liquor

ASTROLIQUOR for Jan. 23-29—What the stars say you should drink!

My Fellow Inebriates,

Here’s your booze horoscope:

People are trying to force you to be someone you’re not, Aries, but they are in for a fight. You’re not going to be cornered, nor are you going to be diplomatic. It’s not just because of all the alcohol in your system; it’s because you can be a real dick when your mind’s made up. If someone offers you a beer, you’ll insist on taking your own bizarre path. Might as well try this:

  • 3 oz banana schnapps
  • 5 oz strawberry schnapps
  • 3 oz half-and-half cream

Drink it all day just to make your point. Then barf on your tormentors.

Taurus, you have to pull yourself together! Go out and enjoy yourself—joke around, say hi to strangers, think about mating. You have tons of energy and imagination, and people are ready to listen to you. Since you’re in party mode, here’s a party drink:

  • 3 oz orange juice
  • 2 oz pineapple juice
  • 1 kiwi
  • 5 strawberries
  • 1/4 cup watermelon

Blend it all up with ice and pour it into a pina colada glass. Ahhh! Who says it’s too cold?

You’re feeling lonely, Gemini, and you’re worried about letting people down. Sometimes people with your star sign experience feelings of inferiority and hurt pride. But that’s what alcohol is for. You’ll find that if you make the effort to reach out, your friends will be ready to get loaded with you. How about setting some drinks on fire? Try igniting a mixture of Kahlua and sambuca, then throwing Bailey’s and Blue Curacao on top of it. That will make you feel special.

You need more sleep than you think, Cancer. Somehow passing out doesn’t count as proper rest, so you have to coordinate your drinking a bit better so you can sober up at work instead of wasting your nighttime sleep hours burning off alcohol. It’s tricky, but you’re smart enough. Drinking at work has another side benefit, too: you’ll be less inhibited with your coworkers, one of whom has a little crush on you. Needless to say, vodka is a nice odorless choice for the office, but I’d still add some Blue Curacao.

Leo, you’re in a romantic dreamland, unable to focus, drifting from art to music to drama. You can’t decide—to party or to be alone? To spend or to save? To hang inside or go streaking? All this vacillation stems from lack of energy. Grab a caffeinated energy drink and throw some raspberry vodka shots into it. Shake it up and pound it. That’ll get your head on straight.

This is a good week for gambling, Virgo, whether on the stock market or at the casino. You’re not bulletproof, though—you have a tendency to keep playing after your luck has run out. This is where alcohol comes in: As soon as you sense you’ve peaked, reallocate your wallet to the bar and buy yourself some vodka/grape juice martinis. But watch out for an obnoxious Sagittarius who doesn’t have an “indoor voice.” This person will be such a nuisance that others will offer to punch him/her out for you. Take them up on it.

Libra, you can’t change other people; you can only change yourself. But why change at all? You’re having a very social week and bumping into all sorts of new people who’ll dig you for you. Have you ever mixed bourbon with a whole bunch of fruit in the blender and tossed red currants into it? You should totally do that and share it with your new friends.

This is a time for regrouping, assessing, and committing to hard work, Scorpio. But it’s also a good time for downing a bottle of red wine. Sometimes you get very manic when you decide to revamp your life, and alcohol has a good tempering effect. You have plenty of time—nothing will change drastically until April (when you start putting away boxes of wine instead of bottles).

Sagittarius, the next few months promise spiritual discovery and profound intuition. You are more open-minded than you have been in weeks. But it’s not a good time to take on new projects at work. You are too messed up with vodka (the catalyst for your developing Third Eye). If the visions come on too strong, mix that vodka with something—how about some ice cream plus Kahlua and Bailey’s? As good as a meal.

This is a good week to boss people around, Capricorn. You’re a natural leader with so much charisma that people are chomping at the bit to follow you. When you’re this powerful, you can get away with anything, so fill up that flask. Not just with odorless vodka—add some apricot brandy, knowing that you are truly untouchable (at least for a while).

Wow, Aquarius, there are a whole bunch of constellations coinciding in your part of the sky, and that makes you feel superhuman. Don’t jump off the roof, though; keep at least a partial grip on reality. Try to calm down a bit with some nice boozy coffee:

  • 1 cup coffee
  • 1 oz vodka
  • 0.5 oz Kahlua
  • 0.5 oz amaretto
  • Whipped cream and sugar to taste

Practice making this drink because you’re going to meet someone in April who enjoys lovely, sensuous beverages.

