drinking

MONT GRAS SOLEUS Cabernet Sauvignon (2009)—Not art, but that’s okay because I HAVE art

“LB! Wake up, LB!”

It was the six-year-old. I figured she had a frilly dress ready for me—as good a reason as any to yank me out of bed. I had a crashing hangover thanks to my parents’ wine snobbery, but more on that later. I went submissively with Miss P.

She carried me to the kitchen table, on which sat an envelope, addressed to LB (!). And inside….

Yes, yes, YES! A replica of Dan Lacey’s Obama Unicorn Nude Baby Jesus Manger Christmas Card Art Painting, kindly autographed by the artist.

I am so happy.

My joy almost negates the ill-effects of drinking the lion’s share of the Chilean cab we had last night. I was excited when I saw the bottle of MONT GRAS SOLEUS Cabernet Sauvignon (2009)—every Mont Gras product I’ve tried previously has been top-notch for the price point. Organically grown grapes seemed a further plus. The Los Guindos vineyards were planted between 1998 and 1999 about 50km from Santiago and managed organically from the get-go. SOLEUS is made from 100% hand-picked organic grapes and goes for $13.99 at our local booze shop.

A lucky string of excellent sub-$15 red wine finds (reviews to come) over the holidays had perhaps jacked up my expectations, as well as those of my parents. We don’t typically let wine languish in this house, but when the SOLEUS was poured…it sat.

Why?

The color is ruby red and enticing. In the glass the wine sheets, with legs quickly forming. From three feet away it induces salivation.

Three inches’ distance is another matter. Intensely aromatic, SOLEUS has an unfortunate petrol-like topnote with chicken-coop accents. These oddities—fortunately—are caught up in a dried-fruit onslaught, a heavy abundance of ripe red berries with lashings of tobacco and vanilla. The effect is disconcerting and palate-bothering. If you can get past the initial aroma, the front sip is quite acceptable, followed by a confusing mid-palate jockeying of flavors and a borderline-offensive ending.

Which was super for me, because my parents quietly abandoned their glasses, leaving the wine for me to finish. I got freaking wasted, my fellow inebriates. I have no idea what time they carried me to the bed I share with three other bears (who were probably relieved that I was too insensate to grind up against them).

All in all it was an awesome evening. The hangover was par for the course, and it was ameliorated wonderfully today by the contemplation of art.

UFO? Or schnapps? Only your anus knows for sure

My Fellow Inebriates,

My friend Violet Purplebunny told me one of her friends posted a Facebook status update about UFOs over Taos, New Mexico. This got me wondering why we don’t hear very often about aliens visiting southwest British Columbia.

Or do we?

It’s overcast here most days, with measurable precipitation a fur-wetting 50% of the time and what seems like perpetual cloud cover. This makes many Lower Mainlanders depressed and pessimistic, but not my dad—he bought a telescope. And not some dinky little spyglass thing—a big R2D2-like thing with GPS and the works. So now we don’t just get to see clouds—we get to see them very close-up.

Still, there are some clear nights when reports come streaming in to whoever will record them that UFOs are here.

28-Dec-2011, Abbotsford, BC

I was driving on the highway with my sister when I saw to my right a bright, white round light with kinda a less bright light around it and it just shot into the sky unlike anything Ive seen before! It travelled a great distant in a second and It just disappeared!!!!! I asked my sister if she saw it but she didn’t. Im never going to forget it.

Blackie in a sober moment

This totally freaks me out. The last time I saw a round light like this I was partying in the woods with my buddy Blackie Bear. We had a whole bunch of Kriek and a weird blue bottle of mescale. When we mixed them it tasted pretty foul, so we added orange juice. Shortly after I saw a peculiar round light; it whipped around and vanished. Unlike the sister in the report above, Blackie also saw the light. AND something even stranger happened to him—he lost his apostrophes. I don’t know how, but suddenly he was saying things like “Ive” and “Im” and, OMG, I could hear that they didn’t contain any apostrophes. And when I asked him about my speech, he said my apostrophes were gone too—he couldn’t hear them at all. Holy crap!

I don’t want to sound mean, but I hope the guy who made this report wasn’t the one doing the driving—I hope it was his sister and that, in addition to not seeing the strange light, she retained the ability to form grammatical contractions as she drove the two of them safely past the Abbotsford airport.

21-Dec-2011, Coquitlam, BC

…my adult daughter was having a cigarette when she looked up at the sky and saw 2 pulsating red lights. The lights moved strangely…became 5 lights…faded away until there were only 2 lights left…continued to dart around until they merged into one and disappeared.

When Blackie drinks absinthe he looks more like this.

