My Fellow Inebriates,

Until breweries start spontaneously sending me booze, I’m on a budget just like the rest of you. So it warms my heart when I find something cheap and good. This one I have to credit to my dad. As much as I resent the lack of serious thought my parents put into buying hootch, every once in a while they do get around to it, and in this case my dad managed to keep his ear to the ground, suspend whatever reservations he had about beer in cans, and try something new.

And Cariboos Honey Lager is no slouch. For reference, my go-to honey lager has been Sleeman, for that creamy smoothness with a hint of sweetness. Cariboos is a comparable offering, and once you’ve poured it into a glass it might even be better.

Don’t get me wrong; it’s my dad who’s not keen on cans. I like them—they’re cheaper, you can shotgun with them, and nobody’s gonna shiv you with a broken can.

This morning I got up early for the express purpose of taste-testing Sleeman Honey Lager against Cariboos only to find myself up at this painful hour for no good reason, staring into the sun streaming through the kitchen window as my lecturing parents reiterated the socially-constructed idea that drinking in the morning is a slippery slope. So I didn’t get to do my taste challenge. But from memory I’ll tell you that if you like Sleeman Honey Lager you won’t be disappointed by Cariboos.

And 5.5% alcohol, people! Sleeman boasts 5.2%, moving its honey lager to second place in this bear’s heart.

All this got me thinking about a lecture I saw by Malcolm Gladwell: http://www.ted.com/talks/malcolm_gladwell_on_spaghetti_sauce.html I didn’t think my attention span could handle a talk ostensibly about Prego Sauce, but I kept watching Gladwell because of his crazy hair, and he got me thinking—many times packaging dupes us into spending far more money than we need to on products that are quietly being trumped qualitatively by competitors with smaller branding budgets.

I would like to get drunk with Malcolm Gladwell sometime. I like his hair a lot and I bet he knows as much about the beer market as he does about pickles and other edibles that are otherwise irrelevant to liquorstore bears like me. We could line up a bunch of glasses and pound them, then laugh at each other’s hair/fur.

His big thing is that products increase their foothold in the market by tapping into variety. People don’t know they want extra-chunky sauce until a marketer tells them they want it. Likewise with beer. Years ago you just bought cans—Black Label or Pilsner were the only things that ever entered the house, and you didn’t think about their shortcomings or nuances; you just drank them and were happy you had beer. With the dawn of microbreweries, new tastes we never knew we had were awakened. Did I know I would like honey lager? I had no idea, but OMG, I love it now. In fact, I have to have it as early as possible every day.

So I googled “Cariboos” today because that’s the way the name appears on the can. It wasn’t even first on the hit list, because the brewery’s called Cariboo Brewing. Good to know. And although they may not have pockets as deep as Sleeman, they’ve done their homework about variety, offering four flavors, three of which my dad didn’t bother telling me about because I guess he doesn’t care about my life or interests or whatever.

This honey lager is made with real honey from the Cariboo region—just a hint so it’s not cloying. You should buy it so you can share in the warm, cuddly feeling it gives you from whiskers to toes.

I’m gonna keep calling it Cariboos because it sounds like boooooze. The honey lager comes in a Hallowe’en-colored can with a big antlered beast on it, and get this—for every case sold, Cariboo Brewing plants a tree to combat deforestation. Pretty cool. As a bear I value a habitat full of trees, and if drinking beer assists with that I’m willing to do my furry bit. RECOMMEND.

My Fellow Inebriates,

Finally after a lengthy dry-out spell during which I thought I would have to start drinking bathroom cleanser just to get a buzz, some wine came into our pad last night: NEXT OF KIN, a 2008 Aussie shiraz from the Margaret River region.

I don’t know why my parents keep such a shabbily supplied liquor cabinet. I mean, the store’s mere blocks away, they’re employed, and they could bloody well make the effort to buy wine occasionally, right? Yet in they shamble on a Friday night all thrilled with their purchase of ONE bottle.

At least it was a good one.

The Xanadu people who make this wine say, not very originally, that they’re all about the fruit. Agreed, wine is all about the fruit, but let’s face it, until it gets stomped into an alcoholic beverage, Liquorstore Bear isn’t interested. Yes, it is grapey grapey, it is made of grapes. I did find it very delicious and a good find for the $15 range, although I would have been more ecstatic for $12.

I don’t know why my parents are so borderline puritanical about drinking. They make this big deal about going out and getting ONE bottle to share on a Friday night after the kids are in bed. They don’t consider purchasing three or four and making it a party.

Because, really, NEXT OF KIN could be a non-stop party in a bottle. It’s fruity, drinkable, friendly and completely inoffensive. I did wake up with a bit of a headache but that could have been because one of the other bears in the house decided to kick my ass last night after everyone was asleep. He is a big mangy a*hole and he stomped on my head because he was angry about the lack of snacks in the house.

True enough, there are plenty of better Australian shirazes. NEXT OF KIN is kind of entry-level-tasting and headachy. I think it would be a good “reset” wine—you know, when you’ve been getting some good vino into you around town and your tastes have started up the pretentious ladder to that place where you can never just get drunk and be happy, and so you need to reset your tastebuds, get them grounded again. Usually I use some cheap Italian swill to do a reset, but NEXT OF KIN would work well too. After drinking it I think I could move on to any other plonk, up or down in quality, and be happy.

Not that there was anything else offered except bedtime last night. My parents need to seriously pick it up and get us stocked up. I looked in the cabinet last night when they were asleep–pathetic leftovers from pre-offspring partying days, stuff visitors have left (green apple rum anyone?), stuff they cook with. OMG, what do you guys do to get your parents to buy liquor? It’s not like I can go to the store myself. At 7 inches tall I can’t drive a car, nor do I have any money. All I have is excellent taste in booze.

Sometimes I feel like a shut-in, like one of those enormous people who need to be air-lifted out of their apartments when they finally have a medical emergency (finally?)—the only difference being that teddybears weigh less than a pound, so perhaps I could be air-lifted by one of those “Claw” mechanisms you find in bowling alleys and Chuck E. Cheese. I knew this guy once who would walk into a bar and look at the Claw game, at all the stuffies inside, and he’d say, “Any one of those I want, it’s mine.”

http://www.xanaduwines.com/winess/next-of-kin-shiraz.html?viewtype=allawrv&mid=2 Check out this awesome bargain wine. Buy several bottles and have your own party. RECOMMEND.