Alcohol and Performance

You may not know me in this particular capacity, but in a former life I was actually a musician. From age 16 to around 33 I wrote songs and played guitar in various bands until one day I decided I was tired of constantly trying different chords next to each other, attempting to communicate my vision to other musicians and hoping someone would actually care, while what I really wanted to do was play a bit more sport before my body gave out. I quit the band and went from playing football once a week to twice – that was the plan at least – the 1^st time I played a second time in a week, I twisted my knee pretty badly and ended up on crutches, putting my first ever Spanish golf holiday in jeopardy.

My knee still isn’t quite right (more than 2 years later), but after a long period of recovery I went back to playing football once a week. I didn’t go back to music straight away though – nor did I miss it. Gone were the days when I thought in music and obsessed about it. I felt it was a shame that I couldn’t call myself a musician anymore, and I felt sad that my skills honed over years of serious playing would atrophy but… you can always go back later in life if you want to – it’s not unlike riding a bike...

…as I have found now that I have returned to music in a much reduced capacity. My friend David’s band required a bass player – for a few upcoming gigs in the first instance – so I offered to help out. I do miss the exhilaration of gigging, of entering a venue just as a guy, and leaving it feeling that you own it – not so much, doing a bad gig and feeling depressed about it, but you got to take the rough with the smooth. So this is good because it requires none of the effort of writing songs and leading a band, but I do get to play gigs pretty much straight away – and in case you didn’t know, guitar players make the best bass players – it’s just hard to convince a guitar player to switch to the bass. Luckily for Custom 12 (as they’re known), I like the bass (thanks to the music of James Brown as well as players such as Mike Watt) and I’m fairly good at it – in my own way.

Don’t worry, I’m not going to change this into a blog about the band or about music, but it does mean that I can cover another aspect of experiencing alcohol, which is what this blog is all about – that of performance and alcohol. I’m not talking sexual performance here, though that could potentially be far more interesting (by which I mean x-rated) because alcohol lowers the inhibitions… and that coincidentally is where alcohol comes in useful in the performance of music – to a degree at least, because as we’ll see, there are parameters that need to be adhered to. Sexual performance and alcohol… can be one for the future.

I remember my first ever gig [wistfully]. My friend Phil and I performed as an acoustic duo in the upstairs room of Sheffield’s The Grapes pub. I was so nervous that I was shaking during the soundcheck. I knew I couldn’t perform like that. Your accuracy and timing can be all over the place when you’re nervous – though conversely,  it can also help you perform to the best of your ability; it’s like you might hear it said that sportsmen ‘raise their game’ against the strongest opponents. It’s a fine line. I later learned not to be so nervous, but on that occasion I knew I needed alcohol.

I think I drank three pints and two double vodkas before we hit the stage that night, and the gig went really well. There was one point where I forgot the next bit of a song called ‘Let’s Make Friends’, and I just paused, trying desperately to remember the next part. Phil continued for a few bars and then stopped.

“Keep going, mate!” I urged.

He set off again, and that proved the jolt I needed to get the next few bars back in my head. I jumped in, and we finished the song triumphantly.

I learned soon after that there is such a thing as too much alcohol before a gig – three pints and two double vodkas would normally represent far too much, but on that first occasion it did the job. Easily the worst example of too much was when my friend Pits and I went to a birthday party in Macclesfield where they had band equipment set up. Having been in a band together before, we figured we could do a quick rendition of Neil Young’s Hey Hey, My My which is a particular favourite of mine. Pits decided he would play the drums, despite his enthusiasm far exceeding his ability on that particular instrument.

