Turning Rotgut into Smooth Booze

Dear Sundiver,

My tastes often outstrip my alcohol budget. Can you give any insight into filtering bottom shelf liquor to make it taste like next-shelf-up liquor? I found this product, the Gray Kangaroo, but for that kind of money I could buy another couple gallons of gin.

Can you offer a cost-benefit analysis for me?

Love,
Cheap date

Cheap Date, this product is a refinement of the tried and true method of using a Brita pitcher to filter alcohol. The Gray Kangaroo is an improvement on Brita in that it only takes 4 passes with the Gray Kangaroo but 10 to 20 passes with a Brita filter.

Of course, the Brita filter comes with a handy pitcher. The Gray Kangaroo works best with two people.

The price of a Brita filter is lower than a Gray Kangaroo, but the time required is higher. KCDrinker has a nice post on the cost-benefit analysis of the Brita filtration method.

A Brita water pitcher filter will indeed clean nasty vodka. But you will never turn a nine dollar bottle of filth into a forty dollar bottle of Grey Goose.

At best, the first three liters at twenty filtrations a pop will turn a bottle of scum into a Sky level of vodka.

Again the simple math:
2 x 1.75 liter bottles is $18.00 USD + 1 Brita filter $5.00 USD = $23.00 USD
1 one liter bottle of Grey Goose Vodka = $22.00 USD
1 one liter bottle of Sky Vodka = $18.00 USD

So if you are into drinking decent vodka, love home experiments, and have way too much free time, we recommend that you go out into the real world and apply yourself to getting a job that pays you enough to not have to attempt this kind of useless scientific experiments at home. |KCDrinker|

The real issue that is left out of KCDrinker's equation is one of time. I think these filtration methods work best for college students who have lots of time and very little money. Personally, I charge $175 per hour for criminal representation and I have more work than I can shake a stick at. So for me, I save time and money by buying high quality alcoholand skip the filters.

If your situation is different and you've plenty of time to spend pouring booze into a filter, I think the Gray Kangaroo will make your drinking more enjoyable and your hangover less toxic.

New Olympic Event

Midget Beer Bonging

Legalize Drugs Now

Excuse me if I rant a bit...

One of my oldest friends from high school recently asked my help to hook up his sister with some high quality marijuana. This seemed totally out of character, this guy is an uptight, strait-laced nerd. He's never smoked or drank and has always given me a bit of the high and mighty attitude about it all.

But then his sister was diagnosed with cancer and now he wants me to find someone to sell her weed. Apparently the chemotherapy kills her appetite and some days even makes her nauseous and weed is good at giving people the munchies and calming nausea.

So, of course, I made a few calls and hooked his sister up.

But it really chaps my hide that so many people in this country think drugs are only good if they're produced by GlaxoSmithKline or Eli Lilly.

Human beings have been using plants and herbs for millions of years. Many drugs have medicinal properties and that's why they remain so popular.

I am shocked at the gall of the Republican Party to think that they can decide which drugs are good and which are bad and then enforce that by erecting a police state. Not that the Democrats are any better.

Our whole drug policy is out of control. Just the other day I was in court and saw a young man sentenced to over ten years in prison for growing marijuana in his basement.

Not only is weed useful for cancer, it's a good way to keep people mellow and friendly... I prefer it to Prozac any day of the week.

People in South America have been chewing cocaine leaves for centries as well. Cocaine tea is a local remedy for elevation sickness. When I got off a bus in the Andes, the first thing I saw was a little booth selling cocaine tea. It didn't get me high, but it made me feel better.

The War on Drugs has led to the destruction of an much of society and it hasn't done ours any good. We have an entire generation of young men who are trapped in desparate situations and end up selling drugs because they don't have any other real possiblities. The prison-industrial complex is the beneficiary of our failed schools, broken homes, and gang infested neighborhoods. While those problems won't be solved by legalizing drugs... but think of all the money we would save on cops, prisons, the military, and foreign drug aid. We could even tax drugs!

