Glen Thunder Corn Whiskey - Sunday, Nov. 8th

I've been waiting to do this review all weekend. I picked a flask of this little beauty up on Friday and I've honestly been a little frightened to try it up until now. Glen Thunder Corn Whiskey is distilled by Finger Lakes Distilling and it looks like a mean son of a bitch. It is crystal clear white dog in a pocket-friendly 375mL bottle and inspired by the fine racers at the Watkin's Glen race track. It has a picture of a race car on it. I'm slightly afraid. Clocking in at a hefty 45%, it looks like it's ready to rock. It recommends drinking it straight from the bottle but I put it in a Glencairn glass.

The nose is probably what a racetrack smells like. It smells like burnt rubber, lubricant oil, and slight wafts of corn. The glass shows it to have some hefty legs. Like Beyonce hefty. The taste is odd. It begins with a heavy dose of corn that tastes slightly musty, followed by the wallop of the 45% alcohol. The finish is the most pleasant though as it promptly turns into very sweet fruit, with apple being the most prominent. The finish is rather long as it hangs out for a spell in the back of the throat and blossoms into a strong fruit flavor. I really don't like the first taste because it literally tastes like musty corn but the finish is fucking delicious. It's like biting into an alcoholic apple. I have an apple here so I may soak some slices in it to see how that goes. Woooof! This is a potent mofo. It wasn't kidding around when it was talking about smooth but with power. Honestly, I don't know if I could get over the forefront taste in order to drink it neat, so let's try it with something.



What's in the fridge?



Yeah, this'll do. I think I'll call it "Southern Hospitality" or something. Seems appropriate.


Yow. At a 2 to 1 ratio the alcohol is gone but that weird smell/taste is still kinda there. I'll work with this to see what I can come up with but as for now, I don't think I'd get it again. The finish is delicious but that foretaste is just...weird and not very pleasant.

Pocket Shot - Saturday Nov. 7th

So last up on the review circuit is the Pocket Shot. An intriguing idea adapted to the American market by a man who saw African's buying small plastic pouches of alcohol after a hard day's work. The idea behind the Pocket Shot is a damn near indestructible pouch of 50mL of sweet sweet alcohol, ready and raring to go with you anywhere you want. I got this sample and read all about the packaging in its accompanying brochure. It said, to the effect, that it could probably hold the weight of an average adult human standing on it before it broke. I'm not your average adult male. I'm your average adult fat-ass, but average adult, not so much. So I opted for a more scientific and less humiliating approach. This is the Pocket Shot:


This is a hammer:



Let's put two and two together, shall we? I'll give you a hint. The results? It held up pretty well. I went gentle at first because I didn't want to overstress this thing and watch 50mL of vodka shoot all over my walls. But it held, so I gave it a good whack. I actually hit it so hard it popped off of the counter and slammed into the floor. Needless to say, you're fine. I also tried to stab it with a pencil and my keys and it held against them too, so I think its pocket-safe. But how does it taste?

Into the Glencairn glass (yet again, sorry buddy). Frankly, it smells like rubbing alcohol. Straight up rubbing alcohol. Little bit of grain and a faint wisp of sweetness. I'm drinking it ice cold with a pickle and some black bread, like a good little Russian. It's actually pretty good. Nice and potent, with a grain finish and a slight chocolate taste as well. Warming as it goes down as well. Accordingly, its made in the US and triple distilled. A legit tasty vodka, I will admit. But how does it hold up to...a VODKA TONIC?



Really, really well. It's about a one to one mix here after a few sips I took for a straight tasting. It is quite smooth and barely visible under the tonic water. Would I buy this product? Hell fucking yes I would! I'd kill to try their gin, cognac, and whiskey too but no where around here actually has them. My only problem is they're kinda like the opposites of Weeble-wobbles. You've heard that phrase, right? "Weebles wobble but they don't fall down." These little bastards are the opposite. "Pocket Shots fall down but only sometimes wobble." The bottom could use a bit of a better redesign but the fact of the matter is you're just gonna rip the fucker open and pour it into your body, not take pictures of it like a foreign tourist like I do. So it's kind of a moot point.

Fulkerson Red Zeppelin - Saturday Nov. 7th

My friend Ryan has a habit of buying things purely on an aesthetic level. This is a polite way of saying he like to buy things based on how pretty they are. We stopped at a local liquor store yesterday (Century Wine and Liquor) and began perusing the absolutely gargantuan amount of hooch they crammed into that place. I have never seen so much shit in my life under one roof and I lived with my mom for 21 years (hey ma!). Anyway, yesterday we made purchases of a wholly unholy manner. Ryan bought about 5 bottles of liquor, which totaled an equivalent sum to what his friend Mark bought. His friend Mark bought a bottle of Maker's Mark and some random Drambruie cream thing. Yeah, 5 bottles for $40. It was a stellar trip. We both managed to get two things in common though: white dog corn whiskey and Fulkerson Red Zeppelin. The Red Zeppelin was at his insistence. It was a "pizza and wings" wine and, since I was going to get pizza and wings, it seemed like a logical choice. He said I'd like it.

This is the man that also gave me bacon vodka. I should have been smart about this.

Frankly, I should have been suspicious when the description of the bottle literally says "Come on wine people......LOOSEN UP!"

Yeah, it says that on the back of the bottle. Word. For. Word. They also use abbreviations (like pleasin'). They also recommend chilling it. It is a red wine. They finally end it with gusto by belting out a caps lock "ROCK ON!" because we all know caps lock is cruise control for cool. It is a Finger Lakes red table wine and, dear readers, it is like drinking a potent mix of rubbing alcohol, kool-aid, and anti-freeze.

