Booze
I’d like to be completely clear: ANY BOOZE IS BETTER THAN NO BOOZE.
Moses brought up an interesting point. I pretty well slammed the Red Stag from Jim Beam. My final opinion of it was that bourbon should not be flavored at all… under any circumstances.
Moses pointed out that he is a college age fellow and that pretty much “booze is booze”. I honestly cannot disagree with this assertion. When I was young, any form of ethanol was “good enough”. For fuck’s sake lets think about some of the crap that we drank when we were young.
Booze is important. Pretty much every liquor out there was formulated at least 4 years ago. That mean that some poor bastard put his reputation on the line 4 years before you ever put your lips to that glass. That is a pretty serious fucking commitment.
Where I think newcomers to booze go off the rails is that they thing the point is the ethanol. It really ain’t. The ethanol is a required component because it adds to the total experience of Booze. But Booze is not the final answer to what makes a good drink.
I challenge the noobs in the group to grab a bottle of good booze. I mean the good stuff. Comments are welcome on what “good” consists of, but I’ll say:
Woodford Reserve -- bourbon
Jack Daniels -- bourbon (yes, i know it’s not Kentucky but. by God, it is bourbon)
Beefeater -- gin .. I’ve not run the full range of gin, but this is generally considered “definitive”)
Bacardi -- pretty much either the light or golden rums
Off the top of my head those are the ones to try. Now, see here comes the hard part… to a noob, booze tastes horrible (cause all you taste is the ethanol). Hell, I think the whole point of shots is all fucked up cause you never actually taste the booze.
Many people over a lot of generations perfected the taste of what you’re drinking. The least you can do is try your best to taste it. The trick is that the throat feels the ethanol but the tongue tastes the booze. Which means that if you’re doing shots then you’re fucking up. People can do shots of Jack all day long and still have no clue what Jack tastes like.
I know what Jack tastes like.
This post has gotten plenty long enough and I’ve gotten plenty drunk enough. I’ll contintue it later.
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Yes booze is booze. Free booze is better than booze. But saying ‘booze is booze’ kinda draws a line in the sand if you will as to what type of drinker you are. I’ll break it down into 4 types for you.
1.) “I don’t drink”
2.) “I drink because it tastes good”
3.) “I drink to get drunk”
4.) “I drink because it tastes good, and I get drunk”
I’m well aware it could be broken down many other ways, but I’m trying to keep it simple.
1.) They don’t care if Bourbon tastes like dog shit, they don’t drink.
2.) They might like it, after all they are obviously there for the taste. If they are a purist (as it appears AG and myself are) they probably won’t. You never know though!
3.) They probably don’t give a shit. Put a glass of pure ethanol in front of them, tell them its ‘shine, and they’ll think you’re a god.
4.) This is where I fall. When I get started, I like to enjoy the tastes of what is being presented. I would only start out with a domestic piss beer, if that’s all there was and I was dying to drink. That’s been a very rare occasion since high-school. Anyway, I am much more likely to start out with something of quality, where I can appreciate the taste of it. After 3-4 drinks, I can switch off to something more vile, since I will be at least a little intoxicated and won’t taste the difference.
I do have to disagree….
Bacardi – pretty much either the light or golden rums
While its not bad rum (try your local captain generic brand for a change, you’ll find a bad rum) it’s not great rum. Pick up some Pyrat. It’s done by the Patron company, which in my opinion does a damn good product (both tequila and rum) It is a dark rum, but it can be drank neat, and appreciated for what it is.
I’ve not seen it. Patron for me means “high-end tequila”. I’ll look for the rum tho.
Save your money, I’ll bring a bottle when we hang out!
Being a beer drinker almost exclusively, I have little to no experience with any harder liquor, but have been interested in trying some different kinds of rum to see what they’re like.
In regards to beer, I mostly prefer stouts and porters. Wheat beer can be good too, but nothing beats a good dark ale, in my opinion.
Some of my favorites:
Guinness Extra Stout (just because)
Youngs Double Chocolate Stout
O’Fallon Smoke (smoked porter)
New Belgium 1554 (a black ale made according to an old recipe found in a Belgian Monastery)
Left Hand Brewing. Milk Stout
Fullers London Porter
There are many, many other great beers out there, but those are some of the ones I look for the most.
Hmm….I can’t vote for two, can I?? You have beer included in with the harder liquors, and that makes it hard to pick!!
And speaking as the token Puerto Rican, y’all don’t know shit about rum
I double dog dare you to do a shot of Jager and fail to taste it.
