rum

ASTROLIQUOR for January 25-31

My  Fellow Inebriates,

Once again, because my typist is fucking me over of a curious confluence of star clusters, nebulae, and other drivel, you get an abbreviated reading consolidating the star signs and giving you no proper guidance for the week ahead (or at least five days of it, because this horoscope is late).

Wow! You’re thinking: That’s awesome. LB’s readings are usually so thorough and spot-on that they freak me out. I’d much rather have this vague analysis of ALL SIGNS TOGETHER so I don’t have to hide this week or invest all my money in some email-based Ugandan network-marketing scheme and/or artisanal gin collection.

All you really need to know this week, MFI, is that Mars, that shit-disturbing, bar-fighting planet, is in several aspects with our planet. I don’t know what the hell that means therefore urge you to stay away from knives, guns, tools, Home Depot, and any Martha Stewart–inspired crafts involving hot glue. You don’t want those kinds of weapons on you this week, because Mars is all about fucking your shit up. This is an excellent week to stay AWAY from bars lest you stumble into a fight. I know, I know…that seems counterintuitive, but think about it, MFI: you can buy at least three times the alcohol at the liquor store that you could in a bar. Here’s what to shop for:

Aries:

Grey Goose and Alize Bleu liqueur. Maybe some cranberry juice to go with it, but only if you have a urinary tract infection.

Taurus:

Bacardi Big Apple and butterscotch schnapps. Whatever you do, don’t dissolve a bag of gummy bears in the rum. (Why would you?)

Gemini:

If you’re going to stay home, take the time to make something interesting. Vodka with fresh lemon, freshly ground pepper, olives, and soda.

Cancer:

Stock up on obscure liqueurs with all that cash you save by not going to the bar. Do you have Midori Melon and Leblon Cachaca? No?? However do you drink gingerale without those things?

Leo:

Of all the signs you will have the biggest urge to go to the bar and punch someone. Make yourself a silly drink instead: Malibu, Stoli, and Midori Melon with whipped cream in a hollowed-out pineapple. Will concocting that increase or decrease your frustration?

Virgo:

You are at moderate risk for scurvy. Solution: orange vodka with orange juice and soda. Or just orange vodka.

Libra:

Here’s a weird one for you. Brandy (carefully) blended up with grapefruit juice, honey, and an egg. Sounds like a damn fine breakfast.

Scorpio:

Tequila is still working for you, Scorpio. This time mix it with Kahlua and add enough half-and-half to turn it sort of a Scarybear hue.

Sagittarius:

Spiced rum, Blue Curacao, and Squirt. No worries.

Capricorn:

I know I said no tools but you need the blender…so be very careful. Vodka, Blue Curacao, raspberry schnapps, melon liqueur, and margarita mix. DON’T STICK YOUR HAND IN WHILE IT’S RUNNING! THAT’S THE PLANET MARS TRYING TO GET YOU TO DO THAT. DON’T LET THE PLANET MARS MESS WITH YOU!

Aquarius:

Chill out with some Cachaca. You don’t even need to combine it with anything.

Pisces:

My neighbors still have a pumpkin sitting on their porch. Do you have neighbors like that? Take the pumpkin, hollow it out, and put some rum, gingerale, and apple cider in it. Party for one (until the cops come).

ASTROLIQUOR for January 4-10 (2013!)—What the stars say you should drink!

My Fellow Inebriates,

Here’s your booze horoscope:

Aries, someone—probably a Cancer—will move away without telling you. You’ll clue in after they’ve gone, then spend a week halfheartedly stalking them on the Internet. Thing is, your life is better with this person out of it. Work’s more productive, and even when it’s not, your Alt/Tab reflexes are at their best. Forget about that Cancer! Here’s how: Find four kinds of schnapps and mix them in equal parts, then match what you’ve got with tequila. Oblivion!