Pisces, you’re back to work again—congratulations! But keep a low profile; nobody really knows you yet and it’s probably best to keep it that way. If you’re planning to embezzle money, for example, you certainly don’t want any higher-ups to know who you are. You’ll find you have access to many beautiful and expensive things. Be careful! When you’re staggering around on a blackberry schnapps bender it’s all too easy to break the crystal.

ASTROLIQUOR for Jan. 13-19—what the stars say you should drink

My Fellow Inebriates,

Here’s your booze horoscope:

You haven’t been following your instincts, Aries, and you’re stuck. Start making some discreet queries about moving upward or onward in your career. But don’t be distracted from your love life. Your partner is hitting the bottle hard, and if you don’t catch up there’ll be none left for you. Don’t smash that vodka bottle fighting; share it between you nicely, and stretch it out by adding some Frangelico, Bailey’s and creme de cacao.

Taurus, you’ve been a great team player lately and people are eager to reward you with bar drinks. Say yes, but don’t take excessive advantage—i.e., don’t make them clean up your vomit later. Throwing up is somewhat inevitable when you go overboard combining dark rum and triple sec, so at least aim for the toilet when it all comes back up.

This is going to be a drama-free week, Gemini. Find a good book and stock up on your favorite spirits—I’m thinking tequila and and vodka in equal parts. Ignore the chores, but not to the point where your house is uncomfortable. (If you barf on the floor you should clean it up.)

Go out for a feast on Saturday with somebody you care about, Cancer. You need people around to remind you that you are special, and to prevent you from going on a bender alone. Sure, you have the urge to drink a punch bowl full of vodka, but it’s so much more fun with a friend, isn’t it? No driving for you this week! You will be perma-drunk and accident-prone.

You have a social week ahead, Leo, with calls from new acquaintances who want to get to know you. Don’t ignore them. New friends represent an opportunity to reinvent yourself. New friends have never seen you with your underwear on your head. If you’re unsure what to pour for them, try cognac or some tawny port—or both; these drinks are elegant right up until the moment you lose control.

Such a slacker at work, Virgo! Your coworkers are starting to call you on tasks you slough off on them. Time to reach into your desk and share your apple brandy flask. This will temporarily endear you to them and buy you some more time to play Bejeweled or grope yourself or whatever you like to do at work.

Libra, your colleagues are talking behind your back. It won’t come to anything, so just ignore it and continue spiking your coffee with Bailey’s, Kahlua and butterscotch liqueur. Obviously they’re jealous of your nonchalance. This week isn’t especially lucky, but you might win something the next.

You can function again in groups, Scorpio. In fact, you’re pretty gregarious and may make some long-lasting friends this week. Not love material, mind you—it’s hard to find someone who really gets you and your thing for tequila with Galliano. I’d say control yourself on Thursday, but a bar fight is pretty much in the cards.

Sagittarius, you make your friends uncomfortable when you describe your intimacies in graphic detail. Some of them are so repelled that they will stage an intervention this week. What a perfect opportunity to serve alcohol. Try this mixture:

  • 2 cups gin
  • 1 cup creme de cassis
  • 4 cups vodka
  • Sprite, tonic and lime juice to taste

Pour it into a big bowl with ice. If your friends protest that you’ve hijacked their intervention, you get it all to yourself.

You know what your problem is and how to tackle it, Capricorn, but still you haven’t begun! It’s genuinely difficult to get started when you can’t even stand up, and Bacardi has had a lot to do with that lately. It goes well with triple sec and raspberry liqueur, doesn’t it? I like it that way for breakfast.

Aquarius, your life is about to change dramatically, and for the better. You will discover new strengths you didn’t know you had. Your tolerance for alcohol is unbelievable! You put it away day and night, starting with Grand Marnier in your morning coffee and moving on from there. Basically, you are my hero this week.

Pisces, people have it in for you this week. Oh no! The best thing is to pretend they are not there. If it’s hard to practice avoidance, dull your senses with a trippy beverage—maybe Guinness with Jagermeister in it. This will give you bad indigestion and remind you of the homemade booze you used to make in prison.

LAS MORAS TANNAT (2008)—Like

My Fellow Inebriates,

I spent all morning twitching with the urge to steal an idea from The Dissemination of Thought. Coupled with a Tannat-related headache and dehydration, this compulsion troubled me. I feel bad when I swipe things, and worse for not thinking of them first. But let’s face it—no one’s expecting nobility from an alcoholic animal. And really, it’s TDoT’s fault, isn’t it? If he hadn’t disseminated such a topical thought, I wouldn’t have felt like purloining it.

If you haven’t clicked the links yet, here’s the gist: There are types of Facebook users ranging from the Whinger to the Liker and everything in between—and those types are annoying.