I don’t like thinking about the performance, but let’s just say we were very drunk and it was shit. I knew it was shit from the moment we started, but we ploughed on, all the while aware that it wasn’t getting any better. Occasionally I manage to forget about the whole experience for a while… but then I remember. It’s like when you’ve done something bad that you feel really guilty about and you hate yourself for it, then you forget for a bit, and you go, “wait, I was feeling bad about something… what was I feeling bad about?... oh yeh.” It’s ruined that song for me. I was hoping writing about it might make me feel better, but it’s just reminded me again. I actually started writing about the episode in more detail, thinking it would be an entertaining story, but it was just too painful. Anyway…

It really is a shame that you need to moderate your alcohol intake before a gig because there is often a lot of waiting around, and waiting around breeds nerves – will we play well? Will we be able to hear ourselves? Will there be anyone there to hear us? Too much alcohol though, and I find you can become numb to the music; disconnected and clumsy – you don’t know it until you’ve performed in a band, but a lot of the time you can’t actually hear yourself on stage, or you can’t hear the other members, so it can be very difficult to play tightly and in time. It only takes one person to make a mistake in order to put everyone off, and the more complicated you make your songs, the more things there are to go wrong. Too little alcohol though, and you can be nervous, stiff and boring.

I found through experimentation that my optimum alcohol intake for improved musical performance is three pints. I could have more in rehearsal, but when it came to be the night of the gig, I always stopped at three – but tried to make up for it afterwards. I never made it policy in my bands, but as far as I can remember, each member stuck to it – no one wants to look like an idiot on stage, or be the one to let the side down – that’s why you get nervous in the first place. There aren’t many people who can be the onstage drunk, and get away with it. And if you’re serious about being in a band, you need to be professional. Being in a band is one of the few potential career paths where alcohol is a possibility – even mandatory – but if you don’t do a good show no one is going to like you and you aren’t going to have fun.

I suppose the worst case scenario would be like the bootleg recording I once heard of Jimi Hendrix jamming with Jim Morrison. Morrison was a mess, and just spent the whole time slurring expletives into the mic – poet, my ass. Not cool, even for him. So this is probably the only exception I have found to the BTMTNE rule – Better Too Much Than Not Enough.

I joined Custom 12 four weeks before they were scheduled to play a show at Manchester’s Retro Bar. We managed one (and pretty much) a half rehearsals before David and I had a week’s golfing booked in Spain, after which there was a week in which we couldn’t rehearse due to practice room issues, before finally getting three rehearsals in the week before the gig itself. I put in a bit of time at home as well – I wasn’t going to be the weak link if I could help it.

Summer had hit the UK at last, and on the Sunday before the gig Mrs Cake and I took a walk to a nearby pub and sat in the beer garden with a pint (Bohemia Regent for me, Manchester Pale Ale for the missus). It was one of those days where you have to go out and do something because otherwise it’s a crime. I so desperately wanted to stay there all afternoon, but no, I had a rehearsal that evening, and since there was a gig coming up in a week and I hadn’t even learned all the songs yet, I knew I couldn’t show up pissed. At the ripe old age of 35 it seems, I’ve finally learned some self-control. There’s a time for being cool and rock n’ roll, and there’s a time for being professional. When you’re new to a band and you want to impress, you need to be professional. I would just have to look forward to getting home later that night, when I had decided I’d allow myself to open my Gran Duque D’Alba Solera Gran Riserva brandy.

When I joined the band I was a little excited about being able to make choices about what to drink at rehearsal again. Beer is the classic choice of course, but buying 4-8 cans of something nice every week can get expensive after a while – especially when you have to pay for the rehearsal room and a couple of drinks at the pub beforehand.

To deal with that expense, in the past I would call at Aldi on my way and pick up a bottle of red wine for £2.99. I could make that last two rehearsals, or just get smashed each week. It hasn’t actually worked out that way so far, unfortunately. I’ve been a bit hard up for the last few months, so I’ve been driving to rehearsal with a single can in my bass bag, and having a couple of drinks when I get home instead. And that’s actually ok. I don’t have to deal with the bus home and it saves me money.

