Hereford's Cows: The Alcoholic Milkshakes

The booze industry has sometimes been accused of marketing its stuff to kids, and during the late  Seventies one of the most cited examples of this was a selection of milk-based liquers called Hereford's Cows.

Cows came in three flavors: chocolate, vanilla and strawberry.  As I recall, they came in clear quart bottles which showed off their bright colors. What did they taste like? Imagine a cheap milkshake with some neutral spirits added. They were smooth, especially if you added some ice and mixed them up in a blender. My friend Mike and his girlfriend, who didn't like the taste of alcohol but wanted to get mellow now and then, enjoyed them a lot. And this was precisely what bugged many people. They thought that lots of kids who normally would have gagged at the taste of booze would enjoy them, and there start down the road to ruin. But as it turned out the good ol' Iron Hand of the marketplace did away with the Cows, especially since kids already had numerous drinks that they enjoyed.