liquor

ASTROLIQUOR for May 11-17—What the stars say you should drink!

My Fellow Inebriates,

Here’s your booze horoscope:

Expect to hear some nasty gossip about you and your family this week, Aries, spreading feverishly through your circle. So vitriolic is the rumor that it might take until July to refute it. Then in August you’ll find out who dissed you. You won’t be inviting this A-hole to your midsummer housewrecker! Too bad you’re so broke. You’ll be serving mainly leftover Malibu if you can get a friend to help you open the bottle.

Taurus, you need to keep a low profile this week, especially around decision makers. If you mouth off, you may find yourself on the curb holding a box of office supplies. Sadly this means you’ll have to go to work sober for a while. Wait until you get home to break out the giant box of red wine.

There’s not enough of you to go around, Gemini, but it’s flattering to have so many colleagues asking you for help. Your charisma and energy are high—it’s a good time to take the lead. Tell everyone to chill out about work and take a booze break. If you pool all the hidden alcohol in your office you should be able to find vodka, melon liqueur, and peach schnapps. Throw it into a bowl with whatever juice you can find in the communal fridge and voila: easy work day.

Time for something completely different, Cancer. Lose the TV remote and go outside with a picnic basket. OMG, you say, that sounds fantastic! What shall I put in the basket? Ahhhhh….

  • White rum
  • Sweet sherry
  • Tawny port
  • Drambuie
  • Gingerale (optional)

Now, we could mess around with proportions, etc., but I suggest just taking all the bottles and mixing them up in random ways. But be forewarned: this is the sort of picnic that attracts bears.

Leo, in every sense you are on this week. Work, love, and family are all thriving, and you can expect to attract a special new (platonic) friend this week. Make an effort not to be a tool and this person could become a lifetime friend. So don’t pretend that’s not vodka with amaretto in your flask. Share it around.

For some reason you’re being a jerk to a close friend, Virgo, even though you hotly deny it when accused. Like most neurotics you think you’re acting very rationally, but “rational” doesn’t usually go hand in hand with a headful of gin. Try to delay drinking until after work, then cut that gin with some tonic and peppermint schnapps. If, after that behavior mod, you’re still a jerk, you can blame the stars.

Libra, career is featured strongly, with management noticing your achievements. Just ignore the critics on the sidelines. Just because they can’t do a PowerPoint presentation while hammered on gin and blackberry brandy… As superheroic as you are at work, however, your personal life sucks! Try to at least be sober in the morning hours.

If you’re signing a new mortgage or financial contract, Scorpio, this is the time to get it done. Your stars shift to a sinister position within two weeks, and someone will try to con you. Exactly how this all shakes out is hard to picture right now. It’s hard to picture anything when you’re clinging to the bathroom floor after ralphing Jack Daniel’s and Goldschlager into the toilet.

Sagittarius, pay attention; there’s a Leo watching you with interest, and if you miss the signals you could miss out on a party. As inattentive as you seem to be about potential hook-ups, you’re even more oblivious to how well you’re doing at work. Congratulations—you’re in the career catbird seat and you don’t even know how you got there. Evidently Bacardi 151 makes you behave more professionally.

Go out every night this week, Capricorn, and you’ll be sure to make some new friends. One of these will stick and turn into a longterm friendship or even a romantic partnership. If this is too much pressure, load your brain up with vodka before going out. Just leave the car keys at home.

Aquarius, the chances of a relationship split are high right now owing to a weird constellation exerting more influence than usual. Whatever you might do that matters, do NOT do it on Thursday. In fact, don’t do anything on Thursday! Call in sick and pound some cheap Scotch. By the time you sober up and sort out your hangover (Saturday), the danger will have passed.

Pisces, try hard this week not to get swindled. You look gullible! No lending money unless you can afford to lose it. No picking up the tab for drinks, no matter how earnestly friends promise to get the next one. Your only ally this week will be a Capricorn who thinks you’re a dupe but likes you anyway. Unexpectedly this person may want to get with you, so ease off on the Kahlua, vodka, Bailey’s, and creme de menthe or you’ll end up just cuddling.

ASTROLIQUOR for May 4-10—What the stars say you should drink!