When we will the people of the United States realize that drugs are good if used wisely?

How silly to just arbitrarily decide some drugs are good and some are bad without at least trying to weigh the costs and the benefits?

If someone commits a crime under the influence of any drug, you punish the crime, not the drug.

It doesn't matter if someone's driving under the influence of alcohol or Ambien, it is being out of control behind the wheel that is the problem, not the drug.

Wishful Drinking: The Alien Baby

Dear readers,

Another week has come and gone, and the Bat City Herald is no closer to firing that disturbed young lady who has seized the reins of power at the once-prominent journal. Forty-five days into her journalistic junta, and what do we have to show for it? The return of Garfield to the comics page? Please.

But I digress.

Today's column, as promised, concerns two different drinks, both called, rightly or wrongly, the Alien Baby.

My first experience with the alleged extraterrestrial love child came from a disturbed young woman tending bar at Headhunters on Red River road. She filled a pint (a queen's pint) glass with some disgusting Red Bull competitor, which--in a crime against both God's and Man's law--came straight from the soda gun. Then she dropped a shot glass full of Jagermeister into this vile vial, leaned in close, and quietly urged me to "slam" the beverage.

Slam I did, at which point I felt a very unpleasant sensation in my abdomen.

"It's like an alien baby is trying to get out, right?" she said.

With a wild gesticulation I signified that yes, it did.

"That's what it is called. It's called the Alien Baby."

However, some days later at The [original] Hole in the Wall, I attempted to order said baby, as a cruel joke on an old accomplice. I was informed by Lindsay the bartendress that the drink I was describing was well known around the world as a Jager Bomb. Which, I suppose, is a more helpful and accurate name. Together, we consulted the bar's drink database and discovered that there is another drink called the Alien Baby, and here is the recipe (courtesy of the Internet and the always helpful Extra Tasty!):

Using a short glass (or even a shot glass) fill 2/3 with peach schnapps. Slowly pour the baileys to fill the glass. If it goes to plan, it should sits on top.

Splash in some grenadine. It should congeal and form a little pink foetus-looking jelly in the schnapps. Knock it back, the alien baby slides down your throat like only god knows what.

Lovely!

Lindsay flatly refused to make this drink, no matter how many hundred-dollar bills I spread across the counter. So I repaired, alone, to the Wishful Drinking Laboratory, to experience the true Alien Baby for myself.

With a flick of the wrist I was able to create a reasonably foetus-like splash of grenadine. The taste was actually quite smooth, and the Baileys and the schnapps combined into a creamy, fruity delight.

Royce's Rating: 87 bottles out of 99 bottles of beer on the wall.

And that's all for this week dear readers. Remember, address questions about drink to RUMANDRAKE (at) GMAIL (dot) COM.

Next week's column: Royce answers your questions! And, drinking in space!

Wishful Drinking!

Dear readers,

Allow me to introduce myself: I am Royce Mandrake, formerly author of the award-winning weekly column, WIshful Drinking. Due to the shortsightedness of my parent publication, the once-great Bat City Herald, I no longer have a home for my little contribution to the project of western enlightenment, but our gracious host Sundiver has offered to let me ramble on about all things drink-related here in this space. Thanks, Sundiver!

While you may address questions to both of us, my particular area of expertise is the gentleman's intoxicant, the spirt. I hope to assist people around the globe with the accumulated wit and wisdom of Austin's drinking scene.

Address questions to RUMANDRAKE (at) GMAIL (dot) COM.

Next week's column: The "Alien Baby," how to make it, how to drink it, and why you should never, ever do either.

Overheard

I'm not an alcoholic, I'm a drunk.

Alcoholics have to go to meetings.

Uh-huh

"The strangest thing I've tried to snort? My father. I snorted my father," [Keith] Richards was quoted as saying by British music magazine NME.

"He was cremated and I couldn't resist grinding him up with a little bit of blow. My dad wouldn't have cared," he said. "... It went down pretty well, and I'm still alive." |Yahoo News|