Broker’s Gin

Can we really trust the sun not to cook us?

My Fellow Inebriates,

The whole family went out last night. My parents had been in a funk all day; the kids were glued to Netflix and needed to be torn away somehow; and my dad had a restaurant gift card—so off they went without so much as considering letting me ride along in a purse.

When you’re left home alone with bears like Scary and Fluffy, apocalyptic thoughts are unavoidable, especially when you’re already feeling left out of an adventure. Scary doesn’t ever really stop thinking about the End of Days, and with a catatonic golem like Fluffy constantly beside him creeping everybody out, his weird-ass theories gain a little more purchase than they should.

Why Scary thought of solar flares when it was pouring outside I don’t know. He usually gets anxious about the sun in hot weather, when he’s cooking inside his fur. With his great ass in front of the turbo fan, he blasts us all with his filthy funk and his insights about Armageddon, which, when the mercury’s over 95°, tend to involve the sun.

Not that Scary’s insights are conventional. Ask him about global warming and he’s likely to shrug. Ask him about rising sea levels and he might yawn. Insufficiently dramatic for Scary, these ordinary perils fail to pique his interest. And despite the apparent stability of our sun, midway through its life with a good 4 billion years left in the tank, Scary wonders if it plans to start behaving erratically in 2012.

Photo: Casey Reed/NASA

There is some galactic precedent. In 1999 astronomers discovered explosive superflares had erupted from nine stars “disturbingly similar to our own sun,” all at least 100 light years away. Unlike regular solar flares, from which our atmosphere and magnetic field largely protect us, superflares are millions of times more powerful, brightening their stars by at least 20%, stripping planetary atmospheres (if any) and frying any inhabitants.

Bradley Schaefer, one of the scientists on the team, emphasized that “our sun does not do this, as far as we can tell.”

Scary scoffed at this reassurance, saying “It only needs to do it once. And then we wouldn’t be here to say it doesn’t do it.” He said the flares (“death flares”) could flash-fry distant Pluto, never mind us.

Throughout this Fluffy remained expressionless, a silent twin to Scary as he freaked me out, people. I thought I’d better contact someone with better credentials than Scary—maybe Bradley Schaefer.

Not one scientist or politician has ever responded to my emails. Truly, the only “official” person who gives me the time of day is Julia Gale of BROKER’S GIN. Just this week she sent a very slick newsletter full of pictures of the BROKER’S GIN tour of North America, which I do hope culminates in the reinstatement of that breathtaking elixir to our shelves. It’s just dreadful to think that if one of Scary’s death flares shot out from the sun all the gin would be instantly evaporated (along with our eyeballs).

I have to believe (and who knows, maybe Julia will agree with me; I emailed her about it too) that our sun will behave itself, although, being middle-aged like my parents, it conceivably will do something erratic. According to Sallie Baliunas at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, stars like our sun often dim down by 1% or so for a “quiescent” spell. Baliunas says 17 of Earth’s last 19 major cold episodes involved solar activity, so maybe Scarybear should think about that.

Maybe if we had an ice age Scary wouldn’t plunk his hairy butt in front of the fan and pollute the house with his funk.

BROKER’S GIN—PART 8!

My Fellow Inebriates,

Do you ever feel you have a psychic connection to another person? Just yesterday I had the impulse to write to Julia Gale, Business Development Manager for BROKER’S GIN. At least three months had passed since our last contact, and I started worrying. Just before Christmas she had some knee surgery done to correct an injury sustained while busting out to the B-52s song “Love Shack.” I found myself anxious about the operation, the surgeon’s ability, and the general quality of the National Health Service.

Recently my Nana acquired a bionic knee, a procedure so painful that all she could say immediately afterward was “Ow.” (Once she got some meds in her she said things like “That knee surgery turned” and then conked out before finishing the sentence.) So I had a sense of how painful knee surgery could be and I started worrying about Julia—not just about her health but about the general state of things at BROKER’S GIN without her. Conceivably BROKER’S could be falling apart while she hit the nurse button for a double dose of morphine, and then how would any of us get any gin?

So I determined that I would write to her and, if it turned out she was in a terrible spiral of painkiller abuse, attempt to talk her off the ledge and back into the juniper-scented heaven of BROKER’S GIN.

But she’d read my mind and beaten me to it!

Greetings young LB

Are you worried that you’ve been forgotten?  Do you think that Broker’s Gin have given up on a listing in British Columbia?…

I’ll keep you updated!

Jules

Giddy at receiving this email, I sent a response:

Julia, you must be psychic! I was just drafting a letter (in my head) to you. I was getting worried about you and your knee. Just recently my Nana had knee-replacement surgery and was in tremendous pain. She had to exercise considerable strength of will to push away the pain killers. So of course I started thinking about you and your bothersome injury and the Love Shack-style gyrations that induced it. Are you recovered now? Are you off the pain meds or have they become a monkey on your back? Did the surgeon do a good job? I was a bit worried because I know your health care system is similar to ours…you wait a very long time and then sometimes the doctor smells like scotch, but not having to pay is nice.

Anyway, I hope you are well. I hope Martin and Andy visited you in hospital and brought you a flask plus a hefty salary increase.

