Gin And Bear It: 7th To 12th

It's Stage Two of my attempt to drink my wway through a gin advent calendar as still retain the werwithal to describe what's going into my gullet at each stage.

Dec 7th: 6 o' Clock Damson Gin

6 o' Clock behind door number 7. See what they did there? I'm tempted to knock a point off on general principle. Any shitty jokes around here better be mine,

That'd be unfair, though. 6 o' Clock isn't a gin to set the boozer's world on fire, but it's pretty nice. Could do with more damson, I think, but I guess it isn't the distiller's fault that I haven't the slightest interest in subtlety. 7/10

Dec 8th: English Drinks Company Cucumber Gin

Sweet Bacchus, no. No, I cannot sign off on this. A slice of cucumber in a glass of Hendricks and tonic, that works. That's lovely. That's subtle. This is like drinking Gordon's from a hollowed-out cucumber, that is then hammered into my face by a mallet made of frozen cucumber which is then also hammered into my face.

To reiterate: no. 4/10

Dec 9th: Edinburgh Gin Plum and Vanilla

This is more like it! Not sure I've ever combined plum and vanilla before, even before you get to the juniper and ethanol, but it works beautifully - the kind of fuck-it-let's-have-pudding-AND-another-drink concoction that makes cocktails so satisfying. Nice colour, too.

8/10

Dec 10th: Whitley Neill Quince Gin

Confession time: I don't even know what quince is. I mean, I realise Google exists. I just prefer the mystery,

Whatever it is - I want so say some kind of pureed rodent organ? - it's very tasty. It's somewhat hard to discuss, though, since I've had this gin before, and also it tastes like nothing else that exists. Um... It's good? Yeah, that will do. Accuracy in reviews is important. DRINK THIS GIN. THIS GIN IS GOOD. REVIEW CONCLUDED.

7/10

Dec 11th: Poetic License Picnic Gin

Apparently, this is supposed to taste like peaches and cream. I could only taste the strawberries, which as previously mentioned already mixes with juniper and alcohol to taste like an energy drink for high-functioning alcoholics.

And I've done that once this Christmas already. I guess I'm like those film reviewers who knock a star off every time they see a car chase. I've drunk so much gin that what's nice is starting to mean what's original. Which I guess is a little depressing, but ultimately I can't get too worked up about the idea that I'm starting to not appreciat drinks that taste like vodka and Red Bull at seven times the price.

6/10

Dec 12th: Bramley & Gage Organic Sloe Gin

On the other hand, sloe gins still seem to be going down quit nicely, so I'm not sure what's going on. I guess it helps that this one is a little more tart than usual, like the berries involved resent you murdering them for their pulp just that little bit more. That's it, delicious juice-stuffed globes. Resent me as I consume you!

7/10

Gin And Bear It: 1st To 6th

So we bought a gin advent calendar this year, to compensate for the crushing sense of isolation and fulity that accompanies this Christmas (more than usual, I mean).

And since I'm drinking a gin a night, I ifgured I might as well do some reviews.

Dec 1st: Wilkin & Sons Raspberry Gin

Man, with the mouth-feel and everything? Also, raspberries, which are a fruit. Already a contender for best gin of the festive seaon. 8/10

      Dec 2nd: Malfey's Blood Orange Gn

This is less of a drink than a magic trick. It starts off tasting like citrus and victory, but halfway through you glance at what you're drinking, and it turns into dentist's mouthwash. Senses are weird, right? I am not a fan. 7/10

       Dec 3rd: Lavender Gin

I mean, OK? I can believe it tastes like lavender. I definitely needed to be hold, though. F, meanwhile, hates the taste of lavender, and says this tastes OK to her. Which I guess is a kind of a success. When the best you can say about a flavoured gin is that it isn't even flavoured enough to piss off people who explicitly dislike that particular taste, though, I'd argue there's something of an issue. 5/10

Dec 4th: Wilkin & Sons English Strawberry Gin

Whereas with this one, even the label is no help in trying to figure out what it actually tastes like. I *think* it most resembles an energy drink diluted with soda water. Which it turns out to not be an unpleasant experience, but still one that disappoints. 6/10

Dec 5th: Sweet Potato Orange Gin Liqueur

Fortunately, only the last 60% of the name actually describes what you're drinking. Sweet potato makes for miserable fries and mash that's essentially a hate crime. Imagining the blasphemous un-drink one could squeeze from rotting yams in defiance of all laws of God and Nature makes me feel physially sick.

