Nicki Minaj's Myx Moscato
Four Loko for adults
This week I tried Nicki Minaj’s Myx Moscato ($2.99 for a 5 oz bottle). They come in four flavors: original, mango, peach and coconut.
I have been a Barb ever since I was a young little white gay (okay everyone is in tears from this story). Like so many of my young little white gay peers, I spent hours of my young little white gay youth learning the lyrics to Nicki Minaj’s hit song Stupid Hoe. It was true what she said in her lyrics: All these bitches is my sons. I WAS the bitch who was also her son :’)
But she really did mean a lot to me! For a while, I listened to her music compulsively. I only really stopped being a committed Barb by the 2018 album Queen (pretty distasteful name, given Elizabeth’s untimely death today). But Nicki was my way into having a personal music taste: I think she was my first favorite artist that I didn’t learn about through my mother.
Nicki is just plain funny. She’s a brilliant lyricist. Take this line, from Itty Bitty Piggy:
I don't fuck with pigs like As-salamu alaykum
I put 'em in a field, I let Oscar Myer bake ‘em.
I mean, come on. I also love that she will never show up on a set for anyone. If you notice, she rarely appears in the same frame as her co-stars. She is always CGId in. Like in Katy Perry’s Swish Swish. Or in her iconic movie The Other Woman (2014). Please watch this scene, because the quick reaction shots back and forth from Nicki Minaj and Cameron Diaz so badly hides the fact that they were never in the same room together.
Also, remember when she performed at a Bar Mitzvah in 2015 for someone named Matt Murstein? This will forever be my favorite photo of her.
But Nicki will go to bat for Myx Fusion! The bottles have appeared in at least five of her music videos. And she sure raps about it a lot. There’s this line from Bang Bang:
It’s Myx Moscato, it’s frizz in a bottle, it’s Nicki full throttle, it’s oh-oh.
And this one, from The Night is Still Young:
Myx Moscato and vodka, I’m going to mix it.
Nicki raps more about Myx Moscato than she does about not having sex with Drake! She’s so associated with Myx that Azealia Banks once sang the line:
Hit that Myx moscato like I’m Nicki in a meeting.
Myx — not Mx., like the attribution the New York Times gives Joey Solloway — was founded in 2013 by Mona Scott-Young, a producer of Love & Hip Hop (which, sort of awkwardly, is the show where Cardi B got her start). The brand quickly became the best-selling moscato in the U.S., which I don’t think is very hard to do.
Nicki got involved as a co-owner in 2013 after she met Scott-Young at the Trump Tower and initially did some light press. Myx made a deal with Kmart (oooh) in 2014 that produced a cool photoshoot of Nicki Minaj with fat executives like this one:
In 2014, Nicki showed up to a boat in a pink captain’s hat and was interviewed by someone named Necole Bitchie:
As she explains to Ms. Bitchie, Myx is not about the taste, but about how it makes you feel: i.e. sexy and sultry. They’re not for the club per se. They’re for the mom on the go (hopefully for a mom after “the go” though, and not during?).
In the interview with Ms. Bitchie, Nicki says Myx is “revolutionizing” the wine industry, but I cannot tell you why or how. I guess the individual bottle idea is novel. But she also says “I’ve never met a woman who tried Myx and she didn’t love it,” which, if true, would be revolutionary.
They are clever little guys though. Each 5 oz bottle looks like those bottles of water they give out for free at the US Open. They’re cute and girly and adds an accessory to every outfit.
But Nicki has not really promoted Myx since 2015. These were the mid-10s; her pink phase. It’s unclear what has happened since.
The best/worst part of Myx Moscato is that each bottle has a 5.5% ABV. This essentially means they are alcohol-free. It’s kombucha. But that means if you drink, say, three of these in a row, you’re looking at 50 grams of sugar in total (each bottle has 17 grams). A weekend bender on these is a lifetime of Type 2 Diabetes. Drinking even one of these gave me that sugar-induced slump a few hours later.
In addition to grapes, Myx contains grape juice concentrate, sugar, and a bunch of other chemicals. Look, I do not want to be so Jenny McCarthy when it comes to being anti-chemical. I think all food should be packaged. Leave the cooking up to the professionals (multinational corporations).
Because honestly, the chemicals are what makes Myx good. But I wouldn’t really call Myx wine. That’s like calling gasoline vodka. Myx is an improved recipe of Four Loko. The original flavor was probably my favorite, and had a nice, refreshing tartness. The mango and peach were good too! Each tasted like candy’s impression of fruit. Like if Haribo made alcohol.
But honestly … I would drink these again. Call me a hummingbird because sugar water is delicious.