During our senior year, just after I turned 18, Dean Martin convinced me that we could make hundreds of dollars by running to the Tennessee border and buying wine and then bringing it back to sell to our classmates for parties. He had the car, he had the contacts - so he said! And I was of legal age to buy in Tennessee. We made our plan on a Friday. We'd skip our last class - sneak out to his car and haul ass up Highway 65 for the State liquor store just across the state line. We made the run there, and not knowing what else to buy, but thinking that chicks dig Strawberry flavored things, I bought two cases of Boones Farm Strawberry wine which we carefully hid in the trunk and then covered. For whatever reason Dean drove like a speeding maniac to get back - probably cause he had to return the car home just after school let out. Thank god no state troopers saw us. He dropped me off at my house, I grabbed a couple of bottles for myself and he promised to properly handle the rest. Feeling like the sly devil I believed I was, I planned to invite my girl friend over for some fun Saturday night. 

It was not to be - Dean could not figure out where to hide the two cases of wine and had no cleverer idea than to slide them under his bed, which his Mom easily discovered the very next morning while cleaning house and trying to vacuum there. Busted! Under his Mom's stern gaze, Dean caved and confessed everything, naming his accomplice in the act. I was called over and thoroughly chastised by his parents who, of course, confiscated the wine. Dean was grounded for a while, and I was persona non grata for a couple of days. Since I was sure that Dean's Mom was going to call my Mom, I had to get rid of the wine I had hidden immediately. I decided to go to Green Mountain and drink it myself. Sans girlfriend, who had to work, I drove up to a secluded spot parked, popped the twist off cap and took a couple of gulps of the worst wine ever created on earth and promptly spit it out. Shaking my head, I dumped the wine out, tossed the bottles and sulked home. No date, no wine, a month of allowance money down the tubes. That was the beginning and the end of my bootlegging days.

If you ever tried Boones Farm, then you know what I'm talking about... and you didn't get it from Dean and I, unless he later cut a deal with his parents (not likely).  

:-)

J.D.

I remember Boone's Farm wine, but not particuarly fondly. Rumors said that it contained embalming fluid, and it sort of tasted like it did, if my memory is correxct.

I also remember something about MD 20/20 and a band trip to Six Flags, but my memory is sort of  addled with regards to that event. I think this was a Mogen David fortified wine, the favorite of winos at the time.