Consequently, I got into exploring the uses of more benign alternative tonics and bitters with aromatic properties to use as special elixirs. In other words, I was experimenting with the art of making cocktails. I blew the dust off of my long neglected stainless steel shaker and started to use it again. Thankfully, having alcohol in moderation isn't (yet) a problem for me1. It has at least helped me to sleep a little better. At the risk of taking what may sound like a new adventure in snobbery, I've been exploring other avenues of bartending beyond the relatively low-brow dumping together of pop and a spirit, and having it recklessly chugged down, as it is most commonly done around this region (no offense to those who prefer to do it this way). The cost of what it would have taken for the required dosages of Neo Citron and other remedies was diverted to purchasing some special ingredients for fashioning the somewhat more obscure and unusual libations I've been curious to try out. Mixology and making cocktails kind of fascinates me now. There is a definite skill and finesse required to do it, or at the very least one could say: you still can't train a monkey to make you a decent martini. It's both scientific and sensual: in getting proportions, temperatures, aeration; the interplays of sweetness, dryness, acidity, astringency, and other flavourful notes, and getting the blending and timing of it all right to make something aromatically exciting and truly pleasing to the taste buds. With knowing the statistical popularity/prevalence of ingredients and combinatorial measures and substitutions, even a limited number and variety of bottles of spirits and aperitifs, like I have, can make hundreds of different cocktails. It's as at least as interesting to me, on a mathematical basis, as playing around with the varieties of possible pizza topping combinations, or kinds of sandwich fillings in the culinary sphere. I proudly tackle this endeavour in the name of science!
However, around these parts, getting some of the more exotic bar stock, like Kina Lillet, necessarily needed some dabbling with darker forces to procure; but now I can mix together a Vesper2. Some Žubrówka (bison grass infused vodka from Poland) was also acquired by the same wretched means. Of the only two options I was given to use, I at least chose the lesser of the two evils3. Speaking of evil: while in this one liquor store, I found more things to ridicule, as I usual do when I go shopping, about how crazy our conspicuous consumption is getting to be for some of the things on which we use our disposable income. Maybe I'm just a rural bumpkin at heart, maybe my palate is yet unrefined, or perhaps I still lack some cultural wherewithal to be cognisant of that marginal line that divides the goods that are considered luxurious and those which are for the rest of the vulgar masses. Forgive me for what may seem like ignorance, but I would call it being sensible enough to drop the pretentious bullshit. I fail to see much difference in taste and aroma between a so-called cheap wine and a more expensive one, or why there is such an astronomical variation in the range of prices between certain scotches and other whiskeys. From this last time liquor shopping however, some bewilderment really made my jaw drop, and hyper-activated the ridicule circuits in my brain.
I encountered the most expensive bottle of liquor I have ever seen in physical form in my lifetime. It was something crazy that one would expect to find being gavelled off at a Sotheby's auction in London, but instead it was right there in the relatively unsophisticated boonies of the West side of Saskatoon. It was a bottle of French cognac of some special reserve that was listed at $3099.99. That was not a misprint, that's over . . . THREE THOUSAND <long stream of expletives here> DOLLARS CANADIAN!!! The sticker shock was enough to do a total memory wipe on me as to what particular brand it was. It doesn't much matter because I certainly won't be buying any no matter how rich I'd ever become. No liquor in a 750 mL bottle, even if it came from Mars never mind France, should ever cost that much. My surprise actually doesn't really come from discovering that there is cognac out there that is this expensive, and I seriously doubt that the price of this bottle even comes close to that of the actual most expensive cognac that's for retail sale, because I surely and truly doubt very much that human stupidity for the sake of being pompous has a set price limit. Those bottles more expensive than this one would be found in luxury hotels, or in the secret meeting rooms of the Illuminati or some other such place. I'd really rather not research it. However, what did surprise me was this detail that left me wondering: What the hell was it doing there! . . . in an area where a large percentage of the typical cars in the surrounding neighbourhood have a red book value equal to or cheaper than that particular bottle of brandy? Also: what special, mysterious, bizarre, or perverse qualities or properties, either through its historical significance or in its production, could have inspired a person to have so much audacity and gall, to mark up a bottle of this French stuff so outrageously high? Is it infused with cocaine? Did Rodin himself sculpt the mold that made the bottle? Was the juice fermented in a Fabergé Easter egg? Was the final distillation of that brandy filtered through the basket that collected King Louis XVI's freshly guillotined head? Were the grapes picked by virgins and placed in the solid gold chamber pot once belonging to Marie Antoinette, and then lovingly crushed by the hooves of unicorns to the rhythm and beat of La Marseillaise? Were the staves of the oak barrel it was aged in made from the repurposed wood stripped off of Napoleon's private battlefield latrine? What makes this priced more like an artifact and less like regular liquor? What is the bullshit story that makes this somehow better than any other brandy? It is either through the workings of the grand poohbah of all sales reps, or the dumbest of dumb wholesale purchasers for that store with this demographic that this bottle was there in the first place. All I can say is if one is paying three grand plus for a bottle of liquor, that stuff had better damn well be able to cure cancer or something. I would expect it to give me all the good things far beyond the satisfaction of merely being just pleasantly pissed like what regular liquor can already do. This potion should be like a whole weekend of entertainment in a single snifter: drinking it should be like being under the influence of cannabis, Ecstasy, and Viagra simultaneously, or else it should biochemically supercharge a body to exude some sort of pheromones to give one an aura to be like the most attractive creature on the planet (kind of like creating a reversed beer-goggles effect). As for now, I don't believe the difference between that stuff and something like Courvoisier, the last most expensive brandy I've actually sampled (under $50 a bottle), is worth an extra $3000. Frankly, it's like a criminal act to hyper-inflate a price like that. However, we don't really challenge this because we certainly don't feel sorry for the filthy rich asshole who has that kind money to carelessly throw around, and is idiotically conceited enough to buy such a thing just to put on airs and to show off affluence . . . or at least I don't anyway.
