I buy Carlo Rossi Wine for the Bottle, do you?

LOL!

As I sit here trying to finish off the last 2 glasses of Carlo Rossi Burgundy (I typically use it for cooking, but I want this jug for some mead I'm going to make tomorrow), I can't stand drinking this crap.

What do you do with it? Do you drink it? Cook with it? Clean with it? Pour it down the drain?

UGH! Might have got away with a good Sangria. If you add enough junk to it could be drinkable.

i let other people buy and drink it. once it is all gone i kindly ask for the bottle while handing person a glass of home brew. i then use the bottle for yeast starters, experimental batches ect.

I buy it in the summer and put on ice on Fridays, then drink on sundays with sprite as a "cooler".

I kinda like it, for hobo wine.

Bought a couple 96 oz bottles of organic apple juice from Henry's for like 3 bucks each. Perfect for starters. Pretty sad when I start looking at the containers instead of the products when I'm shopping.

If you don't know anyone who is Basque you probably haven't heard of this, but they make a drink called a kalimotxo (pronounced cali-macho I think) thats 1/2 red wine and 1/2 cola. I know it sounds wierd but it auactually tastes pretty good and definately packs a punch

carlo rossi sangria almost killed me. that night it caused my roommates to see my girlfriend (now wife) totally naked...for about 2 hours...while they tried to keep me from dying of alcohol poisoning.

i've definitely thought about giving a terrible gift to someone is order to get the jug.

I just avoid drinking the rossi and buy the 1 gallon jugs from the LHBS.

Ooooh this reminds me I need to get some of this and make a sangria! Sounds like a nice experiment mixing Sprite/Rossi in a keg... or even making sangria in a keg, lightly carbed! That said I've bought the organic 1 gal apple juice for the bottles in the past!

Schlante,
Phillip

madipop said:

If you don't know anyone who is Basque you probably haven't heard of this, but they make a drink called a kalimotxo (pronounced cali-macho I think) thats 1/2 red wine and 1/2 cola. I know it sounds wierd but it auactually tastes pretty good and definately packs a punch

Click to expand...

13 years ago I was in Spain for my junior year abroad. They had bars with Cali-mocho on tap. We drank the hell out of it. Good times!

Funny you mention it, I was planning on buying a couple bottles of CR this weekend... But what would I do with 2 gallons of subpar wine?

When friends have given us "wine in a box" before, we've mixed it with sprite. Never tried the Cola before.

Cali-mocho is supposed to have Orange Crush in particular, not just cola.... as far as I know. At least that's how they do it in Galicia. The 'cheap mans sangria'.

Wow, you guys have your opinions on Carlo Rossi wine. It's pretty bad IMHO, but it makes damn good beef bourginon.

Use for carlo rossi wine, you say? Buy a mother culture, dilute 1:1, make vinegar!

I buy them. I use it for cooking. I can't drink the stuff. I don't particularly enjoy wine too much, so bad wine is out of the question.

I've recently discovered a couple of the stores around me sell apple juice in gallon jugs for about $3-4. It's easier to turn that into cider and enjoy it. The only downside is that the carlo rossi jugs are bigger than a gallon so you can ferment a gallon with a little bit of headroom and loose less to blow off..

I buy sherry by the gallon every few months ago so I can use it for cooking. Can't stand to drink that stuff....

but yeah, the first glass jug that I acquired to make some cider was a Carlo Rossi Chianti

It wasn't *great*, but really, for the price it wasn't that bad. I was pawning the stuff off on everyone around to try to get the jug empty as quickly as possible

the Chablis and Cabernet aren't that bad, I drink more of it than I'd like to admit and started long before I was brewing.
In a pint glass:
1 part cheap red wine
1 part ginger ale
1 part carbonated water (use less if dry wine)
ice if desired

strat_thru_marshall said:

carlo rossi sangria almost killed me. that night it caused my roommates to see my girlfriend (now wife) totally naked...for about 2 hours...while they tried to keep me from dying of alcohol poisoning.

Click to expand...

Wait, am I the only one who's going to ask you to elaborate on this one?

Stickshaker said:

Wait, am I the only one who's going to ask you to elaborate on this one?

Click to expand...

I thought about it, but it seemed a bit personal.



I do want to know though.

I ask folks for their jugs, or I buy them for a buck at my homebrewshop. No need to drink that stuff.

