Congratulations to Clever Imports for propelling ChocoVine into one of the biggest trends across wine and spirits in recent years. The brand seems to be growing at well over 100% per year, and at about 1 million cases per year, may just be getting going, in view of the recent deal with The Wine Group. ChocoVine is wine with chocolate and cream; it is produced in Holland by DeKuyper. At first, many people spoke snidely of ChocoVine, suggesting that grape wine is not the best match with chocolate flavors. But, to a large extent, this condescension has been overshadowed by admiration, purchasing, and emulators. Chocolais is one example of a chocolate flavored wine that has hastened down the path cleared by Steve Katz at Clever. But there are well more than a handful of other, substantially similar examples, such as this one. TTB approved the first ChocoVine label in 2007. Three years later, TTB approved the first Chocolais label and the first Choco Noir label, both in November of 2010. A bit further afield from ChocoVine, hundreds of other examples continue to accrue, further showing tremendous momentum behind a trend toward the dessertification of beverages. Here we have Pineapple Upside Down Cake Liqueur, various alcohol infused whipped...

I can find plenty of alcohol beverages made in Romania, for example, from the above lookup at TTB’s website. But I can’t find anything from Saudi Arabia. Oh yes, it’s easy to say that Saudi Arabia is a major, majority-Muslim country and so I should not expect to find a single drop of alcohol beverages flowing out from or in to that country. Wikipedia says no less than 100% of the population is Muslim. On the other hand, Turkey has far more Muslims, at 99% of the population — and no less than 370 label approvals in the TTB database. A recent wine approval is here. Indonesia has more Muslims than any other country and also has about 25 label approvals in the database. Here is Panther Beer. Algeria has at least a few approvals. A wine example is here. Morocco has a few hundred approvals, with a recent wine example here. Egypt has a code, but I don’t see any approvals. Rounding out the top 14 Muslim countries, the following countries (in addition to Saudi Arabia) do not even have a TTB lookup code:  Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Iran, Iraq, Malaysia, Pakistan, Sudan. Some of these countries are so strict that not even soy sauce or vanilla extract is tolerated.

Made with beer? Check. Tastes like eggs? Check. Artificial sweetener and colors? Yes. And more alcohol than Pabst Blast. This is the Egg Nog Beer experience.

This post will start short but is likely to grow long over time. Very long. We will try to show the enormous range of foodstuffs from which wine is produced. With each post we will add to the list, and I predict it will grow way past 50 60. Today we add Garlic wine to the list.

1. Agave wine
2. Apple wine
3. Apricot wine
4. Aronia berry wine
5. Avocado wine
6. Banana wine
7. Blackberry wine
8. Blueberry wine
9. Buffaloberry wine
10. Cantaloupe wine
11. Cherry wine
12. Cranberry wine
13. Dandelion wine
14. Elderberry wine
15. Elder flower wine
16. Fig wine
17. Garlic wine. Made by Long Trout Winery of Auburn, Pennsylvania. The second example is garlic cooking wine.
18. Gooseberry wine
19. Grape wine
20. Hibiscus wine
21. Huckleberry wine
22. Jasmine fruit wine
23. Kiwi wine
24. Linden flower wine
25. Lingonberry
26. Lychee wine
27. Maple Wine
28. Mango wine
29. Mangosteen wine
30. Marionberry wine
31. Onion wine
32. Peach wine
33. Pear wine
34. Pepper wine
35. Persimmon wine
36. Pineapple wine
37. Pomegranate wine
38. Rhubarb wine
39. Strawberry wine
40. Tomato wine
41. Watermelon wine