Liquid Lunch Drink of the Day: 10/29/10

Here's your Liquid Lunch drink special for this week. With Halloween this weekend I'm serving up Zombies! (Brains served separately).

Drink Recipe Ingredients:

• 1/2 oz Bacardi® 151 rum
• 1 oz pineapple juice
• 1 oz orange juice
• 1/2 oz apricot brandy
• 1 tsp sugar
• 2 oz light rum
• 1 oz dark rum
• 1 oz lime juice

Drink Preparation:

• Blend all ingredients with ice except Bacardi 151 proof rum. 
• Pour into a collins glass. 
• Float Bacardi 151 proof rum on top. 
• Garnish with a fruit slice, sprig of mint and a cherry.

Note: it says LIGHT drinking.

New research has found that light drinking while pregnant has no increased risk of harm to children.  Again, let me stress... LIGHT drinking.  Here's the article.

For Shame Wisconsin... For Shame...

Men's Health magazine has published a list of the "drunkest" cities in America... and we're not even on the list.  C'mon Green Bay!  C'mon Appleon and Oshkosh!  Get your drunk on!

Sure Madison made the list at #15... but they have college students, and that's just youthful binge drinking.  We've got full-grown, full-blown alcoholism up here that needs to be recognized!  Hell, Milwaukee was all the way down at #58.

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2010/02/fresno-calif--tops-list-of-drunkest-us-cities-boston-is-last/1

Get some drinking done this weekend, and write to the publishers of Men's Health in your sloppy, drunken scrawl.  Let them know that we want some respect!

Super Troopers meets Superbad?

Between the drunk cop cruising around and pulling over drivers who weren't doing anything wrong... plus that the cop's name was MacCubbin (which sounds an awful lot like McLovin)... this just seems like someone combined the movies Super Troopers and Superbad.

I'll assume the story is true and that the reporter didn't just get stoned, watch a couple of movies over the weekend, and get confused.

Get the full story here.

Chapter 83: Reflections on Time and a Bottle

Several weeks ago, now, there was a column in the New York Times that I kept here in a draft, intending to write about it. But I'm sure the sardonic stuff I would have "scribbled" here isn't what I'm writing now. Not that I don't feel the same way, I just don't feel that way ... now.

The Proof column, which is among those being sliced due to cost-cutting measures, is about alcohol and American life: a worthy topic of discussion, particularly in pubs and especially with intelligent people who can extemporize without spilling anything on the nicely lacquered bartop. But I'm writing this at about 7 a.m., after an evening in which the screams of babies literally drove me to drink — not much, and only after I'd gotten them in a safe place with their mother.

The article by Tim Kreider, which feels less like an op-ed piece and more like an essay in a men's magazine, still keeps me thinking. There are a couple lines I particularly like: "I don't feel middle aged — I just feel like I’ve been young a lot longer than most people" and "I’m a little appalled at all the time I’ve lost, but then, wasting time wasn’t exactly an unforeseen side effect; it was part of the fun. Of course it was; if drinking wasn’t so much fun it wouldn’t be such a widespread and terrible problem." And this is a classic: "As my metabolism started to slow down the fun-to-hangover ratio became increasingly unfavorable."

Truer comments may never have been written, and it takes a middle-age wastrel to write them. I'm not passing any judgement on this guy; it's quite possible he's accomplished more than I have. Indeed, he's got a column in the New York Times. And I'm fairly certain his words have found more readers than mine have — so far.

This man is approximately one full year older than I am. It seems to have taken him, perhaps, ten-twelve years more than it took me to realize that drinking like college kids isn't really much fun any more. And yes, it is "any less" fun. Neither is this blog piece a public pledge to quit drinking; such proclamations are only needed for those who want to be anonymous, and they know not to make public pledges — just private confirmations or acknowledgements.

Rather, I think of this as another morning, children fed and sleeping, cats fed and sleeping, wife unfed and sleeping, in which I don't have to say to myself, "My God, what have I done?"

Chapter 82.2: In Vino Veritas

I love finding inspiring stories about alcohol.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not in favor of inebriates running (or driving) rampant across America or the world, wreaking havoc on unsuspecting (or perhaps also drunken) neighbors, or destroying lives and families. But I'm all in favor of appropriate use of social elixirs to smooth out the rough edges of life.

Apparently, I'm not the only one and this idea is as old as civilization. In the New York Times the other day, an item was published in one of their blogs by a teacher whose students asked about the abundance of drinking in Homer's The Odyssey. Of course, Greeks weren't the only folks enjoying the fruit of the vine back then. It was common to drink alcoholic beverages, as the Times piece notes.

But Homer and others of his era also demonstrated that alcohol should be used in moderation — let me refine that: alcohol should be enjoyed, but used in moderation. Okay, maybe I'm editorializing a little about what Homer meant.

