Alcohol as an aid to DIY

I hate DIY. Hate it. It’s not just that I’m shit at it, it’s also that I have absolutely no interest in practicing it, it takes all day (carrying on way beyond the moment you realise you’re incredibly bored and want it to end), it always reveals two more jobs that need doing, it doesn’t seem to look any better when you’re finished and then… it takes about as long to tidy up as it did to do the work in the first place.

So when Mrs Cake raised the idea of decorating our bedroom last weekend, I wasn’t exactly jumping for joy but I do realise that sometimes these things need doing. I want to be better, I really do. I just have to try really, really hard… and think of some way to make the whole thing more appealing.

“How about we make it fun?” I said, “Maybe by getting beers in and drinking all day?”

I didn’t quite expect what happened next.

“Yeah!” said Mrs Cake, “and we could have Baileys* in our coffee in the morning, and make nice sandwiches, then for tea we could get a takeaway!”

“Yay!”

“Yay!”

And that is what has earned Mrs Cake and I a reputation amongst our friends for making “things” out of things. I don’t know; we’re just trying to make life more fun. Cos if life isn’t fun… what is it? What’s it for?

We went to the big Tesco on Friday night to get supplies – sandwich fixings, bottled ales for Mrs Cake, Holsten Pils for me and a half bottle of Tesco’s standard blended scotch for a feature that will be coming up an indeterminate amount of time in the future... then it was back home to relax with pizza, beers, grappa and the opening of the Ardbeg 10 (again, more later).

On to Saturday morning. We had the Baileys* in our coffees, prepared the bedroom, grabbed a beer and made a start. Result? The day went relatively smoothly. Sure, there were minor meltdowns like when I got paint on Mrs Cake’s digital radio, and when Mrs Cake was trying to make me throw out things that I haven’t gotten around to using yet (just because I can’t juggle with six balls, it doesn’t mean I only need three of them… one day I might find the time and inclination to practice), but I think some of the stress was brought on by the magnitude of the job ahead of us. The alcohol probably didn’t help out too much at first, but as the day wore on and we made progress, it really helped. The work keeps you busy enough to remain fairly sober, but the alcohol gives you that burst of energy to keep going – and you can use it in a carrot and stick type situation – I’ll just paint the rest of this wall, then have a big swig of beer. Nor does drinking as you go lessen the satisfaction of having a beer at the end because the beer at the end still celebrates finishing the job.

We did the same on Sunday also, culminating with three hours trying to put an Ikea chest of drawers together, but we just powered through – except the part where Mrs Cake had a minor meltdown because we managed to break a bit off. We fixed it with glue though.

Clearly alcohol may not be suited to all kinds of DIY – such as things that require accuracy and sharp or powerful tools – but you might still want to give it a try. There was one moment before lunch where I was struggling to paint the ceiling because I had to be standing up a ladder, looking upwards and manoeuvring a roller back and forth, under the influence, but it didn’t turn out to be too much of a problem, and I took it as a cue to get some food.

Three things to remember then, before I leave you. First, make sure you get all the supplies in that you are likely to need ahead of time. You don’t want to find that you need to make a trip to B&Q, which is a drive away, when you’re already a few pints down – or even more than one pint down really.

Second, don’t underestimate the importance of well-timed food.

Finally, drinking and decorating is merely a case of offsetting something unpleasant with something pleasant – yin and yang; that’s the foundation of the whole universe. It is alco-thusiasm not alcoholism. Alcohol can be your friend, just be responsible and treat it with respect.

And with those wise words, I’ll leave you for another week.

*Carolan’s on this occasion

Concentration Camping

Camping. It’s a rite of passage apparently. Something that, in American society (or so certain kinds of movies would have you believe) fathers do with their sons to help them develop into men – because Americans still need to be able to survive in the wilderness, catching fish with their teeth, wrestling bears and the like.

It’s different here in the UK of course. I never went camping with my dad. I never went camping at all until I reached the grand old age of 24, and if I had gone with my dad I would have found the whole experience to be quite different from that portrayed in the American films I’d grown up with – we don’t have any bears for a start, and as for camping in the wilderness… it can be more like camping on a council estate (which is the British equivalent of a wild, untamed wilderness), since in most cases campsites seem to be simply fields where people go for a cheap holiday and to drink lots of lager, eat lots of barbequed food and sit about being lairy, all side by side. Am I saying it’s a microcosm of British society? Well, I wasn’t, but now I think about it, I suppose I could be.