As for the gig, well that went well too. I was a lot more relaxed than I used to be – confident that I’d done enough to learn the songs and, since now I’m just the bass player and not the focal point, the whole thing doesn’t rest on me. I don’t have to take personal ownership over everything, which means the pressure is greatly reduced. Correspondingly, the glory afterwards isn’t quite so pronounced either, but for now, I’m happy with that. I just need to make sure my parts are good and that I play them well. It all makes for good times.

Thanks for reading. I was just perusing some of my previous posts and figured some of the personality has dropped out since I stopped posting on a Friday night… I don’t really want to start doing that again, but… for the moment it seems potentially worthwhile. It was kind of nice to sign off with a weekend of booze-fuelled adventures ahead. So here I am, and while it was supposed to be Friday night again, I ended up going to the pub after work, and didn’t fancy sitting at the computer. So now it’s Saturday evening, and while I was intending to be at the Levenshulme Beer Festival by now, I’m actually still waiting to go. We ended up doing a marathon shop in advance of next weekend’s music and booze fest – Bearded Theory (which you might remember me blogging about last year) and now we’re just chillin’ for a bit.  

The weather’s good though, so maybe I’ll see you at the Levy Fest in an hour or so, or at Bearded Theory next week. Have a good ‘un and I’ll see you back here next week (though probably on Thursday rather than Friday), when at this point I am intending to post about an Irish Cream three-way. It’s not quite as interesting as it sounds, but if you like Irish Cream and you want to know how three different brands compare… this is where you want to be. So, yeh… not as interesting as I made it sound. BOOBIES!

The Great Supermarket White Rum Hype

A forthcoming trip to the Bearded Theory festival (some of which I told you about previously) a few months ago (messing with conceptions of time here), led me to considering the purchase of a new white spirit.

As you may have learned before – if you’ve read any of my previous posts – I can be quite methodical, so my thought process went like this. The Bearded Theory Festival allows you to take your own booze (both into the campsite, and into the arena area, which is something of a novelty), in moderate amounts. Moderate is defined as 16 cans of beer each. They don’t allow glass.

As well as the beer, I wanted to take some hard liquor – you know what I’m like. So I thought, I don’t want to take anything special, but I do want to take something I can enjoy (and that Mrs Cake could drink with a mixer). Just to narrow down my choices more, I decided to get something that would look like water when poured into a plastic bottle. I’m sure it wouldn’t have mattered if it didn’t look like water, but as I say, I just needed something to narrow down my criteria. So that left a choice between vodka, gin, tequila and white rum – so it didn’t narrow my choices down all that much…

Since it couldn’t be special, that meant it could be cheap. What I settled on then, was white rum. Of course, it is primarily for mixing, but it does have its uses in hipflasks and for quick pre-sesh swigs – you know; quick warm-up tugs before you leave the house.

Fate actually decreed that on this rare occasion, I found myself in the M&S food section in the Trafford Centre the night before the festival, and they had something that fit the bill; M & S White Rum – yes, a supermarket own brand from Guyana – ooooh!  At £12.19 it was the right price, and assuming there would be any left after the festival, this would present an opportunity to ask how budget upstart supermarket Aldi's Old Hopking could stand up to the might and reputation of Marks and Spencer. I like Marks and Spencer, but I don't do much grocery shopping  there.

Now, white rum isn’t up to all that much on its own, but it’s ok. It’s sweet at least, so you can enjoy it without loving it.  For the record, I did enjoy it at the festival. It proved very useful for topping up the old buzz from time to time, and I’m glad to say that in spite of that, I was able to bring a little home – in the Nalgene bottle you can see in the picture there.

So one Friday night, after posting my blog and knocking back a quick Wall Street, to see if it had improved at all (it hadn’t), I dove into another booze face-off. I don’t know if there are such things as rum glasses, but if there are, I don’t have any, so I decided to go with the Glencairn. Let the tasting commence.

