Full Moon Festival: Gonar's Drink of the Month!

April Drink of the Month!

As the only surviving member of the Stingray Regime who never paid the rent in the early days by working behind the bar, I have oddly enough felt compelled to start writing this Drink of the Month feature. Perhaps it's a penance for only recently learning how to make a Long Island Iced Tea, or perhaps I'm just drinking more lately to the point where I at least think I'm developing some expertise. Who cares? After a few drinks we are all experts at something, be it drink recipes, pick-up lines, song lyrics, or alligator behavior.

So what will this column look like? A few guildelines do apply:
1. There will be a new drink at every full moon.
2. These are not going to be wacky or "exotic" drinks. You may have to explain to the bartender how to make it, but they'll be glad you did.
3. For mixed drinks, the ingredients have to be fairly common liquors, like tequila, rum, brandy, Kaluha, gin, or scotch; in the summer season, maybe blue curacao or Midori. Storage space is at a premium aboard my star cruiser, so I don't like to have any more than a dozen or so different bottles in my liquor pod. Nothing is as annoying as toting around some bottle of creme de banane or something equally useless that was purchased for some drink or other.
4. It's not always a mixed drink, like this month, for example.
5. I tend to be very seasonal with what I recommend, so I aim to bring you to the beach in July and we'll sit by the fire in December. Figuratively, at least, but if you want to come to Aquaburg consider it an open invitation.

Enough, let's get on with it! April's Drink of the Month is...

Bock!

Yes, this is the Lenten season and the time of the year for picking up a case of bock beer. And what is it? I don't know. Wikipedia said something about malts and stuff, and that it is more nutritious so monks would drink it during the Lenten season while they were fasting, so they didn't starve to death. Works for me. If I'm ever asked to give up something for Lent I think I will follow in that ancient tradition by giving up food and simply drinking these mildly heavy beers in lieu of three squares a day.

A few years ago, my favorite bock was Leinenkugel's BOCK. It was truly seasonal, unlike their new "Big Butt" doppelbock which you can now get year-round, I think. It came in a regular Leinie long-neck case that just had a card with the word BOCK in capital letters stapled on the side. It tasted like beer made with early-spring bog water, which it probably was, but it was uniquely good. You know how in the springtime the earth starts to thaw out, and you get that rich, murky smell of decaying leaves from last fall and the cold, rooty mud readying itself for the task of sustaining another season of life. The smell is of decay but more so of new life getting ready to spring forth, because the smell means springtime and even though the green grass and the flowers are a few weeks away, the long winter is over. The old Leinie bock, while it tasted like beer, also tasted like that murky smell, like that very, very first scent of springtime. Unfortunately, they quit making it after their company went national. I'd love to pick up a case of that again.

One temperate March day my in-laws were in town for a visit. It may even have been the last year I was able to buy a case of the old stuff. I offered up a Leinie bock to my father-in-law who very rarely takes me up when I offer him a drink. However he did jump at the chance to have a Leinenkugel BOCK , and as we sipped those beers he told me of his father, who, back in the 1930s, would buy a case of bock beer every spring. He considered it to be his spring tonic, which would cleanse his system of whatever the long Wisconsin winter put into it. Seventy years later, my father-in-law still seemed to harbor great respect for the magical healing powers of the bock.

Right now I'm having a Schell Caramel Bock. While it doesn't have the same earthiness of my long-lost Leinie-friend, it does have the perfect level of body for this time of year - not too light and not too heavy. Summit Maibock is also good, and the Big Butt Doppelbock is certainly worth a try, too. The best part is my wife doesn't like it, so it's all for me.

Until next month, Cheers!

Gonar, Gatekeeper of the Outer Galaxy