Month: February 2012

ASTROLIQUOR for Feb. 24 to March 1—What the stars say you should drink!

My Fellow Inebriates,

Here’s your booze horoscope:

Aries, you are missing out on valuable REM sleep. Try to meditate during your daytime pre-drinking hours. See if you can go into a dreaming state, then write everything down that you see. You’ll be surprised at the creative thoughts churning around in your head. Those ideas want to get out of your head, but they have to swim through a lot of Smirnoff.

Taurus, your mornings are pretty rough this week—aches, pains, tremors. A nice steam bath will fix you up and, one would hope, involve washing that vodka sweat off…so hurry and do it, because your colleagues expect you to deliver a big presentation. OMG, can you hold it together with a headful of Absolut and Cointreau? Let positive thoughts wash over you. Make your presentation as vapid and catchword-laden as possible. Your audience will cheer and invite you out for more drinks.

Relationships are evolving, Gemini, and generally for the better. You’re figuring out what people mean to you, and which Facebook friends you can jettison. This will help you focus at work and give you more time to enjoy gin with coconut cream. Meanwhile, there’s a very seductive Capricorn making your fur stand on end. Be careful…your partner knows all about it. Better make sure you have extra gin.

Cancer, if you’ve been single for a while, this week features an exciting new fling. But if you’re in a long-term relationship, you’ll be yawning a bit. Those of you in the former category, enjoy. Those of you in the latter category, enjoy this:

  • 2 oz dark rum
  • 2 oz light rum
  • 2 oz whiskey
  • 1/4 cup creme de cacao
  • 4 oz cream of coconut

Blend and pour over crushed ice. This is as interesting as it’s gonna get for you this week, so get busy.

Leo, a friend who’s into charitable works will ask you for help with a cause this week. Your impulse is to say yes, throw aside your work, family and all other considerations, and help your friend. That’s cool, but make sure it’s a real charity you’re helping. You don’t want to commit your time to sewing pointy white hats or collecting Richard Dawkins books for an anti-evolution bonfire. The best way to avoid this sort of bad judgment is to break out the rum the moment you wake up. Then keep pouring it in your coffee all day. Ahhhh! When your friend phones, you won’t even be able to form the word “hello.”

Why are you letting yourself get trodden on, Virgo? Normally you’re pretty good at taking care of yourself, but this week brings insecurity and obsessive compulsiveness. The little details overwhelm you, and you lose focus on boundaries. Just like Leo, the best way to avoid being taken advantage of is to hole up inside with a strong drink. I see you lying on the kitchen floor, 12 parts Jagermeister and six parts apple vodka swirling around your brain. If that’s not being the captain of your soul, I don’t know what is.

Libra, your recent pessimism has taken a hike, and skies look blue to you now. Everything is going your way, your energy is bubbling, and you feel safe and secure. Naturally this makes you magnetic to others. Saturday will bring plenty of admirers, including one who’s willing to split a bottle of bourbon with you. Go for it.

The stars are influencing you positively this week, Scorpio. The social calendar looks good, especially Thursday, and you’re fielding attractive invitations to dinner. It’s tempting to order everything on the menu, and not such a bad idea if you want to absorb alcohol and stay alert dessert, which is, naturally, a liquid suggestion:

  • 5 oz espresso vodka
  • 2 oz chocolate liqueur
  • Hershey’s syrup to taste

Sagittarius, although you’ve been vehemently in favor of one strategy at work, this week you’ll do an about-face, causing everyone to wonder if you are a lush. But you’re not the only screw-up at work. So you freak out and let everyone have it! You belittle your colleagues: the weak links, the laggards, the busybodies—everybody. Then you pull a big bottle of Bombay Sapphire out of your desk drawer and openly shake it up with some vermouth in your Starbucks mug. Wow! Unforeseen holiday for you.

You’re fed up with the slow pace at work, Capricorn. But even though you feel you should be further ahead in your career, your colleagues respect and appreciate you. They don’t see your insecurities because you mask them so well behind a constant, some would say shit-eating, rye-whiskey-fueled grin.

Aquarius, a long-hoped-for meeting will take place this week. But you may be disappointed with the other person; he/she can’t possibly live up to your expectations. This will strain the relationship, leading to a mutual bender involving vodka, rum, and whatever else you two can think of to make each other more tolerable. Try Midori Melon liqueur—it gives everyone a happy sheen.

Pisces, there’s no sense getting angry at that coworker who swiped your Kool-Aid/vodka/rum concoction from the communal fridge. Although your boss may back you up, he/she will also remember the incident, when really you should maintain a low profile. You’ll need it for the next time the cops come into your workplace looking for you. You want to be that guy whose name the boss doesn’t remember.

