Boozin’ Blog

Thanksgiving is just about upon us. With it comes lots of time with family and with that comes lots of reasons to drink. If you agree with me on this, then here is the thanksgiving turkey for us.

O’Casey’s Tavern in New York serves a vodka infuse, vodka basted turkey with vodka gravy with a side of, you guessed it, vodka with a straw. The 80 proof bird goes for $29.95 and that includes a cab ride to anywhere in Manhattan.

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There seems to be a growing trend in looking for health benefits in booze. I first really noticed it probably around fifteen years ago when studies were showing that drinking wine might be good for the heart and in preventing cancer. Suddenly people were dedicated to their nightly glass of Cab Sauv with an almost religious zeal.

Beer lovers weren’t far behind. Sussing out the benefits of beer was met with a little more skepticism but studies started surfacing that found similar benefits of drinking beer to drinking wine - cancer, heart disease, etc. A recent study even showed beer to be a better hydrator for hot and tired athletes than water.

But it doesn’t stop there. Beer and wine might have naturally occurring benefits but what if more were infused into the beverages. Vitamins and herbs found their way into our adult beverages. And now they are seeping into the hard stuff.

What the hell? Why can’t I just have a drink because I want a drink? In this multitasking world in which we live, it apparently isn’t enough to want to relax and unwind a little at the end of a day. We have to be nourishing ourselves at the same time.

Well, not me.

If there happens to be incidental health benefits to the beer and wine that passes my lips then that’s just great. But I declare here and now that I will not drink nutritionally amped-up booze. A line has to be drawn and this is where I draw mine. You can keep your ginseng infused vodka; I’m going to have another straight bourbon.

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I never really understood the vodka martini anyway so I’m not too upset by this news. Martinis are supposed to be sharp and wangy; vodka just took the edge off of the flavor. But, hey, drink what you like I always say.

I suppose this is why drinks trends generally puzzle me. What is to be gained from drinking something that you don’t particularly enjoy just because it’s chic this week? Try something and if you like it then Prost! Enjoy! If you don’t, get something else.

But I’ve meandered off point. Apparently vodka is out. As the article points out its long reign as the go-to alcohol for so many cocktails is puzzling. While all other trends in food and drink seemed to be headed in the direction of more flavor, more aroma, more body, and more presence these little vodka drinks seemed almost apologetic, thin, and weak. But perhaps that is the very reason they succeeded for so long. After all, bigger flavored food and drink is also a trend. Presumably a big part of the population doesn’t want to be slapped around by what they eat or drink.

But ‘they’ have decided. And even before they announced it the hipper bartenders and mixologists were already turning their back on vodka. So get used to it, wimpy vodka drink lovers. If a bartender rolls his eyes at your order don’t say I didn’t warn you!

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The beauty of vodka is that it is largely a blank slate. Mix it with any other liquid and you have a drink that tastes of the mixer and a bit of alcohol. Drop any sort of herb, spice, flavoring or even, urp, skittles and you have a beautifully clean infusion.

Given this I’m frankly surprised that there aren’t more products like Firefly Sweet Tea Vodka. If you’re from the southern US the basic idea of Firefly seems as natural 90% humidity in August. If you’re not then this concoction probably seems about as unwelcome as 90% humidity in August.

According to the New York Times Firefly has been sweeping the south since last April and it shows no sign of slowing up. Personally I have been blissfully unaware of it until just this morning.

I don’t drink sweet iced tea. I live in southeastern Missouri and so perched just above the South proper I have plenty of opportunities to drink the stuff. After my first few tastes I knew I wasn’t interested. I also rarely drink iced tea, preferring hot tea which I can, you know, taste.

But I’d be lying if I said that the boozer in me wasn’t just a little intrigued by Firefly. I’m not going to rush out and buy a bottle but if I see some in a bar I’m going to have to taste it.

That skittles thing though? No interest whatsoever. What the hell is wrong with people?

