Reviews

CUERVO, or my liver? Why not both?

My friend Stevie mentioned today that he needs a new liver. I do as well, along with a raft of other organs that don’t come stock with furry little bears, so I thought I’d check the Internet to see what our chances are.

Research makes me thirsty, so I asked my mum to buy some tequila while she was out picking the five-year-old up from school. She said (in addition to “no”) that my site was becoming a big misadventure and that our family is lucky I have so little influence, otherwise we’d be getting hate mail.

I told her about the afternoon’s research angle: cultivating replacement organs for people who desperately need them. It seemed to me that the whole subject area really suggested José Cuervo.

She said, repetitively, that she was going to shitcan my whole enterprise if I made fun of people with incurably degenerated livers.

I said I was figuring out how to fix people with bum livers, and even if I didn’t learn how, the 13 healing skulls I learned about after drinking a bottle of CRYSTAL HEAD VODKA would be convening about a year from now to heal everybody. Ergo, my research was just for fun, just like all longevity research. Why strive to prolong our lives when the Apocalypse is just a year away or so?

But as soon as a subject of discussion becomes a little technical, my parents tune out. I really had a jones for CUERVO GOLD. There’s something so appealing about its artificial golden-amber color and slight wood-ash aroma. People disparage this tequila for being a mainstream market bully, and it probably is, but it makes the most bad-ass margarita ever. Why is that?

Well, it’s honestly not very good tequila. So you don’t feel guilty throwing copious amounts of it into your blender and pureeing the hell out of it. There’s nothing delicate about it that’s going to get ruined by throwing limes, strawberries and any other random things into it. If it were more of a subtle sipper you’d feel profligate for camouflaging such precious liquid underneath a fruit orgy. But it’s definitely not subtle.

So CUERVO GOLD is great for margaritas because it’s not a sipping tequila, but you have to use it for something because you can’t have it burning a hole in your liquor cabinet, and margarita mix hides it admirably. The other excellent use for CUERVO GOLD is the body shot—again, because that by definition involves all sorts of other distracting flavors and sensations that render the actual taste of the product relatively unnoticeable.

OMG, WTF is that?

If you have margaritas and body shots constantly for many years, you will probably need a new liver. That’s okay, because scientists are making a lot of progress. They can take a donated liver that nobody’s using any more, bathe it in detergent to remove its own cells, then use what remains as a scaffold to seed a patient’s own cells, grow it a while, take out the patient’s malfunctioning liver and stuff the new one in. Voila!

This is a great reason to drink more CUERVO. The first sip is overwhelmingly fragrant, with a petroleum mouthfeel—an impression that recedes to secondary status as the agave elixir burns the throat. This is one of my very favorite forms of liquid pollution.

So what chance do Stevie and I stand of getting new livers? No one from Wake Forest University, where they’ve taken testing to the animal stage, was available to take my call, so I asked my mum. She said any doctor considering implanting a patient with a new liver would screen that patient to make sure he/she didn’t plan to poison it with alcohol. Snap!

So I guess that’s that. Stevie and I will have to get out our haloes and practice looking angelic if we want to be candidates for new livers. I know he can do it. As for me, my mum says I’m fucked sure to be rejected for a liver, but she’ll sew me a new one full of lentils if needed.

CRYSTAL HEAD—Vodka for the End of Days

My Fellow Inebriates,

Have you ever woken up with a surprise in your bed? Typically I wake up with all sorts of things in my bed, but my favorite discovery this week was a bear-sized bottle of CRYSTAL HEAD VODKA.

What’s interesting about vodka connoisseurs is the value they place on the spirit being without taste. The most prized vodkas taste like nothing and disappear without a trace into mixers such as tonic and orange juice. This is what makes vodka so dangerous. You keep tasting your hi-ball to see if you can taste the vodka, and if you can’t, you add more. Next thing you know…well, you know.

I wondered whether CRYSTAL HEAD, a brainchild of “invisible world” enthusiast Dan Ackroyd, would impart that throat-parching edginess that is the hallmark of cheaper vodkas, or whether, with its sizeable price tag, it would be a bit more refined. My mouth is already furry inside, so I’m fairly forgiving of vodkas that evaporate one’s saliva, but I still wanted to see where this peculiar skull would land on the vodka spectrum.

The best test is the straight sip, so I sat up in bed and got to it.

"Now, if only someone would hollow me out and fill me up with vodka."

