Month: October 2006

Last night I went to this place called The Fort and drank something known as Trade Whiskey, which is flavored with red pepper, tobacco, and gunpowder. It was pretty good, and this morning I woke up with long, luxurious chest hair.

I may have gone on record saying the ultimate drink is probably just plain old water, preferably really really cold and maybe even right out of the tap, depending on your plumbing sitch. And last night I was super-thirsty but too busy sleeping to get something to drink, Q.E.D. I was super-thirsty in my dream and my dream-self had to stop putting the moves on Murphy Brown long enough to go get something to drink. And then I find something and start feverishly chugging but of course it does nothing to quench my thirst because dream-drinking does zero in terms of real-world physical hydration. I hate these dreams. OK never mind we know all this.

The point is, guess what beverage I chose in my dream? Plain old water. And I was drinking it out of what looked to be a 70s-era Coors can. Maybe because I recently moved to Golden? I know you enjoy interpreting my dreams! Anyway the thing is water was literally the drink of my dreams, and that is significant.

And I feel like there’s a glut of beverages in the market right now that are all about giving you options vis-a-vis water. Yeah sometimes I use phrases that I don’t know the meaning of, get over it, that happens. So there’s water and juice, there’s water and Kool-Aid like Vitamin Water, water and bubbles and juice like Fizzy Lizzy, water and globules of lychee or whatever it is you go for.

Normally, I’m all: Dude just ease up on the shenanigans and give me straight-up water. I’m so desperately tired of the dicking around. Right? And something like Hint — which is very aptly named because it’s plain old water with an almost ridiculously subtle dash of flavor buried in there somewhere — something like Hint would typically be filed right into the “Oh Jesus Just Stop It” category along with your Bluetooth earpiece.

But I’ve gone through a half-dozen bottles of this stuff and I’m starting to think they’ve got the percentages down tight. You have all the enjoyment of knocking back plain old water but then a little bit of flavor that doesn’t interfere but instead enhances the experience. It’s like ambient flavor. So even stuff like Cucumber or Pear or Pomegranate-Tangerine, which you know would be Grade-A Stank in large doses, are perfectly acceptable here.

And isn’t that what we all want out of a beverage? Something perfectly acceptable? OK fine, I guess your standards are all lofty. How is that working out for you.

Writing about the “hey let’s make our own soda!” stuff in the Fizzy Lizzy review got me to wondering: What if one day I just lost my mind and decided to invent my own drink in the garage and then tried to sell it. Maybe a flash-pasteurized peanut butter smoothie. Or cherry root beer.

So Fizzy Lizzy sent us some of their beverages to try out, because I guess they’re scrappy up-and-comers? Like three people in some cramped apartment in NYC? Allegedly someone named Lizzy got it in her head that she was going to make juice-and-seltzer drinks and then just went for it — are you buying this? This whole garage-band thing, like they’re all sitting around and squeezing passion fruit and gluing the labels on by hand and basically just full of dreams? I didn’t think that was a viable career path.

Remember a couple years back we were talking about some young upstarts who decided to make their own kind of indie cola and take on the corporate sellout colas? Or something? And we’re like: Son, your naivete would be endearing if it wasn’t so sad, and your cola didn’t taste like patchouli dick. But are we just laying down our own cynical trips on these semi-visionaries? Just because we’ve failed at every single one of our life’s ambitions (well to be fair you did finally get that Death Eater tattoo) doesn’t mean that it’s not possible – at least mathematically – for someone to come up with this mindblowing drink in their basement which ends up toppling the Coca-Cola empire. Isn’t it pretty to think so, et cetera.

Anyway, I don’t see Fizzy Lizzy as the regime-toppler, but they have some pleasant enough flavors. And there’s something to be said for drinking a beverage that’s been made by people excited to be making a beverage (or at least that’s their marketing spin – oh I will be simply furious if I find out this is all some scam by PepsiCo to trick me with indie cred!!!). You can sort of taste the perspiration or inspiration or whatever it is.

The thing here is they’re a blend of sparkling water and around 70% juice, so it’s not quite soda, not quite juice, and this effect works better in some flavors than others. I should also mention that there is often sediment involved.

Anyway let me summarize our binge drinking session. I thought Concord Grape was OK (with booze in it), but Fuji Apple was my fave – like a nice, smooth cider. You thought Passionfruit was far and away the best, kind of like an orange-grapefruit blend (bleh), but gave thumbs down to Ruby Grapefruit (“doesn’t bring anything new to the table”) and Raspberry Lemon (“just sour water”), while I literally had to spit out the Pineapple into my cat’s face because it tastes exactly like pineapple, which is not something I enjoy, at all, ever, in any capacity. Sorry Cap’n Furpants, don’t be all mad, let’s kiss and make up!!

Dear Josh:

I remember the time you had sex with Sean Connery.

You gave yourself utterly to his ecstasy, so overwhelmed were you by his brute beauty. All through that long night–that night you prayed would never end–his passion was relentless, merciless. He reduced your soul to embers, your heart stirring in awe of the mastery, the achieve of this man, this chevalier.

And the next morning–the harsh morning light streaming in through the hotel windows–you woke to find him gone. On the dresser, A fifty-dollar bill wrapped around the stem of a single red rose. And you thought to yourself: Ummm did I seriously do all those things with award-winning star Sean Connery and if so what the hell was I thinking? Because no way was he going to be interested in a relationship. Honestly, I know we don’t talk about it much, but I think you never got over him. You were certainly never the same after that encounter. And yet the memories. The wonderful, haunting memories.

All my feelings about Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia Milkshake are summed up in that 100% true anecdote.