Don’t get me wrong though; camping is fun, I just haven’t really figured out what’s fun about it yet. Is it the sounds of people snoring from across the field? No… is it waking up at three in the morning with a screaming bladder and having to weigh up the benefits of emptying it against the inconvenience of getting dressed lying down and then traipsing to the toilet block in the cold and or dark and or wet? No, it’s not that either. Is it the way you can never be sure of the weather, but how much fun you have depends on it? Is it the kids that wake you up with their screaming and squealing at 7 in the morning? Or the way it takes ages to do anything? How it’s difficult to get clean, stay clean, feel clean?

rocking it with the Stoli

No, it’s none of those things, but in spite of those things, it’s good. It’s just something that people do in order to get a change of scenery, and that in itself does them a world of good. There’s always something new to see (and laugh at)… and it’s a great excuse for drinking with your friends.

A couple of weekends past, Mrs Cake and I decided to go camping on Anglesey, North Wales. I was dispatched to Aldi to pick up some bottled beers for the missus, and while I did so I started thinking about which of my spirits would be going with us. The winner: Stolichnaya. There’s no point in taking your single malts when you’ll be drinking from plastic beakers. I also picked up some Holsten Pils for me.

Ok, rules. First, find the flattest pitch possible, as far away as possible from other campers, always have your first beer while erecting the tent, reward yourself with a 2^nd beer as soon as the tent is up and carry an open can of beer around with you at all times. Those seem pretty universal.

an empty shoe makes a handy drinks holder

We stayed this time at a site near the town of Moelfre, overlooking an enormous beach. It was a peaceful site – in fact it would turn out to be too peaceful…

After a couple of beers and dinner, I rolled a joint and we took it and a couple of cups of vodka down to the beach for an early evening stroll, returning a little while later with a happy buzz and a propensity for hysterics.

As the light faded and we sat outside the tent that night, watching not very much in particular happen, chatting and drinking a little more, I wondered – what’s it all about? Not life no, but why were we there? We were just sitting in a field, not doing anything. And so was everyone else. We were having a nice time, but couldn’t we have been having a nice time at home?

We could be having a nice time at home, but while there would be more to entertain us, it wouldn’t be the same – we wouldn’t be having quite such a nice time. It’s the same reason you go on holiday.

As the evening wore on, we moved our chairs into the shelter of the tent and continued the fun.

“This is great, isn’t it?” I said. “It’s dead peaceful and relaxing, there’s no lairy people about, it’s just really nice.”

Right at that moment a man popped his head round and said, “just to let you know, it’s a very still night and your voices carry a long way – you can be heard up to a quarter of a mile away, so you know – just to let you know…”

So we were being reprimanded for being noisy. It seems that for once we were the lairy ones. We looked around us and realised everyone else on the entire campsite had gone to bed, and it was only 10.45! What the… it’s Friday night! Why’s everyone gone to bed?

Over the next hour or so Mrs Cake and I went through a series of emotions and thought processes:

-          Yeah, perhaps we were being a bit loud…

-          It is after 10.30 (though we didn’t realise it at the time), and the campsite rules did state ‘no noise after 10.30’…

-          We weren’t being that loud!

-          It’s not like we were shouting and swearing!

-          We might have been jokingly singing that Taylor Swift Trouble song… you know, with the screaming goats.

-          How dare they!

-          Oh christ, was everyone able to hear what we were saying?

-          You couldn’t have heard us a quarter of a mile away! The edge of the campsite isn’t that far!

-          Ah, it’s all right, he was kind of nice about it…

-          What a dick.

-           

Yeah, a bit neurotic as someone whose had a few drinks and a joint might be… We kept ourselves a little quieter on the Saturday night, though an incredibly Manc couple came over to tell us we weren’t being that loud after all, which was nice. They had been reprimanded for having a fire in a barbeque, which someone else had earlier told them was ok. They compared the way the site was run to a concentration camp with its military discipline and iron fist. You could see the family home at the top end, and the Manc guy came over later to point out that the owner was standing in his conservatory, surveying the site with a pair of binoculars, like Ralph Fiennes in Schindler’s List.

