parenting

PAUL & PHILIPPE ZINCK PINOT BLANC (2009)—On the agenda, if not P’s Show-and-Tell program

My Fellow Inebriates,

Even though my dad is too cool to tuck me in at night, I miss him when he goes away. So does my mum, although we both agree it benefits our beer inventory.

My dad wasn’t going to share his team-building golf week agenda with the bears but, when I snooped around in his luggage the night before his departure, I found a cheap bottle of Scotch (unopenable), oodles of electronic gadgetry, and no clothes. Either there is another bag (full of who-knows-what goodies) or this week’s team building will be done naked.

I also found a printout of a PowerPoint slide for a presentation my dad’s doing to explain his new role at the company. It has four quadrants:

  1. Current activity
  2. Upcoming activity
  3. Challenges
  4. Opportunities

Like a flash it struck me that I could justify my own activities similarly. Justifying the LBHQ enterprise might get me closer to the bar of my dreams.

These ideas were pinging back and forth between my two brain cells when Miss P proposed taking me to Show-and-Tell. This coaxed my mum’s head out of Facebook to ask pointedly: “What exactly would you tell your class about LB?”

Giggle giggle. “About how he loves wine.”

Damn straight I love wine. This kid knows me well and I’m sure she’d have done me proud at Show-and-Tell, advertising the existence of Liquorstore Bear to the spawns of a parental demographic often described as “Bible Belt.”

Alas, my mother killed the idea. “Why don’t you show your new bike helmet?” Then hastily: “But don’t let any other kids try it on! We have to be careful about lice.”

Killjoy! We might love lice! Maybe if we brought home some lice my mum would vacuum! Bleach the sheets! Wash the—OMG!—wash the stuffies, AAARRRGHHHHH!!! No!!! My brain had misfired again with that thought, but there was no changing things now.

So P brought the helmet, which was or was not a hit with her cohort—she didn’t say, having moved on by end of day to other notions.

“LB, your blog is utterly, utterly narcissistic.”
—my mother

Had I received my 15 minutes of Grade One fame I would have told the class about PAUL & PHILIPPE ZINCK PINOT BLANC (2009), purchased by my mum in a typically petulant “do it myself” Mother’s Day mood. She wanted something that would pair with peanut-lime pork and coconut rice, and my dad is flummoxed about white wine period, never mind white-wine/food-pairing puzzles. Since my mum is almost as much of a white wine rube, she leant upon our local booze shop consultant to recommend the pinot blanc.

Billed as creamy and structured with orchard/citrus notes and lingering spice, ZINCK PINOT BLANC is a no-brainer complement to delicate flavors. Now, if only my mother produced delicate flavors in the kitchen…

She doesn’t, so let’s talk about the pinot on its own merit.

ZINCK PINOT BLANC doesn’t disappoint the nose, although if anything the notes are more tropical than orchard-like. As it sits, deep straw-colored in the glass, it wafts faraway scents that suggest humidity, scorching heat and heady refreshment, sun-soaked naked bodies that don’t resemble my dad teeing off in his birthday suit… There is, in the distant background, a hint of ginger perhaps—just enough to make you wonder whether you imagined it.

My parents’ prevailing fear of trying white wines no doubt harkens back to surreptitious childhood sips of Domaine D’Or and Sommet Blanc. If their parents intended to poison them against white wine, it worked. So whenever we do get a white in the house, they’re gobsmacked if it’s any good. The main thing they suspect white wines are missing is substance. This made ZINCK PINOT BLANC a good choice, weighing in at a respectable 12.5% alcohol and exhibiting both heft and depth. Slightly off-dry, this pinot’s character develops as the wine edges up from fridge temperature, revealing mineral subtleties and a satisfying mouthfeel.

It was perhaps a little too substantial for a Thai food pairing. Definitely beyond my philistine parents—but nonetheless a hit all around.

The newest agenda item: get more of it.

Art—giving meaning to life when there’s no booze in the house

My Fellow Inebriates,

Life without art—at least while sober—would be absolutely meaningless.

