Monday, December 25, 2006

Boddington's Christmas Experience

Topic: Mixed Drinks

ingredients:
1 pint of Boddington's Manchester Ale
orange peel
ginger root
cinnamon
allspice
vanilla extract

utensils:
small bowl (1 cup)
garlic press
pint glass

Press a piece of ginger root a little larger than the garlic press into a bowl. Then press a slice of orange peel the size of the opening of the garlic press into the same bowl. Scrape the peel pressings into the bowl and mix thoroughly. Bring 1/8th a cup of water to a near boil then add the ginger and orange. Heat for 5 minutes stirring often. Strain into bowl and add 2 good shakes of cinnamon, 2 shakes of allspice and 4 drops of vanilla extract. Mix concoction. Pour a few ounces of Boddington's into a pint glass, add concoction, then pour the rest of the Boddington's. There is no need to stir, as the cascading action created by the settling of the drink mixes the ingredients. Once settled, the pint should have a healthy head with a few specks of spice on top and have spices clearly floating throughout the drink.

Happy Holidays, Enjoy!

Friday, December 22, 2006

From Drink the Kool Aid to Hair of the Dog

Topic: Politics

Tom Wolfe, wrote a book about LSD called "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test". (Every time I hear the title I want to drink black cherry Wylers. My cousin and I used to mix one part of that, one part Ketel One vodka and one part coke, in a pint glass, over ice. It was called the "Rock Star" drink, quite good. It was inspired by William S. Burroughs' vodka and coke mixture, "The Burroughs", not very good.) Anyway, the current catch phrase used to describe those who went along with the war in Iraq is "They drank the "Kool Aid". They were fed the party line about WMD, etc., drank the kool aid and tripped balls, hallucinating that it was a good idea and that all was going well with the untidy misadventure over there. They heard horns, saw bright lights and thought it was a victory parade. It turns out, however, that it wasn't and that they were in fact, standing in the middle of a busy highway at night, watching the pretty trails that drifted behind their hands as they waved them in front of their face. The Kool Aid wore off and they found out it was really the poison laced Jonestown Punch that the Jim Jones cult drank to commit a mass suicide. The Reps. lost the Congress and Rumsfeld lost his job.

One strategy for relieving a hangover is to start drinking again, referred to as "the hair of the dog", as in, "bite the dog that bit you." It's obviously an idiotic idea that postpones the inevitable and makes the pain worse when it finally does come. Genius! Well the equivalent plan is about to be implemented in Iraq. They're calling it "The Surge" and it consists of dropping acid then adding more troops to the force in place, I guess so they can join in the fun.

Have a nice trip, hope you enjoy the fall.

Sunday, December 17, 2006

They Made Me Do It

I'll be your karmic landfill, if you want me to be.