vodka

ASTROLIQUOR for Feb. 24 to March 1—What the stars say you should drink!

My Fellow Inebriates,

Here’s your booze horoscope:

Aries, you are missing out on valuable REM sleep. Try to meditate during your daytime pre-drinking hours. See if you can go into a dreaming state, then write everything down that you see. You’ll be surprised at the creative thoughts churning around in your head. Those ideas want to get out of your head, but they have to swim through a lot of Smirnoff.

Taurus, your mornings are pretty rough this week—aches, pains, tremors. A nice steam bath will fix you up and, one would hope, involve washing that vodka sweat off…so hurry and do it, because your colleagues expect you to deliver a big presentation. OMG, can you hold it together with a headful of Absolut and Cointreau? Let positive thoughts wash over you. Make your presentation as vapid and catchword-laden as possible. Your audience will cheer and invite you out for more drinks.

Relationships are evolving, Gemini, and generally for the better. You’re figuring out what people mean to you, and which Facebook friends you can jettison. This will help you focus at work and give you more time to enjoy gin with coconut cream. Meanwhile, there’s a very seductive Capricorn making your fur stand on end. Be careful…your partner knows all about it. Better make sure you have extra gin.

Cancer, if you’ve been single for a while, this week features an exciting new fling. But if you’re in a long-term relationship, you’ll be yawning a bit. Those of you in the former category, enjoy. Those of you in the latter category, enjoy this:

  • 2 oz dark rum
  • 2 oz light rum
  • 2 oz whiskey
  • 1/4 cup creme de cacao
  • 4 oz cream of coconut

Blend and pour over crushed ice. This is as interesting as it’s gonna get for you this week, so get busy.

Leo, a friend who’s into charitable works will ask you for help with a cause this week. Your impulse is to say yes, throw aside your work, family and all other considerations, and help your friend. That’s cool, but make sure it’s a real charity you’re helping. You don’t want to commit your time to sewing pointy white hats or collecting Richard Dawkins books for an anti-evolution bonfire. The best way to avoid this sort of bad judgment is to break out the rum the moment you wake up. Then keep pouring it in your coffee all day. Ahhhh! When your friend phones, you won’t even be able to form the word “hello.”

Why are you letting yourself get trodden on, Virgo? Normally you’re pretty good at taking care of yourself, but this week brings insecurity and obsessive compulsiveness. The little details overwhelm you, and you lose focus on boundaries. Just like Leo, the best way to avoid being taken advantage of is to hole up inside with a strong drink. I see you lying on the kitchen floor, 12 parts Jagermeister and six parts apple vodka swirling around your brain. If that’s not being the captain of your soul, I don’t know what is.

Libra, your recent pessimism has taken a hike, and skies look blue to you now. Everything is going your way, your energy is bubbling, and you feel safe and secure. Naturally this makes you magnetic to others. Saturday will bring plenty of admirers, including one who’s willing to split a bottle of bourbon with you. Go for it.

The stars are influencing you positively this week, Scorpio. The social calendar looks good, especially Thursday, and you’re fielding attractive invitations to dinner. It’s tempting to order everything on the menu, and not such a bad idea if you want to absorb alcohol and stay alert dessert, which is, naturally, a liquid suggestion:

  • 5 oz espresso vodka
  • 2 oz chocolate liqueur
  • Hershey’s syrup to taste

Sagittarius, although you’ve been vehemently in favor of one strategy at work, this week you’ll do an about-face, causing everyone to wonder if you are a lush. But you’re not the only screw-up at work. So you freak out and let everyone have it! You belittle your colleagues: the weak links, the laggards, the busybodies—everybody. Then you pull a big bottle of Bombay Sapphire out of your desk drawer and openly shake it up with some vermouth in your Starbucks mug. Wow! Unforeseen holiday for you.

You’re fed up with the slow pace at work, Capricorn. But even though you feel you should be further ahead in your career, your colleagues respect and appreciate you. They don’t see your insecurities because you mask them so well behind a constant, some would say shit-eating, rye-whiskey-fueled grin.

