it kinda weirds me out seeing our "Big Brother's" sacred symbol linked through the name to a bottle of cheap rotgut wine. Especially when the wine is commonly known as Mad Dog and is used primarily by young people to get drunk quickly and cheaply.


• I couldn't find an explanation of the 20/20 part of the name, although someone at Yahoo Answers insists that the 20/20 is a reference to the first thing that Mad Dog effects: your vision.


• The nutritional information for Mad Dog is available at this link. Lots of zeros in the list.


• The late Elliott Smith and the 90's alt-rock band Teenage Fanclub have both done songs named after Mad Dog.


• The website Bum Wine is a great source for more information that you could possibly need on ... well, bum wines. I recommend the site, in spite of the fact that they got the name of the Mad Dog company wrong.

And with that I plan to go back to not thinking about Mad Dog at all.

Labels: Links, Trivial Matters