This is not a post about absinthe (pictured).

Earth Day is officially over-the-hill today. Instead of celebrating with an organic flax-flour cake festooned with mini sustainable wax gravestones, we thought we’d mark the occasion the way an Enthusiast should—by greening our drinking.

No, we’re not talking about being a double agent, nor are we suggesting you seek out bio dynamic beer. Unless you already picked up a sixer, in which case, we’ll take four. Really should’ve gotten a case …

Without further ado, here are 5 ways Enthusiasts can drink green in honor of Earth Day:

1) Buy in bulk and swig from the bottle: Stop wasting Mother Earth’s precious reserves of small bottles, and go big. Drinking only from it’s sweet, sweet lips ensures no water is wasted washing drink glasses, and everyone knows soap is toxic. The dudes at the Costco check-out will probably ask if you’re “having a party,” but you can effectively shame them when you explain you’ve gone green.

2) Kegerator: Maybe you’ve lived in a house with a kegerator in the past. You lucky bastards. Unless it was a fraternity house, in which case, hahaha … That’s just the jealousy laughing. Anyways, home kegs are great as they avoid using up all those bottle- or can-making-materials, but that extra refrigerator to keep the damn thing chilly isn’t doing Mama E any favors, so swallow your remaining gulps of cold pride and prepare to drink warm beer. You’re just being old-fashioned, and anything retro is constantly on the verge of becoming trendy. Finally, to ensure your home keg is optimally earth-friendly, always drink from the tap. How dare you even think about wasting a plastic cup to drink from this thing, or a glass that you’ll wash with soap/poison.

3) Walk to the bar: Like, DUH. Kiss Mama E’s ass by using your feet instead of fossil fuels to get to your favorite watering holes. As an added bonus, you can avoid joining the DUI (pronounced “dewy”) club. Of course, you’re still not completely immune from silly “laws” governing “drunk and disorderly” “behavior” so keep a low-pro as you stumble happily home.

4) Make hooch at home: Concerned about the transportation-related Co2 emissions your booze generates as it travels to your local liquor store, and want to do something about it? And the packaging! Worried your over-Enthusiasm might equal excess waste? What about all those leftover, near-molding citrus fruits you bought to use as cocktail garnishes (or those apples you bought—you know, to keep doctors from sneaking into your house and messing with your stuff)? Seems like a waste to throw them away, doesn’t it?  Fear not, fellow Enthusiasts, for now all of this guilt can be avoided (by taking real action, not just drinking it into oblivion). Simply ferment your own booze from old fruit just like they do in prison.

5) If the store is all out of green food coloring: Mix blue and yellow together. Happy St. Paddy’s day!

 
—Josey and Christian

Happy April 20th to all of our blunted brethren.

While we know that some of you, as you sit cross-legged on grassy (hehe….grass) knolls, or piled onto tattered couches in college quads, or passing pieces around in hot-boxed back-seats, or watching OMG cat cannot unsee the horror for the 843,000th time in your darkened apartments, in cities, suburbs, villages, and on super heady hilltops across the universe, are thinking primarily about how much better Family Guy used to be, whether your vegan bros will stop talking to you if you order the Double Down, and … fingers … fingers … ffffffff … Wait, what was I just talking about?

Oh, right. Double agents. While we know that some of you are just mentally planning out how you’re totally going to start researching MFA programs in, like, either Vermont or maybe Oregon tomorrow morning, for real this time—we also know that some you are thinking about drinking.

For all you Weed Worshipers out there who double as Enthusiasts (or anyone interested in converting) we just wanted to remind you that this crazy train doesn’t have to stop when you wake up on your bro’s LoveSac tomorrow, lips stained with the remains of those tasty midnight “nachos,” hour eight of Planet Earth blaring from the TV, and this thing that … well, we’ll never know, will we?

I think my point is that you don’t have to stop this wild ride from boiling just yet, even if you’re watching it. Because although 4/20 comes but once a year, fear not, fellow Enthusiasts—for every day is Booze Day.

And to all, a good night.

 
—Josey

Opening a bottle of champagne can be frustrating and time consuming. That’s why we’ve provided this handy DIY guide to getting your bottle open FAST.

Of course you need to remove the decorative foil and cork wire.

Then procure a large blade–the heavier the better (ideally you should use a French Army saber, but a big chef’s knife will suffice).