Wait, what?!?!?!?!?! Naked girlfirend and alcohol poisoning??? WHAT?

HalfPint said:

Wow, you guys have your opinions on Carlo Rossi wine. It's pretty bad IMHO, but it makes damn good beef bourginon.

Click to expand...

It definitely makes great bourguignon. It also works great for my special spaghetti sauce. I like the "burgundy" variety of CR for all of the recipes I make- even meatloaf. Today I'm doing a braised short ribs with tons of CR wine, some bay leaf, a little worchestershire sauce, other spices, onions, etc, and cooking that down.

The great thing that just happened to me is that the lady who runs my goat herd (long story, but it Michigan you can't buy raw milk, so we own part of a herd) has a HUGE quantity of CR jugs. Apparently her father-in-law drinks like three of those jugs a week, so we have more jugs than we can use for starters, wine, goat's milk, and so on. So now, we can buy the even cheaper BOX wines for cooking!

Although I have to admit that following the old adage, "Never cook with a wine you wouldn't drink" is good advice. I've actually cooked with great wine before, and it did make a big difference. But when you make venison bourguinon and it takes two bottles of burgundy, the cheap wine is the way to go.

I just use the $5 1 gallon jugs from my LHBS for my 1 gallon test batches

It is rot-gut, but it makes a damn fine Sangria. That is all I got to say about that.

portalgod said:

I just use the $5 1 gallon jugs from my LHBS for my 1 gallon test batches

Click to expand...

You drill out the cap for an airlock?

Yooper_Brew said:

It definitely makes great bourguignon. Today I'm doing a braised short ribs with tons of CR wine, some bay leaf, a little worchestershire sauce, other spices, onions, etc, and cooking that down.

Click to expand...

Got a link or care to share some bourguignon recipes?

BeerWars said:

It is rot-gut, but it makes a damn fine Sangria. That is all I got to say about that.

Click to expand...

This is my feeling on it. Works great using a darker variety or mixing it with the Chablis ( I think it is) add half a can of pink lemonade, fresh squeezed orange juice to taste, & slices of whatever fruit you prefer. Voila... fairly good sangria, great to cut with soda water or even mix it in for a party.

Schlante,
Phillip

MVKTR2 said:

Got a link or care to share some bourguignon recipes?

Click to expand...

the BEST bourguignon recipe is Julia Child's in the book "Mastering the Art of French Cooking". I found it online here: http://www.oprah.com/food/Boeuf-Bourguignon but it looks a bit different. My recipe used about twice as much in the way of ingredients, but maybe this one is just adapted for this magazine.

One of the first things I learned about cooking with wine-- "If you won't drink it, don't cook with it". I'll err on the side of caution here...

Funny you brought this up. I just collcted eight empty jugs form my parents the other day. They go through one or two of them a week. My dad drinks the burgundy, my mom drinks the blush.

I don't buy the stuff myself, but I've had it over there plenty of times. The burgundy is no Bordeaux for sure, but I don't think it really has a bad taste to it. It's just pretty bland. It also seems a lot stringer than French wine.

Revvy said:

Wait, what?!?!?!?!?! Naked girlfirend and alcohol poisoning??? WHAT?

Click to expand...

Yeah...her and I had just polished off a bottle of Jagermeister and gotten down to business. Afterward our roommates came home with a jug of that wine, and in a hurry to start drinking again she decided to forgo clothes and roll with just the bedsheet wrapped around her. The 4 of us plowed through the jug of wine pretty fast and I got pretty sick. Her worry for me somehow made her forget to keep that bedsheet on while they tried to induce vomiting.

Theres a mental image I'll never forget. My roommate with his finger down my throat as I dry heave while half blacked-out with my naked girlfriend standing there freaking out.
hahaha.

Good ol' Carlo Rossi. My one and only experience drinking it.

strat_thru_marshall said:

Yeah...her and I had just polished off a bottle of Jagermeister and gotten down to business. Afterward our roommates came home with a jug of that wine, and in a hurry to start drinking again she decided to forgo clothes and roll with just the bedsheet wrapped around her. The 4 of us plowed through the jug of wine pretty fast and I got pretty sick. Her worry for me somehow made her forget to keep that bedsheet on while they tried to induce vomiting.

Theres a mental image I'll never forget. My roommate with his finger down my throat as I dry heave while half blacked-out with my naked girlfriend standing there freaking out.
hahaha.

