Magic Moonshine Time

MOONSHINE REVIEW

Kings County Moonshine

About $20?

"Okay guys, let's put some pseudo illegal alcoholic beverage that's set for a resurgence, put it in a "health tonic" like glass hip flask, under-advertise it and sell the shit out of it in hipster bars!"

I think I spoke those words a few years ago, and much like how I consistently forget about the existence of New Hampshire, I forgot about my would-be plans for a moonshine company. Moonshine is back in the national spotlight after TLC or something did a show about Moonshine distillers, at least I think that happened :::furiously searches internet for "moonshine television show"::: ah yes, it's called "Moonshiners" and it's on the Discovery channel. Dang. It's about dentally challenged backwoods white people making illegal moonshine.

                                            Likes: Moonshine, Dale Earnhardt, soft foods

                                            Dislikes: Obama, shoes, teeth

So Moonshine is a good time. It has been called "Tennessee White Whiskey" because it's really kind of like a non-barrel aged whiskey. This particular moonshine has a very distinctive turpentine-like smell to it, but it has a nice peppery flavor akin to some tequilas. It packs a punch and it's a very social alcoholic drink. I had a sip before and I feel nice, warm all over and shit. It's a fun drink to share with friends because a little goes a long way. I'm thinking you could put it in orange juice if you wanted to, but other than that it would probably be something to sip between beers.

The lack of advertising on the bottle actually is the advertising. I saw the bottle and I was all like "Whoa" and I had to have it. I promptly kept it in my jacket until I drank it all. Cool story.

                                                                     "So thirsty..."

So yeah, enjoy moonshine and become hip. Or get too drunk on moonshine and fracture your hip. Whatever.

Gluten Free Beer Review #2 : Bards!

Hey I found more gluten free beer, let's review it why don't we?

Bard's Beer

Price: $12

Packaging and advertising works really well on me. The name is cool, the art on the package is cool, and their slogan is "Discuss it over a Bard's", which is awesome because it makes you think you're going to have some sort of important business to conduct while drinking. In reality, most things should be done while drinking. I finally started watching Mad Men and it makes me feel okay about casual drinking. In the same vein, listening to Juvenile makes me feel good about myself because I have a solid fundamental grasp of the English language, unlike Juvenile.

                          I would like to discuss how awesome Freddie Mercury was over a Bard's


So Bard's is a sorghum malt beer, and it's pretty good! It doesn't taste like beer, it has almost a coffee aftertaste and it's a touch sweet, but not sugary. It's really very light and easy to chug, I just had a sip of it got a bit of a cinnamon taste, weird.

 I read (from the internets) that the owners of Bard's are two righteous beer enjoying dudes who suffer from celiac's disease, which is devilish irony it seems, but not really. It makes sense that people like beer, and bread, and pizza because that shit is delicious. It's just that those foods contain gluten which makes a large (and ever-growing) part of the population sick. So, here we are today where these guys made a pretty darn good gluten free "beer". Allow me to reiterate, this stuff doesn't taste like beer, but it's very drinkable and provides the same positive effects that beer does, minus the gastrointestinal conflict. I was at a party last night (yes, I have friends) and it was nice to be able to hang with the dudes and drink "beer" whilst they chugged Yuengling.

So here we are in the bold new world of gluten free beer and it's getting better all the time. A brave new world of tasty brew that dudes with gluten issues such as myself can chug mightily. You can go totally sick-house on this beer.

                                                                             "Beer."

Enjoy!
                                                     

Adventures With Gin, VOL 1.

Over the years, I have tried many non-beer alcoholic drinks so as to switch it up and appear slightly classier than I actually am. I've had a lurid love affair with Vodka that ended about 4 months ago when I realized that I cannot drink that shit any longer. Vodka is fine but I get so fucking hungover from it. I've come to realize that a "normal" alcohol hangover can be exacerbated by a gluten hangover, and even though there is a debate as to how much or if any gluten is in vodka, I think there definitely is some post-distillation gluten remnants

That's some science shit for ya.

