bears

LAYA GARNACHA TINTORERA MONASTRELL (2010)—The wine I DIDN’T drink last night

Apparently my dad went over to the neighbors’ last night and finished off all their Johnnie Walker Black. The whole family went over actually, leaving me with an empty liquor-store bag. They must have bought wine to take with them before abandoning me to a house full of violent and possibly possessed animals, all without opposable thumbs.

I hope you’ll forgive me, my fellow inebriates—I was a bit angry. I didn’t realize the family was leaving until the last minute—not in time to stow away. I felt lonely and sad. So I decided to recruit Glen Bear to help me smash some bottles open and start our own party.

Polar bears being unpredictable, I wanted to make sure Glen was happy. So I told him about some foul-smelling canned salmon my dad had opened a while ago and forgotten in the fridge. But neither of us, lacking thumbs, could get the damn fridge open.

Photo credit: Miss V

So now my feelings of abandonment were compounded not just by the DTs but by an ornery polar bear romping around the kitchen. Just when I thought Glen might give up on the fridge and eat me instead, we heard a sound from the living room. OMG! Miss V’s scooter had fallen over all by itself.

Of course you know it didn’t fall over by itself. Fluffy had used his freaky evil mind on it. Things at LBHQ were going from bad to worse. Next I expected some officious Strata Council representatives to break into the house just to see if we got their warning letters.

But nothing else happened all evening. I was so freaking bored I started reading my parents’ receipts. And I saw they had indeed bought wine: LAYA GARNACHA TINTORERA MONASTRELL (2010)—a sensible go-to dinner wine from Spain and within the LBHQ price range. I felt partially mollified that they’d chosen a wine I’d had before rather than a new one that I would have wondered about forever. (We tried LAYA a couple of months ago while watching the season finale of Breaking Bad, which riveted all the bears including Glen, even though he didn’t understand it.)

Hailing from the Almansa region 700-1000 meters above sea level, LAYA is a luscious ruby-red combination of 70% Garnacha Tintorera (itself a red-skinned hybrid of Petit Bouschet and Grenache) and 30% Monastrell. Known as a blending grape, Garnacha Tintorera is increasingly appearing as a headliner varietal, although in the case of LAYA its intense fruity depth borrows some complexity and tannic action from the Monastrell grapes.

My favorite aspect of Monastrell grapes is their tendency to amp up the alcohol percentage in a wine. At 14.5%, LAYA doesn’t disappoint. But it goes well beyond being a vehicle for getting pissed.

Monastrell grapes

On the nose LAYA is ripe, expressive, and thankfully free of the barnyard notes that Monastrell can sometimes impart if not matured sufficiently. LAYA hits the tongue with plump, juicy notes, lingering across the back-palate with an elegant finish. While it doesn’t offer tremendous complexity, nor will it enthrall you, it is balanced and easily drinkable—and according to my parents when I interrogated them this morning, a good accompaniment to good food and conversation.

At $13.99 LAYA is a liquor-store gem with excellent value. My parents should bloody well have sprung for two bottles.

Okay, thanks for reading the rant. I know it was my fault I didn’t clue in and jump into my mum’s bag before they left. Then I could have helped my dad polish off the neighbors’ Johnnie Walker and had some LAYA. I am an idiot.

A break from drunkenness

Like any other blogger I’m overjoyed to have followers, and I don’t know how many it will take for me to stop getting excited about each new one. If I’m not semi-comatose, watching a violent TV show with my dad, or modeling earrings and barrettes for the kids, I try to make sure I visit each one. I like to get a sense of the people (animals? koalas? frogs?) checking out the site. And if someone digs the antics chronicled in this space, chances are I’ll get a kick out of their posts too.

But today I’m taking a little departure from the usual paean to drunkenness. I want to address several new followers whose own blogs center around their battles with alcoholism, and often mention spirituality, whether holistic or referencing a personal savior.

Sobriety gets a little downplayed here.

I guess I’m a little perplexed at attracting followers of this nature. It reminds me somewhat of past followers (who’ve joined but not left) whose own blogs are dedicated to right-wing politics, country music, romance novels, creationism, etc., and who might find their interests lampooned at LBHQ with some frequency. And while these aforementioned subjects are all fair game in my liquor-drizzled world, I feel a guilty twinge at the idea that people struggling with alcohol might have, when they hit the Follow button, thought Liquorstore Bear was concerned with addiction and recovery in any responsible or mature sense.

It isn’t.

Regular readers know this, and for all I know, my new readers realize it as well. But I don’t want to be a dick and ignore the elephant in the room—alcoholism. Everybody at LBHQ recognizes alcoholism to be a very real and serious social problem. None of the humans at the house engage in heavy drinking, which is why the booze reviews here are thinly spread between specious astrological advice, apocalyptic predictions, Walmart pictures, and randomness.

