cloud with a silver lining.
(I've been getting into this thing lately called Semiotics. If you're going to look it up, don't be surprised if you get a load of academic wank. Look up Roland Barthe's book, Mythologies instead. Or, just take my word for it that Semiotics is about seeing modern myths all around you. Like how plastic is a kind of modern alchemy. Or how Soap Powders are like the UN, convincing dirt to leave a fabric, whereas detergent is like a cleansing fire that kills the dirt.) So here's me giving a semiology of GOON a try.
Typically seen as the choice of homeless people, or underage teenagers who only have one fake ID to make a single purchase for their whole drinking group, there’s a lot of stigma towards cask wine (or ‘goon’ as it is more commonly known here). Invented in Adelaide around 1965, the wine cask is, surprisingly, technologically superior to wine in bottles. The reason is, even as the bag deflates and expels its liquid, no air can get inside. No oxidisation and no cork to react with means that the humble cask escapes the pitfalls that befall ‘normal’ wine. The market is starting to acknowledge this fact, with more expensive wines coming out in smaller 2L casks, and plastic dispensers being manufactured for picnics, complete with a stand and drip tray.
The problem is, the stigma on the goon bag is justified. (Bet you weren’t expecting this U-Turn). At a time when many wine connoisseurs are up in arms over the more ‘practical’ screw-cap replacing the traditionally romanticised cork, the sucky goon sack lies at the very far end of the “traditional-to-practical” spectrum. And wine should be more romantic than practical. Granted, as an actual cask, a box of wine looks okay, and with pastel pictures of the Outback or whatever on each box, it seems so suitable for a picnic. But tear away the cardboard (an easy feat, especially once the box is inevitably splashed with wine) and you’ll see that under this thin veil, the goon bag is nothing but pure practicality.
There’s nothing romantic about a goon bag. The fact that it can be a pillow with which to sleep off one’s stupor seems like a good idea, until one remembers that passing out in a public park is not. The historical connotation of wine, since before the times of Ancient Greece, is “eat, drink and be merry”. But if we have to force down our sour cordial, hidden behind misleading labels such as ‘Fruity Lexia’, is it any wonder if drinking as a chore makes for an unmerry drunk?
Typically seen as the choice of homeless people, or underage teenagers who only have one fake ID to make a single purchase for their whole drinking group, there’s a lot of stigma towards cask wine (or ‘goon’ as it is more commonly known here). Invented in Adelaide around 1965, the wine cask is, surprisingly, technologically superior to wine in bottles. The reason is, even as the bag deflates and expels its liquid, no air can get inside. No oxidisation and no cork to react with means that the humble cask escapes the pitfalls that befall ‘normal’ wine. The market is starting to acknowledge this fact, with more expensive wines coming out in smaller 2L casks, and plastic dispensers being manufactured for picnics, complete with a stand and drip tray.
The problem is, the stigma on the goon bag is justified. (Bet you weren’t expecting this U-Turn). At a time when many wine connoisseurs are up in arms over the more ‘practical’ screw-cap replacing the traditionally romanticised cork, the sucky goon sack lies at the very far end of the “traditional-to-practical” spectrum. And wine should be more romantic than practical. Granted, as an actual cask, a box of wine looks okay, and with pastel pictures of the Outback or whatever on each box, it seems so suitable for a picnic. But tear away the cardboard (an easy feat, especially once the box is inevitably splashed with wine) and you’ll see that under this thin veil, the goon bag is nothing but pure practicality.
There’s nothing romantic about a goon bag. The fact that it can be a pillow with which to sleep off one’s stupor seems like a good idea, until one remembers that passing out in a public park is not. The historical connotation of wine, since before the times of Ancient Greece, is “eat, drink and be merry”. But if we have to force down our sour cordial, hidden behind misleading labels such as ‘Fruity Lexia’, is it any wonder if drinking as a chore makes for an unmerry drunk?