When I was younger I used to drink a bit. There was a time, it must have been my nadir, when I was living in Houston and drinking a pint of liquor a day. If I was prone to alcoholism, I think that would have been when alcohol had the best chance of getting it's claws in me. As it was, I may have been habituated, but circumstances changed and I eased off.
Mostly I've been a beer and wine man. Having been raised to be frugal, and having a talent for dealing with numbers, I was all about price per ounce of alcohol, and liquor was just generally a few cents higher, that is when I had enough money to even consider buying liquor. When I was 20 (+/-) we could buy a six pack of Golden Goebels for a dollar at the corner store. Why spend more?
One summer me and my buds discovered Mogen David 20-20, a fortified wine that was 20% alcohol., otherwise known as Mad Dog. I damaged three cars that summer. That was enough of that.
At some point I quit drinking red wine because of the histamines, ya know. What with hayfever and a runny nose, it seemed like a good thing. Later on, I thought beer was giving me bad hangovers, and I had more money so I switched to Bourbon, a good old American whiskey, none of that furrin' stuff for me. Besides I ain't gonna pay no $30 a bottle.
But I never cared for Champagne. Some people really liked it. There was one girl I knew who really liked the $100 a bottle stuff. That relationship didn't last. I mean it's fizzy, but so's beer. And price really seemed to matter to people who liked it. I couldn't understand it.
A few years ago after a long drive my mother-in-law fixed us all some French 75's which I thought were really good. They're made with Cognac and Champagne. Good Cognac and cheap Champagne, if I recall correctly. I tried making them for myself sometime later, and they just didn't cut it. Eventually I figured out that alcohol tastes a lot better after a hard days work. Drive a couple hundred miles and unload a car-full of stuff and then have a drink. So Friday evening after I had driven to Eugene, helped younger son unload his stuff, and then driven back, I was ready for a drink.
Apu |
I stopped in North Plains for gas and picked up a bottle of Cook's Extra Dry Champagne from Apu at the Kwik-E-Mart. They also had Andre's Brut Champagne. I recalled from my last excursion into Champagne land that Brut is drier than extra dry, and I'm thinking I don't need drier than extra dry, so I sprung for the extra dollar for Cook's ($7 versus $6 for Andre's), and it was pretty good. Older son tells me that Cook's is well worth the extra dollar.
Update February 2016, replaced missing champagne image.
Cook's Champagne |
Update March 2022 replace missing image of Apu. It has been deleted from the Simpson Crazy website.
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