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Estonian police have arrested a ruthless gang of vodka smugglers. The cabal of Russian and Estonian criminals was sneaking hundreds of gallons of vodka across the border from Russia to Estonia via an underwater pipe.

My first thought when I saw this story was how good could it be after going through those pipes? I can’t find any details about the quality of the plumping but almost any possibility that I can come up with leaves me wanting to rinse out my mouth. Were they old, forgotten pipes that once had a legitimate use? If so can you image the filth that the vodka would have picked up? OK, maybe they were new. A PVC pipeline would have been glued together giving the already bad brew a glue-ee taste. What about metal? There we have the possibility of lead from any joints that had to be joined together.

Turns out that it was as bad or even worse than I imagined. The homebrewed booze was made in Russia then piped over to Estonia to be sold on the black market. But the stuff was so bad that they had trouble selling it! Even tax-free and in an economy that supports an estimated 20% black-market booze this vodka was so bad that the criminal masterminds had to trundle the stuff from town to town looking for buyers.

This was how they got caught. On one of these trips with their truck loaded down with bootleg vodka and looking for buyers that the cops pulled them over. And thus began the investigation that lead to a 2 kilometer long pipeline laid at the bottom of a firewater reservoir on the border.

I guess my point is that if you ever decide to go on a bender in Estonia always ask to see the tax stamp on whatever you’re drinking. Bleah!

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In 1848 the map of North America changed significantly. This was the year that the war between Mexico and the U.S. ended. The terms of peace included Mexico ceding a great deal of land to their northern neighbor. The land would become the states of California, Nevada, Utah as well as parts of Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico and Wyoming. It was a lot of land.

Naturally, the maps drawn before that time showed a much larger Mexico and much smaller United States than they do now. It’s an interesting intellectual exercise to consider how differently world history might have played out if it weren’t for this reordering of things. It is perfectly understandable that not a few Mexicans would rather have not had all of this come to pass. And it’s understandable that after a few drinks Mexicans who love their country may very well turn their thoughts to their one-time northern territory. To borrow a phrase in an Absolut world – that is one of happy inebriation and dreams – Mexicans may fondly remember a time when their country’s total landmass was significantly larger.

This is the thinking that I believe was behind a recent ad run by Absolut vodka in Mexico. The ad simply shows a pre-1848 map of North America with the phrase “In an Absolut world.” That’s not bad, right?

Wrong. Even though the ad didn’t run in the US and wasn’t intended for US audiences it predictably found its way there. And people lost their minds. US people that is. Somehow it seems some in the US feel that this vodka ad will threaten the existing national borders. I’m not really sure how that could come to pass but the clamor was so loud that Absolut has pulled the ad.

Everyone just take a breath. It’s only an ad. Whether you can find something in it with which you feel you should agree or disagree is on you. I’m quite sure that Absolut is not trying to foment revolution or a military invasion of the US; their just trying to sell booze. So let’s move on, shall we? There are a lot of real problems that we could address in this world without having to invent some to get upset about.

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Here’s what happens when a marketer tries to understand the beer business. In a recent article in Forbes Jack Trout tries to get his head around the US beer business and why the biggest selling brands have been stagnant over the last few years. They’re offering too many different kinds of beers, he explains.

He’s a blowhard, I reply.

In fact he’s a self-contradictory blowhard. Within his own article he contradicts his own premise. He points out that big beer companies with their variously branded lagers are loosing market share to craft beer including their own faux crafts like Blue Moon and Leinenkugel. But variety is one of the strengths craft beer. The biggest craft brewer, the Boston Beer Company, has a huge number of different Sam Adams beers available and that hasn’t hurt their sales.

I could also point to the continued success of wine despite the fact that the products produced by almost any given winery are many and often take some study to understand. And how about the evolution of vodka over the last few years? You can buy vodka flavored with almost every imaginable fruit and somehow consumers are able deal with that. But I’m not here to argue about marketing.