The terms “alcoholic” and “alcoholism” are generally used facetiously, following the house philosophy that anything you can think of between A and Z is worth a laugh. A litmus test in our house might be this cartoon:

If you can laugh at it, you’re safe here.

But if a focus on alcohol plus attempted humor minimizing the gravity of alcohol abuse/addiction puts you, as a reader, in a negative headspace, please un-follow.

I won’t be offended.

By the same token you’re very welcome to stay. As mentioned, you may well know exactly what you’re here for, and it’s not my business to say you shouldn’t be here. I like having you here, and it’s up to you. Our world is full of booze—in advertising, movies, restaurants, public places—and I’d be an idiot to think this little site could tip someone over the edge.

Oh wait. I am kind of an idiot.

So I just wanted to make sure you really wanted to be here. Kay?

20 tell-tale symptoms you’re in an alcoholic abyss

This week my parents announced a drying-out period of indefinite length, initiated (in their case) for budgetary reasons and (in my case) because they are sadists.

Oh, there may have been some financial grounds. Most Canadian families spend 1.8% of their monthly budget on liquor, and my parents see this area as “trimmable.” Obscenely, they want to trim to below 1%. And just to ensure they reach the target, they’re not buying any booze right now. OMG!

After I spent an afternoon fruitlessly tweeting to various booze producers in BC, a very dark sadness came over me. I tried to cheer up by watching Dexter murder somebody, but I was preoccupied. Symptoms were creeping over me.

Holy crap, my fellow inebriates, have you ever tried to dry out before? If the idea fills you with as much horror as it does me, you might want to do this quiz.

Alcohol Withdrawal Quiz

  1. Do you get the shakes?
  2. Do you feel anxious?
  3. Do you feel nervous or jumpy?
  4. Do you get irritated or easily excited?

Maybe it’s just the DTs talking, but these four questions seem to ask the same thing, to which the answer is Yes, damn it. But let’s qualify things. I live in a house where any minute I might get ambushed by kids. They might slap a leash on me or chain me to a bed. They might give me a bath. They might introduce me to the next-door neighbor’s dogs. Liquored-up or not, I live in a state of constant anxiety.

  1. Do you feel depressed or fatigued?
  2. Do you have difficulty thinking clearly?
  3. Do you experience rapid emotional changes?

Yes to all four. But these are drying-out answers, not the usual answers, when everything is in boozy equilibrium. How can anyone be fatigued when they have 18 hours a day to sleep off benders? How can anyone be depressed with a fresh influx of alcohol? As for thinking clearly, did I ever, people? Just read one or two blog posts and you’ll see the answer is no. And yes, damn it, some profound emotional changes might ensue when you cut an animal off from the only thing it ever consumes.

  1. Do you get a headache?
  2. Do your face or hands sweat?
  3. Do you experience nausea or vomiting?
  4. Do you have trouble sleeping?
  5. Do you experience a rapid heart rate?
  6. Does your skin feel clammy?
  7. Are your hands tremulous?
  8. Does your body make involuntary movements?

These questions assume a different physiology from my own peculiar one. Do I get headaches? Sometimes I’m not even aware I have a head. I’m kind of like the tree that falls down in the forest when nobody’s listening. What am I doing when nobody’s around? Probably staring at the wall and/or getting my 18 hours of sleep (with my eyes open, they tell me).

Question 9 did make me curious about whether wild bears are supposed to sweat. Like dogs, they lack sweat glands except on their noses and tongues, so they suffer during the summer, seeking out streams and shady areas, not to mention panting. The more civilized ones pour a gin & tonic, unless their parents have decided to be assholes.

Tenderheart Bear

The family would be very surprised to find bear vomit around the house, although my friend Scarybear insists he leaves his scat out in the garden and that when the kids dig in the flower beds, that’s what they’re handling. I don’t know if Scary’s delusional about this or not, but he also thinks the Earth is reversing its magnetic field this week. Neither of us is clammy unless we get thrown in the toilet, and if I said we had hearts, well, you might equate us with Care Bears and want to exterminate us.

Involuntary movements are the norm at LBHQ. Most of what we bears are involved in is involuntary.

  1. Do you become confused?
  2. Do you have hallucinations?

Ahh, back to the brain. “Become” confused? That would imply having not been confused in the past. So the answer is no.

I have plenty of hallucinations and even get accused of having them when I’m not. I’m hoping Fluffy is a hallucination.

  1. Do you feel like you have a fever?
  2. Do you experience convulsions?

Back to physiology. Anyone with a coat of fur would be feverish in the summer. Next. Convulsions are another story. I have to keep those somewhat contained. If I spent the day going into convulsions my parents might decide I was too unwholesome for the kids.

  1. Do you have blackouts or memory loss?

Wha??

And the results. If you haven’t guessed, you get one point for each yes. Add ’em up and you’ve got your score.

What an awesome score!

And if you got 3 or more, welcome to the Pleasuredome.