Month: February 2012

ASTROLIQUOR for Feb. 10-16—What the stars say you should drink!

My Fellow Inebriates,

Here’s your booze horoscope:

Communication comes easily to you this week, Aries. You find it easy to formulate your thoughts, but too bad you don’t have anybody to talk to. Try making friends with some coworkers. Okay, so they don’t think you’re a team player; they don’t understand how you can be overbearing and lazy.  Sounds like you need both a chill-out drink and a pick-me-up. Why not both? Pour Absolut peach into an energy drink and take it to work.

Taurus, one of your biggest talents is evading responsibility, but this week you can’t get away with it. All those nasty little jobs you’ve been putting off are building up, and they’re not going to go away. So you’ll have to find a way to make them fun. Try house-cleaning naked, if you don’t usually do it that way. Put on some music and blend up a big pitcher of something unusual to get you through it. I like this recipe (especially if one of the things you’ve been avoiding is absinthe):

  • 3 oz absinthe
  • 3 oz triple sec
  • 12 oz sweet-and-sour mix
  • 1 cup water
  • lemon juice to taste

Shake it up with ice. If you already like absinthe you might wish to leave out the last four ingredients.

You are gradually getting a handle on what you want in life, Gemini, which should boost your confidence. By the end of April you should have your inner self figured out, and superficiality will rule your life again. New gadgets will beckon to you—cell phones, tablets, a new car! Just remember, if you spend the money on these things, you will not have it for Bacardi products. Pour yourself equal parts white and dark rum, throw some passion-fruit syrup into it, and talk yourself off the ledge.

The past is still bugging you, Cancer, and this week you’re reliving your childhood, wondering whether all those beatings were necessary. You might need until May to figure out that your dad was a dink (or not). The verdict should bring you balance and peace of mind. Time to celebrate! Get out the vodka (currant-flavored), add some tonic and grape juice plus a splash of grenadine, then pound about half a dozen. Call your dad.

Leo, you’re so good at cheering other people up, but it’s not always a good idea to cheer them up with sex. April brings stalkers, and they will complicate your life. Thus drinking alone is best. I see you with your own bottle of vodka, a few lime wedges, and some grenadine, and loving it.

Don’t be shy, Virgo. People around you are onto you; they know you’re interesting and they will listen to you. This is a perfect week to have a party…what about a Weird Drinks party? You know vodka’s always a good base, so into the punchbowl with the Absolut. Next? Apple schnapps! Banana schnapps! Tropical juice (how about watermelon or strawberry?)…then (hmmm) cherry Kool-Aid. Never forget how to be interesting.

Libra, you are full of confidence this week. You feel loved, and the little stuff isn’t bothering you one bit. Even the irritating people at work are easy to ignore. This is the pay-off for letting go of the past. But you still have a bunch of stuff—physical stuff. Whenever you try to purge your house, you get sentimental, and there you are among your old newspaper stacks. Get drunk enough not to care, then throw that shit out. Jagermeister and Coke, damn it.

There’s a Libra bothering you, Scorpio. Annoying the hell out of you, in fact, and this person will not take the hint to back off. It’s because of that time the two of you shared a liter of Everclear mixed with two flavors of Kool-Aid and some Orange Crush. This person thought you were bonding, but you just wanted to make him/her invisible. You don’t know what to do, so this might continue for a while.

Sagittarius, you’ll charm the pants off everyone this week. You’re happy-go-lucky and tolerant—no judgment from you. With this kind of charisma you’ll be an adept manipulator, but try not to. Take that crazy Libra who’s stalking Scorpio. You could lure that person with some Jagermeister and DeKuyper Sour Apple Pucker Schnapps. But then you’d be the one with a stalker.

You’re going to shine this week, Capricorn. And when you look this good, people ask for help. All kinds of people will take up your time, and you’ll help them unreservedly. But it’s tiring you out, and you’re neglecting your own needs. Before you reach your breaking point, tune these supplicants out and hole up with some Captain Morgan spiced rum. Throw some cinnamon schnapps into it and enjoy it alone.

Aquarius, you have a Leo admirer who wants you to perform. Ordinarily you’re pretty good at maintaining your detachment, but this Leo is persuasive! Once you let go of your inhibitions, this liaison may last into August if not longer. So toss those inhibitions. (The best method is alcohol—Southern Comfort for you.)

Pisces, you’re willing to help anyone who asks, but be careful what they ask for. (You don’t want to end up in jail again.) Mainly you need to protect your health and not let anyone tire you out with requests. Seriously! You’re having some bowel flare-ups, and you don’t need the stress of doing other people’s errands. Maintain your boundaries, then relax with some cognac.

