death

BIG ROCK DUNKELWEIZEN—Drink it quickly, even if the ball won’t drop again

Score another point for the Mayan calendar: With the End of Days imminent and presumably no more Times Square big-ball drops remaining, there was no longer any earthly use for the famously well-preserved Dick Clark. Dead of a heart attack at 82, Clark leaves our little blue planet hurtling toward the apocalypse without his squeaky-clean morals to guide us.

Even though Dick Clark mainstreamed the devil’s music, he drew the line at Elvis’s public thrusts, requiring the King to be filmed from the waist up during his American Bandstand gig, and thus rescuing American teenagers from thinking about bumping, grinding, or sex. Clark’s death is a sad blow for the American right wing with which he was so proudly aligned.

James Brown is dead.
He looks happy, though. —AP Photo

Celebrity open-casket shots are rare, and if the news is correct, Clark has already been cremated, leaving the world to wonder what he must have looked like in repose. Doubtless he looked charmingly waxen, if not happy, the way James Brown did.

Caskets really creep me out. After searching in vain for a picture of Dick Clark dead or in a coffin and finding all kinds of other freaky things instead (a child’s Hello Kitty coffin, OMG), I needed a drink. Lucky for me there was one beer left: BIG ROCK DUNKELWEIZEN DARK WHEAT ALE.

As you know, my fellow inebriates, if a beer is the last beer in the house I am absolutely going to drink it, and this was the case with DUNKELWEIZEN, even if I wasn’t crazy about it being a wheat ale. I’ve never found a hefeweizen I loved, mainly because of their light citrusiness, but I thought a dark wheat beer might be different. And it was.

DUNKELWEIZEN is a lovely dark color with a garnet tinge and a fizzy white head. Billed as a blend of five distinctive malts, its aroma is rich and toffee-like with espresso predominating. Malty sweetness hits the tongue first, then unmistakable coffee, chocolate, and vanilla notes. These flavors are none too subtle, mind you; they tend to redouble with each sip and stick to the palate, making the beer less refreshing than it could be.

That having been said, DUNKELWEIZEN is drinkable. I could pound six of them if I needed to—say, if the Canucks were getting reamed and I felt sad. The mouthfeel isn’t terribly heavy, the alcohol percentage is an acceptable 5%, and the flavors are harmonious, even if they do suggest a Big Rock–Starbucks collaboration.

Like a lot of beers that aren’t perfectly right, low temperature is essential to enjoyment of DUNKELWEISEN. Give it ten minutes in the freezer prior to opening, drink it quickly, and you’ll probably love it—the deeper flavors won’t have a fighting chance to punch through the icy cold. But if this beer is allowed to sit, those heavy flavors get a bit rowdy and start behaving like coffee instead of beer.

A beer that needs to be slammed back quickly is not a bad thing. I feel a bit guilty pounding a really sublime beer fast so I can get loaded, but DUNKELWEIZEN lends itself to chugging. So I did pound the bottle, forgetting that it was the last beer in the house, which made me melancholy and prompted me to look at coffin pictures again.

Check it out, it's Elvis.

This one doesn't have anybody in it, but it is decorated with a bacon motif.

This one has Kim Jong-Il in it.

A wine-themed casket. Way to show people you loved life.

There goes Whitney Houston.

Would Dick Clark have liked this gay-themed coffin?

Going out in style, Michael Jackson.

REMY PANNIER SAUVIGNON BLANC (2010)—raising Fluffy’s ire

My Fellow Inebriates,

This time Fluffy left a big wad of toilet paper in the en suite toilet. I had no idea he would do something like that—I was so busy watching the lights and the oven to make sure he didn’t burn down the house that it didn’t occur to me that he would sabotage our plumbing.

Consider the facts:

  • There are three toilets in the house.
  • Of the three, the en suite one is only the second most likely to plug.
  • However, it is the least used by the kids, which means it hasn’t been force-fed any goldfish or Barbie clothes.
  • Ages ago we ran out of the pink breast cancer awareness toilet paper (which the kids loved so much they fed it straight into the bowl, half a roll at a time, exhausting their interest in the toilet).
  • In fact, my parents bought the kids some birdseed so they could feed actual animals instead of appealing to the toilet’s appetite with random objects.
  • I didn’t do anything to it; I am scared of the toilet.
  • My dad is away on a business trip, which means the toilet is not enjoying any half-hour marathon usage this week.

Which means there’s no reason for a mess of toilet paper to be swimming in it this morning! OMG! Is there nothing Fluffy won’t do to get our attention?

With a sinister presence like Fluffy in the house, I can’t even get comfortably drunk. Last night, for instance, we had guests over and I had the opportunity to get into some REMY PANNIER SAUVIGNON BLANC (2010). Before I committed myself to getting gooned, I had to ascertain that my mother wouldn’t. That way she could keep an eye on Fluffy.

