Only a Few Are Chosen
A loyal TDE reader and friend from my Gilbert Magazine days sent along the most-interesting beer story of the young year: Dark Lord beer. Ratebeer.com says it's the best beer in the world. It's "brewed with hundreds of pounds of Intelligentsia Black Cat espresso, Mexican vanilla and Indian dessert sugar." It's 15% alcohol and has the viscosity of motor oil.
And it costs $15 for a 22 ounce bottle.
And only a limited number of people (those who win the Wonka-like golden ticket) are allowed to buy it.
And only on April 24th of each year.
Click here to read more. If you want to snag one of the golden tickets so you can drive to Munster, Indiana (very close to Chicago), you're too late. All the golden tickets for 2010 have been claimed. Better luck next year.
White Dog Revival
Moonshine is still with us. It never went away and is currently enjoying a renaissance. Link.
Rural bootleggers still exist . . . but the steampunkish copper still of the Appalachian hollow has mostly been replaced by low-rent industrial complexes in the mountain South that crank out cheap liquor made from white sugar. The chief attribute of this liquor is that it's unencumbered by taxes. Much of it ends up in rural nip houses, where a jar of white dog (no one seems to know where the name comes from) can be had for a dollar.
But Watman reports that refined moonshining hasn't died–in fact, it's booming today, taken up by a new generation, mostly in big cities and micropolitan towns. Practitioners make tiny batches not to resell, but mostly to see what sorts of goodness they can concoct. “It's the same people who drove the home-brewing trend, and they're just as dorky,” Watman said. “It tends to attract tattoo guys and the more outré farmers'-market types, although in the mountain states the practitioners are a little more snowboardy.”
I suspect I'd detest moonshine, but I can't say I've ever tasted it. I gotta believe the white dog would fall into what Chesterton described as "dirty drinking" (the gray-faced gin drinker in gutter).
Aside: What is a "micropolitan town"? I guess I've been asleep because I'd never heard the term before. According to this site, micropolitans are "urban areas in the United States based around a core city or town with a population of 10,000 to 49,999." When I read that, I thought to myself, "Dang. It almost sounds like my town might fall within that hip-sounding category!" I looked further and discovered that it does (at least according to Wikipedia's entry, "Micropolitan areas of Michigan").
But I don't think anyone around here is making moonshine.
