drinking

MALIBU

My Fellow Inebriates,

There’s been a lot of buzz about Malibu lately and some controversy about how it pairs with various other liquids. One visitor took me to task for my assertion that there’s nothing Malibu doesn’t go with.

This bewildered me.

Malibu is a tropical coconut-infused rum, made in my native country Canada, containing rum, water, glucose-fructose, natural and artificial coconut flavour, soldium citrate and citric acid.

WHAT WOULDN’T THAT GO WITH?

A mickey-sized bottle of MALIBU has languished at the back of our cabinet for the last decade, begging to be combined with coffee, tea, root beer, hot chocolate…you name it. With its lack of complexity and bubble-gum notes, it lends itself admirably to any sort of combination you might put in a travel coffee mug if, say, you had to go to Chuck E. Cheese for a two-hour birthday party and didn’t think you could endure it sober.

MALIBU is at its finest when you hollow out a pineapple or a coconut and drink it straight-up therefrom. It’s only 21% alcohol so you can do the whole bottle from your hammock with minimal hallucinations. I like the way, when I spill it on myself, I enjoy the aroma of suntan oil for days after, even if my sometime girlfriend Dolly says that coconutty smelly is buried underneath mange and angst and some other odors she attributes exclusively to me.

I really love MALIBU and hope Stevie OB in particular will try drinking it out of a big hollowed-out fruit, even if such a thing costs 10 pounds in Wales right now.

Environmental Message

My Fellow Inebriates,

I’m really against driving. You see, I’m always drunk, so I mustn’t ever drive. And that kind of makes me an environmentalist. See, if everyone spent every day pie-eyed the way I do, no one would ever drive, and our planet would flourish.

Now, get yourself a big glass of vermouth and leave some comments about how you enjoy it. Did you know the word “vermouth” is German for “wormwood”? Well, why cook with something so special? You can afford it, so go fill up that Big Gulp cup and get sipping. I want to hear about all my friends’ vermouth experiences tomorrow when I drag myself out of bed.

You see, we’re out of vermouth at my house.

Oh yeah, and check out this video. I had no idea I could apply for a job like this, although I would have been hesitant to submit to the obvious surgical mods those bears in the video have had. Is it worth it? You tell me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gw1g2yKxb0I

Cariboo Brewing Cream Ale

My Fellow Inebriates,

As promised, here’s a companion review to my rave about Cariboo Brewing’s honey lager. It took me until late this afternoon to compose my thoughts because I missed my habitual bender last night when one of the kids elected me stuffy du nuit, which meant I couldn’t escape her five-year-old clutches all night long, people. Fast asleep, she couldn’t sense my delirium tremens but nevertheless maintained an iron clutch all night long. Love those kids…

Where was I? Oh yeah, I woke up grumpy—grumpy and discarded, forgotten in the breakfast scramble, and not a drink in sight to get me back to normalcy.

Once I resigned myself to pancakes on the table and not shooters, I skulked around the empties for a while, slurping out the dregs. This is how I have to pull myself together, living as I do under the veil of hypocrisy that surrounds drinking in this house. Just as my parents frown on pre-breakfast imbibing, so do they also point fingers at my lack of any ID indicating a legal drinking age. I’m a bear, humans—how many bears do you know with a driver’s license?

The empties gave me what I needed, and now I can tell you about Cariboos (that’s what it looks like on the can) Cream Ale. Ahhhh! Delectable stuff. Creamy, smooth, not too sweet: everything a cream ale should be.

My dad commented that it wasn’t as fizzy as he would have liked. But it’s not like my dad’s writing any liquor reviews, is he? I liked it fine. It wasn’t lacking effervescence the way Boddington’s is; it was absolutely within the typical fizz range and enough to tickle my fur. Yes, this morning’s dregs were completely flat, but they retained the character of several nights previous, which tells me I could do anything with Cariboos. I could let it sit out a few hours, heat it up, put it in the blender, whatever, and it would still be awesome.

I totally RECOMMEND buying a case of this beer, because Cariboo Brewing plants a tree for every case sold, which gives me something to climb up when toddlers attack.

http://www.cariboobrewing.com/campaign/reforest/