Boozy McGuzzles

BOOZE TYPE: Absinthe!!
PRICE: $59.99 at Astor Center
RATING: A+

Since I was a ridiculous goth teenager, I have had wild fantasies about drinking absinthe. It’s very likely that these fantasies starred Gary Oldman, or possibly Trent Reznor. There was even a point in my life where I tried to make my own absinthe, sending a friend to pick up the right herbs, and stealing my mom’s vodka to seal the whole mess up in a mason jar. I was never brave enough to drink it, but the bonus of that experiences was that when my mom later drank that vodka (after I had filled it back up with water to cover up what I had stolen), she kept commenting on how smoooooth it was. Hilarity!

I’ve considered importing absinthe from other countries, at risk of it getting snatched by customs or being a terrible product, but now getting the green stuff is as simple as going down to my beloved corner liquor store, thanks to Lucid finding legal loopholes to bring absinthe back to the US for the first time in, what, 90 years?

First things first, no, absinthe doesn’t make you hallucinate. Or if it does, it has nothing to do with the wormwood or the amount of thujone. Any crazed effects are due to the fact that this stuff is a solid 62% alcohol, which is a serious kick in the drawers. I drank it in the classic fashion involving sugar and water, although since I lacked a traditional slotted absinthe spoon (they just don’t have them in the Martha Stewart Living collection at K-Mart, for some reason), I used a wire mesh tea ball that I inexplicably have. I poured around an ounce of absinthe into a wine glass, then put a sugar cube in the tea ball and dribbled icy cold SmartWater (because we all know that Oscar Wilde loved his SmartWater! I strive for accuracy) over it. I had been sort of doubtful that cold water would dissolve the sugar, but it most certainly did! And the absinthe in the glass became a beautiful milky green-white, and gave off a strong herbal absinthe smell.

I was bracing myself for a rough, bitter experience, and got nothing of the sort! Lucid consumed in this manner was sweet and lovely. Anise was the strongest flavor, naturally, and there were some other herbs that I couldn’t quite place, but they stirred some sort of nostalgia in me, probably for when I was a gothy teenager and always messing around with herbs. The sugar made it nicely sweet, and it was a little tongue-numbing, with just a twist of bitterness in the finish. I tried a little (very little; I just dipped my finger in the glass) of it straight, and I could still taste sweetness in it without the sugar-water dilution, but good god, it was far too strong to drink straight.

I also consumed Lucid in the form of Ernest Hemingway’s “Death in the Afternoon” cocktail: “Pour one jigger absinthe into a Champagne glass. Add iced Champagne until it attains the proper opalescent milkiness. Drink three to five of these slowly.” I used a possibly too-sweet Moscato d’Asti, and only made it slowly through two, but it made a very nice combination. Bubbly absinthe! Delicious.

And finally, the effects. No, I did not hallucinate, but man, it was a drunkenness like no other. The brand name is very apt, since drinking a very small amount (the price point isn’t so painful when you consider how much of an incredible bang for the buck you’re getting) put me into this very clear, bright state of lucid drunkeness. I was hammered both nights I drank the absinthe, but I didn’t feel really hampered or clumsy or slow. I felt like a genius. I wanted to write novels! I had coherent conversations, and felt utterly fantastic. If possible, I would like to feel like I have two glasses of absinthe in me at all times. Is “Absinthe Fiend” still a valid profession? …no? Oh, rats.

Next up will be experimenting with more cocktails. I just have to see how this would mesh with some Hendrick’s Gin.

BUY IT AGAIN: As often as my budget allows. I will be making my budget allow for a lot of it.

I wrote up a little piece for the paycheck-place called 10 Sites for Boozehounds.

You know, other than this one! …I exercised self-restraint in not dropping the boozy-mcguzzles.com URL in the story itself, so I can’t keep myself from posting it here. I can only do so much!

