28 December 2006

Martinis for Mom and Her Man

Christmas Day was a learning experience. My niece taught me how to make a martini for my mom and her man. I do not usually get too close to gin on account of I once completely covered Sonja's balcony with puke when I drank too many pink lemonade and gins one summer day. And vermouth is a ghastly creation, people in England, who will drink anything, were having a fling with the stuff when I lived back there. My mom insisted I buy some gigantic olives to stick in the booze. Martinis look cool but I will stick to the drinks I like already.

I do not know how my mom's liver can take the beating a martini gives to that most vital and abused of organs. All Sonja's dad had was a big shot of rye and a bottle of Phoenix beer. Sonja's dad is a warning of how little you get to drink when you get older if you lay into the juice too hard when you are younger.

I hit the scotch, the Guinness and had a couple bottles of wine while I helped Sonja cook up dinner. I am not a big fan of Guinness but turkey gravy demands a half a tall can be stirred into it for colour, flavour and charm.

I also learned my niece is a true blue Hockey. She said her and her friends rang up a $1500 bar bill paid for by the dope grower of the bunch. It is no wonder people have switched to dope from the juice in such large numbers - booze is a ridiculous price. That bar bill could have bought a pound of the best.

The price of beer is the worst value. You can buy a 26er of cheap hard stuff for the price of 12 beers. My New Year's Resolution is to start making my own beer. I hear there are herbs more hockey friendly than hops you can put in the stuff. A nice light wormwood beer would be a grand drink around a summer campfire.

2 comments:

Ed said...

Happy New Year to you and Sonja, Beer!

Some of my favorite herbs for beer are: yarrow, which grows in my garden; wild rosemary, the cultivated kind will do if you can't find it in the wild; and bog myrtle, a waxy-leaved native of lowland swamps here in the South, related to the Crepe Myrtle. Technically this is a "gruit" not a "beer". It is a much older recipe.

This is the basis for the beloved summer drink I call WALSTIB (the accromyn of "What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been"). It has a light "woodsy" taste that really satifies a summer thirst and the buzz it produces is a comfortable, mellow high that doesn't zap your energy on a hot day. No headache, no hangover.

If you'd like the recipe, let me know.

Best wishes for the new year, my friend.

Mr. Beer N. Hockey said...

Yarrow grows all over the place here. My first brief searches for rosemary growing hereabouts suggest it may not, but I should be able to get some fresh stuff sent over from the east coast when it is in season. I will have to check the specialty shops around here to see if they stock it. You never know what you will find when you start looking in Dope City.

A recipe is all I need to get started on any project. I would sure appreciate if you can share a gruit recipe. And I'm real partial to rosemary and trying new things.