Did you have an actual knee replacement or something less invasive? I do know something about having foreign objects in one’s body–my ass is full of dried lentils. Just imagine, if there’s ever a famine my family might be tempted to rip my backside open to find soup ingredients. And then I’d have a sagging behind, just like those teenage guys you see slouching down the street with their pants slung impossibly low so the crotch is at the knees and you get the impression that some waist-mounted dwarf is working the controls. Just recently I saw a posse of these dudes in orbit around an attractive teenage girl who was texting purposefully as she walked and thoroughly oblivious of all the falling pants around her. In the space of two minutes I saw each lad yank up his ill-fitting jeans at least once.

So if I lost my lentils, my rear end would look like that. The difference is that it would be naked.

Do you ever get drunk on beer, Julia, or just gin? I recently tried a beer that’s brewed much closer to you than me: Innis & Gunn Original oak-aged beer. It’s one of those sublime products that makes one suspect there is a higher power who cares deeply about one’s alcoholic needs—much like Broker’s Gin. I did check my local government booze shop the other day, incidentally, to see if Broker’s was there yet…but it’s not. But I know that with you back in the game the precious elixir can’t be far now. Ahhhh!

Be well, Julia! I missed you very much and honestly thought I was going to surprise you with a letter…but here you are, you’ve beat me to it.

Cuddles,

LB 

INNIS & GUNN ORIGINAL OAK-AGED BEER really is superb—enough to warrant its own review, written soberly. So that might take a while, but it is percolating between my two brain cells.

In the meantime, especially for you Canadians hanging on every new BROKER’S GIN post to find out when we can expect this ambrosia back in government stores, stay tuned.

7 Habits of Highly Inebriated People

It’s been a weird week getting used to my dad being out all day. When he was self-employed, my dad used to do a lot of work at home, and I would often sit beside him suggesting we mix a drink. But now he’s joined the Monday-to-Friday crowd and left me to my own devices.

No complaints, though, because I figure that along with that first regular paycheque, the liquor train will roll in as well. We are going to get wasted, people. I can’t imagine my dad wouldn’t take that cheque and blow it all at the liquor store.

But I kind of miss having my dad around. He’s pretty easy-going and he often finds interesting music. He found this, for instance.

But missing my dad is worth it if his new job will finance a fresh supply of TANQUERAY and BACARDI 151. I want him to succeed! But I wonder if he embodies the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People? OMG, I don’t even know what they are! Have you heard of them, my fellow inebriates?

It’s hard for me to really figure out what things like this mean (I can’t stand right now), but I’ll do my best. I figure my dad’s got the habits…but do I???

  1. BE PROACTIVE. Yes! If BROKER’S GIN isn’t available at your liquor store, contact them and find out why not. Next thing you know, you’ll have struck up a delightful relationship with their Business Development Manager Julia Gale, and Martin Dawson will give you a reassuring phone call. Check.
  2. BEGIN WITH THE END IN MIND. A couple of weeks ago my dad came home with a sampler set from Unibroue, the Quebeçois brewer of the famous TROIS PISTOLES. Of the four beers in the set, TROIS PISTOLES was the standout, whereas the others were a bit of a chore to get through. But we were committed to finishing it, even if it meant experiencing a weird fruity and slightly musky taste every single day. Check.

    Ever been to Utah?

  3. PUT FIRST THINGS FIRST. I hope my dad understands this one, because I don’t get it at all. What things are first? What things should be first? Should I start with the Malibu or the wormy mescale? Calm down, LB… Okay. We need to have lighter things first, then progress to the hard stuff. First something sparkly: STRONGBOW APPLE CIDER. Then something weightier: CALIFORNIA CULT CLASSICS CHARDONNAY (2010). But then we have a dilemma. It’s no problem moving up to a higher alcohol content. But we can’t backtrack to a wine that doesn’t measure up to the chardonnay. Let’s do ROLF BINDER HALES BAROSSA VALLEY SHIRAZ (2007). And before passing out, a wee dram: GLENFARCLAS 17. Ahhhh!!! Highly effective.
  4. THINK WIN-WIN. If I drink the whole bottle and you get none of it, well, you won’t bring another bottle over, will you? And Christine, if you’re reading this, you have a standing invitation to share your TALISKER 18. I’ll trade you some Malibu. You know I’m good for it. 😉
  5. SEEK FIRST TO UNDERSTAND, THEN TO BE UNDERSTOOD. Oh come on, what drunk ever grasped this concept? Next.
  6. SYNERGIZE. Two heads are better than one, especially when you don’t have any brain cells.
  7. SHARPEN THE SAW. Holy crap, what the hell does that mean?! OMG, Covey means take care of your body and mind! Eat healthfully! Rest! Socialize meaningfully! Expand your spiritual side! Yikes!

I don’t know about my dad, but this is where Covey and I part ways. He obviously doesn’t endorse a dissolute life, nor would he endorse single-minded pursuit of liquor. Who is this guy anyway?

Did you know he comes from Utah? Yes, peeps, he is one of the most famous and successful Mormons in history.

My favorite thing about Mormonism is the magic underwear. Maybe, if we all had magic underwear, we’d be better people.

Still, reading the 7 Habits has made me feel a little conflicted. I totally want my dad to succeed; we need that liquor money to keep flowing. But I don’t want to picture him in his ginch, magic or otherwise. So should I tell him about the 7 Habits?