review

ESCORIHUELA 1884 RESERVADO SYRAH (2009)

The house was feeling downright funereal, and wine seemed in order. One of my visitors had urged an Argentine malbec upon me recently. No objections here, so I hustled my mum out the door to fetch one.

She really took her bloody time. I had to distract myself by reading the news, which filled me with paranoia and dread—especially this item, http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/11/05/MN3V1LOKC9.DTL, about an asteroid that will barely (bearly) miss us next Tuesday. If only I’d been able to contact my miserable parent to exhort her to get three or four bottles so we could have a properly apocalyptic evening.

Unfortunately restraint ruled the day, and she returned with one wine bottle, and not a malbec (she was not to be, seemingly, commanded by a 7-inch ursine alcoholic) but a syrah, albeit from Argentina as per my instructions. Fair enough.

Scientists tell us very casually that asteroids skirt our atmosphere by mere hundreds of thousands of miles every decade or so. OMG, people. I had no idea. I thought the main threats to my life were young children bent on torture. I thought I might get accidentally beheaded one day maybe, or lose an eye. But here we have massive rocks the size of city blocks careening toward us with a frequency I couldn’t have imagined.

I asked my friend Scarybear if he knew about such things. He told me to chill out and added that I am a “retard.”

So when the wine came back I was relieved. I just had to endure some DTs throughout dinner/bedtime and we were on.

The 1884 RESERVADO syrah (2009) had a real cork, something I hadn’t seen in a while, and of course yet another reminder of my limitations vis a vis dexterity.

Perhaps my favorite aspect of this wine was that it was perfect out of the gate. No need to decant—my tremors bowed instantly to this supple, intensely violet, complex syrah.

As the wine opened up it revealed ripe black fruit, hints of mocha and vanilla, and lovely, balanced tannins. Aged in French and American oak for eight months, this wine lingers on the tongue with an unforgettable intensity.

And at $16.99 it’s an absolute steal: the sort of wine I RECOMMEND buying by the case—the sort of wine I’ll be hitting Santa up for this Christmas.

By the time we finished this bottle I didn’t even care about that stupid asteroid. But I’m still preoccupied with my thumblessness. Find me an invention so I can open bottles, people, and I’ll be yours forever.

BEEFEATER Gin

BEEFEATER gin seems to hold a lot of reminiscences for just about everyone I meet. Perhaps because it’s so ubiquitous, or perhaps because it’s just that good. But chances are, if you’ve had a G&T at any reputable booze hole, it was made with BEEFEATER.

I went to the corporate website (drunk) and found it almost unnavigable, so without benefit of its wisdom I’ll give you my tasting impressions.

BEEFEATER is the most juniper-laced gin I’ve ever tried. In addition to juniper it contains eight other botanicals, the perfect choreography of which dates back to the 1860s when founder James Burrough perfected the recipe.

This sort of pedigree would make me feel comfortable drinking gin with the very elderly. If I were invited to an old-age home to entertain the residents, I’d take along some BEEFEATER and feel absolutely immune from any grey-haired judgment. After all, it was the drink for our elders back in the day, and chances are your granny and granddad were lit up on BEEFEATER all day long.

As forthright as its crazy botanical assortment of flavors is, BEEFEATER is one smooth gin. It won’t ravage your throat, it won’t suddenly disgust you, and it won’t make you thoroughly ill the next day.

If, long ago, you ever managed to sneak a sip from a doddering relative’s gin & tonic, chances are it was garnished with lemon. That’s the English way and perfectly lovely; the North American translation is with lime, and that’s great too. The Liquorstore Bear way is to use both, or any, or neither. With the LB method, tonic is optional too.

My dad thinks of gin as a summer drink and has therefore refused to buy me any, so I am going to appeal to BEEFEATER Corporate to send me some of their newer BEEFEATER 24 product to review for you. I will mention the difficulty I had navigating their website while hosed in the hopes that this will persuade them of my seriousness as a reviewer and my commitment to their beautiful gin. And of course I will assure them that I will in all likelihood RECOMMEND it alongside the tried-and-true original. Wish me luck, humans.

POLAR ICE Vodka

My Fellow Inebriates,

I was attracted to POLAR ICE for obvious reasons. With a bear on the label, you can’t go wrong. With its reasonable price and plastic mickey, POLAR ICE struck me as unpretentious and safely shatterproof—not to mention as bear-friendly as a vodka can get without devising some sort of opening mechanism for thumbless bears who lack grip strength.

So my first order of business this week was to procure a bottle of POLAR ICE and reel around with it.

For twelve bucks ($24 for 750 mL) I expected something on the rough side, and so my first taste of POLAR ICE was a shock, albeit a clean, refreshing one. This is a smooth, smooth vodka, quadruple-distilled from rye, and the sort of spirit that easily disappears into a mixer. This is exactly the sort of vodka that gets bears into trouble.

And so I plied my friend Glen Bear with some POLAR ICE. Now, Glen is a genuine polar bear; he’s big and brawny and goes around on all fours. Permanently infantile and for IQ purposes pushing the high 20s, Glen is as dumb an animal as you can find. But I thought it fitting to share my vodka with a lovable polar bear, and Glen was hanging around, drooling slightly.

Glen loved it. If I’d had any doubts about embracing this cheap(ish) vodka, they were vanquished watching Glen lumber drunkenly around the house after lapping POLAR ICE out of a bowl.

You have to be careful with polar bears, I realize now. I should have remembered my mum has this friend whose dad was in the armed forces up north, and one time he saw a polar bear trying to take down a helicopter while holding a seal under its arm. They are powerful creatures and you really don’t want to get them too f#cked up. So I had to comfort Glen a little, and spoon with him until he got himself under control.

All in all, another good adventure, and good reason to RECOMMEND this product.