I’ve never started smoking because I’m terrified of catching fire and because my mum would throw me in the washing machine every day. But I’ve certainly seen stuff like this. One day Blackie and I decided to mix absinthe with Jack Daniel’s. The key is to pour the absinthe first, then let the JD settle on top. Blackie had never tried absinthe before, but it appealed to him because he has some writing aspirations and associated it with Hemingway. You have to knock this mixture back with lightning speed or it will come back up and stain your fur. After a few of these, Blackie lost his apostrophes and stomach control. I saw spots for quite a while, and they did dart around in strange configurations.

22-Dec-2011, Kamloops, BC

“noticed a bright orb-like object in the sky with strobing colors…. Blue, red, white…. It moved very slowly, possibly at the same rate as the earth was turning. I took a couple of video but all I had was my Android phone so the quality is very poor and I chose to watch it with my eyes mostly.”

The video link doesn’t work, which makes me wonder if the Android people used their muscle to have it removed from the web. It’s pretty damning for them if people claim their phones can’t capture UFO images properly, right? I like this witness’s resourceful choice to use the eyes (mostly) to watch the phenomenon. We do this from our balcony all the time because we can’t be bothered to set up the R2D2-like telescope. Those geosynchronous UFOs are especially tricky because they seem pretty boring until you finish a punchbowl full of Stoli and Malibu. Then they get much more lively and they even start strobing.

"Drop your pants"

17-Dec-2011, North Delta, BC

I have been seeing greenish dots (objects) high in the sky…a single object was surrounded like a cluster by approximately 5-10 identical green objects. It looked as though the centre one either controlled the outside ones or it was being contained by them….

These objects appear to be 3-5 times higher than the moon. I’m talking outer space where satellites are.

I would give my ass fur to be able to make a visual calculation of an object’s distance from earth—but 3-5 times lunar distance isn’t quite where the satellites are, buddy. The very highest satellites fly at an altitude of 22,000 miles—a tenth the way to the moon at perigee (closest approach). If those choreographed lights were that far away, well, they must have been some big-ass lights.

Did you get probed while you were unconscious? Only your anus knows for sure.

I asked Violet Purplebunny what she thought about all this, and she said it sounded like a case of “too much DeKuyper Hot Damn.” I say she’s partially right—a big dose of cinnamon schnapps could certainly induce a mental light-show. But she’s partially wrong—there’s no such thing as too much.

GLENFARCLAS 17—Come back, Christine!!!!

My Fellow Inebriates,

OMG! Help! Holy shit, humans!

I’ve been hiding out today because the six-year-old barfed in school and came home early. Needless to say, I do not wish to be the preferred stuffie right now. The washing machine scares the freaking crap out of me, and a projectile offering from Miss P would guarantee me a ride in it.

This means I have limited time to tell you about the last item from our weekend scotch-tasting threesome before the invalid gets off the couch and comes looking for cuddles.

Big thanks once again to my friend Christine for visiting with a canvas bag containing this and two other fine whiskies. When you taste two stellar whiskies—the first mind-blowing and the second only fractionally less astonishing—you almost stop breathing wondering what the third will be like.

TALISKER 18 and CAOL ILA 12 are renowned for their peatiness, making GLENFARCLAS 17 the potential oddball of the tasting triad. A Speyside single malt, GLENFARCLAS (“valley of the green grass”) is distilled using spring water from snow melt alongside the River Spey in Ballindalloch, Scotland, rather than the heavily peated water that contributes the characteristic peat-smoke flavoring to the other two I sampled.

Islay whiskey fans sometimes disparage Speyside whiskey (and vice versa) precisely because of the relative lack (or presence) of peat. Even whiskey drinkers who enjoy both regions still tend to favor one of the two styles.

Predictably I like both and suffer equal spasms over the absence from our liquor cabinet of either product. But regardless of that even-mindedness, I’d just enjoyed two peaty drams before the GLENFARCLAS 17 was poured. How would this third whiskey compare?

In the glass, GLENFARCLAS 17 shines a rich coppery amber, with detectable oiliness around the edges. On the nose: a surge of sherry, abundant but contained, and apple-butter with vanilla-butterscotch behind—a perfectly modulated chorus with an oak backbone and distant peat.

The sip is weighty and full, developing with a sensuous pace, the sherry-malt tones mellowing across the tongue into bakery-spice notes and lingering smoke. This whiskey dries noticeably on the tongue, masterfully balanced and complex, with an almost endless finish.

Not with scotch, people.

Some whiskey aficionados, especially Islay fans, might accuse Speyside whiskies of being comparatively simple—but only after burning off their tastebuds with Wonka SweeTarts in the company of an ailing six-year-old.

Adding water might enable the drinker to pick out its individual flavors with heightened precision, but dilution seems an unimaginable crime, and I couldn’t bring myself to try it. Of the three whiskies savored that night, GLENFARCLAS 17 was my favorite, and when Christine left the house with it, I pressed my nose against the window, vibrating with horror and sorrow.

Come back, Christine. Please come back.