blue curacao

ASTROLIQUOR for October 26 to November 1—What the stars say you should drink!

My Fellow Inebriates,

Here’s your booze horoscope:

Aries, you’re back to your pissed-off self, and some poor sap is irritating you. He/she isn’t even doing anything! It’s all you, Aries, so get your anger management on. Mellow out with some apple brandy or rum. Call a Capricorn friend to chat (don’t yell). Buy a small present for someone. Whatever you do, stay away from rowdy bars; you don’t need any more stitches.

Taurus, you’ll have a three-way with a married couple on your next holiday, a moral lapse preceded this week by an unfortunate mixture of Jagermeister, Monster, Sunny D, and root beer. This combo makes you lose your mind and throw away all your discretion, paving the way for a holiday orgy so publicly lewd that you’ll never live it down. Nice going.

You’re preoccupied with mating this week, Gemini, and love is optional. Another Gemini grabs your attention, but you don’t have much luck with same-sign hook-ups. This one’s no exception; it will fizzle quickly, leaving your mind abuzz with prickly resentment. Nothing helps this problem more than Wild Turkey with Drambuie.

Cancer, your calendar feels packed, but is your problem a full dance card or just disorganization? If you take a look you’ll realize you’re not planning properly. You’re saying yes to every trivial thing that comes up and letting people waste your time. No wonder you have no time to get loaded. Take time out for a luxury Champagne this week and tell everyone to get stuffed.

Leo, the stars are vaguely predicting an enriching experience for you…say, sometime in the next three weeks. Expect to become more attuned—not just to your five senses but to the paranormal. The portal to enlightenment is, perhaps predictably, Blue Curacao with Malibu. Although you’ll perceive all kinds of crazy shit this week, your mental state is surprisingly healthy.

Melon liqueur, white creme de cacao, and milk. Your mixology continues to reveal a slight mental imbalance, Virgo. Consider hitting the psychiatrist’s couch, taking up yoga, or getting on a plane to Tibet. Or maybe just go and observe the People of Walmart. They won’t harm you and they’ll probably go out for drinks with you. Open your mind.

Libra, the stars like you this week. You have a lot of influence over people, which increases your social sphere. Ties with your partner are strong, with Thursday your best day for communication. Your power week takes you to the heights and then drops you like a rock. You descend into a binge featuring red wine and vodka—combined. Yikes, the stars are mean.

Someone is pressuring you, Scorpio, but you don’t have to give in. Did you give in when they told you not to make a big vat of white rum, tequila, peach schnapps, triple sec, and Bacardi 151? Did you give in when they said you couldn’t have that big vat in the office lunchroom? Did you give in when they said you couldn’t sleep beside the photocopier? Hell, no.

Sagittarius, your work is in the doldrums and you don’t know why. (It’s boring.) Your brain checks out of meetings, pondering cocktail onions and the comparative merits of sweet and dry vermouth. Perhaps you should talk to your colleagues. They might be able to make your days more interesting, or at least recommend a good gin for your flask.

You’ll have a drastic change of opinion about a work project, Capricorn. You’re horrified at how sluggish your pace has been, the slackers who surround you, and the dried vomit in your third drawer down. This is what happens when you do the unthinkable, Capricorn. You’ve dried out, and the world looks ugly. But at least you can be the DD for your friends.

Aquarius, there’s no use freaking out at coworkers, even if one of them is trying to destroy you. Half the time they’re just as messed up as you—riding the highs and lows between gin-and-tonics and Red Bull. Level out your brain chemicals with some solid food. If you hold it together for the work week, Sunday won’t let you down. But keep your eyes trained at work for that backstabber!

Pisces, a not-unexpected meeting occurs this week. It’s one of those dreadful interventions in which your most beloved relatives and friends tell you what a douche you are. They’ve made a big gathering of it; they’ve got hors d’oeuvres and somebody’s carved pineapples and bananas into special shapes. Your head hurts from this outpouring of love and self-righteousness. But it’s better than that time you spent a night in jail after pissing against a wall.

ASTROLIQUOR for September 7-13—What the stars say you should drink!

My Fellow Inebriates,

Here’s your booze horoscope:

Aries, even if you’ve been feeling your age lately, this week brings new energy. Whatever age you were happiest, that’s the way you’ll feel. Hark back to relatively mature times and you may find yourself sipping a Grey Goose martini. But good luck if you long for less mature times—you could end up shotgunning beers at the park. With apologies for gross stereotyping, this is a kick-ass way to feel young.

Taurus, this is the week to complete important negotiations. The terms won’t get more favorable, so sign the documents already. The sooner you get this boring task done, the sooner you can hit that box of white wine that’s been giving you come-hither looks. Mix it up with some Galiano (after you finish the financial stuff).

When things are tough, Gemini, the stars advise hitting the bars and finding a stranger to listen to your troubles. A real psychologist would just cost you money ($100 and hour? or four bottles of Smirnoff?…you do the math), plus they’d have all sorts of rules about bringing flasks to the office, etc.  Who needs professionals? Any stranger with a sufficiently high blood-alcohol level will be happily regaled by you.