I had no intention of poking jest specifically at the French, or to mock them about any reputed pomposity and over-extravagance, although after reading through my last paragraph it might look that way. An apology to those who thought so, as I know I have a few readers from France. Lord knows they are going through enough right now with the recent Charlie Hebdo incident. I don't want to kick them when they're down. I stand in solidarity with them in being against those sort of treacherous, barbaric acts. I'm thankful to have and share the same kind of freedom of expression that enables me to write this blog. I do, however, find it ironic that in a society that proclaims and prides itself to be on the side of equality, liberty, and fraternity, that there still is this glaring example of a holdover of the days when despotism, tyranny by elitism, and segregation of the classes in that country was institutional. They, of all people, should find this to be as outrageous as anyone else. There is no equality with marketing a commodity with an exaggerated price that no one can acquire except the extremely wealthy. Maybe it's not even their fault, maybe it's the purchasers, marketers, and wholesale vendors right here in North America who should be guillotined for such blatant and audacious greed.
I do have to commend the French for at least a couple of other things (besides the Lillet) that I did indulge in as frugal, yet decadent, treats this weekend: cheese and pâté. It swings my thoughts over to the stupid things we do in North America in our own way with the abomination that is called fast food, while there are available alternatives that are so much more pleasantly decadent that are more affordable. On Friday evening, strayed away from home, famished from not having any supper, and I felt a need to pick my spirits up after feeling bad about a foolish mistake I made. I went to my favourite pub, but it was full; the next place I wanted to try was closed down. I was thankful that my favourite cheese and deli shop was still open. I got some Saint-Paulin cheese ($8.00, but ate only a quarter of it, so really $2.00), and a marvelous pork and duck liver pâté blended with pistachios ($3.50). Though the cheese was from Québec, and the pâté was made locally, both were descended from French tradition. Adding some pickles and olives and crackers to that with a glass of wine (less than $2.00) at home, I had what I thought was an amazing little feast. Accounting for the portions I ate, chewing slowly and savouring it, I was eating better and cheaper than if I had scarfed down a stupid burger and fries with a pop from elsewhere, even friggin' McDonalds. I never felt that I ever had a richer experience by eating fast food, just indigestion.
Taking away the more snobbish elements of them, I concede that things like cocktails and deli food, in their own way, are very important things to have now and again. Small, yet affordable bits of luxury and decadence, where quality, and not quantity, matters. Bits of razzle-dazzle to remind us that life should never be boring, even with the smaller things and morsels of it. They are a reminder that for the good things to happen, It's best to be patient, and take things slowly, through sipping, sampling, and savouring; not through mindless and hurried gluttonous gobbling and guzzling, like there will be no tomorrow, and veering off into a whole other realm of over-indulgent sinning. They are reminders to balance out our lives. Not so much for the tastes and flavours themselves, but also to value some ritualized time to use to enjoy them.
That's what ultimately I think makes a person feel richer and blessed through food and drink.
1. Given my medications, I can only consume a maximum of 2-3 alcoholic drinks within a given day I choose to do it, which is not every day. Therefore, now when I'm in the mood to drink, the onus has shifted a little more towards making something that is kind of visually appealing, can be sipped slowly, and savored for an extended period. So, I can't binge drink even if I wanted to, not that it was ever my habit to begin with. Despite having some Slavic heritage, I actually find the manner and amount of hard liquor like many Russians and Ukrainians (in the old country) can dump down at one sitting to be quite distasteful, even when there is the guise of sophistication of the tradition of zakushki (a table full of appetizers and delicacies) present to take the edge off all that straight vodka (horilka).
2. The cocktail in the Bond film Casino Royale. It is a damn fine and tasty one too I find. Of course, I make mine without the digitalis poison. My Žubrówka will be used for making something nice I learned about from Top of the Hops a few years back.
3. I sullied myself finding these two ingredients in one of the private stores here, only because I couldn't find them in the public stores. It was in the Co-op owned one, and I am a member/share holder, so that is a forgivable sin to some extent. At least I didn't use Sobeys. I'm happy to say that all other potent potables I need for my personal liquor cabinet can be collected from the public liquor board store.
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