The sorry tale of Brand X, or: How I learned to stop worrying and love cheap booze

So I thought I’d have myself a little one-man Rock Band party this weekend; just me, the Xbox, a plastic guitar and enough alcohol to make my liver scream for mercy. The plan was to get hammered on sidecars, a rather delicious cocktail consisting of brandy, lemon juice and orange liqueur. I had half a bottle of Cointreau hiding in the back of the drinks cabinet so earlier in the week I stopped off at the supermarket on the way home from work to pick up the lemon juice and brandy. I dropped a bottle of PLJ into my trolley in the soft drinks aisle, then headed over to the booze section to pick up some cheap brandy; there’s a time and a place for fine brandy, and in my opinion that place ain’t in a cocktail you’re throwing together at home for the purposes of getting wasted. I browsed the shelves until I spotted the cheapest brandy I could find: Brand X.

The fact that it was sitting away from the other brandies should’ve tipped me off that something was amiss; instead it was jostling for shelf space with something called Vodkat, a drink which, at £4.99, undercut the supermarket’s cheap-brand vodka by two whole quid. Clearly, this wasn’t the classy shelf. Undeterred, I grabbed the Brand X and put it next to the lemon juice.

It wasn’t until I got home and glanced at the Brand X bottle’s label that I realised something was seriously wrong; the word “brandy” was completely absent. Instead, it was described as a “Premium alcoholic spirit mix”. Confused, I headed over to the website of the company that makes it, at which point everything became clear: their stock-in-trade seems to be cheaper versions of other, more established drinks. They’re not always the same type of drink, though; remember the Vodkat? Well, with its faux-Soviet labelling and one-letter-different name, you could be forgiven that it was merely bargain-bucket vodka but you’d be so very wrong; it is in fact schnapps trying to pass itself off as vodka, and I’d hazard a guess that if you’re the kind to go looking for the cheapest vodka possible, your eyes may possibly be a little too bleary to pick up on the subtle distinction between vodka and Vodkat. And so I spent a few minutes browsing the website, chuckling to myself at some of the blatant rip-offery on show, when I finally found what can only be described as the most depressing drink ever invented. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you their cheap version of Lambrini: Lamvino.

Just think about that for a second.

A cheap version of Lambrini.

Does it get much grimmer than that? That such a thing exists as a drink that can only be described as the poor girl’s Lambrini? That’s got to be the kind of drink that makes you re-evaluate your life when you have a sudden moment of clarity in the queue at the 24-hour Spar with a bottle of Lamvino in each hand and 70cl of Vodkat tucked under your arm.

But here’s the thing: instead of pouring the Brand X down the sink in the hope that it’d at least partially unblock it, I went ahead and used it in my Saturday night cocktail, and you know what? It wasn’t half bad. Granted, I’d already partaken of a few shots of homemade Skittles vodka (made with Sainsburys’ Basics vodka, not Vodkat, in case you were wondering) but that surely wouldn’t be enough to supress my cheap-booze gag reflex; no, the only conclusion I can draw is that Brand X ain’t all that bad. So while I wouldn’t go as far as saying I highly recommend it, I certainly wouldn’t steer clear next time I’m looking for a cheap brandy substitute.

Just spare a thought next time you see me passed out in a gutter somewhere; and throw me ten pence if you have it. That Lamvino ain’t gonna buy itself, you know.