Life feels hard right now, Cancer, but you just need some perspective. The world is full of real problems, and you…well, your worst hardship is having to settle for a mocktail when you want a cocktail. But the stars are recommending mocktails to you this week. What total BS. The stars are zillions of light years away, and arguably their recommendations are therefore zillions of years old. Read no further; go and get drunk.

Leo, you suddenly realize you’ve been living behind a façade. Look at yourself in the mirror…who the hell are you anyway? Getting to know the real you may take time and involve a stack of gooey self-help books, which sounds like totally boring busy-work. Instead of engaging in an uphill battle to know thyself, learn to love the fake you—then mix yourself a glitzy gin-and-Goldschlager to celebrate the joys of artificiality.

You’ve worked so hard, Virgo. You’ve slaved away and put everything you had into a project at work, only to receive faint praise. Nor are you happy with the results. As for what your boss thinks…you might need a cardboard box. You certainly need a supply of Hypnotiq, Blue Curacao, and Malibu. Because when you’re blue, there’s nothing like a blue drink.

Libra, you are fretting about small things. Cut yourself some slack. With all your worrying, you’ve barely noticed that you have a well-dressed admirer. The stars (which don’t like being wrong) say this potential flirtation features an Aries, an Aquarius, or a Gemini. Talk about hedging your bets, stars. But they also call for shots of Bailey’s and butterscotch schnapps, so you can’t very well argue.

Your personal life is out of control, Scorpio. Since this is fairly normal for you, there’s no need to sweat it. Distract yourself by rearranging the furniture or discovering what you get when you combine red wine and rum in equal parts, then toss some random fruits into it (the booze, not the furniture). Maintain a permanent vat of this on your coffee table and you’ll never want for visitors.

Sagittarius, you get a break from being designated driver, which calls for a big Stolichnaya-Jagermeister bender. But don’t get so hammered that you won’t realize it when a drunken friend tries to get behind the wheel. Peel that moron out of his/her car, moralize drunkenly, and call a cab. Drinking is awesome—we don’t need it spoilt by idiots.

A charity hits you up for money, Capricorn. If you don’t agree with its message, don’t feel pressured to give. If you do agree, by all means give, but save some cash for the liquor cabinet. Maybe you can volunteer time rather than money? Otherwise you won’t be able to afford this week’s celestial recommendation: Vana Tallinn. Plus you’ll meet cool new people volunteering (maybe an interesting Leo). But watch out for “frenemies” this week!

Aquarius, are you by any chance an organ donor? Consider filling out a card this week; practically everything barring your liver should be usable. If that’s a little too morbid for you, why not donate blood? Unless it’s full of rum. Come to think of it, maybe you could just be nice to people this week…which you usually are anyway. Hmmm, what do the stars suggest, then? Just go and get a haircut or something.

Pisces, this week features unlikely meetings with people you thought you’d never see again. If you’ve been hankering for social connection, this is a good thing. If you’re in the witness protection program, this is a bad thing. Accordingly, be careful whether you stay in or go outside. If you have a partner, life may get turbulent this week. Smooth it out with as much Kahlua as you can absorb.

Mixing like Zaphod Beeblebrox (sorta)

Today’s local paper carries an opinion piece about blue raspberry–flavored foods. “When did blue raspberry become a thing?” asks Angie Quaale of the Langley Times, noting that food is not generally supposed to be blue.

Indeed, a blue hue often reliably indicates that food is off. Even blue food that’s ostensibly palatable, such as blue cheese and that weird potato-like thing that Arthur Dent sampled in the hull of a Vogon ship, gives plenty of consumers the dry heaves. Yet here we have a marketplace where blue raspberry everything shimmers and sparkles at us. You name it: Jell-O, kids’ lunch snacks and juices, and popsicles, the very product Angie tags as responsible for the incursion of blue raspberry into the marketplace.

More troublingly, Angie says blue raspberry is artificial.

I didn’t know this, my fellow inebriates. I just thought scientists had gone ahead and engineered blue raspberries. Why not? The other day the family ate yellow tomatoes and red peppers, and earlier at the bowling alley Miss V gobbled down a handful of blue M&Ms.

If they can make blue M&Ms, why couldn’t they engineer a blue raspberry? The two feats seem about equivalent, don’t they?

I pondered this briefly before deciding to make a Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster. It’s supposed to be kind of bluish-green and taste like Jack Daniels with peach schnapps and blue curacao plus some orange juice. But you know the sorry state of our liquor cabinet, so I substituted gin for, well, all the ingredients—even the one item we had (best to save the OJ for the kiddies). Curiously enough, my Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster wasn’t bluish-green but clear. Given Douglas Adams’s description of the drink as “like having your brains smashed out by a slice of lemon wrapped around a gold brick,” I’d say my version was close enough.