Such a wondrous experience, leaving such potent regret in its wake. It’s like drinking cool, melty ice cream. The only thing that could make it more enjoyable would be if there were spoilers for the next Harry Potter book printed on the label, to read while pausing between sips. Josh I am embarassed to tell you that after I was done, I put the cap back on and rested the bottle upside down so that I might tease from it one last sip. I’ve never done that before, and now that I have I feel I’ve turned a corner forever, my life changed irrevocably by hedonistic desire.

And then I seriously did not get up from my chair for 20 minutes after drinking it. It was like I was pinned to the chair, a pillowcase full of Puffskeins in my stomach, slowly dragging themselves down the length of my colon. The afternoon was endless, merciless.

This time I am swearing off the dairy for good, let this entry be my swan song. No more of that for this guy. Well maybe one exception: I know it’s very unlikely that when I die one day, decades from now, I will die from drowning. As you know I hate to swim and look terrible in a speedo. And it’s even more unlikely that if I do drown, that I’ll get to choose beforehand what I drown in. I could see this happening only if my life was more like a young James Bond’s. But just in case it does come to pass that I will drown and get to choose the solution, I want to drown in Cherry Garcia Milkshake. For what could be a more lovely and noble and dangerous. I ask you.

OK chum I gotta just quickly chime in on the whole Vitamin Water thing. I mean it’s this thing. These babies are everywhere. I feel like they’re going to supplant the whole Snapple stranglehold, given enough marketing dollars. I know you’ve already submitted your review but I need to deposit my fitty cents.

(And at this juncture I have to give a shout out to my wife who was way ahead of the curve on this one [sort of like the whole “write extremely personal things about yourself on the web” deal]. She was all: “Taste this! It’s totally like watered-down orange drink!” Because she’s basically ape for the watered-down drinks? Seriously just the other day I got this delightful carton of potent apple cider, all action-packed with fierce autumn flavor the way it should be, right? Get this: She cuts it with three parts water. I’m like: Why do you hate flavor. Why do you hate pleasure. But that’s a tale for another time.)

Anyway one day I’m desperately dehydro and desperate for w/e and as usual the local beverage provider is filled stem to stern with Vitamin Waters, and I go: fine. I give. And I opted for Formula 50, which allegedly is brought to me by 50 Cent? In some kind of weird, super-subtle (and thus atypical) hip-hop cross-promo thing? And I chug it, not even really tasting anything until the bottle is empty, and I’m left with: OK, I take it this is the watered-down grape Kool-Aid flavor. (No joke, I’m pretty sure it’s actual Kool-Aid that these pricks in Queens are just diluting with shitty sludge from the Sound, and then charging us two bills.)

I tried pretty much every other VW I came across — the watered-down fruit punch, watered-down lemonade, even the more obscure flavors like green tea and peach mango and raspberry apple and lemon tea — and each time I’m all: Zzzzzwha? What time is it? Oh I must’ve driften off while drinking this incredibly dull drink. And then I turn around and realize I’ve had one of these every day for like the last three months. It got its hooks in me. These shiny bottles call out to me every time, cockpunching all competitors with extreme prejudice.

And Formula 50 is the one I keep turning to above all others. It just plain quenches the shit out me and the shrill, bleak grape taste has become increasingly endearing and essential. I’m not proud of my love for this drink, but I have to acknowledge it’s become a regular part of my regimen.

You wake up in a dingy basement, your hands shackled and chained to the very gross floor. There’s a dead body next to you, holding a tape player. The recorded message tells you the key to the chains has been implanted in your tongue. You notice a razor blade affixed to the wall nearby, right at the level of your mouth. With no small amount of weeping and wailing, you start licking.

Alert beverage-consumer Maura alerts us to Spykes, describing them thusly:

Served in nail polish-sized bottles. Flavors are spicy lime, hot melons (?!), spicy mango, and hot chocolate. It’s fortified with caffeine and guarana. What confused me the most was the instruction to “drink them as a shot or pour them in to [sic] your beer.”

We do love the hot melons. Thanks Maura!

Bling H2O comes in Limited Edition, corked, 750ml, recyclable frosted glass bottles, exquisitely handcrafted with Swarovski Crysals.

Kill me. [via]

OK I am back from my trip to Ontario and I am here to report that Canada is not some strange foreign land. The parts of Ontario I saw were basically like an Iowa punctuated with West Hartford, Connecticuts, if that helps you place the area in your mental topography at all. They rely a bit too heavily on coin money, which is frankly gross and tiresomely historical, but whatever. I was just visiting.

Beverage-wise there were no real surprises, sadly. I was hoping to find something new and unheard of, the potable equivalent of poutine, perhaps, but nay. They drink what we drink, and I guess the world just seems a little bit smaller today. *sigh*

Black Cherry soda comes in large and economically-effiecient plastic bottles! Josh maybe Canada is your religion’s idea of Heaven? Also: they decided that to have Cream Soda be red.

IRN-BRU is in full-effect. I actually like this better over time.

You can find TrueBlue there, unlike where I live. Although they were out of Blueberry Green Tea.

Itzer was the only beverage I came across that I hadn’t seen anywhere else. It’s USP is that it is red. Not exactly news. And not exactly tasty, either.

This was like whoa. Fruitopia Tangerine Wavelength is in full effect! I scanned the cartons, and there’s no mention of Coca-Cola anywhere on them. It’s like a breakaway faction of Fruitopia enthusiasts, high on patchouli fumes, have established an illicit indie revival of their favorite C-list beverage. If you look closely, the title actually reads F.R.U.I.T.O.P.I.A. and contains a small hidden logo of a muted post horn.

Ontario: the beverage revolution is brewing, but will involve resets of beverages you already know you don’t like.