So does the fact I really like this actually speak to its quality? Or am I just so relieved that this doesn't taste like some unholy mixture of cheap vodka and gone-off carrot juice that it couldn't help but clear the bar I've set for it? 7/10

Dec 6th: Wilkin & Sons English Strawberry Gin

Um, fuck you? 0/10

No Apologies For The Infinite Radness 1.2.10 - "Nuclear" (Ryan Adams)

Fuck Ryan Adams.

The problem with the things that shape your past is that the past can't be reforged. It can only be burned away out from under you.

"Nuclear" is almost certainly the first Adams song I ever heard, one of the tracks of a "Best Of 2002" CD that came free with the NME. It was, and remains, special to me. The lyrics about the burned, radioactive remains of a once glorious relationship that exploded with blinding force chimed perfectly with the kind of callow youth who saw nothing inappropriate about comparing the atrocity of nuclear weapons with how much is sucks to get dumped.

(If indeed that's what's happening here. Maybe Adams is singing about the arrival of a new love laying waste to his current relationship. Of lying awake at night, trying to tell himself to be content with what he has rather than go rushing after something new and thrilling, all the while knowing that all that really matters is whether she'll say "yes".)

If the lyrics have faded in importance, though, the music still stands up - a glorious waltz of slide guitar over crunching rock chords, the epitome of "alt-country" that the hot new things were hyping as The Hot New Thing for all of seven minutes back in the day. The restrained, steely bassline. The gradual collapse into near-howls of anguish. A "Dear John" letter, either read or written in hell.

I loved the track so much that, off the back of it and NME's review of "Love Is Hell", I bought both CDs of the latter, and - up until recently - never looked back. Things changed as time drifted onward. NME soured on alt-country as it looked for something new to sink its pre-hate prep into, and I soured on the NME, as I recognised what I’d mistaken for a music magazine was a oblique series of lonely hearts ads, penned by men convinced rock would get them fucked if they could just have enough OPINIONS about it.

Adams, though, stayed. The returns diminished, yes, though on a trajectory more akin to a fairground buzzer game than a ski slope. But that call-back to my youth – one not so much wasted as chronically under-appreciated – never completely lost its energy. The flare of fission had flattened into the background radiation of my life.  My Geiger counter still twitches, from time to time, as my eye passes across his albums in my collection.

I think it's easier to separate the art from the artist when it only becomes an issue late in the game. But it's never been the ease at issue, has it? It's the morality. Just because you can find your way to enjoy good art from terrible people, it doesn't follow that you should.

These songs wind like arteries through my history, personal, romantic, and musical; though the whole point of NAFTIR is that those are distinctions without a difference in any case. As Craig Finn put it, certain songs get scratched into your soul. You can't fill those grooves back in, even if you never sing - or speak of - those songs again. 

And why should I? Haven't Adams' own actions burned away enough fo what I've built myself on? Do I have to knock out the struts that remain, blackened and warped, but still standing? There's nothing to replace them with - the lumber from which I built myself upwards out of my youth is a resource long since lost to me.

Does any of that justify me reminding you all that Adams exists, though? That these tales of heartbreak and longing only take the forms they do because he was savy enough to realise setting lists of the women whose careers he tried derailing to music probably wouldn't shift quite so many discs?

I don't know. I hope so? I hope I can talk about the music who made me the person I am without endorsing or lingering on the flaws of the people who made the music who made me the person I am. For better or worse, "Nuclear"'s fire burns within me still.

