Wine coolers are just an alternate path to what Europeans call "alcopop", but via the US's oddball tax structure. It's just cheap but high-ABV wine, cut down w

Wine coolers are just an alternate path to what Europeans call "alcopop", but via the US's oddball tax structure. It's just cheap but high-ABV wine, cut down with water and flavoring (to something like 5% ABV). (The other path to roughly the same end product is by taking cheap beer and running it through a charcoal filter, then flavoring the result. Neither process would make sense if you could just sell an ethanol+water mixture without getting a tax break for not having distilled anything to get there.)