Now the fun part. You hold the bottle facing away from you (and anyone else you consider a friend), tilted up slightly. Bear in mind that this is going to make a mess, so positioning yourself over shag carpet or a bearskin rug is not recommended.
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“Do you want to play a game?” The Jager girls asked us, holding out stacks of Jagermeister-branded, clear-plastic shot glasses.

Whoever said that booze-branded swag giveaways were dead and buried in America (cough, Hardie, cough, cough) was—fortunately for us Stateside Enthusiasts—mistaken. Last Thursday it was more than mere Enthusiasm-trembles that drew us to our favorite local watering hole, Pete’s 881 club, but rather a tweet from the bar advertising prime rib, and, more intriguingly—the Jager girls.

Ahh, the Jager girls—sirens of the sweet 56 herbs, roots, and spices that comprise Germany’s most proudest export.
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No, I am not talking about Russians electing this guy (I’m pretty sure they didn’t). I am talking about a new series in which I review Russia’s canned alcohol goods, because while the country doesn’t have a lot of black people, they certainly have a lot of booze in cans.

Up this week, the “Black Russian.” Most of you probably know the Black Russian to be a cocktail consisting of vodka and some sort of coffee liqueur, often Kahlua, and a relation of the White Russian, which adds milk or cream to the whole mix.

But this is Russia and they don’t give a fuck about what you “know.”

The tag on the can is in English on one side, Russian on the other, and while close, their translation doesn’t fully line up. The English side labels the drink, “natural cognac with almond flavor,” while the Russian calls it, “real cognac.” But that’s just what we call marketing: the hippies shopping at Whole Foods (or are you guys still boycotting that?) buy it cause its natural, and the Russian bydlos buy it cause it’s real.

The Black Russian. 8.7% alcohol, retails for around a $1.

The can lists a bunch of those weird chemicals you find in every soda, with the addition of cognac (I guess real, but unspecified whether natural), and almond flavor titled, “Almond Special Advantages.”

I opened the can and poured half into a glass to let it open up and allow me to really judge the bouquet. It looked like Diet Coke (not sure if that actually looks different than regular Coke), with a rather singular bouquet (more like a flower), and smelled like an almond cookie (maybe a macaroon).

As the nose seemed rather set, I took a big swig, holding the carbonated beverage in my mouth, drawing air slowly over it in order to bring out all its subtleties. It was nutty, buttery, and candylike—as in, it tasted like candy. To be more precise, it tasted like that Tootsie Roll in the center of a Tootsie Roll Pop; not quite as good as a normal Tootsie Roll, but more satisfying because you had to work for it.

The aftertaste was slight, and the light bodied beverage did not linger much on the tongue. Overall, the drink was rather thin and singular in flavor, but, by tasting like candy, it really brought up memories of childhood, and anything that brings together drinking and children is okay by me.

Be sure to check out their amazing and beautiful website. Click the Да on the left to enter: http://black-ru.ru/

Next time, “Hooch,” which I think has blackberries in it.

 
—Hardie
Reporting from Russia

I don’t normally go to live shows. But every now and then you just can’t miss something. In this case, it was Too $hort playing an intimate, sold-out show at 19 Broadway in Fairfax. It’s a great little joint with a bar in front, a bar in back, and a stage and dance floor rather awkwardly placed in the middle. I enthusiastically ordered an old standby and the bartender handed me one of those half-shot glass, half-old-fashioned things with a hefty shot of bourbon, a dash of soda and an odd lack of ice. It was different, but not a bad way to get started.

The bevy of opening acts were decent, if not downright enjoyable. The club was filled with the regular cast of enthusiastic characters. You had the girls dancing in front, the people pushing by every fifteen seconds, the occasional couple pressing up against the wall in an impressive grind. Too $hort and entourage entered at what couldn’t have been earlier than twelve-thirty.
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For an Enthusiast such as myself, obsession with an alcoholic beverage that my mother, who thinks a white wine spritzer is a “cocktail,” keeps stocked in her fridge, might seem strange. I’m not sure how or why my insatiable thirst for cider started, but I do know it has not been quenched.

Despite struggling through Spanish classes from “me llamo Josey” through Latin American Literature 310, I managed to retain so little language that a trip to Spain in March required the purchase of a travelers’ phrase book. Upon leaving Barnes and Noble I enthusiastically flipped to the “Comiendo y Bebiendo” section, searching for the way to my latest love.

