My Fellow Inebriates,

Do you ever feel you have a psychic connection to another person? Just yesterday I had the impulse to write to Julia Gale, Business Development Manager for BROKER’S GIN. At least three months had passed since our last contact, and I started worrying. Just before Christmas she had some knee surgery done to correct an injury sustained while busting out to the B-52s song “Love Shack.” I found myself anxious about the operation, the surgeon’s ability, and the general quality of the National Health Service.

Recently my Nana acquired a bionic knee, a procedure so painful that all she could say immediately afterward was “Ow.” (Once she got some meds in her she said things like “That knee surgery turned” and then conked out before finishing the sentence.) So I had a sense of how painful knee surgery could be and I started worrying about Julia—not just about her health but about the general state of things at BROKER’S GIN without her. Conceivably BROKER’S could be falling apart while she hit the nurse button for a double dose of morphine, and then how would any of us get any gin?

So I determined that I would write to her and, if it turned out she was in a terrible spiral of painkiller abuse, attempt to talk her off the ledge and back into the juniper-scented heaven of BROKER’S GIN.

But she’d read my mind and beaten me to it!

Greetings young LB

Are you worried that you’ve been forgotten?  Do you think that Broker’s Gin have given up on a listing in British Columbia?…

I’ll keep you updated!

Jules

Giddy at receiving this email, I sent a response:

Julia, you must be psychic! I was just drafting a letter (in my head) to you. I was getting worried about you and your knee. Just recently my Nana had knee-replacement surgery and was in tremendous pain. She had to exercise considerable strength of will to push away the pain killers. So of course I started thinking about you and your bothersome injury and the Love Shack-style gyrations that induced it. Are you recovered now? Are you off the pain meds or have they become a monkey on your back? Did the surgeon do a good job? I was a bit worried because I know your health care system is similar to ours…you wait a very long time and then sometimes the doctor smells like scotch, but not having to pay is nice.

Anyway, I hope you are well. I hope Martin and Andy visited you in hospital and brought you a flask plus a hefty salary increase.

Did you have an actual knee replacement or something less invasive? I do know something about having foreign objects in one’s body–my ass is full of dried lentils. Just imagine, if there’s ever a famine my family might be tempted to rip my backside open to find soup ingredients. And then I’d have a sagging behind, just like those teenage guys you see slouching down the street with their pants slung impossibly low so the crotch is at the knees and you get the impression that some waist-mounted dwarf is working the controls. Just recently I saw a posse of these dudes in orbit around an attractive teenage girl who was texting purposefully as she walked and thoroughly oblivious of all the falling pants around her. In the space of two minutes I saw each lad yank up his ill-fitting jeans at least once.

So if I lost my lentils, my rear end would look like that. The difference is that it would be naked.

Do you ever get drunk on beer, Julia, or just gin? I recently tried a beer that’s brewed much closer to you than me: Innis & Gunn Original oak-aged beer. It’s one of those sublime products that makes one suspect there is a higher power who cares deeply about one’s alcoholic needs—much like Broker’s Gin. I did check my local government booze shop the other day, incidentally, to see if Broker’s was there yet…but it’s not. But I know that with you back in the game the precious elixir can’t be far now. Ahhhh!

Be well, Julia! I missed you very much and honestly thought I was going to surprise you with a letter…but here you are, you’ve beat me to it.

Cuddles,

LB 

INNIS & GUNN ORIGINAL OAK-AGED BEER really is superb—enough to warrant its own review, written soberly. So that might take a while, but it is percolating between my two brain cells.

In the meantime, especially for you Canadians hanging on every new BROKER’S GIN post to find out when we can expect this ambrosia back in government stores, stay tuned.