The skull-shaped bottle references the great mystery of the 13 crystal skulls from ancient legend. Many believe there is a connection between the skulls and the upcoming End of Days. Each of the 13 skulls carries a distinct type of knowledge, and together the posse form a repository of unimaginable power that will be unleashed in the Apocalypse.

So obviously CRYSTAL HEAD vodka makes a powerful breakfast.

The smell is neutral, perhaps a little citrus despite the advertised lack of citrus oil in the vodka’s production. The first sip is sharp—not as smooth as expected, but it settles down in the mouth, finishing in an almost imperceptible vanilla sweetness. The mouthfeel is jagged and edgy, amplified by an acetone quality that seems to magnify with each sip.

I decided to lurch downstairs with my freaky skull and try a lemonade mixer. The kids asked me what was doing with their lemonade, and I told them I was making it extra yummy.

Filtered through Herkimer diamonds. Can you even do that?

But it wasn’t. Far from disappearing into the lemonade, CRYSTAL HEAD seemed to crackle through it like with chemical harshness, that acetone taste redoubling in spikes that hurt my teeth. I loved it. It was the best way to wake up ever, and I’m grateful to my (yes, my) wonderful friend Pixie for a mind-altering taste trip that absolutely launched me out of my comfort zone. Drink up, people, the end of the world is coming sooner than you think.

()wned! by CALIFORNIA CULT CLASSICS 2010 CHARDONNAY

My Fellow Inebriates,

California Cult Classics new label

I got my paws on something very special this week—something that probably should have been saved for a special occasion. But a new booze arrival is impossible to resist after the sort of liquor drought we’ve been suffering at LBHQ. I couldn’t help it—the bottle was urging me, speaking to me, singing to me—and once the voices in my head chimed in I couldn’t help it. I pestered my parents to get out that big bottle-opening thingie and save us from sobriety.

The bottle in question contained a 2010 chardonnay bottled at California Cult Classics, an elite North Vancouver outfit where oenophiles, celebrities, and Vancouver Canucks convene to produce and enjoy wine made from extremely select Napa Valley grapes and painstakingly crafted to a world-class standard. Ahhhh!

You cannot find CCC wine in your neighborhood liquor store; it is strictly for personal consumption and not for resale. CCC members plunk down $10,000 to embark on a two-year wine-making journey, at the end of which they walk away with 288 bottles of vino so exquisite as to make them weep with joy. At approximately $35 per bottle, CCC wine compares favorably with wine that retails for $150 in stores. It is not something alcoholics, or alcoholic bears for that matter, usually invest in.

So how on earth did I acquire it?

Well, my dad knows a lovely person named Pixie, who read my lament about our near-bare liquor cabinet, and asked him to take me some wine and vodka.

So how would you interpret that, my peeps? I think she meant these gifts were just for me, don’t you? Predictably, my parents thought they were included, and since they have thumbs that enabled them to extract the special Sardinian Ganau cork from the wine bottle, they did open it and freeload off me.

Not my granny but she could be yours

I felt a particular urgency to drink this chardonnay because that varietal was the favorite of my granny who died last month. I was afraid that if we left it in the house she would come back from the dead as a zombie and look for it.

And so we poured it.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! A heady tropical aroma wafted to my nose with knee-weakening significance—this is not a wine to be messed with. At full refrigeration it was almost too cold to appreciate fully, and I had to battle some mean-ass DTs while I waited for it to hit optimal temperature.

People talk about chardonnays being buttery, and sometimes I think those people are full of crap, but I kid you not, friends, this chardonnay is buttery. Buttery and creamy, rich with vanilla, sensuous and transporting. This is not a wine to swill absentmindedly while you play Farmville. This wine will make you weak at the knees. Full-bodied and subtly oaked, it beckons from the glass, tantalizing, urging, promising, fulfilling. This wine OWNED me, people.

I can’t imagine I’d be very welcome at California Cult Classics in North Vancouver. It’s a very pristine winery, and bears have been known to host at least 30 types of parasites, including “coccidian protozoans, flukes, tapeworms, intestinal roundworms, lungworms, filarial worms, lice, fleas, ticks, and mites.” I don’t think the CCC people would let me add the yeast to the fermentation tank.

A better bet might be getting to know Pixie. Between you and me, I can’t stop thinking about her. Maybe she would let me ride to California Cult Classics in her purse. That’s how my friend Scarybear went to see Avatar.

I’m going to stalk Pixie from afar for a while and see what happens.