Top Deck.
The 80s shandy in the shiny tin with the red and black logo: a brew which fuelled many a young lad’s belief they were making an edgy first ring pull into boozing when the concept of drinking responsibly wasn’t even thought of.
This was real lager, with real alcohol and lemonade or – for the cosmopolitan kid – a dash of limeade.
It was made by the Beecham group, whose famous cold and flu-fighting pooders have at least outlasted their metallic-tasting, low-alcohol concoction.
But those tinnies took their place on the shelf for around 30 years, handily placed in the eyeline of the young market audience alongside the sherbet fountains, kola cubes and strawberry laces.
What a time to be growing up with a cocktail like that.
Top Deck’s popularity was pumped up by telly advertising which included the sight of bikini-clad maidens on a Florida beach to further wet the whistle of its young male market in a clip which promised: “It not only makes you feel like a new man; It crushes any others like no other can can.”
Never mind that it tasted rank.
Or the fact Top Deck actually – and quite wrongly – contained alcohol despite its target audience of under agers.
That taste, which recall suggests owed more to the aluminium container than the liquid within, came back to me in recent days from the left field aspect of a row involving one man and his canine companion.
Arbroath OAP Willie Green was a bit miffed after being told he and loyal Jackadoodle, Pippa would have to go upstairs on the Number 27 bus to Forfar because there was already another pooch on the coach.
The 79-year-old and his put out pet learned the hard way only one dog can have its day under a Stagecoach policy which gives drivers discretion over where animals are carried.
Ex-bus conductor William normally sits with obedient Pippa not troubling anyone on his lap, so he was surprised to encounter the doggie decree and, despite walking with a stick, struggled upstairs from the empty lower floor of the double-decker to find a seat.
Willie suggested common sense should have prevailed; Stagecoach said the driver had actually gone above and beyond to break their own one dog/one bus policy and allow the pair to travel.
It’s a rule which would be enough to drive you to drink.
But not Top Deck.