My Fellow Inebriates,

Here’s your booze horoscope:

Aries, deep down you really want to fall in love. Luckily for you the stars are lining up to grant your wish. Sometime between now and June you’ll fall head over heels in a sickening, poetry-writing, gooey romance. Of course ouzo and vodka will be involved, but it’s still the real deal! So get ready to tell your spouse about it and lawyer up.

Taurus, although you’re good at putting friends and family to work, you have trouble accepting help from strangers. This week you have to go outside your comfort zone, however, and recruit a colleague for an important task. Although this person has historically been a dick to you, he/she can be loosened up with some Red Bull and rum. Don’t think of it as taking advantage—you’re building karma for your coworker, so pass the flask.

Those psychiatric sessions are paying off, Gemini, balancing your emotions and turning you into something of a charmer. On your habitual drunken early-bird visit to a garage sale you discover that both an Aries and an Aquarius are taken with you. What a lovely dilemma! Make sure you follow your heart—when your head is full of cognac and vodka it’s too easy to pick randomly.

You’re in good spirits this week, Cancer, having solved a few nagging mental problems and discovered unknown inner strengths. You’re learning not to compare yourself to others, and to appreciate Canadian Club even when your neighbor is reeling around his yard with Crown Royal. You’ll have a nice flirtation with someone this week, but I’d leave that neighbor alone.

Leo, look carefully at your text messages and emails this week. Every communique, no matter how terse, contains subtext. Understandably subtext gets lost when you’ve spent the day sipping from a jug of Bailey’s, Goldschlager, and creme de menthe, but try to pay attention. In particular a colleague may be seeking your approval. It’s just good politics to play along.

You have a thing for an Aries, Virgo, even though you don’t actually like this person. This bad situation gains unfortunate traction from an ever-present travel mug of amaretto-and-Bailey’s coffee that you replenish furtively from a makeshift bar under your cubicle desk. Perhaps you should get some air before you decide to visit the supply closet with your Aries friend. No car keys for you!

Libra, you’re contemplating a self-improvement program featuring long walks. Not only will this make your body fit; your brain will benefit as well. Pickled as you’ve been all winter, you should gain some clarity pretty fast! It’s a new dawn for you, being sober throughout the day, but don’t forget to reward yourself later with some Irish cream and butterscotch schnapps.

Fear and hope take turns swooping in on you this week, Scorpio. You don’t have the funds to bail you out if your current business plan goes pear-shaped, but what the hell—you’re used to living this way. Not too many people have the stomach to hang with you, and that’s not a bad thing. Gambling looks dangerous this week, so stay inside and mix something up:

  • 2 oz bourbon
  • 2 oz vodka
  • 2 oz Tia Maria
  • 2 oz grapefruit juice

Sagittarius, the world looks very pretty this week. Your positive energy is at a peak, so how about a joyful blender drink?

  • 3 oz peach schnapps
  • 3 oz raspberry liqueur
  • 3 oz Frangelico
  • 3 oz cream
  • 1.5 cups vanilla ice cream
  • 4 oz raspberry jam

Puree that business up and let it cool your brain. You may need a walk afterwards, but the world will still be pretty—just spinning too.

Impetuous you’re not, Capricorn—at least not usually, but there are some weird stars in your chart causing you to be extra-gregarious and generally unprofessional. For instance, any cube farm worker knows vodka makes the best odor-free flask drink. So why is yours full of brandy and creme de menthe? Nobody’s gonna believe you just brushed your teeth. Watch out or you’ll need a box for all your stuff!

Aquarius, you normally enjoy risk and danger but sadly you’re having trouble finding it. Superfluous energy torments you, causing you to hit on drunken Geminis at early-morning garage sales and generally bother people of all star signs. Meanwhile, a Sagittarius is bothering you, out-talking you even and making you uncomfortable. Chill out and avoid a fight. Cherry brandy for you.

Pisces, people think you’re pretty down-to-earth. But this week you go nuts and freak out at your family. It might be an intervention or some such gathering where emotions tend to run high. Then again, it might be a wedding or a funeral. Whatever the event is, expect to be escorted away from it quite forcefully, perhaps while vomiting vodka.