You’re not evil for craving a beer

My mother isn’t always admiration-worthy but I do have to hand it to her for abstaining from alcohol during her pregnancies. True, it wasn’t the sacrifice for her that it would have been for me; she didn’t suffer delirium tremens or need to be straitjacketed until the 21-day mark—but she did fend off tremendous beer cravings (although she had one or two occasional sneaky sips). After all, going cold turkey on booze is part of the pregnancy deal.

Except that it’s a relatively new deal.

Prior to a 1973 paper in the Lancet, fetal alcohol syndrome was not recognized. If women were counseled to abstain—which historically they often weren’t—the advice was based on common sense rather than scientific data. In other words, it’s simple common sense not to binge-drink, pregnant or not, but pregnancy is such a taxing condition and so replete with nausea that it just makes sense to advise women not to drink excessively.

But is there any historical wisdom we can cite that relates not to the condition of pregnancy but to the fetus? Strangely enough, literature is lacking in connections between alcohol and deleterious effects on the unborn.

You’d think there’d be an abundance. The bible, for instance, is full of dietary/hygienic exhortations and proscriptions, and it certainly doesn’t stint when it comes to limiting women’s behavior, but those cautions that it expresses against drinking pertain mostly to preconception—i.e., the husband’s ability to get it up and keep it up. As far as the resulting pregnancy? Eerily silent on the matter.

Okay, so the bible is a pretty old document. What about more recent literature? Canadian scholar Ernest Abel, author of numerous articles on FAS, has pored through Greek, Roman, and European history, from ancient to recent, and almost no references to a causal connection between liquor and fetal harm.

FAS is present in an estimated 0.02-0.15% of live births, affecting growth, facial and cranial features, structural, neurological, and intellectual development. FAS children exhibit learning difficulties, low impulse control, and an array of cognitive and motor-skill challenges—rendered all the more tragic given the preventability of the condition.

But you’d think, from popular magazine articles, product warning labels, and public service announcements about alcohol, that ONE drink could cause FAS. The accepted mantra is that “we don’t know how many drinks cause FAS”; therefore, pregnant women shouldn’t drink at all. But this seems a little facile. Surely we have some idea?

The problem with information is that simplicity always reigns supreme. It’s far catchier and easier for a magazine to demonize alcohol during pregnancy than it is to wade into a scientific journal for actual data. Data is boring. And if you bother to dig, and find that 18 units of alcohol per week are deleterious to a fetus, then well! How can you write a headline like: “Is your baby at risk? The scary truth about those 18 drinks!”

According to the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG):

  • No adverse effects on pregnancy outcome have been proven with a consumption of less than 120 gms of alcohol (around 15 units) per week.
  • Consumption of 120 gms (15 units) or more per week has been associated with a reduction in birth weight.
  • Consumption of more than 160 gms (20 units) per week is associated with intellectual impairment in children.

A unit is one 8-gram drink:

  • ½ pint of ordinary strength beer, lager, cider
  • ¼ pint of strong beer or lager
  • 1 small glass of wine
  • 1 single measure of spirits
  • 1 small glass of sherry

Is society incapable of parsing this? Does society consider women so childishly incompetent that it needs to dumb this down from moderate limits to no drinks at all? There are miles of difference between 15 drinks a week and none.

Understandably, many pregnant women might be uncomfortable approaching the 15-drink maximum, and I doubt many pregnant women would even want to. But how did we get to the ad absurdum conclusion that one drink is evil? Where’s the moderation here?

Perhaps the fear is that some pregnant women—you know how they can’t be trusted, with hormones and whatnot—might decide to have 15 drinks all at once. Imagine! I mean, raise your hands—does anyone not realize that would be bad? And if we’re concerned about the few pregnant idiots who might decide to stack their drinks (or take it to the next level and stack two weeks’ worth!), shouldn’t we be worried about them in a more general sense? For instance, they’re probably not eating well either, and then there’s the heroin they’re injecting…

And then there’s the built-in assumption that regardless of what’s proven harmless, complete abstinence is still best. That’s not necessarily true. A British study of over 18,000 households revealed that if a pregnant mother had one or two drinks per week:

  • sons had fewer problems with behavior and hyperactivity
  • daughters had fewer peer-related and/or emotional problems
  • boys had better cognitive abilities than those born to abstainers

The scientific establishment leapt to discredit this study, citing socioeconomic factors (e.g., casual-drinking mothers tended to have higher income/education). These and other variables tend to confound the issue rather than clarify it.

iStockphoto

But what’s troubling is the guilt heaped upon women who have a few drinks here and there before discovering they’re pregnant. Those pregnancies are fraught with worry about the damage potentially done to their developing babies—and that worry is never alleviated by the media. If anything, it’s compounded by a society that is ever-vigilant to ensure that pregnant women abstain 100% from the demon alcohol. It’s patronizing, it’s over-simplified, and it’s unfair.