BOOZE TYPE: Beer
PRICE: $9.99 at the bodega across the street
RATING: A-

Yeah, I had all my ratatat about it not yet being the right weather for pumpkin ales in my last post, but then, after drinking off the rest of that Bluepoint IPA, I decided I needed more beer and staggered across the street to pick up something else. My boozing companion Arielle had mentioned that Blue Moon had a pumpkin brew, and when I saw it, I basically couldn’t resist.

However, Arielle had described it as tasting basically exactly like regular Blue Moon, and by gum, she’s right. It does have a very pleasant aftertaste of pumpkin spices, though. This actually made it a perfect choice for this not-quite-summer/not-quite-fall time of year. It’s still light enough on the tongue to not weight you down at the end of the summer heat, but it has a really great promise of fall. A perfect September beer.

BUY IT AGAIN: For another month, sure.

BOOZE TYPE: Beer
PRICE: $9.99 for a growler at the Whole Foods Bowery Beer Room
RATING: B

My first growler refill! They were out of the one I wanted, the Kelso of Brooklyn Hop Lager, so I went for something else guaranteed to be pretty damn hoppy, the Bluepoint IPA. And boy, howdy, does it not disappoint on the hoppiness.

I sort of have to be in the right mood for an IPA. It’s a weird world right now, weather wise, trying to figure out what to drink. Light summery things are not entirely required right now, but you can’t quite go into the heavy red wines and pumpkin ales yet. Oh, how I eagerly await the first crisp day; autumnal drinks and foods are about my favorite things in the world.

So, an IPA seems one of those beverages that’s sort of on the edge right now. That said, though, the Bluepoint is a really good beer. As the name implies, it has no damn apologies about how hoppy it is. The Whole Foods description is, “Huge, earthy, dry hop aroma is followed by a pleasant caramel sweetness.” I’d recommend drinking this beer not so cold; you get more of the sweetness to balance out getting all hopped up in the face.

First day out of the growler, this had a great thick heavy head; 24 hours later, it still has bubbles, but doesn’t foam up much. I’d wager that you can probably get about two days max out of one of these, after you open it up for the first time.

BUY IT AGAIN?: Yeah, though probably moreso later in the month.

BOOZE TYPE: Wine
Price: $8.99 at Astor Center
Rating: B

I’m not going to lie; I appreciate wine that comes in a box, or in other non-bottle forms. And there really are pretty decent forms of box wine out there these days. My mom just about always keeps a box or two of the classier box brands in her pantry for easy access to the occasional glass. They’re a great low-pressure way to have wine… you don’t have to worry about drinking it in any set amount of time, you can just sip away glasses night after night until you’re squeezing the last out of the weird little bag.

But this all is tangential to the wine at hand, which is not in a box at all… it’s more like a juice box. I’ve been drinking French Rabbit wines for quite a long time, because I find everything about them delightful. They’re all inexpensive, but quite pleasing, and you get 250 milliliters more in their tetra pack than you would in a standard bottle. I love grabbing one of the reds for cooking, since I can use a little and then spin the cap back on and put it in the fridge for later without worrying it’ll go to waste. The whites (I’ve actually only had the chardonnay, which is fine, but I’m dead sick of chardonnays in general) are good for nursing over a few summer days and nights.

But, let’s focus on the Pinot Noir in particular. This is absolutely perfect to go in food or with food. It gave great character to my tomato sauce tonight, and did well in a glass next to it, too. Alone, it’s very drinkable and easy; it’s tannic, but still smooth and light. This actually works well as a chilled red, an idea that I’m warming up to (har har) more and more. It’s a little acidic on the tip of the tongue, with some sweetness in the aftermath.

French Rabbit wines make a great simple drinking wine, when you don’t want to think or worry much about what you’re drinking, but still want to have something good.

BUY IT AGAIN: Yep!

BOOZE TYPE: Beer
PRICE: $8.99 for a growler at the Whole Foods Beer Room
RATING: A

Lady pains continued—nay, increased—today, so instead of buying a bottle of Aleve like a normal person who isn’t an alcoholic, I drank more. I actually had plans of going home and taking one of the Tylenol-3’s I have left over from throwing my back out last Christmas, but damn it, I went to check out the Whole Foods Beer Room, and once I was in, there was no turning back. Growler bottles are free this first week, wheras after they’ll be $3, so I couldn’t say no.