I was mystified why it said, in laymen's terms, "chill me". Reds are supposed to be drank at room temperature from everything I've learned so a cold red was rather perplexing. Then I had a glass and realized why. If you DON'T chill it it is like going into a diabetic coma with a healthy dose of methanol poisoning on top of it. I'd use cloyingly as a descriptor but that would be an understatement. In retrospect, this would be awesome to distill, or go through a second fermentation, because the residual sugar level has to exceed 50%. It is pretty much the total gross national export of sugar from all of South America...in one bottle. Honestly, I tried nosing this and my nose hair singed off and left me sniffing down mucus that tasted like Luden's Cough Drops. I tried picking out flavors, it was just sweet with an apparent alcoholic content. I tried folks, but couldn't get very far.

However, its actually NOT a bad wine. It is really, really sweet, yeah, but I think it would work well in a sangria. Some citrus and maybe some brandy would even out the sweetness and throwing it on the rocks with club soda would make it pretty damn good, I think. Also, I think it would be a fantastic glaze for something. Get some chicken breasts, some thyme and rosemary, and just marinate the shit out of 'em with some of this wine, then grill it while sloshing some of this stuff on there. That'd be really good. It does taste fruity on closer inspection (I'm drinking a slightly watered glass as I type this) so I think using it as a glaze for grilled chicken would be awesome. It'd make for nice fruity chicken, with delicious thyme and rosemary flavor, and the sugar in the wine would caramelize quite nicely, I think. Upon reflection, I was going to drain-pour this but I think I'll keep it around. I think it will go nicely with some tonic water.

So...yeah. It's a mixed review. As a straight-up drinking wine it's pretty terrible. Very sweet, limited fruit flavors, it doesn't pour well straight from the bottle. But used in mixed drinks, sangria, or recipes this wine's got serious potential.



And it's got a fucking zeppelin on the front of it, so it can't be too bad, I guess. Maybe it pairs well with Led Zeppelin. I'll try it and let you know.

I'm Not Dead Yet!

I swear. I just had a test today. And I failed it, which means lots more reviews soon!

Oh, and tonight I start cupping all the damn tea I have. Hot diggity damn I'll be hydrated.

The Great Pumpkin's Arrival - Technically...November 1st

Oh Halloween, you crafty bastard. You always manage to sneak up on me and you tend to happen mere days before I have an extremely important test. You also herald in the month of November, the month of turkey and my birth so many, many years ago. But you do bring about such sweet tidings. The arrival of a bumper crop of fresh pumpkin pies, the prevalence of those fly-by-night haunted houses that set-up at farms and for-sale buildings, all sorts of lovely things. Most importantly, however, is the prevalence of...the pumpkin ale. There are many styles within the style of pumpkin ale. Some brewers just go with the "spice the shit out of it" format, while others go crazy with the Halloween flair. These brewers often make awesome product...which I have in front of me. Tonight is a review of two beers: Dogfish Head Punkin Ale and Southern Tier Pumking. First is the Dogfish Head.

Dogfish Head Punkin Ale:



Pours with one finger of white head onto a body of beer that looks distinctly like a pie in a glass. It is a rusty brown / dark orange color that is crystal clear. No, seriously, I can read the label through the pint. It is a nice color.

Smells of pie spice (nutmeg, cinnamon), brown sugar, sweet butter, pumpkin, and slightly earthy/root vegetable. Ok, I'll summarize that. It smells like a damn pumpkin pie and it makes me so hungry it is borderline unfair. I now need pie.

Taste like pie spice. Pumpkin is present but the earthiness isn't there. Slightly alcohol forward with a surprising lack of malt sweetness. A brown sugar FLAVOR is there, but it's not actually sweet. As a matter of fact, the hops that weren't there on the aroma pull through in the beer, giving it a cleansing bitter aftertaste.

Not bad, not bad. I was going into it expecting a malt forward beer and I was a little disappointed when it was actually more aggressively hopped than I expected. It IS brewed with real pumpkin, brown sugar, allspice, cinnamon, and nutmeg which shined through in the nose and taste but the hops threw me for a loop. It is a bit overwhelming though. Definitely not a session-able beer. More of a "two and I'm done" kinda thing.

Southern Tier Pumking:



Pours a slightly hazy orange, almost like if you squeezed a pumpkin and got some sort of weird pumpkin juice. A one finger snow white head appears that doesn't stick around for very long. Yet again, it looks like a damn pie and I'm still hungry.

Smells like a graham cracker. Vanilla, light pumpkin, maybe cinnamon as well? Oh ye gods above, it smells like a pumpkin pie with a graham cracker crust. This is just not fucking fair. Not fair at all! Has almost a melon smell in there too.

Taste is oh god. Oh god its like drinking a pumpkin pie. Oh it's so good. Lots of vanilla, cinnamon, that graham cracker taste and pumpkin. Very nice malt sweetness with medium carbonation that peters off into a slight hop bite at the end. Oh man, I just want to wallow in this beer. Slight caramel flavor maybe? Or maybe a butterscotch flavor. I dunno, its an amazing fucking beer.

Sweet mother of mercy this beer is awesome. Definitely not a "hey, let's drink and watch the game" beer but more of an "well, I want pumpkin pie AND a beer" kind of beer. It's really, really good. Oh man, it is just what the doctor ordered. Buy it, drink it, think of pie. I am burping pie right now. I'm so happy. I am going to buy a bottle of this and cellar it. That's how good it is. Go. Buy. Quaff. Now. At 3am.