Good ol' Carlo Rossi. My one and only experience drinking it.

Click to expand...

Thank you sir.

You have made my day with, perhaps, one of the most epic drinking stories that I have ever heard.

It was on sale at my grocery store for 9.99 a jug. I bought a red and a white, took em to a party and had two empties by the end of the night. Got a little lit and had a great set of jugs after.

MVKTR2 said:

Got a link or care to share some bourguignon recipes?

Schlante,
Phillip

Click to expand...

That is one of the easiest recipes known to french man.

Here is what I do.

Take 1/2 lb bacon render the fat, and remove the bacon from the pan. Season 2-3 lbs of beef chuck that's been cut into large cubes with salt and pepper, then sear them in the rendered fat until caramelized on all sides (most important step) then remove from heat. Add a couple of onions, some bay leaves, and possibly some carrot if you want to the pan and cook until onion is translucent adding a few cloves garlic towards the last few minutes. Deglaze the pan with some cognac or brandy (leave those out if you don't have) and then add all ingredients back to the pot along with 1 bottle of dry red, handfull of fresh thyme sprigs (5-10?), and a couple rosemary twigs. Cook that covered adding beef broth or water to keep the meat covered until the beef is fork tender. When beef is tender, remove the lid add 1/2 stick of butter, a bag of frozen pearl onions, and a pound or so of sliced mushrooms. Cook that until the mushrooms and onions are done. Garnish with the bacon and enjoy.

J

MVKTR2 said:

Got a link or care to share some bourguignon recipes?



This is my feeling on it. Works great using a darker variety or mixing it with the Chablis ( I think it is) add half a can of pink lemonade, fresh squeezed orange juice to taste, & slices of whatever fruit you prefer. Voila... fairly good sangria, great to cut with soda water or even mix it in for a party.

Schlante,
Phillip

Click to expand...

Philip, OT post here, but the word is Sláinte
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sláinte

At least I presume that you are attempting the Irish toast in your sign off. What you have there is more like Yiddish than Irish.

Speaking of buying things for the bottle, my wife has been drinking perrier for a while now and it occurred to me that each empty is basically a 750mL growler which I don't care about giving away. I figure the water is carbonated to higher volumes than my beer so it is safe. I rarely put beer in a bottle but once in a while I give away a sample and now I don't have to worry about tracking down the growler.

Coastarine said:

Speaking of buying things for the bottle, my wife has been drinking perrier for a while now and it occurred to me that each empty is basically a 750mL growler which I don't care about giving away. I figure the water is carbonated to higher volumes than my beer so it is safe. I rarely put beer in a bottle but once in a while I give away a sample and now I don't have to worry about tracking down the growler.

Click to expand...

Good idea, I've been using 40's and it's been working out find for bottle priming. The caps (and the caps on perrier i think) have the same thread as a standard 2L soda bottle, so they're easy to replace after a few uses.
I'm making very small batches right now (due to my equipment), so I do a primary in 3 bum jugs, rack it into 2 for secondary, and all that fits into about 6 40's. I have about 20 jugs not in use, so I can scale up with out a carboy, I just need a bigger boiling and mash pot, oh and a way to lauter that amount (my technique for the smaller amount could use some improvement anyway)

Coastarine said:

Speaking of buying things for the bottle, my wife has been drinking perrier for a while now and it occurred to me that each empty is basically a 750mL growler which I don't care about giving away. I figure the water is carbonated to higher volumes than my beer so it is safe. I rarely put beer in a bottle but once in a while I give away a sample and now I don't have to worry about tracking down the growler.

Click to expand...

I've used those to carbonate beer in a few times as well. I just throw them out whenever the cap seems to be used a little too much.

Because of this thread I just went out and bought 1 of the 4 liter jugs of this crappy wine! My Lhbs doesn't carry 1 gallon jugs so I'd have to have one shipped and I wouldn't have any crappy wine to force down peoples throats!

I have some friends who drink this stuff like water so I'm going to re-bottle in some left over wine bottles and give it to them instead of bringing over a good bottle of wine or beer. So I saved doubly thanks bbt

I use Rossi and Franzia for "sangria". I mix it with Diet Sierra Mist and a splash of orange juice. Serve over ice with a couple orange slices and/or apple bits. It actually makes a darn good drink. Better than most of the sangria I get at Spanish restaurants.