drinking

ASTROLIQUOR for Dec. 23-29

My Fellow Inebriates,

Here’s your booze horoscope:

It’s time to do all the chores you’ve been neglecting, Aries, which means cleaning up all the rum. What a mess a liquor cabinet becomes when it contains too many partially used bottles. Get drinking and finish some off. Sure, it’s early, but it’s also the holiday season, so you can do whatever you want. Oh yeah, and you’re going to lose a crapload of money gambling this week. Try to spend your casino money on white rum.

Taurus, you need to make a crazy party punch full of all kinds of fruits and juices AND—don’t forget this part—a gallon each of Everclear, Smirnoff and Sailor Jerry’s. Throw some triple sec in for character and you’re ready for the holidays. Sounds like a big quantity? Not really—you just have to start at breakfast. BTW, you are going to run out of money making this, and there won’t be any more until February.

You’ve been drunk for a long time, Gemini. So drunk that one morning you wake up and can’t recognize anybody. This is a great thing—an invaluable opportunity to reinvent yourself. And the best way to do that is to make new friends at the bar. Try buying them Smirnoff & Midori melon drinks.

Get your affairs in order, Cancer, so you can relax. Once you take care of business, you can turn your attention to making bizarre drinks for yourself and whatever weirdos you pick up around town. Here’s a good one: 4 cups lager + 1 cup sherry…with melon balls thrown into it, floating around. Yum, right?

I see a bar fight for you this week, Leo, featuring an angry Aquarius. Don’t worry; you’ll have a threesome with a Taurus and a Capricorn later in the week. Give yourself a preemptive spank with this creation:

  • 1.5 oz banana schnapps
  • 1.5 oz vanilla vodka
  • 1 oz Bacardi 151

Don’t eat too much this week, Virgo. Why eat when you can sustain yourself with tequila? If the room starts to spin, go out for a nice walk. All sorts of people will laugh at you as you stagger along. Think of it as holiday spirit, not ridicule because you forgot to put on pants.

Libra, there are some voices in your head telling you to do hectic, seasonal things like cook a turkey. Don’t listen to them! You have drinks to mix, and if you consume enough of them, you’ll be off the hook for cooking duty. Here’s a drink recipe to start:

  • 1 cup sweet-and-sour mix
  • 3 oz melon liqueur
  • 2 oz Blue Curacao
  • 2 oz amaretto
  • 2 oz raspberry vodka
  • Lots of ice

Yes, it’s a big quantity, but you can do it.

People are starting to bore you, Scorpio. This is compounded by the fact that you’ve pulled Designated Driver duty this week. Take it seriously and abstain while you’re out, but once you’ve dropped your boring friends off, hit the vodka (with Jagermeister and Goldschlager of course).

Sagittarius, everything feels like it’s against you, but try to remember it’s been worse before. Ride out this depressive episode in bed with a tumbler of Irish whiskey beside you.

You are being watched, Capricorn. You’re not imagining it, and the watcher is a Scorpio. Don’t ignore this seemingly creepy person; he/she may have something useful for you, whether it be a job or casual sex. Your drink is amaretto—put it in everything.

You’re changing mentally, Aquarius, and not necessarily for the best. People around you are noticing and wondering whether you’re in some sort of destructive spiral. They wonder if it will be like a road accident to watch, or whether you’ll give them a laugh on your downward trajectory. Since no sort of psychological implosion is complete without alcohol, here’s a colorful recipe:

  • 3 oz lemon vodka
  • 2 oz melon liqueur
  • 1 oz Blue Curacao
  • 1 oz lemon or lime juice
  • 2 oz sweet-and-sour mix

Blend it up with ice. Never mind other people.

Pisces, you’re getting annoyed at others’ shirking of responsibilities. Clearly, you are too sober. If you had sufficient alcohol levels, you wouldn’t care whether your coworkers were working or whether the kid at Starbucks knows how to make a latte. Get on the festive train and stop pissing on everybody’s parade. Vodka martinis for you ASAP.

