ordered development of the wine upon discovering that inexpensive white port wine was popular in inner city and skid row neighborhoods, where shopkeepers would display lemon juice bottles and Kool-Aid packets next to the wine, which patrons would purchase to mix with the port and produce their desired flavor. A 1957 radio jingle proclaimed: "What's the word? Thunderbird / How's it sold? Good and cold / What's the jive? 'Bird's alive / What's the price? Thirty twice." (i.e. 60 cents, at a time when the federal minimum wage was $1 per hour.) Gallo salesmen supposedly dropped empty Thunderbird bottles in the streets of skid-row neighborhoods to build brand awareness among city "wino" populations. The wine became so popular among the indigent that Gallo recounted a story in which he encountered a wino drinking on a sidewalk in Atlanta and upon asking him "What's the word?", the man shouted "Thunderbird!" after which both laughed. Another salesman told of giving free samples to alcoholics and newly released prisoners. History An early reference to the problem of cheap and poorly made wines is in the "Report on Cheap Wines" in the 5 November 1864 issue of The Medical Times and Gazette. The author, in prescribing inexpensive wines for a number of ills, cautions against the "fortified" wines of the day, describing of one sample that he had tried: It is reported, however, that the popularity of cheap, fortified wines in the United States arose in the 1930s, as a product of Prohibition and the Great Depression: Concerns and media attention While overtaken somewhat in the low-end alcoholic drink market by sweetened malt beverages by the 1990s, the appeal of cheap fortified wines to the poor and homeless has often raised concerns: In 2005, the Seattle City Council asked the Washington State Liquor Control Board to prohibit the sale of certain alcohol products in an impoverished "Alcohol Impact Area". Among the products sought to be banned were over two dozen beers, and six wines: Cisco, Gino's Premium Blend, MD 20/20, Night Train, Thunderbird, and Wild Irish Rose. The Liquor Control Board approved these restrictions on 30 August 2006. The cities of Tacoma, Washington, and Spokane, Washington, also followed suit in instituting "Alcohol Impact Areas" of their own following Seattle's example. See also Aromatized wine Buckfast Tonic Wine Ginger wine Ice beer Jabol Jug wine Malt liquor Muscatel Rotgut Scotsmac References Fortified wine Premixed alcoholic