What is strange for me is that gin doesn't fuck up my stomach like vodka does, even though there is supposedly some gluten in gin as well. Whatever, I love gin. I love the semi minty juniper berry flavor and I'd like to shake the hand of the man or woman who discovered gin. I would also give them an ITunes card because, music is great.

     
                                                        Thank you, Small Spiderman.

So my "Gin of the Moment" (or G.O.T.M) is Uncle Val's Botanical Gin. It's a little expensive, but really, all good gin is. This gin is full of real botanicals, which is awesome. It contains juniper, cucumber, lemon, lavender, and sage, which is really cool because it is made with actual ingredients and not chemicals.

                                               
                                                       This is where cheap gin comes from

This is a smooth gin that has a beautiful taste to it. I love Bombay Sapphire, but it almost goes down too easily. I mean, you could chug Uncle Val's, but the complex flavor lends itself better to sippin'.

Also, you could potentially impress someone by ordering this gin at a bar, if bars even carry this stuff.

Try it, it's great....or come over my house, I still have some left.

Thanks.

Gluten Free Beer Review #1 Redbridge

So recently, and begrudgingly, I've given in to the very probable conclusion that I am indeed gluten intolerant. This sucks. Everything is fucking made of gluten. I can't have a god forsaken cracker without being bloated like John Goodman back in the "Roseanne" days. Even though John Goodman looks fantastic nowadays, I used to feel like shit whenever I ate a piece of bread, or drank 18 beers.

                                                           John Goodman looks sexy.

Anyway, living gluten free takes some serious dedication. I can't eat Cheerios, but fuck those, I have always loved Fruity Pebbles, which are gluten free because they are made of rice. I love Fruity Pebbles. My name is Derek and I'm here to say, I love Fruity Pebbles in a major way.

                                     
                                  Here's a picture of me at my grandma's funeral. Family Size.


So there's gluten free beer. Fuck yeah. I love beer. This means I can still hoist major brew without getting gluten sick. Sign me the fuck up! One beer that is gluten free is Redbridge, which is made by Anheuser-Busch. I had to Google how to spell that.

                     
                                            "Drink me. I'm made of mystery components."

This is a middle-of-the-road beer for sure, with kind of a weird taste. I wasn't familiar with sorghum, but once upon a time I played a game called Sim Farm from Maxis Software and I grew a shit ton of sorghum until a tornado came and killed everything. Sad times. But yeah it's a beer made from sorghum and it kind of tastes like regular Budweiser, or "Bud Fats". Hell yes. It's refreshing and has a low bloat factor.

                                                                    "Me love gluten!"

So this beer is more expensive than regular beer, but fuck it, you can be gluten intolerant, or celiac, and still drink beer and that's what matters. Gluten is seemingly in everything, and it's basically a bonding agent that, while it is organic in nature, is not entirely digestible by a good portion of the population. Word up.

 As a bonus, even if you aren't celiac or gluten intolerant, you can chug a bunch of this beer, get drunk, and not be bloated. Nice. Ladies don't dig the bloat.

Beer I Actually Like

Today I figured I would review a beer that I have not only sampled, but enjoyed, and hold in a high regard! Ain't that some shit?

Southern Tier Imperial Pumking Ale

Price: About $7

This beer is amazing, even though I'm a bit ahead of schedule. It's creamy, delicious, and pays homage to a pagan Celtic spirit, which is always fun. To get in the early Halloween spirit, I watched the Lars von Trier movie "Antichrist" and drank this beer which was pretty intense. So now, to come down a bit, I'm having a Foster's and watching The Big Lebowski.

                                                         "FILL THIS WITH BEER"

Anyway, I've blindly enjoyed pretty much every beer I've had from Southern Tier, and this one was no exception. This might be the best pumpkin beer I've ever had, it's not too sweet, it doesn't have heavy nutmeg flavor, and it gets you good and crunk like 2002 era Lil Jon.

                                                  some things that are not dead, should be

The main problem I find with most types of pumpkin beer is the aforementioned heinous amounts of nutmeg that is usually crammed into said beer. This beer has more of a caramel flavor, and light carbonation. Also, the color is pretty.

                                                      If you drink too much.... pumpkins.

