Long Trout Winery has quite a few eccentric labels. Some of them are eccentric due to the unusual blend of ingredients. But quite a few of them are eccentric in referring to the panoply of human sexual organs. Featured above are the trusty Swollen Member, the good old German Helmet, and Old One Eye. The latter is made with tomatoes, raisins, onions, sweet peppers, celery, string beans, carrots, hot peppers, parsley, horseradish, garlic and soy sauce. Would you drink it? Long Trout is in Auburn, Pennsylvania. Before we depart the topic of Long Trout and their risque labels we’d be derelict if we did not mention this label about everyone’s favorite garden implement.

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 Strawberry wine to the list.

1. Avocado wine
2. Banana wine
3. Cantaloupe wine
4. Dandelion wine
5. Elder flower wine
6. Fig wine
7. Grape wine
8. Jasmine fruit wine
9. Kiwi wine
10. Linden flower wine
11. Lychee wine
12. Mangosteen wine
13. Marionberry wine
14. Onion wine
15. Pomegranate wine
16. Pear wine
17. Pepper wine
18. Pineapple wine
19. Rhubarb wine
20. Strawberry wine. This fruit wine is made by Logan’s View Winery of Glen Rock, Pennsylvania.
21. Tomato wine
22. Watermelon wine

First it was a major book. Then “A Major Motion Picture.” Now, “Eat, Pray, Love” is an Italian wine coming to a store near you. If the wine sells, too, who knows what will be next. The Wii game? EPL analgesics? I also wonder to what extent the success of this franchise is due to the power of good design and font choices; this would just not be the same in Times New Roman. These wines, referring to the Elizabeth Gilbert book, are imported by Chateau Diana of Healdsburg, California.

This Bear Flag label looks to be a big departure from the staid Gallo labels of decades past. The design of this “dark red wine” label does not seem to have a whole lot in common with, for example, this Carlo Rossi label from a few years back. The newer, more whimsical labels are apparently designed by Eduardo Bertone. There is not a lot of information about this designer or this brand on the web. Even at Bertone’s site, there seems to be a whole lot of whimsy and not much information. To the extent the Bear Flag labels raise a good legal issue, it is fun to imagine Mr. Bertone poring over the CFR to make sure the Warning is perfect. Or, TTB evaluating each and every image and suggestion and flight of fancy (what is the bear drinking, does it contain tomatoes, please explain why a bear would have a cow bell). As of last week, Gallo had about 11 Bear Flag COLAs, from May 2009 to April 2010.

Over the last several years bacon has leapt from the meat aisle to nearly every segment of the food and beverage market. There’s bacon-infused Bakon vodka (not to be confused with Bacon flavored vodka), bacon candy, and even (kosher!) Bacon Salt. Friar Bacon Bottle Conditioned Smoked Bock beer, brewed by Cincinnati’s Listermann Brewing Co., looks to fall into the same category as the latter, as Friar Bacon merely emulates bacon’s flavor without containing any actual bacon. Like Bacon Salt, Friar Bacon certainly capitalizes on bacon imagery. Note the four slices of porcine goodness framing the label, and the punny name that seems as much an ode to a bacon fryer as it is to playwright Robert Greene’s magi-comic sixteenth-century friar. Beer Advocate gives Friar Bacon a grade of “B” and notes it does contain a certain mysterious element of smoked meat flavor. Bacon beers are slowly moving from the concept stage to the product stage. The Aecht Schlenkerla Marzen Smokebeer at Piece Brewery and Pizzeria in Chicago, according to a friend, contains no bacon but “has a distinct bacon aroma, a subtle (not overwhelming) bacon flavor while drinking, and an unmistakable (but not at all unpleasant) pork fat aftertaste.” And still another brewer is planning to...