I probably could have generated my own idea for the blog today had I not drunk so much LAS MORAS TANNAT (2008) last night. But I woke up with a rough headache this morning, which probably relates less to the wine than to the quantity consumed.

I’d never tried the Tannat varietal before—at least not knowingly, as it is typically a blending grape. Increasingly it’s being planted in Argentina, Australia and the US, though, so you’ll probably start seeing more Tannats on the booze-store shelves over the next few years. At 14% the Argentine LAS MORAS certainly caused bedspins and kept me from checking in with Facebook’s Wrestler Unstoppable, which meant my avatar “LB the Alcoholic Bear” got his ass kicked while I slept the wine off.

Our local booze-store consultant steered my dad toward this $14.99 product. She (and the bottle label) suggested decanting it an hour before drinking it, instructions my dad texted to my mum from the kids’ bedroom where he was patiently waiting for them to nod off, not knowing she would ignore her phone. So when he came downstairs the bottle was still sealed, and we commenced drinking it without letting it breathe. The wine did get a chance to open up over the next 90 minutes, but truthfully it didn’t change much in that timespan.

For full-bodied red wine fans, LAS MORAS won’t disappoint. Intensely dark with an admirable fruit/oak balance, it strikes a satisfying tannic chord with soft fruits up front and chocolate/bread in behind. If you love this note, you’ll be very happy, but if you prefer a wine that develops more dynamically in the glass and on the tongue, you’ll find yourself curiously underwhelmed by its lack of range.

Perhaps this explains why Tannat grapes are so often supporting players in cabs and malbecs rather than carrying the whole show. LAS MORAS lacks complexity; the sip doesn’t differ much from the swallow, yet it strums a fully satisfactory note. It would be a great wine for events where the focus is on socializing or a meal because it holds no surprises and it doesn’t assert itself in an intriguing way.

Much like most of the status updates on Facebook. My wrestler is just about the only reason I use Facebook. I update my status every few weeks or so, and of course I make a nuisance of myself with blog updates, but otherwise I barely pay attention to it.

When my parents first opened a Facebook account for me, they thought it was a pretty novel idea. Haha, look at that, a bear! Can you imagine? Bet nobody’s done that before!

We quickly learned that plenty of people had done it before. Within a day I had dozens of friend requests from stuffies of every animal species. I couldn’t keep up, and actually stopped accepting them. So much for being original.

Here’s my current FB friend breakdown (roughly):

  • 305 bears including pandas and koalas despite their differing chromosomal count
  • 166 other animals
  • 149 people
  • 24 friends/relatives of my parents
  • 45 deviants, including furries and inanimate objects (“Corporal James Shittington,” “Bill’s Toaster,” “Head of Bathroom Security,” etc.)

There’s considerable cross-pollination between categories—i.e. “Daemonic Bear” and “Archie Candypants” fall arbitrarily into the bear category, but they could just as easily be deviants.

You’d think the status updates would be pretty overwhelming, but it’s surprisingly quiet on my FB wall. That’s because most of the stuffie accounts are inactive; their humans opened the accounts many years ago for a giggle and never pursued it any further.

Which means most of the status updates I read are from Whingers, Likers, Lovers (thank you, DToS) and a few more additional ones that plague me in particular:

The Stuffie Lover. “Bunny wunny wuvz you, snuggwy wuggwy!” These animals have too much time on their paws. Like DToS’s Lovers, they favor the third-person. I wish they’d finally wear out the “W” key with their saccharine updates.

Posted to shock. Watch me shrug.

The Shock-Value Addict. “I’ve got a freshly scrubbed, clean-as-a-whistle anus.” Uh-huh.

Danglers. “Going for medical tests today…” Um, so do you want people to ask? Are you going to live?

Show-offs. “Four-course meal devoured and cleaned up, washing done, homework finished, kids in bed—ahhhh!” Congratulations. I guess I won’t call Child Services.

Threateners. “Time for a purge. If we haven’t talked lately, I’m unfriending you. Contact me if you want to stay.” OMG! How ignominious to be unfriended by you. Uh, who are you again?

Food Photographers. “Brining the turkey.” “Dogs on the barbie—mmmm!” I have no idea what some of these people look like, but for some reason I’ve seen their cookies.

Wingnuts who assume everyone shares their agenda. “Bleetched the sheat and dug out my pointty hat, y’all—who’s comming with?” Oh dear, when did I accept that friend request? I must have been on a red wine bender. Guess it’s time for a purge.

If you haven’t already checked out The Dissemination of Thought, what are you waiting for? Open a bottle of LAS MORAS TANNAT and sip contentedly. This wine won’t try to get your attention—it won’t distract you from this interesting and original blog.