Overall, I figured it was a fun idea to review a quality beer. Southern Tier is an amazing brewing company, I might just have to review their 2X IPA. Which means.... drinking.

Beer Hell Part 2

In this edition of Beer Hell I'd like to discuss Miller 64, a beer that is marketed at the active-lifestyle crowd, and is meant to be consumed while on a treadmill or a snowboard..... or something.

I bought this beer under the pretense that I was actually buying beer. Instead, Miller has somehow jumped genres and is making some sort of golden soda that almost makes me feel drunk if I drink 5 or 10 of these.... things. As expected, there's not a whole lot to this beer flavor wise, but it is nice that it's low on calories. This is a beer that you can jog with, take to Zumba, or just kick it with your dog listening to Madonna's "Like A Prayer" in your tartan plaid green boxer shorts. Interesting imagery, no?

                                                          Note the classic Casio watch


This is a semi refreshing beer that one could really rage with, were they so inclined. I will probably bring this beer next time I go "fishing", which is Irish for "boat drinking". Honestly there's not many choices in the low-calorie beer market, but I would probably go to Michelob Ultra over this, although I do like the retro logo.

                                                       
"THOR NEED TO GET ON THE STICK! THOR NEED LOWER CALORIE ALTERNATIVE!"





Overall, the more I drink this beer, the less I like it. It's got a very faint flavor that my barbarian palette cannot properly detect, and it makes me long for the full flavor Fosters I have in the refrigerator.

                                             Try Googling "Drunk Australians", it's fun.


It's summertime so this beer is a logical choice right now. That's about the nicest thing I can say about it. ENJOY!

Cheap Wine Chronicles Chapter 4

This time around we review a nice little Italian table wine with a goddamn basket attached to it!

CHEAP WINE CHRONICLES CHAPTER 4

Opici Chianti 2010

Cost : $11 (bonus basket)

This unassuming table wine is a light bodied, semi sweet Chianti with almost no finish and pretty light tannins. For some reason I was enthralled when I saw this at the local liquor store. I went in there to find a new wine to review and fatefully decided on this smooth criminal of a wine. I took my wife's last name (Gerard) so I'm Italian now, and I guess it stands to reason that I'd be excited about Chianti.

                                                                   Drunk Italian Elvis


I love red wine, especially red wine that pairs well with Italian food. I also love cheap red wine, cheap red wine that gets me drunk. This wine is "young" as hell and like, you could "cellar" it for a while, but what's the point, it's cheap, it's easy drinking, and it makes you see ghosts and speak different languages.

                                                                   This is a book!

Drinking this wine has given me the patience and courage to finally watch "Stephen King's IT." That alone makes me wish I didn't drink this wine. Wait, forget I said that.

Wine.

Summertime White Wine Round Up REMIX

A smooth summertime white wine that will get you feeling so fresh, and so clean.

Citra Pinot Grigio

Price : $6.99, generally

 Do you need white wine? Is it hot outside? Drink this stuff, baby.

I love Citra Pinot Grigio, I drink it when I'm eating granola because I'm earthy as fuck. I want some right now. This wine has a really citrusy taste to it, like Lemon Wine. There should be a band named "Lemon Wine".

This wine is good because it's cold. Other than that, it gets you drunk, so it fulfills the basic needs of summertime drinking, right?

You can drink it in the pool!

                                                (was this painting on a Snoop Dogg album?)

Try it, srsly. It's soo hot out.

Happy Summer.

Summertime White Wine Round-Up!