The Beer Room itself ended up not being crowded at all, despite my expectations; but everything about the Bowery Whole Foods defies my expectations of yuppie shit in New York. It’s always so nice and not crowded and an easy experience and people are friendly and not douches. Weird! But a very kindly man named Jon filled up my growler, and when the keg got tapped a quarter of the way through, he offered to get me something else if I didn’t want to wait for them to switch kegs, and then it turned out they had a bottle of the Captain Lawrence Liquid Gold sitting in the mini-fridge from a customer who’d changed their mind! I was fine with that, and they put my bottle in a little insulated cold bag and I went home!

The Captain Lawrence Liquid Gold is a freaking delicious beer, and, as promised, a lovely clear gold color, with pretty light carbonation and not much of a head. I’ve been neglecting talk of beers on this blog in favor of wine snobbery, but damn if I didn’t love beer long before I knew half a shit about wine. The description given by Whole Foods is as such: “Aromas of orange, spice, and green grass. Clean, malt-dominated flavor.” These aromas are honestly a little weird, and my first thought as I stuck my nose in the pint glass I stole from my roommate was “cleanser?!” and I worried I hadn’t rinsed the glass out well enough when I washed it. But the taste proved that all was well, and nothing was soap-contaminated. Apparently Moroccan coriander goes into this brew, which probably attributes for some of the odd soapy scent. On the tongue, it’s a nice combo of citrus and malt without too much bitterness, reminding me of some of the good Belgian beers I’ve had at Burp Castle, or some of the wonderful brews from my favorite hometown brewery, Yazoo Brewing Company in Nashville, TN.

Also, it’s kind of a kick in the pants alcohol content-wise. …Maybe it’s because I haven’t eaten dinner yet, but the first glass of this hit me like a truck full of rainbows.

Side dork note: If only this were Captain Laurence beer, then it would be the official beer of the Temeraire novels! …don’t you judge my choice of reading materials.

BUY IT AGAIN: Yes, but probably after I try the other eleven beers the Whole Foods Beer Room has to offer.

BOOZE TYPE: Wine
PRICE: $8.99 at Astor Center (but $2 off with store card!)
RATING: B

Today at work I found myself tired, and grumpy, and beset by what medical professionals would call “lady pains”. I knew that after work I wanted to pour some variety of yummy, soothing alcohol down my gullet. I considered going to investigate the newly opened Whole Foods Beer Room and pickin’ me up a growler, because I love everything about growlers. Hell, at least 60% of what I love is just the name “growler”. But then my brains won out as I remembered that going to any sort of establishment guaranteed to bring yuppie joy on its opening day is more or less a guarantee to bring large crowds and annoying waits. So growlers will come later, and I promise to write when I get one. So to Astor it was.

I’m not going to lie to you. I walked in there and had an honest to god intention of buying a magnum of white zinfandel. I… I’m not proud. But you have to understand, my womb hurts, and I wanted something sweet and shameful. However, when I came around the corner to the shameful section of wines, there were two employees standing, like, right there, and I just couldn’t do it. And after three or four laps around the store (discovering that they carried not only Lichido Lychee liqueur, which my mother has craved since we went to Japan, but also Lucid, the new absinthe brand available in the states, which will so be a next paycheck splurge) I settled on wanting something sparkling, and sweet, and found an old friend.

I’ve had Pêche Imperiale a few times before. The wine is “a harmonious blend of traditional champagne method Saumur wine with natural essences of peach.” What this means is something that tastes like a cross between a pêche lambic ale and a sweet sparkling wine. The peach flavor is actually not too strong; it’s very present in the aroma and the aftertaste, but most of what you get on your tongue is just fizziness and sugar. A lambic would have been better, but for the same amount of liquid, you’d pay more and get less of an alcoholic kick, and sometimes you want a freakin’ alcoholic kick.

All in all, a decent sweet little treat. Great for dessert, or just for fun, and utterly horrid with food. Tuna + red peppers + this wine = oof maybe I’ll just drink water for now.

