Boozin’ Blog

I’m a beer man. I’ll argue all day that beer is just as elegant and refined as any wine you can pull out of your cellar. But I have to admit that when an occasion like St. Valentines Day or an anniversary rolls around, I find myself eyeing the Champagnes in the wine section of my favorite beer store. And I don’t even really like Champagne; don’t get me wrong, I’ll drink a glass or four if offered but I have other drinks that I like a lot better.

But there’s something about these significant days that seems to make it so we pop the cork on a bottle of bubbly, or at least wine, right? At the same time, a bottle of Champagne and a box of chocolates is so expected that it’s almost cliché. While I feel compelled to by a bottle of Champagne, I also feel a little silly taking it to the cashier.

Clearly, I have some unresolved issues surrounding sparkling wine.

And, by the way, that is usually what I really buy. As you probably know, it isn’t really Champagne unless it comes from the Champagne region of France. Otherwise, it’s sparkling wine. So why do I tend to buy sparkling wine over Champagne? Well, it has nothing to do with it being from France. I’ll buy wine, cheese and anything else tempting from France. It goes back to the idea that Champagne is cliché. I’m looking for something different and usually that will come from the non-French speaking vintners who aren’t quite so steeped in tradition.

One option is local wine. Living in Missouri, I have lots of options for local wine. There are dozens of small, family run wineries within just a few hours drive from my house and the booze store is always stocked with a wide selection of them. One popular local sparkling wine is called Ten Bucks. The label features a pen and ink cartoon drawing of ten male deer. It really takes the wind out of the hoity image of Champagne. Oh, and it sells for $10.

Another option that my wife particularly favors is Italian Muscato d’Asti. This full flavored sparkling wine is a very nice alternative to Champagne. Where the traditional bubbly seems only to offer the choice of excessively sweet or excessive dry and always watery, Muscato d’Asti is always flavorful and satisfying. And it’s definitely priced more reasonably than the French stuff with all of its commercial cache.

Or maybe this year I will finally resist the urge and just go with good beer. So long as I don’t forget the chocolate, I think my wife will be fine with that.

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I’m not typically a fan of fortified wines like port. Fortified doesn’t mean that vitamins have been added. Instead, the wine is fermented as usual until a particular alcohol content is reached. Then a distilled spirit - brandy in the case of port - is added. This increase in alcohol is toxic to the yeast and kills them. This leaves a drink that is sweeter than typical wine but with a much bigger alcoholic kick, usually twenty-something percent. Fortified wines also usually have a very boozy quality in the flavor.

Like I said, I’m usually not a fan of port. When the weather is warm or even mild I find it too sweet, even syrupy, for my taste. I like dry drinks and savory foods. You can keep your hot chocolate and cookies; I’m just not interested.

But when the weather turns frigid one of the first things I do is run out and grab a bottle of port. There’s something about that goopy sweetness mixed with the pronounced booziness of the wine that’s just perfect during the winter.

“Real” port used to be called porto. I said real because it comes from the region and the makers that originally developed the drink in Portugal. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t good ports out there without the o, it’s just an interesting note.

My port of choice is most often Sandeman. Sandeman offers vintaged ports but I’m usually perfectly satisfied with their more affordable blended versions.

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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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This kind of thing really gets me.

Scottish brewer BrewDog recently came out with a high alcohol beer called Tokyo. The ale is made with jasmine and cranberries. Champagne yeast helps push the alcohol percentage to 18.2 which makes it the highest alcohol beer available in Britain today.

And, naturally, the neo-prohibitionist groups are competing to out-panic one another. They claim that the new beer will lead to increased binge drinking, degradation of public health, social harm and cats and dogs living together.

This craft beer may be big on alcohol but it is also likely big on flavor. Unlike thin lagers like Stella Artois and Carling that really do lend to Britain’s binge-drinking problems, this big beer forces the drinker to slow down. Besides, the cost, 9.99 GBP per standard sized bottle, make the idea of slamming one after another a little absurd.

But what always gets under my skin about hand wringing over higher than average alcohol beers is this. While these levels may indeed be high for beer they are nothing for wine and a liquor issued with 18.2% would be an embarrassment.

While I have never heard the reasoning behind targeting beer for criticisms of alcohol content while exempting other forms of alcohol I can imagine at least one. On the wine side no doubt critics are relying on the better class of people that they perceive as wine drinkers to exercise the self-control to keep their alcohol consumption under control. As annoying as that argument might be it does carry some merit. I would argue that anyone drinking a craft ale brewed with jasmine and cranberry is likely of equal or higher respectability than the average wine drinker. These are not the same beer drinkers who drink cheap lager by the case.

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According to a recent Gallup poll Americans are choosing beer over wine once again. It was a tight race there for a while but, if one is to believe the results of this survey, beer is back on top.

Why? Oh, sure, let’s go ahead and speculate. For a few years wine was gaining ground as less expensive bottles of not-bad wine were becoming more widely available all of the time. And this to some pretty clever, eye-catching labels and wine was giving beer some pretty stiff competition.

In the meantime the big beer companies were focusing on new ways to sell the same product. (Sure, craft beer was showing impressive growth and exciting the pants off beer geeks like me but in terms of sheer sales dollars it accounted for very little.) Remember the beer case that seconded as an ice chest after the top was ripped off? Or how about the label that turned blue when the beer was cold enough? Somehow, Americans weren’t all that excited by the same watery beer repackaged.

Then the big brewers remembered flavor. They could have looked to craft brewers and maybe they did but as soon as they started added flavor back into their beer their numbers started picking up. Sure, those flavors might be lime, salt and an apologetic imitation of British ale but at least beer is starting to taste of something again.