Contemplating the print Dan Lacey kindly sent me

 

I love the idea of lurching around an art gallery with a drink in hand (paw).

LBHQ has turned into a bit of an art gallery over the last few years. You can’t see the walls any more.

“A great artist is always before his time or behind it.”
—George Edward Moore

“All art is but imitation of nature.”
—Lucius Annaeus Seneca

“Every artist was first an amateur.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Art is spirituality in drag.”
—Jennifer Yane

“To send light into the darkness of men’s hearts—such is the duty of the artist.”
—Robert Schumann

“Things are beautiful if you love them.”
—Jean Anouilh

“I think an artist’s responsibility is more complex than people realize.”
—Jodie Foster

“The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.”
—Aristotle

“By the work one knows the workman.”
—Jean de la Fontaine

“An artist is somebody who produces things that people don’t need to have.”
—Andy Warhol

“No great artist ever sees things as they really are.”
—Oscar Wilde

“The arts are an even better barometer of what is happening in our world than the stock market or the debates in congress.”
—Hendrik Willem Van Loon

“The waking mind is the least serviceable in the arts.”
—Henry Miller

WHISKEY JACK ALE—5%, but still not for four-year-olds

It occurred to me today that Miss V is getting pretty strong.

Maybe she could help me open some bottles. Would it be so reckless to ask her?

Naturally our mum walked in the second I did ask her.

Where the hell are these kids’ parents?

I blamed Max & Ruby for corrupting us. Whatever those stupid bunnies had been doing on TV, it had reminded us of alcohol.

Even though my mother believes that Max & Ruby’s insipid plotlines and relentless gender stereotyping are definitively corrupting, she didn’t buy this excuse. If anything, Max & Ruby might suggest the Women’s Temperance Movement or the Tea Party. The show could lobotomize a child.

Thankfully it hasn’t turned V into a vegetable yet. She’s got some smarts about her, which is why—when my mother went out of earshot—I suggested we play mixology. She could measure and stir and shake and pour and add ice cubes…and open bottles with her strong little thumb-equipped hands.

I had this bottle in mind. I thought the preserved larva hanging out in the bottom would appeal to V. Just yesterday she stood spellbound watching ants attack a centipede. Why wouldn’t she want to get her hands on a mescal-saturated arthropod? She could play with it while I pounded its mind-altering marinade.

“Why don’t you stop being a pest and review another Whistler Brewing Co. beer?” said our killjoy mother.

Whether she wanted to wreck our fun or discourage V’s possible nascent interest in entomology I don’t know. She wouldn’t be able to handle a kid dissecting worms on the kitchen table, that’s for sure.

I didn’t really want to think about an amber ale like WHISKEY JACK ALE with our fridge crying out for a refill. Not with the mescal bottle so tantalizingly close. But here goes.

Another member of Whistler Brewing Company’s Travel Pack, WHISKEY JACK is a dark-amber ale with apeshit fizz and an ecru head that vanishes in seconds. The title is very appealing and suggestive, especially with INNIS & GUNN OAK AGED BEER lingering in recent memory, but upon pouring there’s no aromatic suggestion of barrel treatment.

I’ve come to think of Whistler Brewing Company beers as having a watery taste, and WHISKEY JACK is no exception. Billed as a session ale for those who like to convene with their beers rather than just drink them, this ale seems from the first sip to be missing something. Oak barreling certainly. Decent ABV indeed (it’s 5%). The smell is mildly wheaty/bready with a little caramel, suggesting more bakery than distillery.

In the mouth there’s a bit of disharmony between its sweet and bitter tones, with earthy hops pushing their way through the back of the palate while you’re still wondering about the oak. The mouthfeel is inadequate for an ale but refreshing nonetheless. If you’re thirsty, no complaints. If you’re having a session, you’ll probably bitch. Not that you would bitch, my fellow inebriates—you are all awesome.

What else can be said? Slightly puzzling but minor dischord among the flavors, thin-to-medium mouthfeel with aforementioned wateriness, and paltry alcohol. In short, well worth pounding a case all at once, and less likely to make you sick than a bottle of mescal.