From Fallen London Wiki

Action edit is not allowed on comment pages.

This feels like it's referencing the 1985 Austrian Wine scandal, where millions of litres of wine were adulterated with diethylene glycol as a sweetener. Both wines were toxic, sweet and almost all was destroyed by, indeed, using it as industrial coolant.

When it was produced it was also exported mostly to West Germany, hence this wine's English name, "Trembling Franconian"