liquor

ASTROLIQUOR for Feb. 24 to March 1—What the stars say you should drink!

My Fellow Inebriates,

Here’s your booze horoscope:

Aries, you are missing out on valuable REM sleep. Try to meditate during your daytime pre-drinking hours. See if you can go into a dreaming state, then write everything down that you see. You’ll be surprised at the creative thoughts churning around in your head. Those ideas want to get out of your head, but they have to swim through a lot of Smirnoff.

Taurus, your mornings are pretty rough this week—aches, pains, tremors. A nice steam bath will fix you up and, one would hope, involve washing that vodka sweat off…so hurry and do it, because your colleagues expect you to deliver a big presentation. OMG, can you hold it together with a headful of Absolut and Cointreau? Let positive thoughts wash over you. Make your presentation as vapid and catchword-laden as possible. Your audience will cheer and invite you out for more drinks.

Relationships are evolving, Gemini, and generally for the better. You’re figuring out what people mean to you, and which Facebook friends you can jettison. This will help you focus at work and give you more time to enjoy gin with coconut cream. Meanwhile, there’s a very seductive Capricorn making your fur stand on end. Be careful…your partner knows all about it. Better make sure you have extra gin.

Cancer, if you’ve been single for a while, this week features an exciting new fling. But if you’re in a long-term relationship, you’ll be yawning a bit. Those of you in the former category, enjoy. Those of you in the latter category, enjoy this:

  • 2 oz dark rum
  • 2 oz light rum
  • 2 oz whiskey
  • 1/4 cup creme de cacao
  • 4 oz cream of coconut

Blend and pour over crushed ice. This is as interesting as it’s gonna get for you this week, so get busy.

Leo, a friend who’s into charitable works will ask you for help with a cause this week. Your impulse is to say yes, throw aside your work, family and all other considerations, and help your friend. That’s cool, but make sure it’s a real charity you’re helping. You don’t want to commit your time to sewing pointy white hats or collecting Richard Dawkins books for an anti-evolution bonfire. The best way to avoid this sort of bad judgment is to break out the rum the moment you wake up. Then keep pouring it in your coffee all day. Ahhhh! When your friend phones, you won’t even be able to form the word “hello.”

Why are you letting yourself get trodden on, Virgo? Normally you’re pretty good at taking care of yourself, but this week brings insecurity and obsessive compulsiveness. The little details overwhelm you, and you lose focus on boundaries. Just like Leo, the best way to avoid being taken advantage of is to hole up inside with a strong drink. I see you lying on the kitchen floor, 12 parts Jagermeister and six parts apple vodka swirling around your brain. If that’s not being the captain of your soul, I don’t know what is.

Libra, your recent pessimism has taken a hike, and skies look blue to you now. Everything is going your way, your energy is bubbling, and you feel safe and secure. Naturally this makes you magnetic to others. Saturday will bring plenty of admirers, including one who’s willing to split a bottle of bourbon with you. Go for it.

The stars are influencing you positively this week, Scorpio. The social calendar looks good, especially Thursday, and you’re fielding attractive invitations to dinner. It’s tempting to order everything on the menu, and not such a bad idea if you want to absorb alcohol and stay alert dessert, which is, naturally, a liquid suggestion:

  • 5 oz espresso vodka
  • 2 oz chocolate liqueur
  • Hershey’s syrup to taste

Sagittarius, although you’ve been vehemently in favor of one strategy at work, this week you’ll do an about-face, causing everyone to wonder if you are a lush. But you’re not the only screw-up at work. So you freak out and let everyone have it! You belittle your colleagues: the weak links, the laggards, the busybodies—everybody. Then you pull a big bottle of Bombay Sapphire out of your desk drawer and openly shake it up with some vermouth in your Starbucks mug. Wow! Unforeseen holiday for you.

You’re fed up with the slow pace at work, Capricorn. But even though you feel you should be further ahead in your career, your colleagues respect and appreciate you. They don’t see your insecurities because you mask them so well behind a constant, some would say shit-eating, rye-whiskey-fueled grin.

Aquarius, a long-hoped-for meeting will take place this week. But you may be disappointed with the other person; he/she can’t possibly live up to your expectations. This will strain the relationship, leading to a mutual bender involving vodka, rum, and whatever else you two can think of to make each other more tolerable. Try Midori Melon liqueur—it gives everyone a happy sheen.

Pisces, there’s no sense getting angry at that coworker who swiped your Kool-Aid/vodka/rum concoction from the communal fridge. Although your boss may back you up, he/she will also remember the incident, when really you should maintain a low profile. You’ll need it for the next time the cops come into your workplace looking for you. You want to be that guy whose name the boss doesn’t remember.

What my toilet experiment isn’t

My Fellow Inebriates,

I live for big parties like Mardi Gras, and I’m sad that it’s in the past. The worst part of it, though, is the concomitant idea that now, the Wednesday after, it’s time to behave ourselves. Apparently the big pig-out, love-in, and piss-up shindig was a kind of last hurrah that ushers in 40 traditional days of fasting and penance before Easter. OMG!

Despite having plenty of reasons to feel contrite (i.e., hung over), plus at least one parent who’s schooled in the Lenten ritual, plus a furry liver that’s pleading for a 40-day dry-out period—it just ain’t gonna happen, my fellow inebriates. Mardi Gras may be a fond short-term memory, but bourbon doesn’t have to be.

What is bourbon exactly?

