A drink made from fermented pineapple sounds AOK for me. (0)

Dry Soda

Saturday, November 4th, 2006 in carbonated, soda by josh | 3 comments

Rating: 2

spacer Dearest Kevin,

You are a delightful young man. I know I don’t tell you this often enough. You are such a treat! Your bon mots, your waggish charm, your irresisitable little-girl eyes. Most of all, your rapacious lust for life, with appetites as wide-ranging as the great plains of Middle America itself — God’s country.

I have a few guests over this evening and we’re listening to some smooth beats from Cologne, Germany. The weather has turned so I am sporting my wool Brioni, but I decided to mix things up a little by swapping my usual paisley four-in-hand for a gently jocular silk cravat — the wife was scandalized!

But all the horsefeathers w/r/t tonight’s look greatly impinged on my cooking time, so I had to trim the planned menu to just slow-roasted heirloom beets, a grilled and shaved fennel bulb, melted cipollini onion rings, a soft-boiled Jidori hen egg, cumin-scented eggplant, herb-roasted saddle of Elysian Fields Farm lamb, and some feuillantine au caramel to send Samuel and Mindy home happy.

And to drink? You already know the answer, silly — nothing but Dry Soda will suffice. Its delicate, sophisticated taste complements any fine meal, although tonight I’m serving Lavender because its floral tones and low acidity work especially well with the evening’s repast. But I recommend Lemongrass for your next sushi get-together (kanpai!), Rhubarb as our palates become more wintry and we begin to crave heartier fare, and Kumquat for those lazy afternoons when you just want to kick off your Topsiders and nosh on some scalloped oysters.

Later tonight, however, when the cravats are loosened, when Mindy and the wife are flushed from a rowdy game of euchre, when the bowl of car keys is prepared — then it shall be time for my secret concoction called the Desperate Hours. This is where Dry Soda truly shines. I’ll share the recipe with you only because you are so very dear to me:

1 part Dry Soda (any flavor)
1 part Liquid Banjo thrice run through a Brita
1 part 3,4-methylenedioxy-N-methylamphetamine

Serve quickly.

Minute Maid Blends: Orange Passion

Thursday, November 2nd, 2006 in juice by kfan | 3 comments

Rating: 4

spacer OK I hope Dean Allen has been paying the electric bill because I am just writing this directly into the machine. From my fingertips to your eyes.

I am a person who eats breakfast with such frequency that it is often necessary to push other meals aside in order to make room for additional breakfasts. Pancakes and eggs are a ’round the clock affair at my place. There is nothing quite so pleasant as Morningstar Farms bacon in the broiler as the sun fades from view. Let’s say we ever decide to do another of our “sleepovers”: if you slept in really late you might not even be sure what time it was, based on the meal I put in front of you as you sat in your pajamas, hair all mussed, rubbing the sleepy seeds out of your eyes. I mean think about it. Anyways.

I think we can all agree that orange juice is pretty much the go-to bev for breakfast meals, at least when one KEEPS FORGETTING TO BUY THE FUCKING CELERY for the Bloody Marys. But the problem is that most orange juice completely sucks, unless you’re going to find a bunch of oranges and squeeze that shit fresh, which is too much clean-up for a busy fellow like me. And frankly I don’t have the forearm strength for that type of endeavor anyway. So I make do with the various cardboard-carton’d O.J.’s I pick up at the grocery, avoiding anything with pulp because it feels like eating fingernails, and I just get through it, because what else am I going to do? In a world where all the options suck, we learn to accept what we’re given and derive pleasure where we may, like a homeless man who writes very good poems.

And that’s where my little diatribe would end were it not for my recent discovery of Minute Maid Blends: Orange Passion. It’s the breakfast juice I always wanted. Gone, the stale sourness of supermarket orange juice, replaced by sweetly bewitching hints of passionfruit and guava. I am seriously so taken with this juice that I can often be found standing by the refrigerator, drinking it right from the carton. As though I literally had no time to procure a glass. I can’t remember the last time I felt like this. I’m giddy, re-energized, excited once again about life as it pertains to orange juice. I feel like a little kid again. Footy pajamas and Scooby’s All-Star Laff-A-Lympics and the Vanessa Williams issue of Penthouse. I had a really complicated childhood.

