The Next Four Loko Is Coming From a Very Unexpected Place

By Erin Mosbaugh

Apr 10, 2015

In Medieval Europe, Benedictine monks were the largest producers of wine. Their winemaking tradition continues at UK’s Buckfast Abbey, where the monks make Buckfast Tonic Wine, a fortified wine distributed to the UK and Ireland. Turns out the wine is basically Four Loko in the post-Four Loko age. VinePair explains,

It turns out Buckfast is more like Four Loko than sacramental wine. Claims of the drink’s caffeine content differ, but some researchers verify that a 750 ml bottle is drop for drop more caffeinated than a RedBull. Combine that with a fairly high abv of 15%, and tons of sugar, you have a wine primed for a raucous time.

Let’s spell it out for you: More caffeine than RedBull + 15% ABV = serious turn-up juice.

Photo: Wikimedia

When the monks first started producing it in the late 1800s, the wine was sold as medicine (for obvious reasons). Now, Buckfast is popular among students, teens, and the working class in the UK and Ireland. Buckfast is said to be involved in about 70 percent of assaults in Scotland, said the BBC. According to VinePair,

In Scotland, Buckfast is associated with crime and “ned” culture – ned is basically Scottish vernacular for lout, or hooligan. Neds love Buckfast, known lovingly as Buckie, but Buckie apparently does not love neds. In January 2010, a BBC investigation claimed that Buckfast had been mentioned in 5,638 crime reports in Strathclyde from 2006-2009. That averages out to about 3 crimes a day.

In December 2013, Scottish Health Secretary Alex Neil mandated that the monks stop making the wine. But the monks wouldn’t have it, seeing that they make millions of dollars a year on the turn-up juice.

Buckfast, to our knowledge, is not available in the New York or L.A. area. We’ve looked.

[via VinePair]

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