Here's some cheap wine ideas for those hot summer months when you are already bored of swimming (PROTIP: include wine WITH swimming, then sing "A Whole New World" from Disney's Aladdin). Crane Lake Down Under Chardonnay Price : about $6 This is a super fruity chardonnay that is inexpensive and tastes like it has a learning disability (nothing against people with learning disabilities, but this wine is in need of extra tutoring, whatever that means.) I bought this wine because it was cheap and I needed wine. My friend told me it smelled like wet hairy coconut, which I guess is an actual aromatic descriptor, but holy fuck I don't want to hear that when I am about to consume wine. To me it was just too darn fruity, but if you are having a party and need some buffer bottles to put out (I like that term, "buffer bottles") then by all means rock this business. The cute little Koala on the label lets you know that this is serious stuff, and the pee-yellow color lets you know that you might be drinking pee. Australian pee. Charles Smith Wines Kung-Fu Girl Riesling  Price : $12 Charles Smith is a talented winemaker from Washington state and he looks like the lead singer of the Melvins.  ( He is not, as I originally thought, the talented but soft Small Forward with knee issues that the Knicks had in the mid 90's  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRFKhpMKX0E ) Kung Fu Girl Riesling is a very tasty (but sweet) riesling with strong lime flavor, and a cool label. Having a cool label is important when it comes to impressing people with wine, because you can tell people what flavors they're tasting in wine (almost like a hypnotic suggestion), but a cool label that everyone can see really puts it over the top. This is one of my favorites, even though I routinely tell people that I have a strong dislike for sweet riesling. This is a tasty, cheap, cool wine that will Kung Fu punch you with flavor. In the face. Shaolin Style. Thank you for Wine Time.

Cheap Wine Chronicles #3

In this entry, we take it back to the old school, cause I'm an old fool. We are going to talk about the first wine I can remember having, which, given my selective memory, may not be the first wine I actually had, go figure.

The Cheap Wine Chronicles Volume 1 Chapter 3

Fortissimo California Grape Wine (Magnum)

Price : $8.99

                                                   "This wine exhibits high slammability."

I fondly remember my grandpa bringing magnums of Fortissimo to family events when I was much younger. Gramps had a pretty straight forward wine palette, as this is a basic red table wine that's heavy on the tannins and exhibits high teeth-staining power. Nobody in my family drank red wine, so when it was politely stashed away in our food-closet, I would pounce on this stuff and quaff it in high quantity and with glorious force.

                           Joni Mitchell bathes in Fortissimo wine in order to keep her youthful glow.

The greatest thing about this wine is that I can't find shit about it on the internet, which makes me think it's mostly reserved for the restaurant distribution crowd. I love how they have to specify that it is, in fact, "California Grape Wine", and not like, asparagus wine or something. As a side note, when I first started working at a winery, I had this dude ask me "You're a wine expert or something, right? So... what's in wine?" To which I confidently replied, "Grapes."

This wine is great, and I truthfully miss it. I am very close to ordering a case of it since it's cheap as fuck and I need more inexpensive Cabernet Sauvignon in my life. Also, it's like a trip down memory lane for me, if only I had a functioning memory portion of my brain.

CHECK THIS OUT a 6 bottle case is only $57.54.

http://www.winechateau.com/sku1036514_CR-CELLARS-FORTISSIMO-1.50L

That's cool!

Thanks again!

-Derek-

The first circle of Beer Hell: Limbo

Let's do a beer review. Some Miami Heat fan is blasting off mortars and I got tailed tonight by some dude who looked like Shawn Michaels on a motorcycle so like, why the fuck not?

The First Circle of Beer Hell : Limbo

So, Stewart's is the company that makes those delicious Key Lime Pie and Creamsicle sodas, I think.

They felt like branching out and started making beer, and in upstate New York at a Stewart's Gas Station, you can get this mountain light ice beer for about $2.99 a six pack.

                                                               "TELL ME MORE"

So this beer will get you drunk, and it's cheap. As a bonus, it almost tastes like beer. It's the beer you want to drink when you're completely devoid of good sense and are looking to rehydrate and catch a buzz simultaneously. That being said, there's NOTHING wrong with that! It's okay, it's almost vintage kitsch, and on a good day it almost tastes like a maltier Natural Ice. I am not hating, this is a decent cheap beer and for some reason it beckons me to listen to the Wu Tang Clan, C.R.E.A.M. 36 Chambers, I'd even listen to some solo Ghostface just to get my weekly Wu Tang Fix.

                                                         "How High" was a good movie.

THANKS                                  

                                                             

Beer! If you can find this beer, buy it because it's pretty rare where I live.

Series continues with : The 2nd Circle of Beer Hell : Lust