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Few drinks are as specifically associated with a holiday or event as Champagne is with New Years Eve. Sales for Champagne and sparkling wine go through the roof in the days before New Years and for many people this is about the only time that they consider it. So with the big day just around the corner I thought a few words about everyone’s favorite bubbly might be in order.

First let’s deal with the name of this wine. Champagne is a type of sparkling wine. That is all Champagne is sparkling wine but all sparkling wine is not Champagne. Tradition and European Union law dictate that only sparkling wine made in the Champagne region of France may be called Champagne. This distinction is mostly respected throughout the world although I did once see a wine made in Missouri with Champagne on its label. That particular wine-maker has since changed the label and removed the ‘c’ word.

Now, what’s with all this nonsense about brut? In the world of sparkling wine this simply means dry. Why bubbly booze has to use a different word from everyone else is beyond me. So if the label says brut or extra brut that just means that this is a dry wine. Now, just to muddy things up the word dry does appear on some labels but it actually means less dry than brut. On sparkling wine labels dry is middle of the road between sweet and dry. Sweet Champagne makers use the term demi-sec on their labels.

Drier wines, brut here, tend to do well with meals and sweeter wines or demi-sec in the sparkling wine world are best with fruit and desserts. So, for standing around at a party or to pop the cork on for a New Years Eve toast, dry or extra dry sparkling wine is the best choice.

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Nothing says the holidays to me quite like hot spiced wine. I first encountered the stuff in Germany during the ’92 Christmas season. Every year the Germans set up Christmas markets. These are big, outdoor markets consisting of lots of little stands selling all sorts of Christmas gifts and decorations. And about every third stand has a big hot tank of spiced wine that they sell by the cup. Ever since then I’ve made hot spiced wine part of my Christmas season.

Finding spiced wine isn’t always possible. Sometimes I can locate a bottle or two but just as often I wind up making my own. It’s quite easy to make. I buy a semi-sweet red – those huge one gallon bottles on the bottom shelf work great. It doesn’t have to be really good wine, the spices will cover up the flavors and subtleties that separate jug wine from fine wine.

The spices are the typical holiday mixture that one would expect – cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, allspice, etc. I like to buy them whole for the wine. This way it’s easier to pour or dip the wine away with the spices and there aren’t bits of spice in the drink. If I have a week or two I just drop the spices in the jug, seal it up and store it. But it works just as well to pour the wine into a crock pot, add the spices and leave on low for a few hours. Sometimes I like to add fresh fruit – anything from cranberries to apples to oranges can be nice.

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New Year’s Eve is one of the biggest party nights of the year. While the good times are flowing here are a few tips to avoid a miserable New Year’s day after.

1. Don’t Drink. Duh! Let’s move on to some more practical advice.
2. Eat. I’ve never bought into the theory that having food on your stomach “absorbs” some of the alcohol. What the hell does that mean, anyway? Alcohol is a chemical and whether it’s marinated into some mashed potatoes or not your body is still going to have to deal with it anyway, right? But eating before and while you drink does work. I believe that it has to do with how full you feel. If you’re hungry you want to put stuff inside you. If you’re full you’re less likely to want to put more stuff in you. But that might be as much hooey as the absorption theory. For whatever reason eating works. So before you go out tonight have a full meal and work those hors d’oeuvres while you’re at the party.
3. Alternate drinks. I don’t mean beer then wine then a long island iced tea. I mean alcoholic, nonalcoholic, alcoholic, nonalcoholic. Drinking alcohol actually dehydrates the body and this is a great deal of the misery of being hung-over.
4. “Beer before liquor; never sicker. Liquor before beer; never fear.” Again, I have no idea why this is true but I can say from personal experience it is. If you plan to pound down a few shots then do that first. Then you can coast out the rest of the night by nursing a beer or sipping some wine with a nice buzz.
5. Try a dietary supplement. I don’t have any personal experience with those anti-hangover pills but I know some people who swear by them. The good folks at The Beer Belly sent some Cheerz to me when they sent one of their bellies for a review on my beer.about.com site. I plan on trying them tonight.
6. Don’t go to sleep drunk. If the room’s spinning when you finally get to bed that’s a pretty good sign that you’re going to feel it tomorrow. Try to stay awake for at least an hour after your last drink to give your body time to metabolize it.

Here’s wishing you a safe and happy one. If you do party tonight take it easy, have a designated driver if you’re driving, and have fun.

Happy New Year!

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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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You’ve been out for a few hours. You had dinner with wine or a beer; maybe even a cocktail or two. After that you stopped at a club and had a few more. But you paced yourself. You feel fine but you wonder if there’s a road-block or if you roll through a stop sign and get pulled over if you will get busted for DUI.

So, key half-way in the ignition, you begin to debate with yourself. Maybe you heard once that the body can metabolize one serving of alcohol an hour. You start doing the math – one cocktail before dinner, a beer with the pasta; that was an hour an a half; then another beer at the club before the band started playing which was…what time was that? And what the hell is a serving anyway?

Then you remember those stories that you’ve heard about people blowing over the legal limit after taking a drink even though an actual blood test shows their true alcohol level to be below the legal limit. The last thing that you drank 30 minutes ago was a beer so does that mean that you’d blow a higher level than you actually are? You begin to wonder if you should walk down the block to the nearby Starbucks and gargle with espresso.

Well, here’s a perfect solution. Get a personal breathalyzer. Starting at only $85 with free shipping Boozin’ Gear has a selection of breathalyzers that will tell you exactly what you’re going to blow if you get pulled over. With most States’ limits at 0.10 or 0.08 if you blow under 0.08 you’ll be legal to drive in most places.

Naturally, these devices aren’t intended to help you trick law enforcement. If you ever question your own ability to drive, regardless of the numbers you register on a breathalyzer you should wait or call a cab. Personal breathalyzers are only intended to help you follow the letter as well as the spirit of the law.

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