Yard Sale Booze

Does it feel strange to be drinking a dead lady's Christmas present?

Yes, it does. I highly recommend drinking booze that's older than you are. And check out the cap -- it has an ingenious mechanism that uses a tightening wire to keep the amber fluid in place.

This is really eerie. I've been in a good mood since Friday. And as is not infrequently the case my good mood seems to have brought good luck with it. The skeptical thinker now steps aside to reveal the superstitious heathen.

It's funny the way luck works. My old pal Angel used to say that shit comes in piles; true enough. But the corollary seems to be true as well -- a lot of the time good luck comes in waves where for a brief while everything seems to go well. My current wave of good fortune is still in motion.

When I went out yardsailing with the missus this weekend I'd decided that I needed to keep an eye out for a small working stereo that could play tapes and CDs. The missus gave me her old iPod and a dock for it for my last birthday. It's cool -- I like the shuffle play -- but I'm really getting sick of the sound quality of mp3s. Also, I don't pirate music due to the way my stupid parents raised me so my library has been limited to the music I own on disc anyway. And the missus found the old tapes of mine she'd told me she'd thrown out so I've been itching for a stroll down memory lane.

Well, I found exactly what I was looking for. A bookshelf stereo with tape and CD and loads of inputs and outputs. I asked; I received. Very pleasing.

Then two small miracles happened in conjunction. First, I was rummaging through a box of very old white wines just out of curiosity. The thing is that I made a pact with myself a long time ago that I wasn't going to buy yard sale booze. You know, two inches of Amaretto, a box with a cookbook and two bottles of cooking sherry, that kind of thing.

But when I saw the boxed bottle shown above I knew that I'd be more pissed at myself if I didn't get it than I would if I did. So I told the missus I was tempted. And she said I should go for it.

I really don't understand what that was about. My drinking is an occasional point of contention between us. (In brief; not an alchoholic, certainly could be if I wanted, drink a couple of times a week in moderation and a couple of times a year in excess.) If I'd picked up a fifth of whisky (or whiskey or bourbon) in the store she would have... Hell, I don't know what she'd do. It would be something the coroner would have to figure out afterwards.

But this time around she just smiled and appreciated my good luck. So I asked how much it would cost.

I paid five bucks for a pinch bottle of fifteen-year old Haig that's probably about fifty years old. (I know that sounds crazy but booze doesn't age in glass. So it's not sixty-five year old scotch, it's a fifty year old bottle of fifteen... you get the picture.)

When I got home I looked around on line to get an idea of how valuable it was; thankfully, it wasn't worth a hell of a lot. One person flat out said that if you have one of these you should just drink it.

You don't need to tell me twice.

Well, I have had better whisky.

But not often. This stuff is very nice. And while they claim it's 86.6 proof the stuff is flammable. Just barely but that means it's in the neighborhood of a hundred proof. Let's face it -- eighty proof booze sucks. That wasn't a distiller's idea, that's the work of some hideous Orwellian legislative body.

And I'm starting to suspect that one of the reasons I've preferred Irish whiskey to Scotch is because when I get Scotch I feel the need to sip it slowly, hold it in my mouth, get the full flavor experience.

I mean, this stuff ain't cheap. When I get a shot at a posh pleasure I like to really enjoy it. But Bushmills? Straight down.

I drank some of the Haig both ways. And I found that just drinking it instead of making out with it was pretty terrific. Don't know if I'll have the nerve to do that with the next single-malt that I run across. But I might.

I had some with band practice. Had a couple of shots last night. No more until the next band session...

But this is sweet. I sort of hate knowing how bad the rotgut I usually drink is. I could get used to this stuff really easily.