Month: February 2012

Looking for the hair of the dog? Try MAUDITE

My Fellow Inebriates,

The kids are fascinated by bottlecaps and were on the verge of fighting over the lone one they found on the counter this morning, which came off a bottle of MAUDITE, a Quebeçois offering from Unibroue, makers of TROIS PISTOLES. Four-year-old Miss V was so heartbroken when Miss P seized it that she said very earnestly to our parents:

“I just wish you guys could have a beer.”

My kind of kid! I certainly was wishing for a beer at that matutinal moment, hurting as I was from a Friday night of drunken revelry that began with MAUDITE, progressed through a very nice bottle of Spanish wine, and culminated with BOWMORE 12 and a small amount of vomiting.

My parents don’t often cut loose, but the stars lined up for me last night. They’d been stressed out all week by work, transportation, medical and dental issues, and then my newest friend Robert showed up bearing booze.

Catching the aroma

Lest you think our family unwholesome I should mention the kids were safely tucked into bed before the wine was finished and the whiskey came out. No one blacked out except me, and Robert stayed the night in our guest room instead of mowing down pedestrians or planting his car in a ditch.

Going from grain to grape to grain is risky business, or so they say. But who are “they” and do they know what they’re talking about?

Not Robert or my dad, but having more fun than both

Thank goodness for ibuprofen or I wouldn’t have managed to research the topic. Ninety-five percent of what I found on mixing grain-based and grape-based alcohol was purely anecdotal, but at last I found an interesting study in which three Melbourne lads (presumably of similar build) volunteered to get drunk at a bar.

Prior to heading out, each had his blood sampled for C-reactive protein (CRP), a marker for inflammation, the partial culprit in a hangover. Then:

  • Ben drank white wine all evening.
  • Justin confined himself to beer.
  • Brad drank both white wine and beer.

The next morning all had blood tests again.

The verdict?

Only Ben, who drank white wine exclusively, showed evidence of a bad-ass hangover, with a CRP jump from 1.5 to 1.9. The other two guys’ CRP levels actually went down (from 0.4 to 0.3 for Justin and 1.2 to 1.1 for Brad).

Dr. Jeffrey Wiese

This seems to dispel the theory that mixing drinks leads to worse hangovers. Dr. Jeffrey Wiese of Tulane University, who analyzed the blood-test results, agreed, adding that if mixing drinks leads to hangovers it’s because when people do so they tend to drink more alcohol in total. Congeners—impurities found in darker drinks such as rum and red wine—are the more probable culprits. If Justin and Brad had enjoyed dark drinks all evening, they probably would have needed ibuprofen the next day.

If they’d been drinking MAUDITE instead of Foster’s Lager (the way I picture it), their CRP levels might well have increased as their wine-drinking buddy’s did. MAUDITE is a deep and hazy coppery brown with a liquorstorebear-colored, persistent head. Its aroma is ripe, floral and orchard-like. On the tongue fruitiness emerges with complexity—a touch of spice, a suggestion of grassland and some background coriander perhaps. It’s dry and complicated—hard to put your paw on which flavors are which as they merge in splendid balance.

MAUDITE has an extraordinary mouthfeel and a mellow smoothness that effectively conveys its 8% alcohol to your liver without seeming very boozy. It’s a real creeper that way and could land you on your ass if you drink several without checking the label.

I wonder what Dr. Jeffrey Wiese would think of MAUDITE. The winner of 21 international medals, MAUDITE is bottle-fermented, and its higher alcohol content acts as a natural preservative, so I wouldn’t implicate it as a big hangover beer because it seems less likely to be the toxic soup of congeners that so many cheap beers are.

My parents should take little Miss V’s suggestion and crack a MAUDITE right now. We all have wretched hangovers to address, and this wonderfully complex brew would probably solve the mutual problem. And then Miss V would have her very own bottlecap.

I love the kids but they have no idea how loud their voices are today. Still, they wouldn’t judge us for embracing the hair of the dog.

But my parents are boring, my mum especially so. (She didn’t even like MAUDITE! What a philistine.)

Hottest Girls? OMG, I just want a cuddle

My Plenty of Fish profile doesn’t seem to be attracting many interested females. Only one person has viewed it, and my sole message comes from the administrator, Markus, who assures me that most POF users make a connection by the seventh date.

He emphasizes that uploading a picture guarantees TEN times the response rate. (I did upload a pic! Why isn’t it working?)

He cautions that if I am a jerk or upload nude images I will be banned. Since I am always nude, I will have to be careful.

I did another test, the “needs test,” which corroborated that I do not have a sense of where I’m headed in life and that I am in a state of personal and professional flux. On a positive note, I like experimenting with new experiences. (I agree with this but would prefer the new experiences to come in a bottle.)

I’m not really sure if POF is the right fit for me. There are A LOT of women looking for partners and—as evidenced by the “Hottest Girls” tab—POF is trying hard to pull in some male members (no pun intended). That may be why my profile continues to exist—if they don’t ban me, they can count me as one male among the sizeable minority they are trying to increase. Wow! I feel wanted!