I thought I knew, but it turns out I really didn’t. I tried to find some Canadian bourbon for today’s review. With all the grain in the prairie provinces, I figured we’d be a big producer. But I was wrong. It turns out that, for a grain whiskey to qualify as bourbon, it must:

  • be produced in the United States
  • consist of at least 51% corn alcohol
  • be aged for two years minimum
  • be aged in new oak barrels

I had no idea! This explains why I’ve never seen an Alberta bourbon. And it means the liquor I’ve been distilling in the toilet tank won’t ever legitimately bear the name “bourbon.” If I want to get serious about making my own, I have to move to the US—preferably Kentucky, where the hot-cold seasonal variation is ideal for barrel-aging bourbon, and where limestone water (void of iron, which can turn the bourbon black instead of lovely honey-brown) flows abundantly.

Without barrel aging, bourbon would just be a clear corn-based spirit—harsh and alcoholic. As awesome as that sounds, two to four more years in an American white oak barrel can change that spirit into something darker, softer, and more refined. Four percent of the alcohol evaporates each year (called “the angels’ share”), effectively reducing the bourbon and creating richer, more complex flavors.

My favorite thing about bourbon is the way, when you stick your nose into the glass you’ve just poured, it almost singes your fur off. I bet I’d enjoy that pre-aged bourbon—the pre-bourbon—even if I’d be robbing a few alcoholic angels of their 4 percent per annum. But I love the finished product.

“So that's us: processed corn, walking.” ― Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals

I’m not so sure about moving to Kentucky. It sounds friendly there and all, but moving is a big deal, and I have one or two reasons, including Sarah Palin, to fear American life. But who knows? There’s plenty of corn growing everywhere (too much, as Michael Pollan argues in The Omnivore’s Dilemma, detailing the ascent of corn in an agribusiness agenda to push corn into every corner of our lives, if not every bodily orifice), and I found a barrel manufacturer who can supply the new, charred-oak barrels I’d need. And get this—at the bottom of the barrel maker’s web site is a charming little note:

For those of you who believe in man made global warming: When you buy one of our recycled Kentucky Bourbon Whiskey Barrels your [sic] are helping save the environment. By keeping these barrels at home we prevent the thousands of pounds of hydrocarbons that it takes to ship each of these barrels overseas from entering the environment. Hydrocarbons which may contribute to climate change.  Help save the earth, buy a recycled Kentucky Bourbon Whiskey Barrel today!

Isn’t it nice that with Kentucky Barrels you have the convenient option of opting in or out of the consensus held by credible scientists on anthropogenic global warming? Does it get any friendlier than that? Never mind the mind-boggling confession that it takes thousands of pounds of hydrocarbons to ship each barrel overseas.

I can’t wait for my toilet experiment to yield its alcoholic goodness and provide me with the mind-altering non-bourbon product I need in sufficient quantities to bring the ongoing neoconservative attack on science down to a dull roar, if only inside my own head. But at least I don’t have to observe Lent, which means Mardi Gras will continue at LBHQ for the foreseeable future.

BOWMORE 12—The cure for post-traumatic stress

Who on earth would make a handbag out of a bear’s head?

OMG, have you SEEN this? This designer DECAPITATES innocent bears, discards their bodies, removes their grey matter and then brazenly parades around with several bear-head purses at a time, people, with not even a wisp of moral dilemma about it.

Here’s what Toshiko Shek has to say about her creations:

I never knew beheading teddy bears can be so satisfying! Heh. Basically, I behead a teddy bear, take out the stuffing, sew in a lining, re-sew the bear head, put eyelets/rivets in the ears, chain it up and there you have a teddy bear purse! I feel like I need a clever name for them and right now the only thing I can think of is “bear with me”, too cheesy? What do you think?

WHAT DO I THINK????!!

Holy shit, I think it’s time to get out the BOWMORE 12. It’s hard to absorb, so early in the morning, the sight of so many fuzzy compatriots guillotined in the name of fashion.

You may have been wondering about the BOWMORE 12 review. I just needed a trigger to start drinking scotch in the morning again, and these ghoulish handbags fit the bill.

One of the oldest in Scotland, Bowmore Distillery sits on the Inner Hebridean Isle of Islay, from which all the peatiest whiskies hail. Of all the Islay malts, BOWMORE 12 is reputed to be the most balanced, so I was eager to taste it for myself.

Of course I did get into it last week when our friend Robert brought the bottle over, but by the time it got opened I’d already consumed several beers and a bottle of Spanish red wine, meaning my tastebuds were as compromised as my judgment. All I remember of the BOWMORE 12 is that it was smmmmoooooooth going down. (But not coming back up, and not the next day.)

"I have only made 4 so far because it’s really hard to find decent looking big bears. But today I got lucky and found 3 more and one of them is really big!" – Toshiko Shek

So I thought I could do a more attentive tasting this morning. Still shaking from Toshiko Shek’s bear slaughter, I needed the distraction.

Ahhhhh! BOWMORE 12 is delicate gold with a honey shimmer. The nose is evocative—a cold, damp evening, low-hanging mist, iodine washing in on the nearby tide, and of course peat smoke.

The mouthfeel is heavy and rich, almost creamy and certainly oily. BOWMORE 12 coats the glass as you swirl, then makes a lingering descent down the sides. The sip? Smoooooooooooth. Honey, a vague brininess, a hint of a hint of candied orange peel encased in toffee—but far away behind the peat. As you sip, the flavors commingle, starting sweet then modulating into a deep, smoky finish. Mild tannins bring the honey and fruit into satisfying balance, making BOWMORE 12 an ideal calming drink when the soul is in morbid turmoil.

I don’t know if it’s such a bright idea to lose control drinking BOWMORE 12 when scissors-wielding fashionistas are out bear-hunting.

But I guess I’ll take my chances.