Now, these are cheap brands – around £10 for the Old Hopking and £12.19 for M & S (both are an indifferent 37.5% ABV), so you can’t expect too much – and as you might expect, they don’t stand up to too much close scrutiny under discerning, home-tasting conditions. I embraced my inner geek, and made some tasting notes for you, in which I noted that on the nose, the M & S brand was a bit caramelly. Then, for the Old Hopking, I’ve er… confused myself a little, by stating that it smells sour in comparison – but not in a bad way, and then later I’ve written, like dirty socks. I’m only telling it how it’s written. It must have made sense at the time.

On the palate though, for M & S I’ve got that it tastes like it might have gone a bit stale, though it shouldn’t have since it was only a week since the festival. Perhaps storing it in a plastic bottle doesn’t do it any favours. I’ve also got that it tasted a bit fishy, and that it gave me the impression of being in a seafood restaurant on the coast – not something I want in my rum, I’m afraid.

For the Old Hopking, I’ve just got that it isn’t as sweet, but it is fuller bodied. It’s not a bad thing that it lacks the sweetness, and I do tend to prefer a fuller bodied spirit.

It wasn’t a particularly enjoyable tasting if I’m going to be brutally honest with you, and I kind of wished I’d broken out the special stuff earlier. No big loss, Mrs Cake and I went on to finish off the Bruichladdich Islay Barley later that evening anyway. It just backs up my theory that white rum isn’t for sipping, but it will serve you well if you want to mix it or stick it in a hip flask for taking nips when you’re out and about.

Was there a winner? Not really, I’d say you could just get the one from whatever supermarket you happen to be passing at the time, as a general rule.

As a postscript though, I’d just like to tell you that there was a little left in that bottle, and Mrs Cake was encouraging me to finish it off (she wanted use of the Nalgene bottle back), so I did one evening while I was cooking dinner. I didn’t bother pouring it into a glass and oddly, I enjoyed it again. I didn’t bother comparing with the Old Hopking this time; the simple fact of enjoying the M&S Rum was enough.

In spite of finishing it, I do still have about a quarter of a bottle of white rum left, so I won’t be needing to get a new one any time soon. I have been quite slack in my pursuit of varied spirits lately mind, and have just been buying more bottles of whisky instead of replacing the Putinoff vodka, Richmond gin and el Jimador tequila that Mrs Cake and I have polished off. I think that’s a situation to address next month…

There are of course, lots of supermarket own brands still to try, so maybe one day we’ll have an undisputed supermarket rum champion. Watch this space.

The Devastating Power of the Hangover

If you’re under 30 and you’re reading this, you’re probably going to wonder what on earth I’m banging on about, but just heed this warning: you’ll find out one day, and it ain’t gonna be pretty.

To you, having a hangover probably just means lethargy, a slight headache, and a hankering for a fried breakfast and Lucozade. Just you wait, mi’laddo.

I was the same as you once. I didn’t get hangovers. Drinking too much just meant an extra long lie in the next day. Hell, I used to get drunk and get up at 7 for work – at least three times a week. Sometimes, for good measure, I’d get a helping of the giggles at some point during the day.

All that changes when you get into your mid thirties. Hangovers last two to three days, but after the first day they’re imperceptible, and you only realise you were hungover on the fourth day, when you feel normal again. My hangovers these days affect my whole outlook, perception of reality and conception of the future. And like it or not I’m wide awake at 7am, feeling like shit.

The first sign that your hangovers are increasing in severity is getting the anxiety. The anxiety is bad. Something isn’t quite sitting right. You’re not sure what it is, in fact, as far as you know everything is fine. You didn’t embarrass yourself or upset anyone, but for some reason you feel anxious, and the feeling won’t go away. It’s even worse if you did embarrass yourself or upset someone. Sure, at least then you know there’s a reason for feeling that way, but the import of the situation just gets blown way out of proportion until it seems like you’ve committed the most heinous crime imaginable, someone’s going to find out, and the whole world is going to come crashing down on you.