BUY IT AGAIN: Most likely, yes.

BOOZE TYPE: Wine
PRICE: $11.99 at Astor Center
RATING: A+

As I said in my very first review here at Boozy McGuzzles, Cline wines are an amazing and lovely thing. The one afternoon I spent in Sonoma was so special and so wonderful, that whenever I see a wine from any of the three wineries we visted (Mayo Family Winery, Chateau St. Jean, and Cline Cellars), I sort of feel compelled to buy them. They’re the most beloved wines of my dear friends, and they’re just damn good.

When I was celebrating… something… possibly the fact that it was Friday? Maybe I’d just gotten paid? I don’t know, but there was some reason I was buying a large number of bottles of wine (mostly vinho verdes, as it is summer), and I espied a Cline wine in the liquor store’s refrigerated case, and I had no choice but to buy it. I’d likely had some whites in my tasting when I was there, but none that I could remember. I am beginning to think myself a fan of Viogniers, so I was happy to snap it up.

And oh, oh, it was so lovely. This was a wine that was just enchanting, especially for its price. It had a heady aroma of peaches, but was not overly sweet; that was the real amazing thing about it, the way it managed its sweetness. This wine had all these wonderful notes of honey and sweet fruits, but without really being sweet or cloying at all. Absolutely beautiful.

BUY IT AGAIN: Oh, yes.

BOOZE TYPE: Wine
PRICE: $7.99 at (you guessed it) Astor Center
RATING: A

Honestly, I don’t know why I even bother to review vinho verde wines, because I’ve never met one I didn’t like. But today’s trip to the liquor store (as I am on VACATION and will be until next Monday, and thus will spend the whole time drinking and playing video games) revealed that Astor had a new vinho verde in stock! One I had never had before! Naturally, I snapped it up. It’s at a slightly higher price point than the general vinho verde stock, but still under $10.

Casa de Sezim is not nearly as bubbly as many of the other vinho verde wines I’ve tried; I have a suspicion this has something to do with its higher alcohol content. Most vinho verdes run between 9-10% alcohol; this one is 12.5%. But, this lack of effervescence does not make it any less of a wine. It’s a little heavier on the tongue, and doesn’t have the strong lemony, citrusy flavor that a lot of other vinho verdes have. This, instead, has a strong scent of peach! I would call this one a more serious vinho verde, better suited to go with food–it sort of begs for seafood, or something a little spicy–than the usual light sippin’ wine that is other vinho verdes.

I really have no idea what the proper way to pluralize vinho verde is. Forgive me, I don’t speak Portuguese. But if I keep loving Portuguese wines this much, I’m going to have to learn.

BUY IT AGAIN: Of course!

BOOZE TYPE: Wine
PRICE: $4.99 at Astor Center
RATING: A+ between the months of June and August

IT’S SO HOT UGH HELP IT’S SO HOT NEW YORK IN SUMMER IS SO GROSS HELP HELP HELP.

Uh. By which I mean, it has been a while since I have posted, especially with any reviews! Don’t worry, I’m still drinking! Drinking so much I can’t be bothered to write! But time to break the drought with some more vinho verde. I’m sorry, red wines, I love you, but I don’t think I can drink you until like October, because you make me sweat.

Fâmega is, as all vinho verde wines, light and fantastically refreshing. This one is bubblier than most, with a light citrus flavor, and also some hints of actual green flavors… sort of crisp and almost vegetable. Celery? I don’t know, I feel like that sounds like a bad thing to say that wine tastes like, but people say wine tastes like all kind of stupid things. The bubbles are really at the forefront, sharp and pleasing on the tongue, and the wine is only a little sweet. This wine is crisp and refreshing, and perfect for disgusting hot New York nights.

Damn it, I moved up to the north to escape terrible weather! No one told me that New York summers were basically as bad as Nashville summers! Son of a–!

Anyway, Fâmega rosé to follow! Possibly. Depends. You know how it is.

BUY IT AGAIN: ALL SUMMER LONG.