Remember Cold Duck? Maybe not, if you're under 40. It was all the rage in the early 1970's. The best-known brand was Andre, made by Gallo, and I have just discovered, by calling my favorite wine merchant, that it is still available at $5.89 a bottle. This stuff is right up there with Mad Dog 20/20.
The story is that in Bavaria long ago they mixed red wine with left-over champagne, so as not to waste it, and called this concoction Kaltes Ende (German for "cold end"), which somebody later punned into Kaltes Ente, which means "cold duck." Some dude in Detroit started marketing the stuff in America in 1939. Apparently it is still made by mixing sparkling wine with red wine. As far as I can remember, it tastes rather like carbonated cough medicine.
I got to thinking about this yesterday when I saw a Paula Deen show on which she roasted a duck. It reminded me of the time my mother was in the hospital, long about 1971 it would have been. One evening when I went to visit her, she told me she had overheard the strangest conversation between two nurses who were standing in the hallway just outside her room. They were talking about some get-together they were going to that night, and one of them said, "I'm going to bring Cold Duck." The second nurse said, "Oh, that's great! I love Cold Duck!"
My mother wrinkled up her nose and said, "Why would they want to have cold duck? I don't even like duck hot."
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