bear

Bears are where it’s at

Bourbon Bear-Ale Brothers Porter.

There’s something about bears and beer. Is it just the way the words get confused when you’re blasted? You tell me.

Dolly, Dolly…

My Fellow Inebriates,

I actually overheard the following as one of my parents left: “I’m just getting groceries, nothing else. If that batshit crazy bear wants anything, it’s out of luck.”

“It’s”!!

Well, of course I wanted things. I had a list. It’s pouring rain outside, and I had a really cozy idea: Kahlua and butterscotch schnapps stirred into hot milk. Yum, right?

Okay, so I’d personally leave out the milk, but the concoction as described above is a good idea.  It’s so warming and romantic, so good for curling up by the fire.

Admittedly it’s something I dreamt up to lure my girlfriend back to me.

You’re probably remembering I told you about Dolly, and that she doesn’t like being called my girlfriend. She’s all human, she insists, and has decided to curb whatever fetishistic desires led to these pictures:

But I can’t help wondering, couldn’t a tummyful of coffee/butterscotch liqueurs couple nicely with a brainful of alcohol to effect a reconciliation? How many drinks would it take for her to stop calling me “mangy,” “infantile,” and “paranoid”? …

I just asked her and she said ten. But how can I get my parents to do my liquor shopping?

ESCORIHUELA 1884 RESERVADO SYRAH (2009)

The house was feeling downright funereal, and wine seemed in order. One of my visitors had urged an Argentine malbec upon me recently. No objections here, so I hustled my mum out the door to fetch one.

She really took her bloody time. I had to distract myself by reading the news, which filled me with paranoia and dread—especially this item, http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/11/05/MN3V1LOKC9.DTL, about an asteroid that will barely (bearly) miss us next Tuesday. If only I’d been able to contact my miserable parent to exhort her to get three or four bottles so we could have a properly apocalyptic evening.

Unfortunately restraint ruled the day, and she returned with one wine bottle, and not a malbec (she was not to be, seemingly, commanded by a 7-inch ursine alcoholic) but a syrah, albeit from Argentina as per my instructions. Fair enough.

Scientists tell us very casually that asteroids skirt our atmosphere by mere hundreds of thousands of miles every decade or so. OMG, people. I had no idea. I thought the main threats to my life were young children bent on torture. I thought I might get accidentally beheaded one day maybe, or lose an eye. But here we have massive rocks the size of city blocks careening toward us with a frequency I couldn’t have imagined.

I asked my friend Scarybear if he knew about such things. He told me to chill out and added that I am a “retard.”

So when the wine came back I was relieved. I just had to endure some DTs throughout dinner/bedtime and we were on.

The 1884 RESERVADO syrah (2009) had a real cork, something I hadn’t seen in a while, and of course yet another reminder of my limitations vis a vis dexterity.

Perhaps my favorite aspect of this wine was that it was perfect out of the gate. No need to decant—my tremors bowed instantly to this supple, intensely violet, complex syrah.

As the wine opened up it revealed ripe black fruit, hints of mocha and vanilla, and lovely, balanced tannins. Aged in French and American oak for eight months, this wine lingers on the tongue with an unforgettable intensity.

And at $16.99 it’s an absolute steal: the sort of wine I RECOMMEND buying by the case—the sort of wine I’ll be hitting Santa up for this Christmas.

By the time we finished this bottle I didn’t even care about that stupid asteroid. But I’m still preoccupied with my thumblessness. Find me an invention so I can open bottles, people, and I’ll be yours forever.