Friday

Brews You Can Use

There's been some pretty good BYCU material out there this year. If your garden, like mine, has volunteer borage all over the place, consider this: borage fizz. My youngest son, Max, really likes to cook. I might turn him loose on making borage syrup, I will then take over by adding the gin and drinking the drink. * * * * * * * For years I've wanted to read Ray Bradbury's Dandelion Wine. It strikes me as one of those books that will give me a good idea about what it was like to grow up in (much) simpler times. Alas, something else is always topping it in my attention index. Besides, who drinks dandelion wine anymore? * * * * * * * A few people, it turns out, and one Ohio winery is actually manufacturing it, using, an Ohio TDE reader tells me, Amish children as coolies to pick the dandelions. * * * * * * * In case you take that last phrase too seriously, the winery isn't forcing Amish kids into labor. The kids, I'm led to believe, like to pick the dandelions and sell them to the winery, the way urban kids search for returnable cans. Let's not call the Department of Labor on this one. * * * * * * * My oldest son, Alex, turned me onto Comedy Central's "Drunk History." It's pretty funny. The show is pretty simple: get a real historian real drunk, then have that person narrate an episode of history. I've only watched a few episodes, but it's one of those things I'd watch more often if I had time. You can find a decent sample here (PG content).