The Popcorn Stand: Gunsmoke wouldn’t have a wine anyway.

To show you how old I am — or actually how much of an influence my father, who loved westerns, had on me — when I found out about Hello Kitty wine I thought it was named in honor of Gunsmoke. You know when Marshall Dillon would come into the Longbranch Saloon and say “Hello Kitty.”

Which reminds of a “King of the Hill” episode in which Peggy discovers Arlen was founded by prostitutes and everybody wanted to take advantage of that fact by making the town into a tourist attraction. Peggy informs Hank Miss Kitty must have been a madame.

“Oh come on Hank, she never charged for the beer, she had rooms upstairs...” “Not Miss Kitty,” a disillusioned Hank replied. But I digress. And anyway I don’t think it would make any sense for a wine to be named in honor of Gunsmoke since I never saw any wine at the Longbranch.

Of course Hello Kitty is the cute, cuddly kitty character that’s been around for quite some time and has become a multi-billion franchise originally aimed at just young girls but now is pretty much marketed to everybody. Which is why it’s no surprise we now have Hello Kitty wine, which is out for the holidays. And actually to show you how much I’ve been out of it, Hello Kitty wine has actually been around for a few years.

In doing more research I found out there’s also been a Hello Kitty beer. Now Hello Kitty beer would make more sense if it was named in honor of Gunsmoke and the Longbranch but of course that’s not the case. The cute Hello Kitty character has been around for 40 years so the Japanese company behind Hello Kitty has figured out there’s now a generation who grew up with the character who might want to partake in spirits in Hello Kitty’s name.

So when it comes to wine and beer, Hello Kitty offers the whole Kitty and Kaboodle.

— Charles Whisnand