But I love the way the writer concluded his piece:

I wasn’t quite satisfied, and the question continued to bother me until, days later, I found a passage in “The Odyssey” that succinctly captures the complexity of the Greek attitude towards alcohol. Odysseus is speaking to a sympathetic swineherd, and though he is in disguise, the words have the unmistakable ring of honesty:


[I]t is the wine that leads me on, the wild wine
that sets the wisest man to sing at the top of his lungs,
laugh like a fool – it drives the man to dancing...it even
tempts him to blurt out stories better never told.

After two decades away from home, there must have been so much to say, so many bottled-up tales of friends lost and battles won. Somebody get the poor guy another round.

Chapter 78.05: The Beerization of the Charity Gala

This just pisses me off. I have no problem with drinking, and I certainly have no qualms with people supporting a cause, but when someone thinks that drinking in and of itself should support a cause, well, that's where I get annoyed.

A co-worker put it like this, and I agree with her: "Call me old fashioned (or of advanced age, or whatever), but isn’t there something obnoxious about saying you don’t want to give time planting trees but will get drunk because you’re going to anyway, and a beer is a beer is a beer? OK, so I haven’t planted trees lately, either, and I do buy from companies that supposedly give a percentage of the proceeds to good causes even if I have to pay a few pennies more because I’m going to buy it anyway, but there’s something about this attitude that doing good shouldn’t inconvenience you or mean changing your lifestyle at all that’s really, really depressing to me."

When I was a kid, I sold stickers to support the Little League and sold candy bars to help out my school. I collected wrappers from soup cans and brought them into school. Whatever happened to collecting UNICEF pennies, or visiting orphanages? Drinking beer? That's not a charitable event.

You might argue that a charity gala is just a glorified way of drinking for a cause, and having attended a couple of them — and more importantly, knowing that those events rarely do much better than break even — I'd say you have a point. You might argue that the beer party is more honest, but the fact is, this is dishonest charity. It's not about charity, it's about getting drunk, it's about trying to get laid. Those may be worthy "causes" by themselves, but they are not charity (even if ugly people... sorry, won't finish that thought).

Do yourselves and the rest of humanity a favor: find a cause you believe in that helps other people, support it, and encourage others to do the same for their causes. Charity is intended to be unselfish. Give it a shot, I think you'll find it's far more buzz worthy than a six pack.

Chapter 76.7: National "Take A Hike" Day

You may not have known it, but today is National Trails Day -- or as I like to call it: National 'Take a Hike' Day. While I'm sure the purpose of this day is to encourage people to walk through some of the many beautiful areas of our country -- mountain trails, forested areas, shorelines -- but I like the idea of telling people to take a hike.

The possibilities for corporate tie-ins are incredible. For example, Timberland might love this: "I can tell your wife's a hiker by that Timberland treadmark on your ass... Timberland: Take a hike!"

Ok, probably not what they have in mind.

Of course, today, the last thing I wanted to do was walk around in this oppressive heat; 96 degrees in early June is not my idea of fun. And tomorrow is expected to be worse. I already bought a six pack of cold beer. I'm in for the night, thank you!

So any one who wants me to head to a bar tonight ... Take A Hike!

Chapter 73.2: In Like a Drunkard

March has arrived. The old saying is that March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb (I believe I have that right). Well, today, these lions are heading up to Hoboken for a little R&R.

These days, we don't spend much time in the town where we lived for many years. The demands of life in suburbia -- such as running a company, paying a mortgage and mowing a lawn or shoveling a driveway -- take up too much of our time. But it'll be nice to meet up with old friends that we haven't seen in too long. Appropriately enough, we're heading to Carpe Diem.

More to report, perhaps, later. After we've seized the day.

Chapter 70.6: Holiday Spirits

Though I enjoy reading the New York Times, I don't usually expect to find much that's funny. But I just came across a NYT City room blog entry that left me laughing and wondering whether I could find this party next year: SantaCon NYC.

It took place this past Saturday, but it sounds like an easy thing to put together. Take one part Christmas spirit (full Christmas regalia: a Santa Claus outfit -- not just a hat -- or some associated costume such as sexy elf, horny reindeer, etc.), add a dose of Christmas secrecy, and cap off with copious amounts of alcohol.

To be honest, I'm too old to party like that for eighteen hours. I don't even do that on St. Patrick's Day anymore. So I probably won't be joining the party, but it sounds like a lot of fun. Lots of Ho Ho Ho-ing, although there may also have been too many scenes that would remind folks of Dan Aykroyd in Trading Places.

But if anyone cares to share what they did this past weekend while partying in New York or anywhere, feel free to do so here. Photos requested but not mandatory.

Chapter 63.9: A Healthy Thirst

Ok, I don't normally post things like this and I couldn't tell you when I last had a strawberry daiquiri, but this sounds tasty.

Strawberry Daiquiri Pops


1. Start with a box of strawberry ice pops — the all-fruit kind works great.

2. Dunk each in a glass filled with light rum and a squeeze of lime juice.

3. Dip one side of the ice pop in a mixture of superfine granulated sugar and a little freshly grated lime zest.

If anyone out there tries it, let me know what you think.