priorities

During this time of year, I tend to visit the store of liquor more frequently than normal people. Weekly visits allow me to keep abreast of new additions to the plethora of booze, and special edition booze generally starts to trickle through the door mid-November. Once December hits...

Today I stopped in to get a teddy bear from the BCLC shop for the Teddy Bear Toss at the Giants' game on Saturday. I felt weird just buying a teddy bear (I chose the booze store because they donate a second bear to a charity whenever you buy a bear), so perused the beer section. I like to look at big bottles because it's a good way to sample flavoured and new beers (blackberry porter or peach cream ale, anyone?) and today I stumbled upon this:

Take a good look. Beer aged in oak rum barrels! I'm pretty excited about trying it out, which will have to be soon since there were only 150 bottles produced. It is slightly costly for the volume you get ($4.95 for 330ml), but it's 7.4% and was aged in a rum cask. Maybe it's all a ploy, but I won't know until I try it. Doesn't that just sound good?

But, really, this is the tip of the iceberg. I had to leave the store before getting distracted by the hard liquor. They always add those little extras: a shot of a related booze, shot glasses, highball tumblers, flashlights... It seems like such a good idea to buy them when you get that little bonus, but then you find yourself buying Malibu or Mint Baileys just for the extras. I'm going to try not to fall prey to the extras. I don't really need Malibu.

But I would like to be outdoors for certain things this winter that would be better enjoyed by a shot of booze to warm my innards. The train at Stanley Park... What I really want to do is sharpen my skates and take to the ice. If only it were cold enough to skate on an outdoor rink. It's one thing I miss desperately about Edmonton: the outdoor rink down the street from my grandparents' old house on a sunny afternoon. When it got cold enough for the lake to freeze, we spent the whole Christmas vacation skating on the lake in Osoyoos. My oldest friend's dad used to flood their driveway and we'd skate almost every night for weeks at a time, until the weather warmed.

Wouldn't all that be fun now with a shot of butter ripple schnapps?