What my toilet experiment isn’t

My Fellow Inebriates,

I live for big parties like Mardi Gras, and I’m sad that it’s in the past. The worst part of it, though, is the concomitant idea that now, the Wednesday after, it’s time to behave ourselves. Apparently the big pig-out, love-in, and piss-up shindig was a kind of last hurrah that ushers in 40 traditional days of fasting and penance before Easter. OMG!

Despite having plenty of reasons to feel contrite (i.e., hung over), plus at least one parent who’s schooled in the Lenten ritual, plus a furry liver that’s pleading for a 40-day dry-out period—it just ain’t gonna happen, my fellow inebriates. Mardi Gras may be a fond short-term memory, but bourbon doesn’t have to be.

What is bourbon exactly?

I thought I knew, but it turns out I really didn’t. I tried to find some Canadian bourbon for today’s review. With all the grain in the prairie provinces, I figured we’d be a big producer. But I was wrong. It turns out that, for a grain whiskey to qualify as bourbon, it must:

  • be produced in the United States
  • consist of at least 51% corn alcohol
  • be aged for two years minimum
  • be aged in new oak barrels

I had no idea! This explains why I’ve never seen an Alberta bourbon. And it means the liquor I’ve been distilling in the toilet tank won’t ever legitimately bear the name “bourbon.” If I want to get serious about making my own, I have to move to the US—preferably Kentucky, where the hot-cold seasonal variation is ideal for barrel-aging bourbon, and where limestone water (void of iron, which can turn the bourbon black instead of lovely honey-brown) flows abundantly.

Without barrel aging, bourbon would just be a clear corn-based spirit—harsh and alcoholic. As awesome as that sounds, two to four more years in an American white oak barrel can change that spirit into something darker, softer, and more refined. Four percent of the alcohol evaporates each year (called “the angels’ share”), effectively reducing the bourbon and creating richer, more complex flavors.

My favorite thing about bourbon is the way, when you stick your nose into the glass you’ve just poured, it almost singes your fur off. I bet I’d enjoy that pre-aged bourbon—the pre-bourbon—even if I’d be robbing a few alcoholic angels of their 4 percent per annum. But I love the finished product.

“So that's us: processed corn, walking.” ― Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals

I’m not so sure about moving to Kentucky. It sounds friendly there and all, but moving is a big deal, and I have one or two reasons, including Sarah Palin, to fear American life. But who knows? There’s plenty of corn growing everywhere (too much, as Michael Pollan argues in The Omnivore’s Dilemma, detailing the ascent of corn in an agribusiness agenda to push corn into every corner of our lives, if not every bodily orifice), and I found a barrel manufacturer who can supply the new, charred-oak barrels I’d need. And get this—at the bottom of the barrel maker’s web site is a charming little note:

For those of you who believe in man made global warming: When you buy one of our recycled Kentucky Bourbon Whiskey Barrels your [sic] are helping save the environment. By keeping these barrels at home we prevent the thousands of pounds of hydrocarbons that it takes to ship each of these barrels overseas from entering the environment. Hydrocarbons which may contribute to climate change.  Help save the earth, buy a recycled Kentucky Bourbon Whiskey Barrel today!

Isn’t it nice that with Kentucky Barrels you have the convenient option of opting in or out of the consensus held by credible scientists on anthropogenic global warming? Does it get any friendlier than that? Never mind the mind-boggling confession that it takes thousands of pounds of hydrocarbons to ship each barrel overseas.

I can’t wait for my toilet experiment to yield its alcoholic goodness and provide me with the mind-altering non-bourbon product I need in sufficient quantities to bring the ongoing neoconservative attack on science down to a dull roar, if only inside my own head. But at least I don’t have to observe Lent, which means Mardi Gras will continue at LBHQ for the foreseeable future.

Incorporating alcohol into your Mardi Gras feast

My Fellow Inebriates,

It’s a no-brainer to write about pancakes today. My mum is whipping some questionable ones up right now for the kids and probably asking herself if she could get away with feeding them pancakes all day instead of stepping up and providing the nutritional diversity that parents typically do.

Solid foods don’t do it for me, but syrup is another story—when it contains rum. Here’s what my mum isn’t doing for the kids this morning (just in case Child Services is reading this):

  • Pancakes (you know, throw a bunch of flour, milk and stuff together)
  • 2 cups maple syrup (we just have the fake stuff but it will work)
  • ¼ butter
  • ¼ rum

Melt the butter in a saucepan. Add the syrup and stir until the mixture is hot. Then [IMPORANT] remove from heat BEFORE adding the rum. You do NOT want any alcohol to burn off.

In fact, if you are concerned about alcohol burning off, you should add MORE rum.

In fact, if you are REALLY concerned about alcohol burning off, you should forgo the syrup/butter step and just POUR RUM on your pancakes.

And if you are EVEN MORE concerned about alcohol burning off, you should just forget about the pancakes and drink the rum. While contemplating some art.

By Dan Lacey: Hoda Kotb and Kathie Lee Gifford wrestle nude, on a pancake