liquor

Monday morning pick-me-up

My Fellow Inebriates,

I’m a big fan of Drinks Mixer, so I often find myself there on Monday morning looking for a pick-me-up. The question is, am I going to acquire any gin anytime soon?

You see, the random drink function on Drinks Mixer has commanded me to fix myself a Dick Cheney shooter. Now, this is a relatively new drink, originated by ShotDrinks.com eponymously after a certain hunting incident in the US, and containing these ingredients:

  • 1 part gin
  • 1 part lemon lime soda
  • 1/2 part rum
  • splash grenadine

Instructions say to use just enough grenadine to give the drink a reddish tint, not make it as “red as the blood that Dick Cheney inflicted on his hunting partner.” Ouch!

I don’t have any grenadine, so my drink—should my gin arrive today—is going to be bloodless, which is fine, because blood really, really freaks me out. Also, I don’t have a clue who Dick Cheney is. I’m just a bear, after all.

I spent a few minutes trying to contact him this morning but learned he is uncontactable (is that like “unaccountable”?). I thought, if I managed to get hold of him, I would ask him to send me some gin. But then I started worrying that he might have some bear-hunting experience and come after me. I would probably be easier to hit than a quail but slightly more difficult than Harry Whittington.

I started worrying about bears getting shot, then, and went ahead and resorted to drinking leftover Malibu, my fallback in a household where liquor shopping is not sufficiently prioritized and my cries for spirits go heedless. And through the Malibu blur I started wondering how I could help animals, especially animals staring down the barrel of a gun, punk animals who don’t feel so lucky. So I dicked around with my site a bit and learned that I could add a charity area that you guys can click on to support animals. I’m excited about being able to support the World Wildlife Fund, and I hope you’ll do your bit and click your support as well. Cheers, friends!

HAKUTSURU Excellent Junmai Sake

My Fellow Inebriates,

I’m so happy to have tasters share their liquor faves with me, and I was delighted to receive the following tasting notes from my friend Sophie:

LB, I started early and tasted something called sake. I am told it is a rice wine. I prefer to drink it hot. They pour it in little cups and you slam them down in one gulp. At least I did. Here’s what I’d say: Warms you up going down, makes you happy, tastes like booze. Oh, and you can drink a lot of it.

I love the fact that Sophie started early. Every day I wake up with a big jones for alcohol but sometimes feel a tad constrained by social mores and fail to get drinking early enough for my tastes. I think sake is a superb breakfast accompaniment, or substitute really—there’s something light about it that suggests morning.

I don’t know if Sophie started with HAKUTSURU Excellent Junmai Sake but it’s my first choice among the Japanese wines. It’s inexpensive and boasts a quite sufficient 15.5% alcohol content. But how does it taste?

Sake’s a tricky drink because preference is so individual about correct temperature. For Sophie it’s “hot” and for me it’s “very warm.” This is because I am so terrified of overheating it and accidentally burning off some of its valuable alcohol. But let’s say you have your little cup at the perfect temperature. Well, it’s going to cool down pretty fast, so you have a small window of time to drink it in its ideal state. So you slam it like my friend Sophie, and next thing you know, you need a refill. This can go on for quite a while, especially if you buy your HAKUTSURU in the 18L cubic container.

This rice wine is full-bodied but tastes deceptively light and dry. Whether you drink it warm or cold, it warms you as it goes down. Oh yeah, and it tastes like booze. As Sophie says, you can drink a lot of it, precisely because it is so subtle and inoffensive.

A lot of people recommend pairing sake with food, particularly spicy and savory food, and if you do so you’ll be able to get away with drinking more of it. But it’s a lovely beverage on its own.

Of course, overindulging in sake can lead to all sorts of inappropriate situations, so be careful, and make sure, when you go on a sake bender, that you’re with someone you like.

Beer Throw Up

I’m often intrigued by the way people arrive at this site. Yesterday a visitor landed here by googling “beer throw up.” As it happens, I’m thrilled to give you my two cents on how “beer” and “throwing up” are associated. But first a video illustration:

“Drunk guy throws up into beer and drinks again”

Too cool. Now, on to some specific questions that arise when you google “beer throw up”:

Is British beer designed to be thrown up? Good question. There’s a misconception that the British enjoy warm beer, the thought of which might make a North American upchuck. Fact is, British brews are often served at cellar temperature (10-14°C) so their flavors can be better discerned by the drinker. Not super-cold, certainly, but not disgustingly warm either. And not actually designed to make you throw up—but if you feel like throwing up, by all means throw up. Then you get to drink more.

Why does beer make me throw up? Beer contains alcohol, which has a depressive effect on parts of the brain. A human body metabolizes about one drink an hour, so anything above that contributes toward intoxication. Since technically alcohol is a toxin, the body will do its best to process it, but it may reach a saturation point and send everything spewing out. The more you drink, the more practiced your liver will become at processing the alcohol.

Throwing up when drinking beer? Trust me, I love drinking to excess, but beer is meant to be enjoyed for its taste just as much as its buzz. Try nursing your beer and you should be able to keep it all down. Pound it when you start getting bored.

How long can I binge drink before suffering negative effects? Tricky question. Since I started binge drinking my fur has become very matted and I often have what my parents and girlfriend describe as “dead eyes.” I can live with these things, so I figure I can keep binging for a while. Be your own judge; you probably can last a bit longer too.

How can I keep from getting that drunk again? First off, how drunk do you mean? If you were that drunk then you surely have no recollection what got you there—how many drinks, the pacing, what you ate, your hydration level, etc. So you’ll probably be that drunk again one of these days. Just make sure you have some painkillers handy for the next day.

What’s a good bottle of red wine you recommend? I really like J. Lohr for value/quality and RECOMMEND the Seven Oaks Cabernet Sauvignon.