Saturday, May 13, 2017

A Vain Attempt At Maturity, Part Two

Who knew that you could fuck up apple cider?

I won't name the brand, but while I was at work the other night at the Safeway above downtown Port Angeles, my boss and I noticed a small floor display of "hard" ciders for sale. A four-pack of various flavors in little five-ounce cans for a buck. We figured that it was worth the try on a couple of fronts - not only could they be drunk, but I also figured that they'd be good for cooking bratwursts. Of course we only noticed this at about four in the morning - the sale of alcoholic beverages in Washington State is not allowed between two and six in the morning - so we figured that we'd have to come back the next night to buy some. But since Joy had a doctor appointment during the day, I tasked her with buying a few of these four-packs.

She wound up buying five of them, and we've chose to sacrifice one for taste testing. And to be quite honest, it tastes more like ass than cider. Honestly, I don't think that the taste of alcohol is something that I'll ever be able to stomach fully, and I'm totally okay with that. But there are ways to tone down that ass. Y'see, we have a Sodastream machine at home, and while it's primarily used to make soft drinks - Joy likes Cola and Root Beer while I like making my own version of Mountain Dew Livewire, spiking their "Fountain Mist" syrup with Orange Soda syrup - you can also just make plain soda water with it for other purposes. Like making vodka-and-cranberry with soda. She'd bought some Ocean Spray Cranberry Juice Concentrate in twelve-ounce cans some time ago, and we just didn't have much use for it until now. I took advantage of that by adding a little of the concentrate and soda water to one of the little cans of hard cider, then poured that over ice into one of the Coca-Cola tumblers we got from our cruise last year. It took a bit more of that concentrate than I'd expected to make that ass taste go away for the most part. And Joy loved it when I let her have a sip. I think the recipe was like this:

- Five ounces hard cider

- Two tablespoons cranberry juice concentrate

- Eight to ten ounces of water.

Stir and pour over ice.

Not that bad, though it could use a tad more of the concentrate. And since it's about three-thirty in the morning as I type this, I can assure you that I'm not going anywhere or doing anything. The pajamas are on, I'm watching Queensland Reds playing Melbourne Rebels in some feisty Super Rugby action Down Under - the ESPN app on Xbox One is fucking awesome - and I think I'll go light that damned pilot light so I can have hot water for washing the dishes in about half an hour. Welcome to the weekend on the graveyard shift, my friends.

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