I’m just a dumb bear without a medical degree, so I’d never tell anyone to drink while pregnant—it’s not my right to do so—but for anyone who’s worried about the one or two drinks consumed before knowing, or feeling guilty for indulging in a Guinness, here are some interesting links:

Mixing medical advice, alcohol and pregnancy

Oxford Journals: Alcohol and Alcoholism—Commentary on the Recommendations of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists Concerning Alcohol Consumption in Pregnancy

Fetal Alcohol Syndrome: “The American Paradox”

Fetal Alcohol Syndrome: The Origins of a Moral Panic

Was the Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Recognized by the Greeks and Romans?

SLEEMAN HONEY BROWN LAGER—not sessionable, and not for wankers

nutrasique.com

I don’t get up early enough to verify this, but apparently the morning ritual around here involves the kids begging for “honey spoons”—spoonfuls of honey that precede breakfast. Any bears who are up at that time have to suffer, watching them gobble up the precious stuff. Even though I don’t really do solid food, honey makes me salivate as all good bears do when they catch sight of a beehive, but in my case it also makes me think of SLEEMAN HONEY BROWN LAGER.

I’ve mentioned this elixir before as a good go-to beer that measures favorably against a host of craft-beer variations on the honey brew. I like it, peeps; it’s refreshing and clean-tasting, with just enough weight and a nice long finish.

But beer wankers disagree with me. They disparage it!

What do they dislike about SLEEMAN HONEY BROWN LAGER? Well, wankers say it reminds them of high school, that it’s so “macro,” and that it doesn’t taste good warm—i.e., they can’t have a long, drawn-out beer-wanking “session” with it.

I didn’t know what “sessionable” beer was until I read beerbecue’s skewering (ha!) of the term. His contention that “session beer” is a pretentious term elicited 19 comments—more than he likely would have netted had he proposed adopting a Soylent Green policy or suggested we all kill a puppy.

If you’re not familiar with the idea that a <5% ABV qualifies a beer for a “session” during which tasters may sip and consider its qualities without getting thoroughly trashed, check out the article. But for alcoholics like me and probably some of my friends, a word like “sessionable” is utterly meaningless. A beer session for somebody like me goes on until the beer is gone or I pass out. If the beer is COORS LIGHT the process takes a little longer, but it still happens. I only weigh a few ounces, my fellow inebriates, so I don’t emerge from any drinking session unscathed, and nothing—save an abomination like O’DOUL’S—dilutes the eventual drunkenness that is in fact the express purpose of opening a bottle of anything, sessionable or not.

Being a live-and-let-live bear, I don’t mind what terms are bandied about concerning beer. But when the house is dry, I tend to surf the net and read about beer. And what I see is my fave daily beer being trashed by “session” beer drinkers. OMG! They say they wouldn’t have bought it but “it was in the house” (magically) or “someone brought it over” (lucky) or they “thought they’d give it a chance” (decent of them).

Here’s the skinny on SLEEMAN HONEY BROWN LAGER. It’s a gorgeous, clear amber with off-white foam and some lacing. The scent is slightly malty with honey up front, an aroma that pays off as this effervescent brew hits the tongue. Generous caramel notes open up as the fizz settles in the mouth with a crisp, quenching mouthfeel and a nice balance between sweet and bitter. The taste lingers satisfyingly, making for an interesting taste experience that categorically differs from most so-called “macro beer” experiences.

Yes, it is a mainstream beer with a reasonable but not bottom-shelf price. It’s refreshing in summer but weighty enough for winter (unusual for a lager)—and therefore ideal for spring and fall too. I totally love SLEEMAN HONEY BROWN LAGER.

But supposedly honey itself is almost more awesome. Did you know that honey is a natural antibacterial agent? Scientists are testing its potential to combat hospital-borne strep infections (constantly evolving to be one step ahead of even the most powerful antibiotics) and finding that honey kills off most strep cells. Wow!

Admittedly, I prefer SLEEMAN HONEY BROWN LAGER slightly to honey, which means that if I ever get a strep infection I might be an idiot and make a poultice with beer instead of honey—and end up as bear meat for flesh-eating disease. Wouldn’t that be disgusting? And then it would travel to my brain and turn me into a beer wanker.