My mother says POF needs to figure out its identity crisis and realize that “Want a Girl Tonight?” ads send the wrong message to the sizeable majority of female POF users, and that low-rent campaigns like this one effectively weed out women with healthy self-esteem and standards.

My mum’s been married almost a decade and acknowledges she is commenting as an outsider—a lucky outsider. She says I should let her put me in the washing machine so I can smell like Fleecy and win Dolly back.

ASTROLIQUOR for Feb. 3-9—What the stars say you should drink!

My Fellow Inebriates,

Here’s your booze horoscope:

Everything you need is available, Aries. Strangers feel like friends, and friends feel like family. You’re constantly meeting new contacts, many of whom will soon prove valuable. Somebody might even lend you money if you’re lucky. How should you approach this new social phase? Why, liquor your friends up, and don’t hold back. Offer them equal parts rum, whiskey and vodka, plus orange juice to taste (I suggest “none”).

Taurus, you mustn’t go out in those skidmarked sweatpants. You’re going to meet someone this week—a Virgo or a Capricorn—who won’t appreciate that level of casualness. Consider washing your clothes or visiting the dry cleaner. Burn any items that are absolutely embarrassing. You have a chance to make a good impression. Consider upgrading from Canadian Club to Crown Royal.

You’ll be put to the test at work this week, Gemini, and if you don’t dig deep for your inner confidence, your colleagues will notice your insecurities. Alcohol is the obvious answer, but don’t just choose clear, odorless vodka—choose something flashy and own it. You might work in an environment where employees are allowed to drink Jagerbombs. Do it! But add some Bacardi 151 and cinnamon to make your drink stand out.

It’s difficult for you to forget the past, Cancer, but the next month will be much better if you try. If you can’t arrest your self-recriminating thoughts, drown them in alcohol. I think this will work wonders:

  • 2 oz lime-flavored rum
  • 1 oz Blue Curacao
  • 1/2 oz grenadine
  • 3 oz sweet-and-sour mix
  • Soda water (if you must)

Leo, you’re very irritable this week—so much so that your friends can’t even compliment you without getting their heads snapped off. Unless you can chill out you are destined for a bar fight. What you need is a project. Ignore any groundhogs’ predictions about spring coming early and fix yourself some wintry eggnog:

  • 4 egg yolks (separate them while sober)
  • 1/2 oz cream
  • 1 oz simple syrup
  • 1.5 oz tawny port
  • 3 oz bourbon
  • 7 oz milk

Shake ingredients together with ice, pour into a highball glass and sprinkle with nutmeg (but not too much—the nutmeg high isn’t worth it).

This is a good week for socializing, Virgo. You’ll be positively collecting new friends and acquaintances this week. Enjoy it while it lasts, because your popularity is riding a crescendo, and what goes up must come down. Alcohol will neither help nor hinder, but have some anyway. Why not try something weird, like lychee-flavored liqueur with grapefruit juice?

Libra, you will learn something unbelievable about yourself this week from a female friend or coworker. But you need to be careful; you tend to be tempted by ideas that might not be legal—marinating pot leaves in vodka, for example. If you are going to ignore my sincere advice not to do this, you need to follow instructions very carefully, watch the how-to video, and avoid getting busted.

You’re having some strange ruminations, Scorpio. You’re wondering what it’s all about, whether society can sustain itself in all its modern madness, and what will be left a thousand years from now. Will people still drive cars? Will there be colonies on Mars? How old will people be? Will everyone be naked because of global warming? These are great questions, but you’re having trouble turning them off when you try to sleep at night. So I have three words for you: Kahlua, Bailey’s, and creme de cacao (okay, five words).

Sagittarius, this is a great week to finish projects you’ve started and abandoned. You’ll find all sorts of historical leftovers: cases of Zima, weird liqueurs, discontinued beers. Sit down on your basement floor and start chugging. You can’t leave these items another moment; they might (gasp) expire. Oh…and about the other projects. They can wait until you run out of Zima. Friday brings fun and possibly romance, plus good news about a friend who’s been sick.

You’re not so steady this week, Capricorn. One minute you’re happy and confident, the next whimpering and emotional. The timing is bad! You have a jealous coworker who’s just waiting for you to show weakness so he/she can sabotage you at work. Quick! You need to pull yourself together by combining Red Bull with alcohol, exactly the way I discourage doing elsewhere. How about Red Bull with berry-flavored Bacardi and peach schnapps? Throw some cranberries in for vitamins and fiber—you need a boost.

Aquarius, you need a vacation, even if your coworkers think your brain is on a permanent one. You don’t have any money, though, so you might need to make your holiday less a physical trip than a mental one, and alcohol always helps with that. Still, you need to keep it on the cheap side. Think beer, rum, and coca cola. If it feels a little trailer-park, well, it is, so add some hot sauce and live it up.

Pisces, you’ve worked hard lately to regain your stability, and now your taste for luxury is asserting itself. Put the credit card away! Don’t even think of blowing all your money on a night out. Find another natural homebody and make a drunken evening for yourselves at home. You can do a lot with some vodka and bananas. Right? I mean, it makes a good drink.