Call me coo coo for Coco Puffs, but wine coolers are sexy as a mofo.

They’re overpriced, overcarbonated, they’re too sweet and to be seen drinking one is embarrassing bordering on the humiliating. And yet there is something about them that really gets me into a lather. Throw in a girl with big shoulder pads, hair teased out to the stratosphere and some Poison perfume on her neck and I am a man in love.

I think it has something to do with my love of all things 80s. Being a kid in the 1980s, the height of wine cooler popularity, wine coolers just seemed the ultimate in cool sophistication. I mean, come on, Bruce Willis hawked wine coolers back then. If they’re good enough for Mr. Willis, they’re good enough for me. The man died hard five times for God’s sake!

I guess because I was an impressionable young teen I felt that wine coolers where very adult. And being an adult meant having sex. So it stands to reason that if I drank wine coolers then I would have sex.*

[* It stands to reason. I didn’t say it actually happened.]

Later when I was in college and in a fraternity, wine coolers were around when we had “fancy parties”. See, a regular frat party meant drinking can after can of warm Hamm’s and maybe if you’re lucky a shot of Jager. But when we had a date party where we wore coat and ties, bathed ourselves in Obsession for Men and put Sade on the house stereo, we made sure we had plenty of Bartles and James Premium Peach Flavored Wine Coolers available. Why? Because they were “classy.” And girls liked classy drinks. And if they drank enough classy drinks, sex happened. It was simple math, really.

It’s a damn shame that wine coolers aren’t as prevalent as the once were. If you google wine coolers, the first few websites that pop up are actual coolers for storing your wine. They don’t even make win coolers with wine anymore. Since the big beer distributors make most of the coolers, they just use the malt from the beer to make coolers because it is more economically sound, aka, cheaper. They don’t even call them wine coolers anymore because of this; they are simply known as “coolers.” Somewhere Don Johnson is shedding a tear.

I guess it’s not so much that I miss the taste of wine coolers, rather I miss what they stand for; the promise of sex in a hot tub while a sax solo plays and a dry ice machine is turned on high for a more “erotic” effect. Yeah, that’s cheesy, but so what?

That was the 80s.

HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN WINE COOLER

Luckily for us, making your own wine coolers at home is easy. Ridiculously easy. Like so easy you’ll say to yourself, “Why have I been searching the Internet for bottles of Seagram’s Wine Coolers when I can make my own in minutes, nay seconds?”

White wine – Any kind you want at any price you want. Remember it’s going into other ingredients so you don’t need to be all fancy pants for this.

Juice – Don’t go too heavy as you don’t want to mask the taste of the wine. Cranberry, orange or white-grape peach all will mix nicely with white wine.

Sugar – you will need some. One tablespoon will suffice.

Soda water – Make sure it’s cold and carbonated otherwise you will have the saddest wine cooler in wine cooler history.

Add five ounces of white wine to three or four ounces of juice, depending on personal taste. Stir in the sugar until fully dissolved. Top off generously with soda water. Stir vigorously yet again. Pour over ice. Add a garnish and get your sexy on…even if you are alone.