The Discriminating Wino

Doing this Dry January thing for a week and a half has truly been an eye-opener. My eyes are open and looking at the Corona I'm drinking and seeing that it only contains 0.5% alcohol. (On the plus side, it tastes slightly less awful than the real thing. Corona, that is.) All jokes aside, I have truly, through cleansing my body, been able to finally see the light: Sobriety sucks. As we went to dinner with the in-laws last night for a belated Christmas get-together, it being Sunday, I treated myself to a glass of red wine. (That's not entirely true: my father-in-law paid.) Now, don't take this the wrong way: I love my in-laws, almost as if they had raised me (except then I wouldn't be so messed up!) During Christmastime, when I had to deal with my actual parents, I supplemented my normal daily six-pack of German lager with eggnog, brandy, spiced punch and Scotch. Let that be a lesson. I never finished reading Duke Ellington's incredible autobiography, Music is My Mist...

    I started highschool a shy white boy listening to old-school hip-hop and hardcore rap music. About halfway through my freshman year I started listening to Metallica, Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden and that got me into heavy metal and rock n roll in general. Those three bands also introduced me to The Bible and, funny as it may seem, initiated a long and convoluted religious journey that I am still on today. Because of course, heavy metal also has bands that promote satanism, either literally or through subtler means. There are also a lot of traumatized and ignorant musicians unable to believe in God or the devil, who essentially think that religion is a crock of shit. Anyway, I loved them all: but during those first few months it was those three bands I mentioned earlier who meant the most to me.     A couple months after I started listening to metal, I was at a restaurant with my Mom: a bar really, though I was too young to drink and had never had more than a sip...

           It's been a couple years since I last posted on The Discriminating Wino. Hopefully that means I've been more discriminating and less of a wino!            As you all know, Weihenstephaner is one of my favorite brews of all time! If I'm still kickin' 'em back in 2040 (and I ever get around to getting my Real ID) I hope to be in Bavaria, Germany celebrating the 1000th anniversary of the World's Oldest Brewery! You've read about their festbier in my Oktoberfest roundup from a few years back...and now in general I like a brown glass bottle, the way the Germans been makin' 'em since long before I was born, not these canned 4-packs but that's the way the industry's going and as I was on a budget I had an opportunity to revisit their Helles, which I haven't had in a while.     It's much lighter than the traditional Munich lager, which is darker and nuttier; but not sweet like a Weisse, closer to a Pilsner but...

  One fine day... you’re gonna want me for your glug… Ordinem Ecentrici Coctores Oak Legend Doppelbock 9% abv 12 fl. oz. Hard to beat the Germans at their own game—scratch that; impossible. But it’s rare for an American brauerie to even play in the same ball club. OEC has some highly decent lagers and marzens, but this is probably my favorite offering from the anomalous Connecticut brewers. For starters, it’s a full-force doppel—I had some Belgian-style Canadian ale calling itself a trippel the other day that had the same alcohol content as Oak Legend —and at 12 ounces, they’ve got the Germans beat by 22 2 / 3 ml (trust my drunken math; I got 1420 on the SAT’s, stoned.) But drinking is a pleasure, not just the prosaic chore of getting drunk: it’s dark but not that dark, more nutty than chocolaty-bittersweet like many doppelbocks, the mash gives a really unique flavor, the hops are subtle and really don’t make this very heavy or spicy in-my-not-so-humble-opinion, although...

Mani di Luna Sangiovese Umbria 2020 13.5% 1L “What’s that?” “This, my friend, is a pint.” “It comes in pints? I’m getting one.” —Pippin and Merry, Peter Jackson’s The Fellowship of the Ring It comes in liters? I’ve tried a few liters of Italian wine—but for $20, this is the one to buy! Balanced bouquet, a pleasure to drink, made me feel tingly with full tannin and alcohol profile—in other words not just a regular 750ml watered down like some of ‘em probably are! No silt at the bottom: always a plus to be able to enjoy the last fleeting drop; and enough to marinate peppers and onions for pasta sauce on top of that…a wise choice for an evening at home.

  Monte da Vigia Reserva 2017 vinho tinto—30%Trincadeira 30%Aragonêz 20%Alicante Bouschet 20%Cabernet Sauvignon When you’ve been drinking coffee all day and need something to help unwind, finding the ideal red can be a balancing act—I don’t want something to go straight to my head and increase the raciness from the caffeine, now do I need much more acidity shriveling away my insides; on the other hand something low in alcohol won’t serve to calm my heart and warm the blood on a December’s night and over-sweetness is out of the question. That said, from the first sip this affordable tinto is fruit-forward, medium-bodies and well-balanced. The linalool-rich aroma of the grape blend fills one’s nostrils, expanding to flare out like a stallion kicking in its stall as the palate thrills to this smooth nectar of ruby lambency. Portuguese reds under twelve dollars are hit-or-miss and while I know I can never really go wrong at my neighborhood liquor store, I am really happy I ma...