humor

ASTROLIQUOR for April 13-20—What the stars say you should drink!

My Fellow Inebriates,

Here’s your booze horoscope:

You’re into everybody else’s business, Aries, with a strange and manic new angle: temperance. At first you’ll be surprised how much detail you remember about other people’s lives when you’re not blasted out of your noodle. You’ll appreciate the peace that comes from a non-throbbing head. You’ll even go for a jog or some such lunacy. Know that this madness will pass. You will start to miss seeing people through beer goggles.

Taurus, it’s not a week for romance. And yet it seems as though the whole world is rutting. Coworkers are getting it on in a closet somewhere, sending out reeking pheromones. Somehow you feel you should get in on this—yet you know it would be a mistake. Stay the course for one more week. You can have fun all by yourself with some vodka, Kahlua, and creme de menthe.

Your professional life takes a back seat to socializing, Gemini, giving you a sense of being on holiday even while at your desk. Your brain is certainly on vacation, but your boss doesn’t care because he/she knows how smart you can be when you’re not loaded. But what on earth would possess you to combine red wine and Coca-Cola? Never mind—just do it.

A highly emotional week is on tap, Cancer. One second you’re crying, the next you’re laughing. If that doesn’t demote your credibility enough, you could recite some of your secret poems or bestow flowers on someone you’ve been stalking. What’s the fuel for all this emotive spew? Why, Jack Daniel’s and Yukon Jack in equal parts. You can’t have that for breakfast without results.

Leo, early in the week a close friend surprises you with something small. Even if it’s just a flower, it makes your day. So uplifting is the simple gesture that you spread it on to others—that’s you buying the shots! Next thing you know your head is full of tequila and everyone loves everyone else. Not bad.

Virgo, your tendency to tell it like it is means an awkward moment for a Pisces or Gemini in your social circle. This person is not into you now, but if you hang in there things could change. But don’t obsess! People will start noticing and call the police. My wisest suggestion would be to hole up at home with some blueberry schnapps. That way you’ll be occupied drinking and occupied barfing later.

Libra, this is not a good time for thinking. Simply put, you are a total airhead this week. Do nothing financial. Do nothing mechanical. Let the world go on with its business while you make a fantastic punch:

  • 3 cups Everclear
  • 3 cups vodka
  • 3 cups peach schnapps
  • 1.5 cups Malibu
  • 1 gallon Hawaiian Punch

This doesn’t have to be for you only. Go ahead—invite a couple of friends. One of them will give you a hickey.

Take care of yourself, Scorpio. You’ve been working like crazy, pursuing change in your life, but don’t forget about your health. Scorpios have a tendency to let their own intensity magnify until it explodes. Try yoga or, if you think that’s totally lame, a fruity drink. Fruity drinks make people feel relaxed. Think Bacardi white rum and White Curacao and…I don’t know, fruit of some kind.

Sagittarius, you’re zeroing in on some bigtime work success, but you mustn’t force things. Sometimes it’s better not to try. This is as true of flirtations as it is the office. If you try too hard romantically, you might get arrested again. Keep your flask full of apple brandy and Cointreau; it’ll mellow you out.

It’s all about love this week, Capricorn, even if you’re more focused on the romantic aspect than the getting with. Opportunities present from all sides, producing the same sort of paralysis that comes over shoppers in the vodka aisle. So much selection, so little time. So close your eyes and pick one! Do it! That takes care of the vodka side of it. Now choose a person to share it with.

Aquarius, you need to keep up with laundry, showers, and personal hygiene. That smell on you isn’t “musk.” Don’t be fooled into thinking vodka has no odor. It may not, but you marinated in vodka are quite another matter. Vodka is awesome, though. If you stroll through the vodka aisle you may meet a Capricorn who’s into sharing.

Pisces, your stars are increasingly significant now through November. You feel a strong influence to change your life profoundly. You may move, perhaps even out of jail. You may find a new job or even, simply, a job. Whatever you do, follow your passion. Live large and skip the Bud. You deserve some Mozart chocolate liqueur.

M. CHAPOUTIER BILA-HAUT SYRAH/GRENACHE, CARIGNAN (2009)—No, it didn’t have 9 lives; it’s gone

Miss V has no intention of peeing on demand for the doctor trying to confirm a bladder infection. Hence the package that came home today:

Needless to say, I don’t want anything to do with the project of coaxing urine out of a four-year-old into a cup. If, for example, my mum brought me into the bathroom to amuse Miss V, thinking the diversion might keep her on the seat until the pee was secured, I would be very afraid. It’s hard enough for an adult female to pee in a jar without spraying hands, seat, floor and counter. When a four-year-old attempts to do it, you don’t want to be a nearby absorbent bear who’s already under threat of the washing machine.

Because so many symptoms suggested a bladder infection, the doc prescribed an antibiotic anyway. If he doesn’t get Miss V’s pee, the exact microbes won’t be known, but they’ll get exterminated anyway. If he does get the pee, bonus. Within a week Miss V should be cured of her tummy aches and pungent excretions.

This latter symptom got me thinking about wines with a urine aroma. In particular I remembered our Easter dinner wine, suggested by a wine consultant other than our usual go-to. On learning of my parents’ preference for full-bodied, supple reds, he pointed to M. CHAPOUTIER BILA-HAUT (2009), a Syrah/Grenache/Carignan blend. His recommendation wasn’t exactly on the money. (He did disclaim that French wine wasn’t his area of expertise.)

True, BILA-HAUT poured rich and purple into the glass, exuding distinctive earthy fragrance and fruit-forward promise. Blended for ideal acid balance and drinkability, it seemed like a good dinner choice.