Taurus, your memory dropouts will come back to haunt you this week when an old friend reappears—and you can’t remember who the hell the person is. Do your best to recall; this is an interesting friend who can help you professionally. I see you two staying up all night drinking Red Bull with raspberry vodka—all before you have a clue what this person’s name is. Good times.

You have a nutty way of looking at the world, Gemini, and much of the time people don’t “get” you. This week, however, the stars forecast understanding and communication, so do whatever you want; no one will judge you. On Saturday you’ll party with an elderly person. Make sure you telephone later; this person doesn’t have Internet (OMG!). Here’s your party mix:

  • 3 oz rum
  • 3 oz chocolate liqueur
  • 3 oz Irish cream
  • 1 oz milk

Cancer, don’t grumble about your misfortunes. Load up on peach schnapps and confront the person causing them. Guaranteed it’s a Capricorn or a Virgo. If you think this will end badly, you may be surprised. This person has wisdom you don’t even know about. Saturday’s the best day to pick up another Cancer. Try the Walmart section where they sell mesh underwear bags.

Leo, there’s a Pisces you’d love to get naked with, but only if they’ll promise not to talk. Not a good start, but if your junk has its way you’ll end up pursuing this not-very-satisfying relationship. Distract yourself with professional activities. This should remove you from temptation, unless of course you’re in the world’s oldest profession. Your drink?

  • 2 oz vodka
  • 1 oz creme de noyaux
  • 1 oz cherry brandy
  • Cream to taste (I say none)

Virgo, you get the urge to take on extra work, but be careful. Your douchebag colleagues are only too glad to offload their projects. Only do what really interests you. Fact is, you don’t really have to work at all. On Monday you’ll probably win the lottery, and then you can tell everybody to shove it. That’s the day you arrive in a Ferrari and a Starbucks laced with 80-proof rum. You deserve it, you hard worker.

Libra, you’ll replace some of your boring friends with new people this week. As a Libra you won’t feel fickle for doing this; the stars ordain that you should jettison old friends for fascinating new ones. The result will be scintillating conversations and financial opportunities, mondo creativity, and the worst freaking hangover you ever endured. That’s what happens when fascinating new people fill your bathtub with blackberry schnapps and creme de cacao.

Are you feeling gloomy, Scorpio? The stars call for happy orange drinks with lashings of Grand Marnier and orange Curacao. Get sufficiently lit up on this sunny combo and take a beachside walk. You’ll meet a nudist enjoying the bracing January day, and the two of you will enjoy a unique romance throughout January and February.

Sagittarius, you don’t like asking for help, although you often take advantage of family members. This week you’ll need to muster the courage to seek help from a colleague—a nasty bugger who’s always nitpicking your work and busting you for being on Facebook. Loosen this dickhead up with a flask of vodka and Jagermeister—or better yet, save it for yourself.

You’ve grown emotionally, Capricorn, and this ramps up your social appeal. Which will you choose to get naked with—Virgo or Scorpio? And if that’s not the sign of your existing partner, get ready for some turbulence, ’cause the stars say you’re doing this thing. No doubt gin martinis will play a role, but don’t have too many. You need to get up early to visit garage sales. There’s a priceless antique waiting for you to find it.

Aquarius, you feel happy and clever, having solved a challenging intellectual problem. What a brainiac! In fact, you might have too many brain cells. Give them some rum. Once you dumb yourself down you’ll have a vapid flirtation with a neighbor following a ridiculous conversation about lawn fertilizer. Your brain cells will be terribly conflicted, but your naughty bits will like it.

Pisces, there are all sorts of hidden meanings in your mail. Read it carefully! Add up the vowels and consonants; see if there’s a code. You know this isn’t paranoid; there are people out there (mostly Cancers) dedicated to messing with your head. Don’t worry, though, most of them are harmless. The other ones you can invite over for an Everclear party. They need Everclear because it can stop their synapses from making wacky connections between random bits of information. Remember to go outside at least once this week.