The final stage – or at least, the final stage I’m aware of so far (I hope it doesn’t get worse than this) – is the extended hangover. Usually it’s brought on by heavy drinking on two consecutive days.

The first hangover day will be more or less fine. You might be thirsty and anxious, though you could also have a headache and feel nauseous. The second day, you’re feeling physically better, but you’re just… so… tired. And because you’re tired, you feel heavily depressed, but that’s ok; it’s just because you’re tired.

The third day is the killer. By this time you’re not expecting to be hungover any longer and the drinking session(s) took place long enough ago that you’ve actually forgotten it/they took place. You have no physical symptoms whatsoever, but emotionally, you’re a wreck. Paranoid, forlorn, hopeless. Everything is crap, you don’t want to talk to anyone, you can’t get any pleasure out of anything. What is pleasure anyway? What’s the point in it? Why do you feel this way?

As I say, the day after that, it’s like you’ve been reborn. The world is normal again, there is a future after all. This is when you realise that it was all just a symptom of alcohol poisoning. You will resolve never to have two heavy sessions in a row again – some people might even vow never to drink again, but you’ll forget, and it will happen again. The only question is how many times will it take before you say enough is enough and mean it.

Because alcohol is poison, it’s just that alcohol poisoning’s early symptoms include a heightened sense of fun, increased confidence and the ability to be witty and charming. Then, when you enter the later stages, you have to experience not just the absence of these qualities, but a negative effect that isn’t just opposite, but disproportionate also.

I haven’t reached the quitting stage yet, and I’d better not or this blog is really going to suffer. Sometimes two days’ heavy drinking turns out to be necessary. Luckily, if you’ve gotten to this stage, there are things you can do to protect yourself. Here’s some knowledge for you.

First, you can moderate your drinking. I know, that sounds boring, but one day you’ll realise not only that you need to moderate your drinking, but also that you can – and I’m not talking moderate in line with what the government tells you, just more moderate than nuts out, kamikaze style drinking.

When you’re young it’s easy to spend the whole night chaining one drink after the next, but you’ll see it is possible to not have a drink in your hand sometimes, and it isn’t going to mean you have less fun. It’s just that sipping a drink is a good way to fill awkward gaps in conversation (should you be prone to these), and having to go and get another drink is a good way to get out of awkward conversations altogether.

Second, you can try to avoid consecutive heavy drinking sessions. As I say, sometimes it turns out to be necessary, but you can just try a little harder. When you’ve got a big Saturday night planned, and friends coming over in advance on Friday night, it’s very easy to make Friday night a big night, too. Just get your friends to come over on Saturday instead, or just have a couple of drinks on Friday. If you’re going on a three day (or more) stag do, or it’s the Christmas period where you’ve got so many friends and colleagues and so little time, just forget it. You’re going to have to prepare yourself for the worst.

Third, drink a big glass of water for every two or three alcoholic drinks you have. I know, this sounds a bit soft, but it will keep you going longer, and ensure your hydration levels are sufficient – and you’ll still have just as much fun, possibly even more. And you’ll be able to remember more of it.

If you fail to drink water periodically, the final thing you can do is make sure you drink at least two pints of water before you go to bed. Your body is going to be dehydrated the next day, and the only way to prevent that is to rehydrate before you go to bed. If you don’t, the next day you can drink as much water as you like, but it isn’t going to make you feel any better. The drawback with this one is that drinking two pints of water is difficult, and on top of that, it’s easy to say, I’ll be fine, I didn’t drink that much, or just black out and wake up the next day when it’s already too late. If you can remember though, you’ll be surprised at how effective this is.

