Beer Review: King Cobra — I’m sick of these m-f snakes in my m-f beer!

"I used to work for Cobra, then I developed an alcohol problem..."

The title of this post, I shouldn’t have to say, should be read in a voice imitating Samuel L. Jackson. Part Four in my worshipped-around-the-world series of reviews on Beers Whose Artwork Can Kick Your Ass, my review of King Cobra Malt Liquor represents a homecoming of sorts, to the malt liquor of choice as a youth. Malt Liquor and other assorted beers and paint thinners form phase 2 of everyone’s introduction to alcoholic beverages, where phase 1 is of course yummy fruit drinks like Boone’s Farm, and phase 3 is discovering that first non-terrible beer that you drink for the taste, not for the liver-trashing. Phase 2, which is all about the liver trashing, usually coincides with leaving home for college or your first apartment and the resulting lack of funds therewith. And every Ramen-eating thrift-store-wearing blood-donating Hare-Krishna-meal-eating college student has for a while become enamored with the magical combination of high alcohol content (too high to be legally called “beer”, hence the “malt liquor”) and cheap-as-dirt price of malt liquors. In my days in phase 2, I was a King Cobra drinker. My brother liked Old English, another friend drank Laser, but for me the royalty of crappy booze was clearly the best. Ah, sweet memories…

As I’ve mentioned before, the key lesson you quickly learn in drinking these bloated, nasty concoctions is to drink them COLD. Serving them ice cold beats down the horrible flavor — you do NOT want these puppies to warm up to room temperature to volatilize all those nasty petrochemicals. You soon find yourself in a race against the clock, hurrying to chug it down before thermodynamics catches up with you, sometimes resorting to gripping the bottle around the tiny neck to avoid accelerating the warming from your hands. The last few ounces will be precisely the same frothiness as fresh pee, so you better hope it’s not the same temperature, or you’ll be heading for technicolor yawn. All that being said, King Cobra was my favorite of the bunch, and over time (i.e. the couple months I spent in phase 2) I developed a fondness for it, memories of which all came rushing back at my first sip, now 10+ years later. I think it’s that this beer has the least odious qualities among all other malt liquors, so it shines in comparison — not as gag-inducing on the first sip as Old English, not quite as much hints of a Greyhound bus station in the bouquet. And, of course, wrapper artwork that could kick your ass and then possibly eat your foot…