It wasn’t the first time we’d heard the comparison – at the end of a walk to a nearby pub on the Saturday we’d met an older couple who had asked where we were staying and described the campsite as militaristic.

shower beer

Ah well, we still had a nice time and a good laugh, and that’s what it’s all about, eh? Yeah. And I was able to get a shower-beer in – because the showers were warm and impeccably clean, so military discipline is good for something.

A couple of weeks later we camped with our friends Paul and Victoria in a field, behind a pub in Derbyshire. This was a very different affair – more space, no noise restrictions… and a pub, of course.

We’d been booze shopping beforehand again, and this time we’d decided to try Asda just for a change, and because they tend to have better deals on spirits than Tesco. I had £30 burning a hole in my pocket and an intention to buy some gold rum.

shopping

My idea had been to not buy two bottles, but I forgot this when I was having trouble making a decision and Mrs Cake said, “you could buy two bottles”, so I did and here’s what I ended up drinking that weekend in Derbyshire.

Mount Gay Eclipse

Class: Gold

Origin: Barbados

ABV: 40%

Price: £13

Presentation: I like the bottle shape –rectangular with rounded shoulders – and it has a distinctive label depicting a map of Barbados. It’s very recognisable.

Thoughts: I’ve read quite a few nice things about this (user reviews on retail sites, blog reviews and the like) but I can’t for the life of me understand why. To my palate this is rough, grainy, thin and not particularly complex. It may have a 2.5% advantage, but it also lacks the sweetness of Bacardi Gold, which I would normally tend to look down on. I would actually prefer to like the Mount Gay Eclipse to that, but I don’t. I’m not saying it’s a bad rum, but it’s only good for mixing or for your hip flask.

Liberty Ship

Class: dark

Origin: unspecified

ABV: 37.5%

Price: £10

Presentation: There’s nothing fancy here. It’s a very basic bottle with a very basic label depicting a compass.

Thoughts: I have to say I’m more impressed with this one than with the Mount Gay. Maybe it’s the lower expectations and I know that for £10 it can’t be up to much, but for my taste, there’s more going on here. Perhaps there should be, given that it is of the dark variety…

On the nose I’m getting balsamic vinegar, and in terms of palate it is dry and spicy. It’s still not special, and it won’t get much use beyond cocktails and the hip flask but it is marginally the better of my two camping purchases. In direct comparisons with dark rums of a similar price point though, Lambs (thought slightly more expensive in general) is preferable.

I did take both bottles camping, and opened both, though I’m not sure why. One would surely have sufficed. Perhaps I wanted to make sure there was some left for when we got home, and there would be more likelihood of this if I dipped into two bottles instead of relying on one. That must be it.

I know, it being the middle of winter that this maybe isn’t the right time to be posting on this topic, but such is arbitrary way in which I work. I mean, it doesn’t matter; once it’s posted it’s there forever, so it will be relevant when spring rolls around again.

And uh... yes, that’s it for now. Have a good week!

More drinking in the shower

apres golf

Just a quick post this week. I figured it was about time we had an update on one of my favourite pastimes; shower drinking. Sometimes I have a shower even when I don’t need one – just so that I can take a drink in with me*. You can read the original post on this activity here. Now, assuming you’ve done that, let’s bring you right up to date with some pictures and a bit of commentary.

First up you’ve got a glass of St Remy XO brandy at the MacDonald Portal Hotel, near Tarporley, Cheshire. This was after the first round of golf on my second stag do, and you can see there that there was a handy little shelf in the corner that almost seemed like it was designed for this purpose. You can also tell it got pretty steamy in there, but it was entirely because of the hot water.

Much beer, whisky and cigars followed, and it all culminated in me having a bit of a whitey far earlier than I would have liked. It was probably a good thing though, because it meant I was [fairly] compus mentus (considering) for the next day’s round. And I got a birdie, so that was quite thrilling.

Santa Eulalia, Ibiza

Next is a shower-beer from my honeymoon in Ibiza. This is Xavi Alonso on a can of Cruzcampo in the bathroom of our hotel in Santa Eulalia. Nice. I’ve gone for the cubicle corner technique, there.