There isn’t really anything you can do when the hangover has already kicked in. Some will tell you a greasy breakfast will sort you right out, but that always makes me feel worse. Having a beer might help, but you’re going to have to continue drinking after that, and it could make you feel nauseous and tired. Nor is it going to prevent days two and three of the hangover. Lucozade might help, but again, only for the first day. As for hard liquor, that just doesn’t taste very nice until you’ve recovered – so you’d be wasting it, and that’s worse still – and probably a fast-track to alcoholism, which isn’t the same as alco-thusiasm.

The all-consuming hangover is something you’re going to have to get used to if you’re going to stay committed to drinking, but you can take it. And if you can’t, you know what to do.

photo by Mrs Cake

 This week’s post is particularly relevant for me, since last weekend I attended my first three day music festival for quite a few years; Bearded Theory. At festivals you pretty much have to forget about considerations like moderation and drinking water, and just drink alcohol from the moment you wake to the moment you pass out face-down on your inflatable mattress – as far as I’m aware, it’s the only way to keep your energy levels up when you wake up on that first morning, at 7am, in a tent that’s so hot it makes your upper lip burn… and you need to go to the toilet so bad that you actually can’t move without feeling you’re going to burst. Oh, and your head weighs a ton.

Mrs Cake tried the practice of drinking water before bedtime (she’s become a real convert recently) and asked an official whether the water taps contained drinking water. He said he was 95% sure it was safe to drink, but that wasn’t enough for me.

So drink from morning till night was pretty much what I did last weekend, and boy did I pay for it earlier this week. Other circumstances didn’t help – such as the fact that we had to get up and leave the campsite at 6.30 on the Monday morning because we needed to be back home for 9 in case the guy from Parcelforce came to collect the piece of furniture we were returning to the supplier that early.

It’s a good job I wasn’t driving; I could barely keep my head up. On top of that, we’d been drinking Thornbridge Breweries' Jaipur IPA (5.9% ABV), which is fricking awesome, and it had turned both our insides to foul smelling mush.

On Tuesday morning when I returned to work, I thought I was ok, but I did that thing where you read an urgent e-mail… and panic. I just felt overwhelmed and couldn’t cope with all the e-mails that had come in on the two days I’d taken as leave. Then I had a high-powered finance meeting, and couldn’t remember the most basic thing from the week before that I definitely knew about.

‘I wouldn’t know about that £400,000 underspend’, I said. Oh shit, yes I would…. Too late.

You can’t say, 15 minutes later, “can I just interrupt? You know that thing we were talking about before? Yeh, I’m on it.” I mean, you can, but not when you’re the least senior person in the room.

For the rest of the morning I was chasing my tail around rabidly, overreacting to things, forgetting things, sweating like an 80s childrens’ tv presenter - until I had lunch, and equilibrium started to reassert itself. I remembered things aren’t so important, work’s not so hard, I work at a university. Aaaand relax.

By Thursday afternoon, it turned out that I hadn’t overreacted to one of the urgent e-mails, and I was actually in trouble, which wasn’t nice. For once, something I had worried about actually came to pass, but as on this occasion I had decided it was the hangover early on, I hadn’t wasted two days worrying about it – so that was good. I’m such a worrier normally.

I think the hangover kicked back in once I got in trouble and got back home. I decided to watch the Oh My Dayum Burger Song on Youtube, to cheer me up, and ended up crying tears of joy. I love that video.

Then I finished watching a documentary called Project Nim, where they put these chimps that had learned sign language into a medical testing facility. One of the scientists said that they noticed the chimps were signing, and wrote down what they were saying… and one of the things was “hug”… I started booing and laughing at myself at the same time.

“You’re such a sensitive soul,” said Mrs Cake.

Sure, you could go to a festival and drink sensibly, or not at all, but how are you supposed to have fun standing in a field all day? The real question here is was it worth it? And yes, it was. Mrs Cake and I had a terrific time. We drank a lot, watched some good bands (shout outs to Ned’s Atomic Dustbin and Asian Dub Foundation) and had a laugh rapping and singing our way back to our tents and hanging out with some very good friends.

