There’s a local craft brewery that does a New England Triple IPA coming in at 10% but goes down waaaaaay too easily. Has a very bright, juicy profile and has become my recent favorite from them.
Since January I’ve cut back on alcohol. There are reasons, blood pressure, morning hangovers, weight . . . It’s been tough, but I’ve discovered that it’s not the alcohol I miss so much as the habit of drinking. I like the procedures. Still, it’s hard to open a bottle of wine without finishing it, or if Kris is around getting well into a second.
I’ve been drinking a lot of non-alcoholic substitutes. Most of them are not very good. A lot of them are made by brewing something alcoholic, and then removing the alcohol. It makes for a thin weirdly vacant stuff. Even the decent hard liquor substitutes are good for nothing but mixes, and then you need to add more than you’d usually add.
Seedlip products are terrific, though you still can’t sip them. They make a great tonic or club soda based drink. I had one at a restaurant last weekend where they’d smoked it with cinnamon. I think they learned that from HH.
I’ve learned that tonic can irritate your bladder. If your bladder is so inclined and you drink enough of it you’ll be up peeing all night. Ask me how I know.
The beers are harder. None are going to make any 10-best lists, but some of them are very good. I really like the Clausthaler dry-hopped, and I found one six pack of a Fungtn IPA that was great but I haven’t seen it since. The six packs are not cheap. I think the Fungtn was someplace close to $12 a six pack.
The rest of the beers I’ve tried have been too thin, but all of them were better than Coor’s Light.
I’m not trying any wines.
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There are some decent hop waters out there I’ve tried. Definitely not the same as a good IPA, but it still somewhat scratches the itch.
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Oddly enough, kombucha has become my go-to beer replacement. It’s yeasty and carbonated so it more or less fits the bill–especially for a hot day by the pool and whatnot. I’ve found I enjoy it better than the near-beers since it doesn’t taste like it’s trying to be something it’s not. There’s a lot of terrible varieties out there but there are definitely some tasty ones too. I think all of those are available at Central Market, but you can get most of them other places too.
Also, this particular flavor is a great mimosa substitute but I don’t see it in stores as much.
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Huh, I’ll have to delve into this. I’ve been limiting myself to drinks 2 or 3 days a week, and a substitute other than water would be nice.
Just avoid anything trying to sound too healthy. Anything going for “drink your greens,” or anything with the word “cleanse” in it, forget it.
And even the good brands will put out awful products sometimes. Two of the ones I linked to are from Better Booch, both really good flavors (the “morning glory” is really mild and a great starting point)–but that company also has a horchata flavor that was among the least pleasant things I’ve ever tasted. Admittedly it was kind of a “dead dove do not eat” situation but curiosity got the better of me.
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I don’t know what I was expecting…
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Maui Brewing Company has some good stuff. I like their Big Swell IPA.
How do you consume your cannabis?
So today I’m drinking cucumber jalapeño margaritas. They are outSTANDing
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I too have cut back on my alcohol consumption but I’m now up to 3 to 4 Topo Chicos everyday.
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I don’t drink nearly as much beer as I used to. Pretty much wine and bourbon in our house. I’ll make an exception for my friend Nick’s Hanabi Lager. It’s expensive ($15 for a 500mL bottle), but goddamn is it good. Probably the best domestic lagers I’ve ever had. And reading his release emails is a fascinating deep dive into the various heritage grains he uses for brewing.
With a plug-in vaporizer (which has nothing to do with those dumbass vape-pens). I buy regular flower bud, grind it up, and the vaporizer heats it to around 400 degrees. The cannabinoids vaporize at that temperature but it’s still below the ignition point, so nothing burns.
My lungs are clear and there isn’t a whiff of smoke on me. I can’t believe people are still smoking it.
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Your Coors reference reminded me of something. I grew up in Corpus Christi and am pushing 70 for reference. I remember being a teenager and neighbors and friends of my parents making Colorado runs to bring back Coors beer by the trunkload Now, granted, there are plenty of reasons to go to Colorado, especially if you wake up daily on the Texas coast, but the reference today seems so quaint.
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I remember when Coors was kind of exotic back in the early 70s before it was distributed in central and south Texas.
A few years back Coors appeared in local convenience stores in Korea. It had been several years so I thought it’d be funny to get one. It was worse than I remembered.
I used to work in London and my office was right by Victoria Station. There’s a sort of walk up pub there called The Mash Tun and I went in one day and they had bottles of Lone Star in their little fridge. This was in 2005, and by 2008 when we moved they were still in there.
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Coors are very rare now and I haven’t seen them in awhile. The import section seems to change in waves here and recently Molson ad Kozel are getting a push while the local craft beers are gobbling up more shelf space. No Lone Star yet though.
I was telling this to my son-in-law, a craft beer guy who has gotten me drinking better, and he got a good chuckle out of it.
It’s important to remember that the character known for saying “I’d piss Coors if I could” was completely, utterly insane.