Aquarius, a long-hoped-for meeting will take place this week. But you may be disappointed with the other person; he/she can’t possibly live up to your expectations. This will strain the relationship, leading to a mutual bender involving vodka, rum, and whatever else you two can think of to make each other more tolerable. Try Midori Melon liqueur—it gives everyone a happy sheen.

Pisces, there’s no sense getting angry at that coworker who swiped your Kool-Aid/vodka/rum concoction from the communal fridge. Although your boss may back you up, he/she will also remember the incident, when really you should maintain a low profile. You’ll need it for the next time the cops come into your workplace looking for you. You want to be that guy whose name the boss doesn’t remember.

ASTROLIQUOR for Feb. 17-23—What the stars say you should drink!

My Fellow Inebriates,

Here’s your booze horoscope:

You’ll meet some very compelling people on your next holiday, Aries—and within a few drinks you’ll feel as though you’ve known them forever. But familiarity breeds contempt, and nothing makes fellow vacationers so mutually contemptuous as cleaning up each other’s barf after an orgy featuring whipped-cream-flavored Smirnoff (yes, it exists; somebody send me some).

Taurus, you are super-pissed this week. Somebody is getting on your nerves, and you’re winding up to let ’em have it. You need to step back and see how inconsequential this person is. Look deeper, and you’ll see that somebody else (perhaps somebody non-irritating) is setting you up for a fall. OMG! How will you see it coming with all that vodka in your system? Dilute it with some lemonade; that should clear things up for you.

You tend to fret about time management, Gemini, but if you fixate on the minutes, the years will actually pass you by. Instead of entering items into your calendar, book yourself a day (or several) that you can devote exclusively to drinking. But you have to shake up your routine! Get three shot glasses and fill them up with whiskey, rum, and vodka. Put them aside while you pour a pint glass two-thirds full. Now, light the shot glasses on fire. YEAH! Dump them, glasses and all, into the pint glass, then pound the whole flaming thing while there’s still head on the beer. YES! When you seek out a recovery beverage at Starbucks the next day, you will meet someone nice.

It’s difficult for you to distinguish between love and sex lately, Cancer, but you’re beginning to wonder if it matters. Your latest pursuit is a fellow Cancer who shares this confusion. This makes for hot-cold relations as you each vacillate between caring and not caring for each other. Sounds like alcohol could help! Break out the Jack and combine it with an equal portion of cognac. Whatever amount that makes, double it again with Captain Morgan. Pound it! Now you know it really doesn’t matter.

Leo, it’s time to think about becoming a regular on the psychiatrist’s couch instead of racking up more phone-sex debt. Those phone-sex workers are not trained analysts, you know. They may service a lot of fetishes but they’ve never heard of Freud. Maybe you need to seek a higher power?… Psych! It’s alcohol you need. Did you know they make vanilla vodka? It’s awesome with blueberry juice.

You’re due for an enriching experience, Virgo, but where it will come from is a mystery. It could be a chance meeting, or it could be something you orchestrate. Whichever way, you will learn something from it. Even if it’s just how to make a Hot Damn:

  • 0.5 oz rum
  • 0.5 oz vodka
  • 0.25 oz Canadian whiskey
  • 1 oz orange juice

Shake it up with ice. If you have a few of these it will relax you, and you will have a paranormal experience.

Libra, someone is trying to persuade you to do something, but you’re not ready. The power struggle will continue until late April, when everything will become clear (or your friend will become tired). Until then, you will have to rely on brandy to give you insight. Mix it with everything! Pour it on your cereal.

The stars are very specific for you, Scorpio. March will feature new opportunities, but you should pursue them on the 10th or the 25th if you want them to work out. These would be good days for job interviews or even a health check-up. This leaves all the other days in March free for drinking vodka and Mountain Dew. Isn’t it great when the stars line up?