“Tienes sidra?” I shouted in a harshly American accent, bass bumping and Enthusiasts laughing and shouting in the background of bars, both dim and bright, throughout Barcelona and Cadiz, as older mustachioed men to 22-year-old ladies in short skirts and ponytails cupped palm behind ear and leaned over bars struggling to understand me.
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Living in San Francisco has its ups and downs.

The ups? Well, living in one of the best damn cities in the world.

The downs? Rent, taxes, food, and hookers all cost so much more here. But what really ends up punishing my wallet the most is also the thing I love to do the most.

Well, maybe not the most. But I’m learning discipline. Little by little.

And penis dry heaves are lessons that teach themselves. But I digress.

Yes. That is what we call it now. Fap.

I needed a balance between $220 bar tabs (that I only remembered the first $70 of) and spraying Lysol into the cap and shooting it.

Wait, what?

Yes. I just told you that I did that. You do know you are reading The Alcohol Enthusiast, right?

Let’s just say that I don’t curb my enthusiasm.

That’s why I turned to the Gate. The Royal Gate.

In your city it’s called such things as: “Eye Fuck” and “Rubbing Alcohol” and the cartoony yet foreboding “XXX.”

Look, this is the cheapest vodka I can get that’s still in a bottle made of glass. It’s $9.99 AND it’s Royal. I thought it might be a great way to save money by mixing it with Citrus Vitamin Water.

I thought it would be a good compromise. It was.

Of my consciousness.

And my bowels.

Not pictured: me. For three days.

Oh, right. Like you don’t shit all over yourself sometimes. The only reason you kept reading past “Royal Gate” was to see if the same thing had happened to me.

But, hey…the upside was this: I had only spent about 12 bucks on booze that night/weekend/week. I had about $81 dollars in my pocket that I hadn’t just pissed away on teeny Fernet shots and overpriced watered down vodka tonics. What to do with my sudden windfall?

I could just see a movie…

fap fap fap fap fap fap fap fap fap fap fap fap fap fap.

Forget about saving money in this city. It’s for experts only. And I, dear friends, am an enthusiast, not an expert.

 
—Jason

Certainly drinking is its own wonderful reward. Wetting one’s whistle with the gods’ sweet nectar and being allowed passage to the pastoral paradise of perfectdom that is inebriation is second to nothing—so when tangible spoils come your way, they are but icing on a cake already made out of pure good times. I am talking about prizes: physical, no joke things that alcohol companies give you for the pleasure of enjoying their libations.

Of course the “civilized” US has put a stop to a lot of these amazing giveaways, but have no fear, because the rest of the world soldiers on. Just last night I won an amazing passport cover after drinking two beers. Two beers. That wouldn’t even get a toddler tipsy!

Has anyone else gotten down on the alcohol prize wagon? Are alcohol giveaways fully dead in the US?

I’ll keep searching over here, because really, regardless, to the drunkard go the spoils.

 
—Hardie
Reporting from Russia

—Josey

We are looking to move into a better apartment and thus, spent a recent Saturday afternoon scoping out potential future abodes. Little did we know that while touring one (pretty damn nice, but way isolated) building, we’d meet the Drunk of the Day.

Drunk of the Day wandered out of his door and into the hallway just as our group was exiting one available place and moving on to see another. Sugar free Red Bull in hand, he asked us if we would like to see what a furnished loft looked like. We all agreed and followed him inside his place. He explained his various hip and artsy furnishings and accessories in great detail (these are the many mirrors we look at ourselves in while getting ready to go out, this is my display of Mary artifacts—although I’m not religious, this is a prop door) and came across as incredibly friendly and generous, albeit eccentric, and maybe nursing an enthusiasm-over.

Once we left his loft and Drunk of the Day proclaimed he would like to join us on the tour, things took a turn. In the elevator D.o.t.D. turned again to the group and asked if we would like to see what his loft looked like. Silence ensued as the tour guide muttered awkwardly that we’d already seen it. “Were you there when I was asleep?” he asked, looking bewilderedly around the crowded car. Nervous laughter, darting eyes. “So. . . what have you been up to? Not sleeping much?” Our tour guide inquired. “Actually, I’ve been on a 30-day drinking binge,” D.o.t.D. announced in a strangely clear and unwavering voice. “I’m living off of these.” He held up his can of sugar free Red Bull.

The moral of this story is that just because someone isn’t slurring their speech, falling over and/or hitting their head on shit, lighting their smoke on the filter end, or buying the whole bar a round of red headed stepchild shots—it doesn’t mean they’re not blacked out drunk.

Photo courtesy of mfarjado, flickr.