King of bottled beers

Back at home now, but this time with the king of bottled beers; Double Maxim. I know I’ve done a post on shower drinking at home before, but I was so excited at having some Double Maxim to take in with me, that I thought it deserved a picture. If you don’t know why I was so excited, see the wedding post from… some time ago.

The shape of the bottle meant it was unsuitable for balancing on the corner, as I had with the Holsten Pils cans, so I just moved the shampoo from the corner shelf, and stuck it in there. Success.

The next two pictures are from Honeymoon Part 2 in Vietnam, about which you should be able to read on these pages in coming weeks. There’s a can of Bia 333, a glass of Glenfarclas 10, and then a bottle of the green variety of Saigon beer.

Finally, and bringing you right up to date with a shower drinking episode from my latest adventure, that if you were following me on Twitter, you would have seen was known as Golfageddon. Again, a full account of that will be posted on here at some time in the future. The glass in question here is DYC 10 year old single malt.

golfageddon

That’s it for now, but you can rest assured shower drinking is not a hobby I’ll be giving up any time soon, so I’ll collect a few more and hit you with another post sometime in the future. Don’t forget, I’d be delighted to see your shower drinking triumphs, so tell me about it in the comments. I’ll be back next week with another post that, at the moment is looking like being an investigation into the phenomenon that is the hot toddy. Join me then, but until then, have a great weekend. I know I will – I might open a new bottle.

*not really.

Poker Night part 2

Scant weeks after poker night at Dave’s, it was time for the annual end of season golf tournament. No drink involved there, but what did involve drink was the succeeding poker night. Only myself and Chris were present from the last time, but we were joined by Phil, John and Adam at John’s place in Lymm.

I’d been saving what remained of my Maker’s Mark for this occasion, and hadn’t touched it since that first poker night – half down, half to go.

That wasn’t the only hard liquor on the go. Besides each player’s choice of beer (Holsten Pils for me, as ever), I’d taken my new el Jimador tequila that I’d been waiting to open, as well as a bottle of Highland Park 12 Year Old for Chris – his groomsman gift. Adam brought along a fresh bottle of Jack Daniels and John supplied Jameson’s Select Reserve (which comes with a cork – we agreed that’s a good sign in a bottle of whisky) and some 3 year old Havana Club.

I also supplied the Cuban cigars, despite the fact it had been John who had just spent two weeks in Cuba.

We got down to the serious business of serious drinking and serious poker.

Everyone opted for Maker’s Mark to start off with, and professed a liking for it, but that proved to be the last I saw of it. I assume the others must have kept on drinking it, because the bottle was empty when I awoke the next day.

The first hand saw every one fold quickly, with the exception of John and myself. I had a pair of sixes, and opted to follow my usual strategy of staying in until it seems foolish. You don’t want to fold, and then find that you had a winning hand.

John upped the ante with a big raise. Figuring I’d at least got something, with two cards still to be revealed, it was worth matching.

When all cards were revealed, I still only had a pair of sixes, and John went all in. I hadn’t been expecting to be faced with this outcome so early. I’d already bet so much that folding now would reduce my chances of competing in the rest of the game significantly. On the other hand, I had to gamble everything if I wanted to stay in.

I felt a pang of anger at John’s action, but quickly suppressed it, and figured at least there were two more games to come after this, so being out of this one was no big deal. I also recalled seeing John do this before, one night during the golf holiday in Spain – betting big, to cover up the fact he actually had nothing. Chris and I had let him get away with it that time. I decided to play, and see what happened.

“I’m in.”

We showed our cards. John had nothing. He’d gambled on having an ace and a queen, and I won with a pair of sixes. He was out for the rest of the game, and in one fell swoop I had all his chips and a few more.

I also won the second hand with a pair of sixes, but after that it wasn’t plain sailing. I betted cautiously and lost a few before one hand where Chris and Adam had folded, leaving Phil and myself.

Feeling I had something that was good enough to win, I tried a big raise, and that was enough to convince Phil to fold. I wondered whether I shouldn’t have increased the betting slowly to take maximum advantage, and get Phil to bet more, but it turned out that Phil would have won the hand if he’d stayed in, so I’d inadvertently made the right choice.

Eventually every remaining player was dispatched, and I emerged victorious for the first time ever. My £15 winnings was eaten up straight away by having to contribute to the pizza order. Still; free pizza!

