Malt beverage?

SO, I'm standing over a boiling kettle last night and my mind begins to wander yet again, and I find myself curious...what exactly is a 'malt beverage'? I get the kool-aid part, but where does the malt beverage alcohol come from? Are they simply adding a couple drops of grain to a bottle of juice, or what?

Do I even wanna know?

My udnerstanding has always been it is largely a legal technicality more than anything. Its a neat dodge for getting something similar to flavored booze ionto the shelves of a beer only retailer.

Here's the wiki on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malt_beverage

This brings up a question that's been rolling around the back of my mind, since I tried a strawberry beer. Use only pale malt, no hops, champagne yeast?, to make a very bland 'base' for a malt beverage. Then add whatever. I'm thinking orange and lime, and tequila 'essence' to make Margarita's. What 'liquor extracts' are avilable to us? or should we use synthetics? You would have to add the acidy stuff after ferment, yeast don't like as much acid as we do. My guess is that's the way to make hard lemonade.

Would the acids in the lemons would kill the yeast, leaving some sugar? or bottle bombs?

ETA, how high could I go on a mash temp to get lots of sweet unfermentables? Dry fruit don't taste like fruit, from my Strawberry Tart attempt.