On Embracing Manischewitz

What's a new Jew to do upon confronting this grapey elixir for the first time?

You have to wonder…how many young Jews got drunk for the first time on Manischewitz?

My own religious upbringing was as bland and milquetoast as possible. Raised by indifferent Presbyterians, God and faith were never a source of conversation around our dinner table. And I’m sure my bad behavior was never met by threats of God’s wrath. My time in Sunday School lasted just up until the moment I figured out a lot of what I was being told didn’t match my own understanding of earthly physics and biology and I took it upon myself at age 8 to let the young minister know I thought he was full of shit. They asked me to leave. I did. Happily.

Some of my readers will know my complex relationship with Judaism. You may have read about it. Long story short, my Jewish wife, Kathy, was right all that time when she insisted that her husband, adopted at birth, just had to be Jewish.

So, while it turned out I possessed the kind of DNA a good Jewish girl and her family wanted in a husband, I did not possess the cultural affinity a member of the Tribe generally would. No memories of the Passover Feast or the boredom of getting through the Haggadah. No memories of fasting or the Break-fast on Yom Kippur. No tales of the Old Country. No memories of roast chicken, brisket or Chinese food on Christmas. No Hebrew school or Bar Mitzvah. No marginalization or discrimination.

And certainly no Manischewitz wine.

And so it was as though I’d come into possession of a strange artifact when I walked into the kitchen a couple of days before Passover this year and saw a bottle of Manischewitz sitting on my counter. Kathy had purchased it in advance of using it for making Haroseth for the coming Passover Seder.

My job was to make the brisket for the Seder. That’s a piece of the culture I’ve come to appreciate and become pretty darned good at (once I reluctantly embraced the seemingly odd, but actually quite brilliant, idea of using ketchup and brown sugar in the braising liquid).

It wasn’t until I slipped the brisket into the oven that I finally slaked my curiosity about the Manischewitz. Before Kathy got a hold of it for the Haroseth, I cracked open the seal and poured myself a couple of fingers of the purple concoction.

It’s made from concord grapes, which anyone who ever ate Smuckers grape jelly by the spoonful or on their PB&J will instantly recognize. It’s 11% alcohol and kosher. You can’t taste kosher, but you also can’t taste the alcohol in this wine.

I am here to say that given a warmish spring day and a few ice cubes and I could drink an entire bottle in nothing flat. Now, you really must possess a dedicated sweet tooth to take to this wine the way I did. Stuff is SWEET. But, enjoying sweetness and appreciating the taste of nostalgia, I took to the Manischewitz like hipsters take to natural wine; or like children take to candy.

I don’t know anyone who likes Manischewitz or at least admits to liking it. And I’m sure that prior to the recent Passover I, being a wine snob, would have laughed or possibly mocked a friend who admitted to an affinity for this wine. That’s something I won’t ever do now.

And I can tell you this: had I been raised in a traditional Jewish home, I can guarantee my first drunk would have been brought on by Manischewitz.