Last night I went to this place called The Fort and drank something known as Trade Whiskey, which is flavored with red pepper, tobacco, and gunpowder. It was pretty good, and this morning I woke up with long, luxurious chest hair. (3)

Hint

Wednesday, October 25th, 2006 in fruity, water, clear by josh | 9 comments

Rating: 3.5

spacer I may have gone on record saying the ultimate drink is probably just plain old water, preferably really really cold and maybe even right out of the tap, depending on your plumbing sitch. And last night I was super-thirsty but too busy sleeping to get something to drink, Q.E.D. I was super-thirsty in my dream and my dream-self had to stop putting the moves on Murphy Brown long enough to go get something to drink. And then I find something and start feverishly chugging but of course it does nothing to quench my thirst because dream-drinking does zero in terms of real-world physical hydration. I hate these dreams. OK never mind we know all this.

The point is, guess what beverage I chose in my dream? Plain old water. And I was drinking it out of what looked to be a 70s-era Coors can. Maybe because I recently moved to Golden? I know you enjoy interpreting my dreams! Anyway the thing is water was literally the drink of my dreams, and that is significant.

And I feel like there’s a glut of beverages in the market right now that are all about giving you options vis-a-vis water. Yeah sometimes I use phrases that I don’t know the meaning of, get over it, that happens. So there’s water and juice, there’s water and Kool-Aid like Vitamin Water, water and bubbles and juice like Fizzy Lizzy, water and globules of lychee or whatever it is you go for.

Normally, I’m all: Dude just ease up on the shenanigans and give me straight-up water. I’m so desperately tired of the dicking around. Right? And something like Hint — which is very aptly named because it’s plain old water with an almost ridiculously subtle dash of flavor buried in there somewhere — something like Hint would typically be filed right into the “Oh Jesus Just Stop It” category along with your Bluetooth earpiece.

But I’ve gone through a half-dozen bottles of this stuff and I’m starting to think they’ve got the percentages down tight. You have all the enjoyment of knocking back plain old water but then a little bit of flavor that doesn’t interfere but instead enhances the experience. It’s like ambient flavor. So even stuff like Cucumber or Pear or Pomegranate-Tangerine, which you know would be Grade-A Stank in large doses, are perfectly acceptable here.

And isn’t that what we all want out of a beverage? Something perfectly acceptable? OK fine, I guess your standards are all lofty. How is that working out for you.

Richmond: Where are you at?

Monday, October 23rd, 2006 in travelogue by kfan | 3 comments

The K4T Volvo makes its next stop in Richmond, VA. Information I am hoping someone can provide:

  • Are there any area restaurants that serve their own speciality beverages? Things that you can’t get anywhere else and that are not to be missed? Extra points for secret beverages that aren’t on the menu and require code words to order.
  • Are there any places there to get good agua fresca? Please God say there is. Honestly, I’m dying. Don’t make me move to Texas. I don’t want it, and quite frankly  Texas doesn’t want it either.
Writing about the “hey let’s make our own soda!” stuff in the Fizzy Lizzy review got me to wondering: What if one day I just lost my mind and decided to invent my own drink in the garage and then tried to sell it. Maybe a flash-pasteurized peanut butter smoothie. Or cherry root beer. (6)

Fizzy Lizzy

Thursday, October 19th, 2006 in carbonated, fruity, juice by josh | 4 comments

Rating: 3

spacer So Fizzy Lizzy sent us some of their beverages to try out, because I guess they’re scrappy up-and-comers? Like three people in some cramped apartment in NYC? Allegedly someone named Lizzy got it in her head that she was going to make juice-and-seltzer drinks and then just went for it — are you buying this? This whole garage-band thing, like they’re all sitting around and squeezing passion fruit and gluing the labels on by hand and basically just full of dreams? I didn’t think that was a viable career path.

Remember a couple years back we were talking about some young upstarts who decided to make their own kind of indie cola and take on the corporate sellout colas? Or something? And we’re like: Son, your naivete would be endearing if it wasn’t so sad, and your cola didn’t taste like patchouli dick. But are we just laying down our own cynical trips on these semi-visionaries? Just because we’ve failed at every single one of our life’s ambitions (well to be fair you did finally get that Death Eater tattoo) doesn’t mean that it’s not possible – at least mathematically – for someone to come up with this mindblowing drink in their basement which ends up toppling the Coca-Cola empire. Isn’t it pretty to think so, et cetera.

