Wednesday night Chardonnay

Today Mike came over to chill for a bit since I was ready to crash ant 7:30pm. He brought with him Santa Barbara Chardonnay from Trader Joe's. Super cheap and his first win on the wine front in a while! It was about 4 dollars (sorry already forgot) making it a 4.5/5 for value. Its a 3.5/5 for taste, but overall its drinkable, more than drinkable in fact. I easily finished half a bottle, yum, yum! We finished the bottle while watching the ever entertaining Forgetting Sarah Marshall. This wine would be great with some heavy pasta or cold weather meal.
Spaten today, beer, and pancakes!

Prom and Green Wine

With the return of some nicer weather, I was elated to find a bottle of green wine (vinho verde) in the local VBS. Normally back home i only spend about 3 dollars a bottle for this type of wine, but at 7, this wasn't a bad deal. I'd give it a 4.5/5 for value. As for taste, it was nice, true to type of wine- light, crisp and refreshing. There are plenty of places you can find reviews for this type of wine alluding to how damn good it is for so little money. Its also always good to note that this crisp summer wine is also lower in alcohol, which would have been nice if i hadn't chased it was some much worse wine (not pictured and i have no idea what it was). The hangover was legendary, I'm still trying to work it off one giant Quodoba burrito later.

What to do on a Friday night?

While Rob was in Denver having an awesome and cider filled Friday, back in indiana it was BBQ and drinking time! The afternoon wound down with some grilled packet-steamed asparagus with lime juice, olive oil and garlic *(mega yum), and a few bottles of woodchuck and homebrew. After eating we headed to the liqueur store to pick up some essentials for the evening. The booty was a bottle of Woodbridge Cabernet Savignon and a bottle of Vinho Verde, which I'll post on later. The red wasn't bad, but for 7 dollars a bottle, I thought it was 5, but the store LIED, it wasn't a bargain, and tasted like cheap red. 2/5 for flavor, and 1/5 for value. Robert Mondavi- you can do better! I guess I can't hope for much if i'm going to drink out of a plasic cup anyways.  For now, back to work, graduate school calls....

New cider spotted in Denver.

Pajo and I, upon waking up and dodging having to go shopping for lumber, went to eat lunch at the nearest diner and were of course drawn to the nearby liquor store. While browsing I spotted a brand of cider I hadn't seen before. Angry Orchard hard cider was the name. I decided to try the crisp apple flavor (it was on sale for $7 a six-pack). Once we left (with a case of PBR and a handle of Fireball cinnamon whiskey to go on top of the cider) we were warned by a wrinkly old lady on the sidewalk that this was not the part of the city to go walking around with so much booze. We assured her it's ok, we were sober at the moment. She then agreed that soberness would be ending in a couple hours.

Finally we returned to Grant's apartment. I think I was inside for ~30 seconds before I opened a cider. Upon opening I heard a breathtaking hiss of air. It was either the CO2 escaping or my breath being taken away by the prospect of drinking a new cider, I still don't know which. Gracefully I put the bottle to my lips and slowly sipped some of the cider. WOW. It was a mouth orgasm. That's gonna be my description for it. WOW with a mouth orgasm.

After about three ciders down I then discovered it's a twist-off. I lost some respect for it at that point but I still powered through the rest of the six pack. It did prove to be very helpful in building Grant's bed platform.

All in all I'm going to give it a 5/5 for flavor, a 5/5 for value. I will strongly recommend other cider lovers, recovering alcoholics, and beer lovers.

Club BBQ

This evening was the bbq for a club I belong to. Hurray! Although, I'm mostly vegetarian (yeah, i know this might lower your opinion of me, but hey, we all have our things) I still had a good time :). Mike picked me up to make sure I wasn't moping, and we went and got stuff to bring to the bbq. I got Woodchuck and Hawaiian rolls in honor of Rob. For me, woodchuck gets a 5/5 for flavor (its like delicious soda!) and the same for value, it was less than 3 dollars for a 24 oz bottle. Hawaiian sweet rolls get the same, of course. Be jealous, be very jealous.

More to come! Another BBQ is scheduled for friday!

Mexican themed drinking

Since the cheerups have continued (my friends are awesome!) Thursday night got to be Mexican (ish) night. To celebrate the amazing affair of being fatties and me trying not to dwell in my pity party of 1, we went to the local amazing hole in the wall mexican restaurant La Guadalupana. To cap off an amazing meal we tried to go to the local comedy club, jester's, but at 10 dollars with a 2 drink minimum, the cheap-asses (including myself) hit the liqueur store to make some of our own excitement. There we picked up some margarita mix, bottom shelf tequila, and Victoria beer, which may be a pilsner- i'll probably be corrected on that.
We cracked out the blender and put The Elite Squad on (i know, its in portuguese, but hey, we aren't picky) and go to drinking.
The Victoria was definitely a drinkable mexican beer, but not near the top of my list. I don't think i can acceptably rate it when its a known fact that lighter beers and pilsners just aren't my thing. Keith- I"ll leave this one to you.

Pre-Race Dinner

Just another lazy Friday afternoon. Well mostly. This Friday contained the last few hours before Mike and I (and some other really BA friends) would be completing a sprint triathlon. To prepare we cracked open an early bottle of Gallo White Zinfandel to start us off with something light while Mike worked on his car. Carb loading, right? This particular bottle was on sale for $2.99, probably my favorite wine price, and was light and drinkable without being overly sweet. I'd rate it 4.5 for value, and 4/5 for its drink-ability. Although please note: that is because I personally liked it, not because I think its a "good wine". It lacks depth (like most white zin's i've encountered) and is pretty much exactly what its label says, white zin for 2.99. Whoot!
Later on in the night we pulled out some Gallo Family Merlot. Generally I try and stay away from the really cheap red wines, and this was a fairly good sample of why. The smell was fairly fruity- mixed with isopropal. This is a decent wine as long as you don't start with it, or expect much. 3/5 for value (still only 3 dollars, and you could probably cook with it) and 2/5 for yumminess. Sorry Mike, maybe next time...
The race itself went AWESOME this morning, more celebratory drinks later!

Dealing with my problems

This was from my ever so happy Monday. After a lovely 5 hours of sleep I was greeted to an equally enthusiastic breakup. Fun. in order to keep the day going I enjoyed a nice bottle of Trader Joe's Chilean Savignon Blanc (not pictured). I did share at least at the 3rd barbeque of the season at a friend's place. Of what I could taste, that bottle was delicious. I'm pretty sure in my state it could have been radiator fluid and I still would have finished it, however. I'll give it a 5/5 for being there at the right place and time, and a 4.5 for value. It was 3.99 I believe.

Later on in the evening Mike came by  to make sure I was still alive (albeit curled into the fetal possition on the couch). He brought another of his sale bottles from the local liquer store. This particular wine was a Pinot Grigio from Blue Fish Wineries. While we were expecting a nice dry crisp wine we were greated with a lightly bubbly sweet wine. 1/5 for flavor. 3/5 for value since it was only a few dollars on sale. At regular price (about 13 dollars) it would not be worth it at all. As it was we barely made a dent in it. I'll try it again when I'm having another dissapointing evening I supose.

All in all, these helped me through my day, on to bigger and better things!