You can’t avoid tasting that stuff even before it hits your lips. mmmm
Deb, Jaegermeister is a digestive aid!!! Germans use it like we would use antacid!!!
However, kudos to the Germans for making an alcoholic drink out of it
It always reminds me of Vicks Formula 44, Aggie
good times! lol
Americans can’t know shit about Rum? Did you know that the #1 ranked Ninja in the world is white? He’s actually Australian. I’ve sampled many o flavor of Rum. Just like any other food or drink out there, it all boils down to preference in the end. If you like to drink beer flavored water, and you think it’s the best in the world after trying hundreds of others than your piss-water is the best…for YOU.
Ok Aggie, you have tossed the gauntlet down vis-a-vis rum, so what is you top choice?
If we are talking mixing, than Bicardi works (and as far as that goes, so does Capt. Morgan, 100 proof or Private stock). Sipping wise, hell I haven’t had the bucks or the occasion to try a high quality “sipping rum”, but I know they are out there.
Now as far as Gin goes … Beefeater is great for mixing, but snob that I am Tanqueray is good, Bombay is better. Bombay Sapphire is primo. (And the best for those who do Gin Martinis, vice the vodka ones.) There are some good dutch gins out there as well, but I haven’t had a chance to find/check em out. And it is a different tasting Gin than what the Brits put out.
Vodka, ahhhh there are soooo many out there right now. Stoly is the old “top end” standby. But Skyy is very respectable, as is Grey Goose. From what I understand, the water used in processing, and the type of filtration are key. And served as cold as possible is supposed to factor in the “over all vodka experience” as well, though your mileage may very on the last point.
Tequila, I will leave that up to you fine folks. Mixed in a Margareta I am good with, a shot or two, yeah I can do that too. But straight drinking of this … I tend to not remember the night before, and where did I leave my clothes??? Nope, no tequila for me!
Other than Cutty Sark, my father’s scotch of choice, I have little experience with it. And none with single malts (though I am willing to try!).
Absinthe. Had (supposedly) the “real thing”, while stationed in Japan back in the mid seventies. Was good stuff!!! The weather outside the bar was near or below zero, and the walk back to the base, and then the barrack’s was somewhere between 1 to 2 miles. We did it with minimal bobbing and weaving, and had our jackets over our shoulders. We were feeling no pain, but not fall over drunk either. And no noticeable hangover the next day.
And last but not least, Jaegermeister?!?! Couple or four shots of that will take the lint outta your naval and scare the holy hell out of any germ or respiratory ailment you may have at the time. But Deb
likesloves it, and that is all that matters to me!Actually, it was meant as a joke, seeing as Puerto Rico is rather famous for its rums. Most of the rums with which I am familiar are not available for export here. One of my favorites is called “Ron de Barrilito”, a single barrel rum produced in such small batches, one can go for months never finding a bottle of it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Puerto_Rican_rums
Beefsalad,
all I can say to you is, if you regard beer as being piss-water, then you’ve never drank any of the good stuff.
I would recommend you do some exploring and tasting; there are many, many great ales out there, of a great many varieties, each with their own taste and tradition.
Bottoms up!
Curtal Friar,
I consider most domestics (Bud, Coors, Miller, etc…) to be piss water, my abrut reply caused me to not make sure I was saying exactly what I meant to say.
A short list of my favorites are Chimay Red, New Castle, Boulevard (Wheat, Zon, Lunar), Blue Star Wheat, Killians, Warsteiner…oh how the list could go on.
Beefsalad,
You’ve listed some good ones there. Boulevard puts out some great beers, and as they’re one of my local breweries, I am kinda partial to them. Zon is good, though a little too easy to drink too many of them on a hot summer’s day when I’m outside doing yard work.
Warsteiner Dunkel is another great choice, I can drink those any time.
Curtal,
I used to live a few blocks from Boulevard myself! I’m now 800+ miles away, and it’s hard to get while it’s still fresh. I couldn’t agree more with the Zon comment in the summer. I’ve taken a few naps on the porch because of that stuff.
beefsalad
Speaking of being affected by alcoholic beverages, the worst that I’ve ever been hit was when I was at a party and drink 7 to 8 glasses of mead, all homemade stuff.
If you’ve never had it, mead is very very sweet, and you would swear there was no alcohol at all in it, based on the taste.
Needless to say, after consuming those glassfuls, my wife and I soon left, and I argued with her that it was possible to pull over at the Taco Bell and put gas in the car. When we did stop, at an actual gas station, first I couldn’t get the handle away from the pump, then I couldn’t figure out how to get it into the car, then my wife took over and I got back in my seat and soon fell asleep and woke up the next morning.