The first sips were curious—slightly more acidic than suggested by the aroma, and slightly lighter on the palate than suggested by the legs. The wine had a thinness to it that fruit bomb enthusiasts tend to avoid, but one has to have an open mind.

On to the next sips.

While Grenache typically has a soft, static character and doesn’t develop much as the wine opens, a Grenache blend is a different animal. The Syrah component in BILA-HAUT kicked up the spice and contributed an earthy wildness; the Carignan added tartness and zing. But during that critical first 15 minutes while the wine breathed and I had to be held back physically from it, the fragrance changed. The shift wasn’t subtle. First the scent was a maddeningly unplaceable brambly fruitiness, and then it was…wet cat. From wet cat it morphed to cat pee, at which point my dad abandoned his glass on the counter.

Mum and I persevered with BILA-HAUT, although for most of dinner she left her glass untouched, then returned to it while she loaded the dishwasher. I kept at it the whole time, so I can document for you, my fellow inebriates, the delicacy of its arc from fruit to sodden alleycat to litter-box offering to…fruit again.

Yes, peeps, the wine did become drinkable. It just had to go through a nasty olfactory phase. We all go through phases, some of which are olfactory too. Ever decide you were no longer going to shower? Or that deodorant was for losers? Okay, maybe you didn’t do those things. But remember the hair you had in the 1980s? Phases! Some phases are just ugly. And BILA-HAUT certainly went through one of these while the family was stuffing itself full of ham. For a while it smelled rank. But I swear to you that after an hour it was okay. And it was even better the next day.

So what the hell makes a wine smell like feline number one? Interesting, the chemical compound responsible for that unique cat-piss odor is often present in wine, particularly Sauvignon Blanc and Cabernet Sauvignon. The offending compound, p-mentha-8-thiol-3-one, smells like kitty tinkle only in a specific concentration range, below which it smells herbal and above which it smells like blackcurrants. Wow!

So that explains how our Easter wine began dinner delightfully redolent of berries, survived being consumed at dinner by assaulting us with puss ‘n’ piss, then redeemed itself as dry, tannic and slightly herbal.

Which is pretty cool and scientific, but it won’t help us get Miss V to pee in a cup.

MOLSON CANADIAN—Drink if you’re hot, thirsty, or wearing a mullet

My Fellow Inebriates,

Ever since an old derelict outside Superstore tried to bless the kids and then damned the whole family to hell when my mum wouldn’t let him, the Langley township itself has been on her shitlist, as though its very geography is a magnet for religious mania, something she suspects abounds at the local elementary school.

So when Miss V’s teacher started waving packets of Kool-Aid around this morning, my mother wasn’t impressed. She didn’t have the energy to thwart a Canadian Jonestown so early in the morning, nor did she want her stupid-looking hair to end up on TV.

But before you could say “Hallelujah,” Miss V’s teacher was mixing that Kool-Aid (not even cherry, but lemon) into a batch of homemade play dough. Yes indeed, if you’re tired of shelling out for actual Play-Doh, you can make your own with just a few ingredients:

KOOL-AID PLAYDOUGH

    • 1 cup flour
    • ½ cup salt
    • 2 tsp cream of tartar
    • 1 package unsweetened Kool-Aid, any flavor
    • 1 tbsp cooking oil
    • 1 cup boiling water

Combine dry ingredients. Add oil and boiling water. Mix with a spoon. As soon as the mixture is cool enough, knead together with your non-furry, opposably thumbed hands. Store in airtight container.

Fifteen minutes later the kids were sculpting lemon-scented masterpieces, including this handsome sculpture of yours truly.

OMG, what the hell is that little piece over there supposed to be?

Not content with mere verisimilitude, Miss V insisted on adding a long braid to the bear. She was thinking Rapunzel, although you might think mullet.

If she’d meant mullet she would have been reading my mind, because while she and Mum were sculpting, I was waking to memories of MOLSON CANADIAN.

The MOLSON CANADIAN bottle had come from next door (not the next-door neighbors who hate us, but the normal people on the other side). They don’t wear mullets, but last night they were going to wall-mount some speakers with the wires dangling visibly down the wall, which is pretty much the same thing. When they tried to borrow a tool from my dad, he rushed over to help them hide their unsightly wires and returned with a MOLSON CANADIAN.

The neighbors hadn’t asked for my dad’s help, but he is obsessive about visible wires in other people’s houses. (Our own house, which is festooned with wires and littered with teeny tiny bolts/screws/unidentifiables, is another matter and does not fall within my dad’s OCD radar.) Having recently shut down his home theater business, which had involved a lot of hands-on installation, my dad must have been itching to make holes in the neighbors’ wall, because he practically bounded next door to help. And lucky for him, they were breaking out the MOLSON CANADIAN.

This is a lager that reminds me of hockey and parking lots and camping. It’s a nostalgic brew for a lot of Canadians who started drinking beer before macrobreweries came into force. Wan and straw-colored with a quickly dissipating head, CANADIAN gives off a signature macro-brew graininess—corn, white bread, no-name toaster waffles and minimal malt. The first taste is crisp, thin, and refreshingly fizzy if cold, but the beer grows less charming as it warms.

The clock is a real enemy to MOLSON CANADIAN; with each half-degree the beer rises, it becomes less palatable and more metallic. But—importantly—this beer is inoffensive when cold. If you’re really thirsty, a CANADIAN from an ice-filled cooler is like liquid manna in the dessert, replete with the requisite breadiness. My dad didn’t turn it down after he’d finished fixing up the neighbors’ system, and he didn’t bitch about it either.

And needless to say, MOLSON CANADIAN beats the crap out of lemon Kool-Aid.