Balls!

My Fellow Inebriates,

Our Canadian Cream is almost ready for consumption. Not that we haven’t had a small sip already, but at the end of this week it should be as good as it’s going to get—i.e., ready to chug. I have a few nagging worries, though.

Canadian Cream Label copyWhen we made the liqueur, we bought a one-litre carton of whipping cream. Two and a half cups went into the mix, my mum put half a cup or so in some solid-food risotto-like thing, and the rest sat in the fridge with nothing to do. Recycling day came along and, since the unused cream was two days away from expiry, we gave it a sniff. OMG! Holy shit, people! That cream smelled rank. Holy crap, two days early the stuff was horrid. Mum poured it down the drain and rinsed the carton…but it was hard not to look at our giant Canadian Cream jug and think…the same cream’s in there! OMG!

That’s really the reason we got into it early—to make sure it wasn’t off. You wouldn’t want to take a big slug of sour milk products and end up barfing. But it smelled fine. It tasted fine.

Alcohol keeps food from going off.

So what is this amazing preservative power of alcohol all about? How does it work?

Simply put, alcohol is poisonous. At concentrations above 15 percent, bacteria and fungi can’t survive. That having been said, cream-liqueur experts advise against keeping homemade concoctions more than a few weeks, and only then in the fridge. Roger that—we’d better finish this shit now. Review…on the way 😉

To this sage advice, my mum said, “Oh. I guess we’d better not make another batch then. It’ll be enough to get through this lot.”

This is exactly the opposite of what I meant. Of course we should make another batch. Right now.

But instead she said we were going to make whisky balls.

rum balls

I was immediately suspicious. Another recipe requiring us to cook with booze? OMG! The angels’ share is supposed to be miniscule—the tiny portion that evaporates naturally, not liberal gases spewing into the air from a hot saucepan. Damn it, why do the angels get any of our booze? Aren’t they supposed to be perfect creatures? Not addicts jonesing in distillery cask rooms.

“Relax,” said my mother. “Behave yourself.”

Apparently you don’t cook whisky balls.

They’re just like rum balls, which you don’t cook either—only they’re made by people who are too ungenerous to buy rum for loveable bears who have repeatedly requested it. Whisky balls are a not-horrible-sounding variation on rum balls. Let’s do this shit.

Here’s what we need:
  • 3 ¼ cups vanilla wafer crumbs
  • ¾ cup icing sugar
  • ¼ cup cocoa
  • 1 ½ cup walnuts 
  • 3 tbsp light corn syrup
  • ½ cup whisky

Life is a compromise at LBHQ, so we’re using graham crumbs. We have to do this without Miss V seeing, or she will demand a bowlful of them (not that she would deign to eat a graham cracker).

Next two ingredients: check.

Walnuts…the kids will bitch a very great deal if walnuts go into this recipe. But perhaps they shouldn’t be the arbiters of our whisky-ball ingredients.

Corn syrup is one of those things that doesn’t age, and ours is probably older than I am. We’re going to use it anyway.

As for throwing half a cup of Canadian whisky into this recipe…what the hell. The plastic Wiser’s jug is enormous and its somewhat atonal siren song has been relentless lately—better do something with it other than just pound it. Sigh.

rum ball mixingOkay, so you really just mix all this stuff up and shape it into balls. (OMG, I’m not even allowed to help with that—what’s the big deal, a little fur?) Then you sequester your balls away for a few days in an airtight container so the flavor can mellow. Five days is about ideal. But it’s hard to be away from your balls for five days. You might find yourself opening the container and sniffing your balls every so often, wondering if they’re ripe.

Whisky or whiskey balls?

If your balls are Scottish, Canadian, or Japanese, they’re whisky balls.

If your balls are American or Irish, they’re whiskey balls. As a rule of thumb, if your country has an “e” in the spelling, so does your whisk(e)y and any balls made therefrom.