In Praise of Soda Water

Oh sweet clear bubbling, sugar-free solvent. How much you have changed my consumption habits! No longer do I wake with teeth fuzzed and rotted from saccharine drinking, nor do I jitter and vibrate through the evening, my blood-sugar rammed through the ceiling. You mix so well with everything from vodka to whiskey to even high-grade rum. You bubble happily away, bringing aromas to my nose, and you are available at every corner store or bar or watering hole I ever visit.

Here's to you soda water!

Absinthe!! ZOMG!!!

Myth: Absinthe causes hallucinations.

Fact: This shit will fuck you up tout suite.

I picked this stuff up when I was in Paris for Christmas. I didn't hunt overly hard or do too much research before I went. The best place I've found for absinthe info is www.feeverte.net

So I wandered into one of the bajillion beautiful little boutiques that make Paris my singular favourite city on earth and pull this bottle down off the top shelf. My most pressing concerns were that whichever absinthe I purchased contain wormwood, the supposed psychoactive chemical, and that it be brutally crammed with alcohol - Verte de Fougerolles rings in at a delightfully brutal 72%.

I'd been led to expect a beverage that stuns you with bitter aineseed and fire alcohol, and indeed, if you just slam back a shot of this stuff it'll water your eyes and put hair on your teeth, but bitter it ain't. It's almost too sweet; the flavour of licorice is borderline overpowering.

Consumed properly: slowly dribbling water over a sugar cube (sugar cube is totally unnecessary with this particular brand, at least) dilutes the flavours and turns an almost undrinkable fluid into a rather pleasant, milky-green tincture.

The neatest thing is watching the mixture "louche". As you dilute the pure absinthe with water, chemicals react to turn the initially clear beverage opaque. The result is a milky, opalescent pale green.

The experience of consuming absinthe isn't what Moulin Rouge would lead you to believe. There were no tracers, brighter colours, and there was damn sure no Kylie Minogue. There was a monsterously powerful drunk however. A staggering, reeling, loud-mouthed, giggling drunk the likes of which I'd never experienced before.

Absinthe is not the delightful hallucinatory drug its bohemian reputation would have you believe. It will seriously fuck your shit up. Tout suite.

Beverage Experiment #1

In a collins glass:

2 ounces Sailor Jerry Spiced Navy Rum

2 ounces Apple Juice

Fill with Club Soda

Splash of Lime Juice

Just rummaging around the refrigerator to see what kind of mix we had as I need some hair of the dog what bit me. The flavour is okay, the club soda - as usual - adds a nice sparkle to the proceedings. Next time, more apple juice, that's for sure.

This apple-rum combination is definitely something that needs to be explored further there could be some great drinks to be discovered.

Sailor Jerry Rum itself is fantastic. It's almost perfectly overproofed, coming in at a tonsil-singeing 46%, but that boozy heat doesn't hit you at all off the top. It's all sweetness and caramel and maple flavours and then the Sailor walks up behind you and rams all that booze straight up your ass.

For the record Pinot Noir + Whiskey + Gin + Beer - Food = one seriously whanging headache.

Innis & Gunn

Innis & Gunn Oak Aged Beer
This is a stunningly wonderful beer. After the beer is brewed it's allowed to mature in old Scotch barrels for up to a month. During this time the beer absorbs just a spectacular assortment of flavours and aromas from these glorious wooden containers.

The experience of consuming your first cold bottle of Innis & Gunn can be compared, without hyperbole, to the first time you close your hand around the smooth, supple flesh of a woman's breast. The rush of endorphin, the subtle, dawning awareness that what you're doing is absolutely right. This is what it's like to allow the very slightly sweet and delightfully buttery nectar that is Innis & Gunn to slide down your throat.

Highly recommended.

www.innisandgunn.com

Post the First

Alcohol: arguably the greatest achievement of humankind. Revered, reviled, enjoyed, derided, dangerous and delicious; this slice of cyberspace will be devoted to my experiences with this most wondrous of intoxicants. Expect to find reviews, recipes, sagas all hopefully composed in such a way as to be enlightening and entertaining.