INNIS & GUNN OAK AGED BEER—Mass quantities wanted

My Fellow Inebriates,

Our whole family sucks at bookkeeping, so tax time is a real slog. Just recently my dad collapsed his decade-old business to go over to the corporate dark side, which is great for predictability and creating a beer budget, but leaves him with the task of tying off loose ends. We have a jumble of paperwork to organize if we truly want to give all the nuttiness of self-employment the heave-ho. As we go through our business-related assets we’re flipping a bunch of them face-down like Monopoly properties, which is depressing yet liberating.

At least for my parents. For me there’s a bottom line hanging at the end of all this nasty mathematics. What’s our booze budget going to be?

Based on 2008 figures, the average Canadian household spends 1.8% of its income on alcohol (in the U.S.it’s 1% because prices are lower and there’s less excise tax).

THIS DOESN’T SEEM LIKE VERY MUCH!

Consider this breakdown for Canadian and U.S.households:

Source: Statistics Canada

Wow! There must be some areas we can trim and/or reallocate to the alcohol category.

  • I can’t do anything about housing or the car, but maybe we can choose our food more carefully. Arguably Guinness is a food. Let’s commit to having Guinness at every meal and thereby reallocate 4%.
  • What about recreation/entertainment? What do they consider alcohol if not that? We should lump alcohol with recreation/entertainment. It’s not like we do anything entertaining anyway. We don’t even go to the movies. Let’s borrow 5% or so from recreation/entertainment for alcohol. That puts us up to 10.8%.
  • As for clothing, I’m happy to remain naked, but the thought of my parents strolling around the house with their gear showing is…beyond the pale flabbiness…
  • No getting around health care, but what is personal care? Correct me if I’m wrong, but a proper drunk doesn’t go in for personal hygiene and such. Let’s take 2% of that for alcohol. Ahhh, we’re getting somewhere: 12.8%.
  • Too bad about education. While my parents won’t be dipping into this fund again, with their hodgepodge educational attainments just sufficient to make them obnoxious at bookstores, the kids will be hitting the family up for university in a dozen years. Yikes…would it be so wrong to take a tiny bit of that for…sigh.
  • But look! Miscellaneous is my kind of category. The best kind of miscellany occurs at the liquor store. Adding 2.6%, which gives us 15.4%…looking better.
  • And here’s another useful category for our purposes: tobacco. It’s useful because we don’t use it—I’d love to take on another vice but I’m afraid of catching fire. Score another 1.2%, bringing us to 16.6%.
  • Lastly, reading. I mentioned my parents are obnoxious at bookstores. They ask for weird books and special orders. They hate borrowing books; they like to fondle their own for an unlimited time, dog-earing and coffee-ringing the pages. Plus there’s my dad’s Audible account—with a two-hour daily commute it takes him no time to burn through a narrated book.

So that’s that, my fellow inebriates. Budgeting carefully, we should be able to elevate the standard Canadian liquor expenditure of 1.8% to a more reasonable 16.6% at LBHQ.

If you ask me (and nobody has) our first purchase should be INNIS & GUNN OAK AGED BEER. Billed as a smooth Scottish beer with hints of toffee, vanilla, and oak, this fine product leapt off our local booze shop’s shelf when my dad went on his recent onesie spree. Of the miscellany he brought home it was the most delightful brew—the sort of ale we could all have fought to the death for if we had a bit more energy, and a lovely contrast to some of the weird things my dad bought that day.

Brownish amber with a finger (for those of you who have them) of off-white foam and some feisty carbonation, INNIS & GUNN OAK AGED BEER sidles up to your olfactory centre like it’s known you all its life. Psssst, it urges—caramel…toffee…early-morning bakery…oak…Scotch malt—and blammo! It has you by the short fur, caressing your senses with its whisky redolence. This beer has stunning complexity. The notes aren’t unplaceable; instead they conjure up scented memories of highlands, lowlands, peat and damp. INNIS & GUNN has you at smell, but wait until you sip, because that’s when it really grabs you under the kilt.

Yes, those toffee hints pay off in a complicated, balanced, malty, buttery symphony and an achingly beautiful oak-tinged finish. It was a crime that we had only one INNIS & GUNN bottle, people, and that my parents shared it between them. And the alcohol? Damn fine at 6.6%.

Following my new financial plan I’m recommending we earmark funds for at least 10 cases of this fine Scottish ale and I suggest all my fellow inebriates do the same—as long as you don’t clean out my liquor store.