Wine coolers are the commercial adaptation of various drinks made with fruit juice and wine. Such drinks like sangria were often made at home. This changed, however, when the company California Coolers®, founded in Stockton, California, began producing a bottled version of this beverage in 1981.
California Coolers® became very popular, though it has been suggested, and many who were teens in this time period observed, that these sweet and fruity drinks were popular among underage drinkers. The taste of wine was masked fairly well in commercial wine coolers. For wine purists, no amount of fruit juices and flavoring could mask the taste of top quality wine.
The success of California Coolers® can be easily shown by about 1985, when the company was selling approximately 12.3 million cases of the product yearly. This led other companies to begin selling their own versions. The most popular of these were Bartles & Jaymes® and Seagram’s® brands. All three companies produced original flavors of coolers, and then expanded to offer different flavors to keep consumers coming back for more.
Yet in 1991, federal taxes increased on wine coolers, reducing their sales. The interest in wine tasting, and enjoying quality wine also increased, and many found commercially produced coolers to be too sweet. They still had a small market, but their popularity was clearly fading. California Coolers® went out of business in 1992.
Due to popularity of beverages based on malts, Seagrams® and Bartles & Jaymes® reformulated these drinks so they no longer contained wine, but were instead beverages like fruity ale. The wine cooler in most forms seemed gone, but not forgotten by its remaining fans.
This is perhaps why, in 2007, Majestic Brands ®: began producing California Coolers® again. The company now is almost the only mass manufacturer of the beverage, since other companies changed their formula. You can find California Coolers® in a variety of flavors, including Cranberry Grapefruit, Coast Citrus, White Peach and Pomegranate Berry. These coolers represent changing palates, especially the use of pomegranate, which has only recently become popular as a fruit juice flavor.
There’s no need to buy wine coolers though, when you can make your own. Numerous recipes exist to create lovely punches, with lots of different fruit juice varieties. Some commercial coolers were noted for a small amount of bubbles in the mix. You can add a splash of sparkling water, ginger ale, or a little lemon-lime soda to get that effervescent quality in home made wine punches.