Anyway, I don’t see Fizzy Lizzy as the regime-toppler, but they have some pleasant enough flavors. And there’s something to be said for drinking a beverage that’s been made by people excited to be making a beverage (or at least that’s their marketing spin – oh I will be simply furious if I find out this is all some scam by PepsiCo to trick me with indie cred!!!). You can sort of taste the perspiration or inspiration or whatever it is.

The thing here is they’re a blend of sparkling water and around 70% juice, so it’s not quite soda, not quite juice, and this effect works better in some flavors than others. I should also mention that there is often sediment involved.

Anyway let me summarize our binge drinking session. I thought Concord Grape was OK (with booze in it), but Fuji Apple was my fave – like a nice, smooth cider. You thought Passionfruit was far and away the best, kind of like an orange-grapefruit blend (bleh), but gave thumbs down to Ruby Grapefruit (”doesn’t bring anything new to the table”) and Raspberry Lemon (”just sour water”), while I literally had to spit out the Pineapple into my cat’s face because it tastes exactly like pineapple, which is not something I enjoy, at all, ever, in any capacity. Sorry Cap’n Furpants, don’t be all mad, let’s kiss and make up!!

Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia Milkshake

Wednesday, October 18th, 2006 in shakes by kfan | 2 comments

Rating: 3.5

spacer Dear Josh:

I remember the time you had sex with Sean Connery.

You gave yourself utterly to his ecstasy, so overwhelmed were you by his brute beauty. All through that long night–that night you prayed would never end–his passion was relentless, merciless. He reduced your soul to embers, your heart stirring in awe of the mastery, the achieve of this man, this chevalier.

And the next morning–the harsh morning light streaming in through the hotel windows–you woke to find him gone. On the dresser, A fifty-dollar bill wrapped around the stem of a single red rose. And you thought to yourself: Ummm did I seriously do all those things with award-winning star Sean Connery and if so what the hell was I thinking? Because no way was he going to be interested in a relationship. Honestly, I know we don’t talk about it much, but I think you never got over him. You were certainly never the same after that encounter. And yet the memories. The wonderful, haunting memories.

All my feelings about Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia Milkshake are summed up in that 100% true anecdote.

Such a wondrous experience, leaving such potent regret in its wake. It’s like drinking cool, melty ice cream. The only thing that could make it more enjoyable would be if there were spoilers for the next Harry Potter book printed on the label, to read while pausing between sips. Josh I am embarassed to tell you that after I was done, I put the cap back on and rested the bottle upside down so that I might tease from it one last sip. I’ve never done that before, and now that I have I feel I’ve turned a corner forever, my life changed irrevocably by hedonistic desire.

And then I seriously did not get up from my chair for 20 minutes after drinking it. It was like I was pinned to the chair, a pillowcase full of Puffskeins in my stomach, slowly dragging themselves down the length of my colon. The afternoon was endless, merciless.

This time I am swearing off the dairy for good, let this entry be my swan song. No more of that for this guy. Well maybe one exception: I know it’s very unlikely that when I die one day, decades from now, I will die from drowning. As you know I  hate to swim and look terrible in a speedo. And it’s even more unlikely that if I do drown, that I’ll get to choose beforehand what I drown in. I could see this happening only if my life was more like a young James Bond’s. But just in case it does come to pass that I will drown and get to choose the solution, I want to drown in Cherry Garcia Milkshake. For what could be a more lovely and noble and dangerous. I ask you.

List of extinct sodas from the first half of the 20th century. [Thanks, Beth] (3)
  • asides
  • bolthouse farms
  • carbonated
  • chocolate
  • clear
  • cochineal
  • coffee
  • coke
  • cola
  • cola variants
  • dr pepper
  • energy
  • fruity
  • healthy
  • hfcs
  • import
  • interview
  • jones
  • juice
  • juice drink
  • k4t news
  • limited edition
  • milk
  • mountain dew
  • mr pibb
  • naked
  • pepsi
  • personal history
  • question
  • root beer
  • shakes
  • smoothie
  • snapple
  • sobe
  • soda
  • tea
  • theory
  • travelogue
  • water
  • whatever
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