Friday, February 09, 2007
Evil Spirits
When I was in college (yes, back in the Crockett and Tubs days), there was for awhile a severe problem of booze thievery at parties. It was probably due to all those actors who, unfortunately, were in our extended circle. In any case, there is nothing more distressing to a young scholar than to head out for an evening of binge drinking only to find your delicious ales vanished before you can get to the second bottle.
One of the strategies my friends and I used to combat this sophomoric crime wave was to imbibe the worst, most vile tasting liquors we could find on the theory that the booze thieves wouldn't like them either and would therefore leave them alone.
Among our favoured booze-thief-proof beverages was the famous Italian vermouth Cinzano. I remembered being singularly repelled by that beverage, almost to the point of giving up drinking altogether (almost).
It has been many years since I have even thought about Cinzano, much less tasted it. The other day in the liquor store, a bottle of Limetto Cinzano caught my eye. I was greatly encouraged by the fact that they now make a lime-flavoured version. The slogans on the bottle were entrancing: "Captures the taste of the Italian sun!" Who could resist?
Besides, I reckoned my tastes might have changed. After all, I'm older now. As I often explain to my children, as people get older they get bored with things that actually taste good so they start experimenting with things that taste bad just for a change of pace. In addition to my recent discovery of stinky cheese, I have developed a taste for Escorial, a German liquor whose flavour is most diplomatically called "complex".
So why not give good old Cinzano another whirl, I thought. How bad can it be?
Pretty bad. I quite regretted that experiment.
Taste of the Italian sun? Perhaps if the sun was a lump of crap rolled in dirt and then soaked in urine. Perhaps they meant to say that it tastes like something left out in the sun for a long, long time.
But, I had gone and bought the stuff so I'm stuck with it. I figure I can always use it as emergency liquor or serve it to unwelcome guests.
There's my beef of the day. I don't like Cinzano. And you, dear readers? Are there any beverages or cocktails you find particularly awful?
posted by Mentok @ 12:47 p.m.,
10 Comments:
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At 6:36 p.m.,
mjrc said...
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back in the day, i downed enough tequila to float a horse, but nowadays the thought of doing even one shot of the stuff turns my stomach right over. i can't even smell the stuff.
i say save the cinzano for the children, so that when they ask, "daddy, what does alcohol taste like?" you can give it to them and perhaps keep them off the drink a bit longer! ;-) -
At 12:13 a.m.,
Dino said...
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I had plenty of run ins with the red cinzano in germany. we have both kinds at the restaurant but I rather drink Campari
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At 9:22 p.m.,
Elizabeth said...
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I quite like Everclear, my 190 proof boyfriend. I mean, despite its alarming alcohol content, it's actually quite decent for you as there's no room for sugars and additives, and it is lovely in fizzy lemonade!
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At 10:40 a.m.,
FiL said...
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Oh, Dearest Marcy, you've made me retch with the memory of tequila. I too drank FAAAR too much of that dreadful stuff in my yoof. There are chunks of my late teens that I cannot remember thanks to that paint stripper...
And Dearest Liz, Everclear - my memories of that are far, far more pleasant. Atomic Jello - yum yum!
Dearest Mentok, I think to my tastes it's ouzo and it's various Mediterranean analogues (raki, arak) that gag me to the max. All stems from downing half a bottle of the stuff at the tail end of a party spent drinking, inter alia, beer, vodka, and tequila. Seemed like a good, international idea at the time... -
At 11:05 a.m.,
Mentok said...
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marcy - I must confess I still have a fondness for tequila, but only under carefully controlled laboratory conditions.
dino - no offence, but Campari is in the same boat as Cinzano as far as I'm concerned. Anyway, why would anyone in Germany bother drinking such stuff when there are veritable rivers of high-grade beer and white wine flowing through the country?
liz - Everclear? My goodness. You are hard-core, aren't you. You can take the girl out of the Appalachians, but .... ;-)
fil - oh dear god don't get me started on Ouzo. Ooops, too late:
In my youth, I spent some weeks at a backpacker's resort in Greece. There was a sizeable British punk population there. Their almost universally favourite beverage was ouzo-sprite. They would line up at the bar and order exactly the same thing one after another "Oy! Ouzo-sprite please"...over and over and over. Bars in the area all reeked of sickly-sweet black licorice smell of the awful stuff. I haven't been able to look at ouzo since. -
At 11:15 a.m.,
Mentok said...
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p.s. to Fil: ..."Gag me to the max"?
I see your 80s party has made a lasting impression. While I think it's totally tubular that you are using the old lingo, I should point out the mixed slang: It's "grody to the max" and "gag me with a spoon". Which one did you mean? ;-) -
At 10:33 p.m.,
X said...
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I will drink any kind of alcoholic beverages.
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At 2:36 a.m.,
FiL said...
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Dearest Mentok, glad to see you took the bait. Indeed, I didn't realise eyeshadow would have such a lasting effect on the brain...
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At 9:33 a.m.,
Bathroom Hippo said...
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Hey Mentok...
you like the politics of BSG, right?
What'd you think of the euthanizing doctor...how it applied to abortion on the latest episode? -
At 10:41 a.m.,
Mentok said...
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Hippo - I think everyone, even filthy Saggitarons, deserve proper medical care whether they like it or not.
Seriously, I don't think that episode was so much about abortion. There have been other episodes that have dealt with the issue more squarely. You'll recall the presidential election that brought in Baltar was basically fought over abortion.
But let's not go too far down this road. You know how crazy things can get when this topic comes up in blog posts!
Any thoughts on the repellant beverages question?