Sagittarius, sometimes you are oversensitive, and this week you feel like a target for criticism. But is it all in your head? It’s difficult to know when your head is full of vodka and blueberry schnapps (which might actually be the source of criticism, from coworkers for instance). Still, you might just be paranoid, which is inevitable after many years of constant inebriation.

Your feelings are a little unsteady this week, Capricorn. Just like Sagittarius, you’re starting to think everything is a personal attack, when it’s really just all the rum and vodka swishing around your brain cells. Someone will tell you a juicy secret this week. It’ll be very hard to keep it, but luckily you’ll be slurring your words too badly to let it out of the bag.

Aquarius, your best day is Saturday, mainly because you’ve been fighting with a colleague at work and you could use a weekend without some douchebag in your face. Spend the weekend in bed with a bottle of wine, or get adventurous and mix a big punchbowl full of rum, gin, vodka, and Pernod. Obviously, Sunday’s gonna suck.

Pisces, you’re still employed, which is always cause for celebration. Everything is going so well for you that you’re actually getting a little soft. You’re letting down your guard and inviting weird people into your home—fun! Make them some blender drinks; weird people always love those. How about Bailey’s, bananas, ice cream, and coconut milk? Then you won’t need supper.

13 essential minerals and how to get them by drinking

My family seems possessed by grocery shopping. While our liquor supplies languish pathetically, they constantly introduce new solid foods to the house. Bran flakes, chicken broth, peanut butter, pasta, almonds—it’s like a cult of macronutrients.

Do we really need all this solid food?

In an effort to get my parents to pinch off more than a few budgetary dollars each week for alcohol, I delved into the science of nutrition. And good news, my fellow inebriates! It turns out you can get all 13 essential minerals from alcoholic drinks.

Potassium

People typically find this necessary electrolyte in foods such as bananas, tomatoes and potatoes. What about a Bloody Mary with a banana schnapps chaser? Tada!

Chlorine

Without chlorine, the stomach can’t produce acid, nor can the cells conduct their osmotic functions optimally. Put some salt around the rim of that margarita glass.

Sodium

Working in tandem with potassium, sodium is necessary to regulate adenosine triphosphate, a critical factor in intracellular energy transfer. The best way to get it is to include salt with those tequila shots.

Calcium

This workhorse mineral builds bone, supports blood cell synthesis, and is crucial for muscular, cardiovascular and digestive health. Alcoholics need even more calcium than regular people because their damaged livers have difficulty converting vitamin D to the active form necessary for absorbing calcium. This makes Bailey’s Irish Cream important.

Phosphorus

Another component of bones, phosphorus is involved in multiple bodily functions, and found in grains such as oats, wheat and rice. Sounds like beer!

Magnesium

Another mineral that works with a buddy (calcium), magnesium contributes to bone health and ATP functions. Sources include nuts and cocoa. I’m thinking crème de cacao.

Zinc

Your body needs traces of zinc to manufacture important enzymes such as liver alcohol dehydrogenase, responsible for processing alcohol. (Did you know your body makes its own continuous supply of alcohol? You need zinc to break it down.) You can find zinc in an array of foods. How about a whiskey?

Iron

Traces of iron keep anemia at bay. Guinness has famously been prescribed to maintain iron levels (and B vitamins).

Manganese

Another player in enzymatic functions, manganese turns up in many foods, notably grains such as spelt and brown rice. How about some sake?

Copper

Just a trace keeps your body happily making enzymes. Nuts, seeds and grains such as barley contain copper, making beer your metabolic best friend.

Iodine

A tiny amount prevents goiter and boosts the immune, salivary and digestive systems while conferring some antioxidant benefits. Make your daiquiri strawberry, and don’t forget to salt the rim.

Selenium

This trace mineral combats oxidative DNA damage—the sort of free-radical damage that occurs when you pummel your liver regularly. Nuts are a good source—what better excuse to dive into the macadamia nut liqueur?

Molybdenum

If you want to continue catalyzing oxygen, you need a teeny tiny trace of molybdenum. And that’s what a Bloody Caesar is for. 😉