Granted, the various versions of Miller, Bud and Coors are essentially the same beer with different labels but Trout doesn’t make this clear. In fact I’m not sure that he even realizes this. He seems to think that all beer is the same and so, his logic goes, why should any brewer have more than one product?

Choice is saving beer from this sea of the same that seemed likely to define beer as recently as 15 years ago. US beer drinkers are finally discovering the variety of beer and the pleasures of it. They are voting with their dollars for beer that tastes of more than fizzy, slightly sweet water.

So, Mr. Trout, why don’t you go out and actually try some of those “wacky American beers” before you try to evangelize your marketing gospel to them? You might find some truths that are not available in your statistics tables and marketing textbooks.

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A few months ago on this very blog I declared gin to be “stodgy as shuffle-board.” Well, it looks like I may have to issue an apology to gin.

With a 1.1% increase in sales, the first increase in 6 years, gin may be on its way back. According to “Gin Is the New Vodka,” an ironically named article when you consider that a big contributor of gin’s decline was vodka replacing it in the martini, bartenders are driving a return to gin. In a mix of classic drinks made with gin and new gins that include flavoring agents such as grape vine flowers and sarsaparilla and orange-peel, drinkers are rediscovering gin.

So, will gin be sexy again? It’s hard to say. As I’ve said before, the liquor market is fickle and it’s hard to say what will catch and what won’t. It will take quite a lot for gin to dethrone vodka. But you never know. Perhaps those pioneering mixology-minded bartenders will create a revolution.

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Recently I attended a beer festival in St. Louis.  The first two beers poured for me each had a hair in them.  The first time it happened I thought that it was an honest mistake.  The second time I worried that a disturbing pattern was developing.  But after that all of my beers were free of any visible additives so, statistically speaking (unlimited free beer so your guess is as good as mine) the ratio of hairy beers to shorn beers was favorable.

But that’s not to say that the brewers and distillers aren’t adding something before bartenders even have a change to shed into the glass.  Check out Stampede Beer. They actually add vitamins to their beer. The idea here is that drinking leeches certain vitamins from the body - presumably this is what causes hang-overs - and this beer kindly replaces them. I thought that that’s what the celery served with wings was for.

But I think I’d rather have a vitamin infused beer than a vodka energy drink. That’s what the good folks at Shotpak will soon be bring us. The details are a little sketchy but this appears to be about the same thing as pouring a couple of shots into a can of Red Bull.

I’ve never been a fan of having extra stuff shoved into my drink. I get irritated when the bartender crams a lemon or lime into my drink just because I happened to order a wheat or Mexican beer. If I’d wanted the damn citrus, I’d have asked for it! The first thing that I want in a drink is enjoyable taste and if you have to add something to it to make it palatable I’m not interested.

But what about extra vitamins or a blast of artificial energy? On their own, these added components would probably not add any flavor.  I doubt that the vodka energy drink will have a flavor likely to make Russian expats long for home.  In the case of the vitamined beer, besides the implication that beer on it’s own is irrevocably unhealthy, if you’re looking to beer for your vitamin intake then there are probably quite a few things about your life that need to be re-examined.

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I was searching for booze news over at Google and I came across this tantilyzing headline: Kosher conference decides fate of shrimp, vodka.  Who knew that vodka isn’t kosher?

But that that’s not necessarily the problem here.  A rabbi spoke at the conference and uncovered his recent findings that certain alcohol manufactures are using horse milk.  Now I’d have to go along with him on this one, kosher or not it just seems wrong.

Of course cows milk shows up fairly regularly in cocktails and every so often a beer appears on the scene that’s made from milk such as Japan’s Bilk. But horse milk? How do you even… no I don’t want to think about it!

Turns out, though, that horse milk and alcohol not really that unusual, at least not in Mongolia. A booze is made there from fermented horse’s milk. It’s called airag and has been described as “fizzy sour milk with a kick.” Mmmm! Airig mixed with vodka is called arkhi.

Nevertheless, if there were a bottle of airag placed in front of me I’d have to at least try  a taste. It could be that I’ve really been missing out on something special.

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