10 things it’s impossible to say when drunk

I have no idea where this came from, my fellow inebriates, but it made me laugh.

THINGS THAT ARE DIFFICULT TO SAY WHEN DRUNK:
1. Innovative
2. Preliminary
3. Proliferation
4. Cinnamon

THINGS THAT ARE VERY DIFFICULT TO SAY WHEN DRUNK:
1. Specificity
2. Anti-constitutionally
3.. Passive-aggressive disorder
4. Transubstantiate

THINGS THAT ARE DOWNRIGHT IMPOSSIBLE  TO SAY WHEN DRUNK:
1. No thanks, I’m married. 
2. Nope, no more booze for me!
3. Sorry, but you’re not really my type.
4.  No thanks, I’m not hungry.
5. Good evening, officer. Isn’t it lovely out tonight?
6. Oh, I couldn’t!  No one wants to hear me sing karaoke.
7. I’m not interested in fighting you.
8. Thank you, but I won’t make any attempt to dance, I have no coordination.  I’d hate to look like a fool!
9. Where is the nearest bathroom?  I refuse to pee in this parking lot or on the side of the road.
10. I must be going home now, as I have to work in the morning.

JOHNNIE WALKER BLACK LABEL—RIP Christopher Hitchens

My Fellow Inebriates,

I promised one of my mum’s Facebook friends that I would weigh in on the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin. But first I have to disclaim a bit:

  • I’m no expert on religious relics. I’m not sure there are any bears in the field.
  • This isn’t a sindonology forum, although admittedly the topics get a little loose.
  • I am totally freaked out by religious artifacts, especially wraps for the dead.
  • I was completely hosed when I offered to comment.

But here goes.

We still don’t know definitively how old the shroud is. Three teeny pieces of it were sent to three separate labs for radiocarbon dating; in 1989 Nature pronounced its age “AD 1260-1390, with at least 95% confidence.” This was a tough pill to swallow for those who believe it to be Jesus’s burial wrap, so they disputed the findings, suggesting that the wrong pieces of the garment (medieval repair patches perhaps) had been sent to the lab and that other, better pieces (which could not be spared) would have yielded a much older date—say, AD 30. Enough criticism was generated that the issue could be labeled a controversy, and so it’s all up in the air.

I know this is an awfully dumb question, but why don’t they send some more fibers for carbon dating? Some better fibers? I know they don’t want to wreck the shroud, but it’s really big! It’s bigger than a beach towel. And then everybody could stop arguing about its age—the biggest piece of the puzzle.

The latest scientific buzz on the shroud is that its image could have been made only by an electromagnetic discharge—a camera obscura effect that arguably could not have been achieved by any known mechanical method at the time, whatever time it was.

I thought I would contact Christopher Hitchens for a quote on the issue but it turns out he’s dead of pneumonia following a very public battle with stage IV (“there is no stage V”) esophageal cancer. Esophageal cancer is a major bitch; it claimed the grandfather I never knew way back in the eighties when Madonna first started warbling away on MTV and before the Shroud of Turin got carbon-dated.

A lot of theists are speculating where Hitchens has ended up. Some of the happier, nicer characters posit that if he repented in the last second of life, he could very well be enjoying Johnnie Walker Black Label in the sky right now. It’s a very comforting vision, especially given what a friendly mixer Black Label makes, with its introductory, welcome-to-scotch aromas of wood grain, butter, fruit and just a touch of peat. For anyone who’s not sure about scotch, Johnnie Walker is a good starting point: softer and more drinkable than some of the more peaty single-malt whiskies. Hitchens called it “the best blended scotch in the history of the world.” Humans have been making booze of various kinds since the beginning of time, so that’s a decent accolade.

Hitchens’s death is especially poignant, leaving me as it does with a sumptuous pile of good reading that has suddenly been rendered all the more finite. If only I had some Johnnie Walker Black Label to go with it.