Colt 45 Malt Liquor commercial - 1960's

Weirdo Video Exclusive Before Colt 45 was associated with Billy D. Williams and "that dynamite taste," the famed Malt Liquor seems to have been marketed towards the white and/or middle class alcoholic demographic, a type whom nothing seems to faze. Malt liquor is a North American term referring to a type of beer with high alcohol content. In legal statutes, the term often includes any alcoholic beverage above or equal to 5% alcohol by volume made with malted barley. In common parlance, however, it is used for high alcohol beers made with ingredients and processes resembling those in American-style lager. Malt liquor is distinguished from other beers of high alcohol content in that the brewing process is seen by many as targeting high alcohol content and economy rather than quality. However, this label is subject to the viewpoint of the brewer, as there are indeed examples of brews containing high-quality, expensive ingredients that brewers have chosen to label as "malt liquors".In the UK, similarly-made beverages are sometimes called super-strength lager (Carlsberg Special Brew is an example), and in Norway as Eksport. While Colt 45, St. Ides, Mickey's, Steel Reserve, King Cobra, and Olde English 800 are most closely associated with malt liquors in the United States, the beverage itself is older than these products. Clix is often credited as the first malt liquor made in the United States, granted a patent in 1948. The first widely successful malt liquor in America was Country Club, which was first produced in the early 1950s by the M.K. Goetz Brewing Company, and marketed toward middle-class White Americans. Today though, malt liquors are marketed to an entirely different demographic, resulting in a stereotyping of the typical consumer. According to a study by Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science in California, malt liquor is the alcohol of choice of the homeless and unemployed. Beginning in the 1980s, many brands of malt liquor began to aggressively target this market and used popular actors (like Billy Dee Williams) or rappers in their advertisements; Ice Cube, for instance, appeared in radio advertisements for St. Ides. Some rappers vigorously opposed this trend, feeling that malt liquor manufacturers were exploiting the African American community. For example, Chuck D, of the group Public Enemy, took a very strong anti-malt liquor stance and once sued St. Ides over an advertisement that sampled his voice without permission.