All that said? Fuck Ryan Adams.

(Adams-free B-side)

Infinite Diversity, Finite Combinations 3.1.20

 Fuck you, Reagan.

Booze Me Baby: Cherry Beer Edition

So I bought some cherry beer and drank it. Then I wrote down THOUGHTS and FEELINGS.

Liefman’s Fruitesse

The standard Belgian fruit beer against which all others are measured. Or they are for me, anyway, given they sell this both on campus and one of my most regular haunts in Birmingham. A nice balance of sweet and sour, and not too strong to make ordering it pints particularly inadvisable.

Mort Subite: Kriek Lambic

As sour as the word “lambic” suggests. But this is cherrytown, Jack. Sour is the currency we’re trading in here. It works well, is what I’m saying. Plus the wee cork makes me feel like a giant at a wedding each time I open up another bottle. Pop pop!

Timmerman’s Kriek

Delighted to learn that “Lambicus” is a thing that somehow exists. As fun as that name is, though, there's not much there. Well, OK, that's not fair. The "problen", emphasis on the """", is that I don't think I'd have any chance of distinguishing this from Leifmans if I were blindfolded, or distracted by a squirrel, or whatever.

But that's fine. Leifmans is good. But its also slightly stronger, so, you know. Doesn't feel like I need two of you, Lambicus.

Grisette Bio Fruits Des Bois

This is borderline undrinkable. Tastes like Ribena and backwash, diluted to an extent you could fairly call homeopathic. Serve only to your worst enemies, who are at your house for some reason.

 

 

Cherry Chouffe 

A bit darker and richer than the other offerings here. Also ludicrously strong, so be advised. It’s a good job the bottles have such a low centre of gravity, because I was gesticulating wildly within minutes. Best paired with a sense of creeping shame the next morning.

 

 

Sam Smith's Organic Cherry

I was semi-secretly hoping I'd hate this, given Sam Smiths pubs have gotten themselves a reputation recently for being hotbeds of bullshit ableism.

You can imagine my disappointment at how absolutely gorgeous this beer is, then. Like the ideal blind date for the worst man you've ever met, the sweet:tart ratio is almost perfect. It's light enough to go down easy, and not *quite* strong enough for that fact to be a danger to public health.

Thank Cthulhu that the name is total shit, then. BOO, Sam Smiths. BOO! You're an embarrassment! BOOOOOO!

Infinite Diversity, Finite Combinations 1.1.20

 Finally back once again with the classic run Star Trek.

Contract Fulfilment

Eeek! Not even an hour to go until November and I've not put up a single post for the month mankind knows as "Pre-Halloween"!

This is partially my fault, for not having finished an IDFC post this month until about seven minutes ago. Plus, also, it's entirely my fault because this is my blog. IF YOU WANT TO GET PICKY.

I had planned to show you the Ultramarine Terminators I'd finished painting recently, AKA the best miniatures I've ever done that aren't from a standalone box. But I can't even do that, because I'm trapped for Halloween night in a 14th century mansion, that the owner insisted wasn't haunted even though I'd only asked for a second pot of coffee with my breakfast.

So, join me in an embarassingly obvious exercise in filler with DUN DUN DUUN: One sentence reviews of this year's Halloweenapalooza films. Usually I'm too busy making cocktails and enjoying having friends to really concentrate on the movies I'm playing for the Halloween season. This year though the universe was kind enough to leave me no distraction beyond the cascading tears of loneliness. SO:

Sputnik (2020): This film's biggest weakness is also its greatest strength, in that it manages to be fun and interesting and moderately clever and occasionally unnerving without ever truly engaging with the politics of its USSR setting.

Les Diaboliques (1955): The sort of film that everyone copies afterwards because it's so smart, which means we've seen it all before; though that only matters if you prioritise being surprised over literally every single fucking thing that cinema has to offer.

Vampires Vs The Bronx (2020): Starts from the astonishingly smart conceit of linking vampirism to gentrification, and never lets up on delivering social commentary that's also hilarious.