Luckily she was feeling responsible, what with two small kids to get to bed, a party to host, and with Dad out of town—and I realized I could trust her and get plastered myself.

This was the wine my mum bought the other day. Since she’d had no idea how to choose a sauvignon blanc, our booze store consultant recommended REMY PANNIER, describing it as opposite to chardonnay on the white wine spectrum. As you know, I’d been exhorting my mother to purchase chardonnay specifically to placate the unrestful spirit inhabiting Fluffy who, we have reason to suspect, is looking for chardonnay. I’d like to be kinder than to suggest that my mum is an idiot; rather, she is recklessly continuing a pattern of doing exactly the opposite of what her mother (my Granny, presumably trapped inside Fluffy) would want. Now, Granny was pretty easygoing, so she’d probably be okay with this REMY PANNIER offering, but Fluffy is a different matter. Fluffy is showing distinct signs of being evil, and I thought it was important to provide chardonnay as a peace offering. BUT the wine consultant won my mother over with the pretty sauvignon blanc bottle.

Varietals notwithstanding, I had a bad-ass jones for some wine, so we opened it and poured. REMY PANNIER is a lovely light straw color in the glass, but what’s more striking is its aroma—ahhh! Such delicate fruit! Apricots, citrus, spring grass—all generously wafting from the glass.

But how does it taste?

Ahhh! REMY PANNIER delivers on those scents. It is zingy yet delicate, citrusy yet balanced, light and dry. I loved it, people.

At 12% alcohol and shared between several humans plus one animal, this sauvignon blanc couldn’t get anyone wasted. But that’s really its only downside. If you’re a white wine drinker who falls into the anti-chardonnay camp, it will especially appeal to you with its zesty, light character and zingy high notes.

But if you strongly prefer chardonnay, you might want to avoid REMY PANNIER SAUVIGNON BLANC and seek out something with heaviness and oak.

And if you are a freaky golem like Fluffy, apparently REMY PANNIER SAUVIGNON BLANC will anger you and prompt you to stuff the upstairs toilet full of Charmin.

Get thee behind me, Fluffy!

My Fellow Inebriates,

This morning my mum drove my dad to the airport for his first-ever business trip with the corporate dark side.

Like many unbalanced people, she did a thorough scan of the house, and then another identical one, looking for unlocked doors, appliances left on, liquor cabinet secured, etc. Through the window I watched them drive away. Then I went back to sleep. All the bears were asleep—Glen, Red Bear, Fluffy…

Mum dropped Dad off at the airport and Miss P off at Grade One. She and Miss V shared a ginger cookie at Starbucks and did the grocery shopping. Finally they came home.

And one of the stove burners was on.

It wasn’t a burner anyone had used that morning. They’d used other ones, but not that one. And there it was, on “Lo.”

Obsessive compulsives like my mother check for these things before they leave the house. They make sure they are last to leave, just in case anyone else has an idea about turning on all the lights or taps for no good reason. When you have OCD you look out for stove burners—even ones you haven’t been using.

My dad was incommunicado on a five-hour flight to Toronto. The kids…they would never touch the stove; my mum has frightened the living daylights out of them regarding fire. As for my mum…she didn’t use the burner, but she doesn’t specifically recall checking it, although she recalls checking three times that the front door was locked.

It has a little red light! She would have seen that! My mother is a freak about stuff like this. She couldn’t have left the house without seeing that!

Now, I was sleeping off some Malibu dregs, and although I did briefly get up to say good-bye to my dad and remind him to check in with Ravenskye for me on Facebook, I conked out straightaway after. So I don’t know about that burner…

But I have an idea.

I think it was Fluffy.

If you’ve been following, you know Fluffy is the Fleecy-marinated semi-comatose bear who arrived shortly after my Granny died. He was her bear, and some strange shit’s been happening since his arrival. Cold spots. Noises. Fearful kids.

I’d like to say this all seemed benign, but it was creeping me out. And now! Finding stove burners on is a seriously sinister development. Somebody is trying to get our attention—as though being offensively redolent of fabric softener wasn’t sufficient. Fluffy, I don’t know what you want, dude, but you are seriously giving me the willies.

So here’s what I proposed to my mum: buy some chardonnay. Granny and I had a history of occasionally drinking chardonnay together, particularly some nice unoaked ones and a Semillon blend once. We had some good chats over her chardonnay, and she didn’t mind me dipping into her glass.

My mum has company coming this week anyway, so she did visit the booze shop. But she didn’t buy chardonnay; she bought sauvignon blanc.

I told her she is messing with things we cannot even comprehend. She is thumbing her nose at powerful spirits by buying the wrong booze.

She said she prefers sauvignon blanc and that the wine consultant recommended it.

Good enough for me, but will it keep Fluffy out of mischief?

If I don’t post for a few days, it’s because he’s set fire to the house.