I also learned not to bother buying Carlsberg again. I haven’t bought it for years anyway, but knowing I needed to buy in bulk, and seeing 12 cans at Aldi for £8, I thought a couple of cases of that would do. I forgot to check whether it met my usual requirement for at least 4% alcohol (preferably much greater), and realised there was no wonder I was fully compus mentus after downing cans for breakfast – it’s only 3.8! It’s a good job I’d also took some Sagatiba Cachaca (38% ABV), M & S White Rum (37.5% ABV) - but that’s a story for another time - and that there were two beer tents selling a selection of Thornbridge ales at very reasonable prices. Because you are allowed to take a ‘moderate’ amount of your own alcohol to the festival for your own consumption, there weren’t even any queues in the beer tents.

Let me leave the subject of hangovers and Bearded Theory then with a few sights and moments that I found particularly memorable:

-          A man in a motability scooter who had the biggest hip flask in the world… but couldn’t get the cap loose. I had to tell him his flask was awesome.

-          A mother of 5 dancing to New Model Army, whose kids seemed to be asking each other, “what’s wrong with mummy?”

-          Emerging from the portaloo to announce to Mrs Cake in song, “here I am/ the biggest douche in the universe!”

-          Serenading our friend Victoria for a long time with, “V to the I to the C to the T! O to the R to the I to the A! Victo-o-o-o-ria! Vic-to-o-o-o-ria!” and later, beatboxing my way through the campsite.

-          Asian Dub Foundation reminding me why I liked them so much in the 90s.

-          A girl floating around in a pool in one of those orb things, wearing a pair or red lacy knickers, and everyone watching in disbelief – the men thinking, is she old enough for this to be ok? And the women, I am shocked and appalled. At one point it looked like even the girl was thinking, why is everyone looking at me?

-          Finally, all the nice, happy people who made the whole thing so much fun.  

      

another pic by Mrs Cake

I strongly suspect we’ll be attending Bearded Theory again in the future. I might even get over my middle aged aversion to festivals and go to some others. To be fair though, Bearded Theory was a nice size and well organised – many others are branded, strict on alcohol rules, and have nasty toilets. So we’ll see.

In other news, it’s another bank holiday weekend. I’m thinking of pitting two cheap supermarket brands of white rum against each other tonight, and can’t wait to get some more whiskies inside me. It could be time to open that Suntory Hakushu 12. I’ve got golf on Saturday morning, a Jeffrey Lewis show on Saturday night and a housewarming party on Sunday, so it looks like it’s going to be good. I’m going to try to enjoy my extended weekend, I hope you enjoy yours. Check back next week for another post.

Cheers.

Homemade flavoured vodkas... by Paul and Victoria

Shortly after the missus and I returned from honeymoon, we came across a copy of Maxim magazine that had been left behind by my new brother-in-law. In it were instructions on making your own flavoured vodka. Apparently it’s as simple as dropping fruit or spices (or whatever) into a bottle, and leaving it in a cool dark place for two weeks.

Now, I was never really interested in making my own flavoured vodka because I haven’t really worked out what the use of it is yet, but it definitely seemed like the right time for me to find out because one of the best presents the wife and I received on our wedding day was a selection of homemade flavoured vodkas from our friends Paul and Victoria. They were beautifully presented (as you can see), and came in lavender, rosemary, cinnamon and vanilla flavours.

 

“Well!” I said, “You’ve found the perfect gift for me! What have you brought for Brenda?”

Naturally, I couldn’t wait to start dipping into them, and waited only until the night after our wedding before randomly plucking the lavender one from the basket, and pouring it into a hotel-issue glass.

Lavender is a weird flavour though, isn’t it? Who eats lavender? Oddly enough, I’d had some lavender flavoured ice cream at Room just two days prior to receiving this gift, and that was a strange experience.