I moved on to trying each of the other liquors that were on offer. It felt a bit cheeky having a little of Chris’ Highland Park, since it was my gift to him, but no one else seemed to have reservations. It sure is a classy malt.

I can’t say I was impressed with the Jameson’s Select Reserve (£36 at The Whisky Exchange)  but I did enjoy the Havana Club. As for the Jack Daniels, it looks like my tasting skills are developing after all – this was the first time I’d ever tried it without ice, and I got a big hit of banana in there. Some reviewers go for ‘banana milkshake’, and it is almost like a soft drink, but I didn’t feel the need to be that specific. I like JD, so why does it taste of something I don’t like?

Finally, the piece de resistance… I’d been waiting for this night to crack open the 100% agave el Jimador tequila. Adam was actually the only one interested enough to give it a try, but we both liked it. It sure tastes different to your bog standard Jose Cuervo. It’s less sweet, with (for lack of better tasting skills) a darker tone to the flavour. Adam said it had a smooth taste, but I think that’s something people say when they don’t really know what they’re talking about… like, it’s got a kick to it and that stuff gets you hammered!

Well, I’m sure it wasn’t related to the booze, but I lost the next two games of poker. I was fine with that nevertheless, since I had won a game for the first time ever. I’m getting into this poker lark now, and I think I’ll try to attend one of these nights as often as possible. I’ve actually been practicing a bit online (free though, not on the actual gambling sites), and I’ve developed a couple of new strategies that I can’t wait to try out on real people. Poker can be the new golf for the winter months. It sure is a good excuse to break out the fancy booze.

Friday night experiment: Carlsberg Special Brew

Happy Monday everyone, and a special hello to all the people in Russia – it seems I had 11 views from the home of vodka yesterday. This is pleasing, I hope you’ll come back soon and bring some friends. Seriously; I’m actually quite excited about that.

So I told you last week that my plan for the weekend was to try Carlsberg’s Special Brew. I got very excited about the prospect, and couldn’t wait to get to Tesco, but against all odds they didn’t have any. They did have Tennent’s Super though, and I came very close to buying that, but “no,” I told myself, “that wasn’t the point. It’s Special Brew or nothing”. 

So I bought cheese for Friday night’s homemade pizza and orange juice in case Brenda wanted a Tequila Sunrise later on, then walked up to the Best One. They did have it, and it was in the fridge – six quid. That’s double what I pay for my normal lager – I’m partial to the Holsten Pils - but I suppose you can put the price discrepancy down to the alcohol content (9%).

I little while later, Brenda got home and she was almost as excited as I was.

 

We drank them straight from the can because it seemed like the right thing to do – one each, therefore not following the instructions that I spotted when it was already too late:

Perhaps that should be, "Best shared... well; chilled"

The good news is that we had a lovely time, drinking in front of the telly, waiting for the pizza dough to rise. I felt quite pissed around halfway down my first can, and was starting to slur. And later we had an argument about nothing in particular.

Well, this blog isn’t about reviewing booze as much as it’s about enjoying and experiencing it. So don’t expect anything approaching a review here. If you haven’t had Special Brew before though, you probably would like a word or two on what it’s like, and let me tell you; considering it’s super strength lager, it doesn’t taste bad at all. It certainly gives you a buzz, and I think the can is quite classy looking, though I did feel a bit weird buying it – that’s the stigma of super strength lager, for you.

If you want a more in depth view, go look at the Tramp Juice website (http://gk007a0336.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/), as I said on Friday, it seems to have died back in 2008. Whether that’s related to consumption of super strength lager, I wouldn’t like to say, but a lot of the information on there is still relevant.

As for Brenda and I, we enjoyed the Special Brew. I think it helped that I refrigerated the cans extensively before we drank them, but neither of us found the taste offensive, we had a good laugh, and we enjoyed the exploration, though we did both wake up at 3am on Saturday morning with heartburn. Would we drink it again? Well, I wouldn’t say we wouldn’t, but I think it’s unlikely that we will. There isn’t a super strength lager sized vacancy in my psychological drinks cabinet, so I guess it’s one for the niche market – people who want to drink lager, but still get pissed quick.

If you’ve got any super strength lager related stories, or if there’s anything you’d like to encourage me to try feel free to leave a comment. I’ll be back later in the week with a feature of some kind.

Laters!