There were three scoops of different flavours, and the waitress had asked me if I wanted to know what they were before she brought them out. I said no, and it turned into a guessing game. Lavender was the first one I tried, and it just seemed so unusual that it fooled me into thinking I didn’t recognize it for a moment.

 

lavender?

I suppose I had a vague recollection of what lavender at least smelled like because, when I was studying for my university exams, my mum heard lavender would help with concentration, and left a little glass of it in my room (to sniff!?). One day my dad saw it, and thought it was weed - which was funny because there probably was weed in my room, just not there. Funnier than that is that they found my stash, ripped Rizla packets and all twice and didn’t even realise what it was. My parents are old-school and believe all the government has told them about recreational drugs. Just like in Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, I think the “high and beautiful wave” of freedom and love in the 1960s broke and rolled back before it reached South Yorkshire…

Where was I?

The lavender here has turned the vodka a fascinating purple colour, but I have to say this is probably my least favourite of the examples.

It wasn’t long before I went on to try the other choices, and for drinking straight, the vanilla and cinnamon varieties were most successful in my opinion  - despite not being a particular fan of either flavour in general. It turns out that Paul is also of the opinion that these are the two best flavours.

I moved on to trying the two less successful flavours with tonic water – rosemary, then lavender – and the results were actually delightful – surprisingly the lavender performed particularly well and I got through it pretty quickly after that.

If you’d asked me in a general sense, which is my favourite flavour: vanilla, cinnamon, lavender or rosemary, I would have said rosemary – though I’d generally have that with meat. It’s interesting then, that vanilla and cinnamon make the best vodkas, while lavender mixes best with tonic. Still; rosemary is the winner when it comes to pork. In fact, I brought these out at a party recently, and someone said they tasted like gravy…

Later – I don’t know whether it was a result of oxidisation, or the state of my taste buds at that particular moment – the vanilla vodka started to taste bitter. I felt the Aldi product that Paul used to make these was probably starting to come through, though it hadn’t on previous tastings. It wasn’t unpleasant, but I did feel I needed to dull the edge slightly with a couple of ice cubes. That did the trick.

Why don’t you give your own flavoured vodkas a try, and let me know your results? As I said, Paul used the standard Aldi vodka for these, and I’d say they were successful attempts, so you don’t need to splash out or anything, and it might be a good chance to use up a brand you don’t like so much. A lot of brands sell various flavoured vodkas now, and the bar Revolution is almost entirely dedicated to flavoured vodkas, but why bother buying when you can make your own?

I think my next step will be to buy a flavoured vodka, and see what that’s like. I see from Proof 66.com that one or two of the flavoured Stolichnaya varieties (my favourite vodka brand so far) are rated higher than the standard variety, though I think I’ll be trying this 50% ABV one first. It’s interesting though, that the product description says “we are looking for an absence of flavour in vodka”. If it’s an absence of flavour we’re looking for, why is the standard Stolichnaya so damn tasty? Come to that, I saw a poster the other day for Grey Goose vodka, in which it claimed that it was the best tasting vodka. So does that mean it’s the tastiest, or that it has less flavour than other vodkas, and that presumably that is better?

Very confusing. Nevertheless there’s still plenty to learn about vodka, and as ever, my journey continues.

On to my weekend preview then, and speaking of Paul and Victoria, the missus and I will be seeing them this weekend at the Bearded Theory Festival. The weather forecast doesn’t look too good, but the alco-forecast is showing a 100% chance of getting hammered. You’re allowed to take a ‘moderate’ amount of booze for personal consumption into the site, so I’ve been procuring beers and spirits for the occasion, and am already looking forward to cracking open that first one. 9.30 am on Friday, anyone?

As ever, whatever you get up to, I hope it’s a lot of fun. I’ll be back next week, on my usual day (Friday) for some more alcohol-related guff. Don’t forget, if you can’t get enough of me, you can follow me on Twitter (@alcothusiast). See you then.