Cocktail Confessions

The last two Friday’s in a row, (and could tonight be the third?), I have found myself at a local water hole in RSM known as Amazing Grapes.  It’s a nice little place if you’re into wine tastings, but my friends and I discovered they have a nice little hand crafted brew section with a few fancy imports and domestics.

Best Extra Stout

Personally, I’m not really a wine person, or at least a pretentious wine snob who swirls a glass and stares at the ‘legs’ as they drizzle slowly downward as they cling to the glass.  I like a nice Pinot Grigio, an occasional Italian red, or even a mellow merlot.  But I don’t know enough to tell you the difference between a $8.99 bottle and a $49 bottle.  I do like my champagne though, and can tell a cheap bottle from a more mainstream and classy one.

But that’s not why my friends Jon, Joe, Chip, Ryan, Paul, and I go there.  No, like I said we can get a really good microbrew in this non-bar setting without drunken a-holes around, or a myriad of plasma flat panels all competing to grab your ear with the various sports highlights and a stereo system that only plays Brown Eyed Girl ad-nauseum.

One beer that I have discovered there is a stout from an Australian brewer, Coopers.  It’s called ‘Best Extra Stout’ and clocks in at 6.3% alc/vol.  It’s has a very robust and hearty flavor, but especially very smooth and dare I say creamy.  I enjoy stouts a lot, from Guinness to the various oatmeal varietals as well, and I must say this Cooper’s is one of my news favorites.  Has a very distinct smokey yet chocolaty taste.

If you get a chance, check it out.

What can I say?  For the better part of a few years, I’ve been on a self-imposed last ‘hold-out’ in gaining the courage to take my first trepidated steps into a BevMo store.  With absolutely no substantive experience to back up any of my outrageous thoughts, I have more or less had devised my own conclusions when it came to this so-called beverage mecha: 1) It’s chick territory — a pretentious haven where snobby, over-augmented, trophy wives that occasionally play Bunco and compare botox injections sip trendy wine spritzers all the while secretly craving the teenage pool boy bought their swill, or 2) A re-imagining of the old late 70′s-esque ‘Liquor Barn’ in which couch spelunkers counted out their laundry coins one by one for a cheap thrill in a paper bag came to shop.

What a surprise it was when I walked in this past Saturday and discovered a plethora of blended libations, unique hand crafted beers, sodas, and other goodies amongst various aisles.

The store’s asthectics are nothing to write home about, perhaps just a tad fancier than a big budget warehouse chain, but if it’s sole purpose is to provide alcoholic drinks in bulk, then I seriously doubt your average customer needs to be impressed by neon signs, chic decor and what not.  If you’re like me, you want in and want back out to the party as soon as possible.

There is an aisle of just standard mixers, and many of them were pretty standard fare, and even boring.  Take Bloody Mary mix for example….they only had about 3 or 4 different brands and nothing was too exciting.  I’ve personally had better luck at Home Goods, CostPlus and Mervyns with stranger and tempting labels.  The wall of soda was pretty much standard as well, but the Root Beer and Cream Soda section was really surprising.  Who knew there were so many varietals of root beer of all things, and is there really a need for 30+ brands of root beer?

I was pleasantly surprised with the micro and hand crafted beer section.  While not the largest I’ve ever seen before, there was quite an eclectic mix of regional brews to choose from, and of course I couldn’t pass up some of the stouts (podcasts on these will be forthcoming).  I also noticed there were many familiar labels from my college days: Lost Coast Brewery, Humboldt Brewery, Mad River, etc.  Pricing was pretty good as well.  BevMo certainly beat out my regular grocery chain when it came to certain brands by upwards of a few bucks a six pack.  But you won’t find everything here.  I didn’t see any Cheleda, certain standard imports, and many other common place beers were strangely absent from the scene.

There was a cooler of deli cheeses and racks containg dice and card games, and many kiosks with printed pint glasses if anyone was interested.

I more or less stayed away from the wines, as I’m not a big grape fiend, but then I came to the grail of the spirits I generally enjoy: whisky and gin.  I was overwhelmed by many of the varieties of whisky I’ve never seen or heard of before and prior to this outing I thought I was pretty well versed.  I was a kid in a candy store and just had to leave with some new bottles of stuff I can’t wait to enjoy.  We purchased an actual mason jar of corn whisky, and pre-mixed mint julep courtesy of Maker’s Mark.  I saw new bottles of Jim Beam and Crown I’d never laid eyes on before.  The same can be said for the gin and vodka selections as well.

The one thing that blew me away was the inconsistent pricing, generally to the customers favor if you just looked at the labels long enough.  For example, there was a standard 750ml of Tanguery gin for $36.99, and then right next to it was a 1.75L, also for $36.99!!  Guess which one I picked up?  I saw this time and time again on certain brands.  The same went for a few of the whisky’s as well…for $1 more, I could get a whole extra liter!!  What gives?  Why would anyone buy the smaller bottle when you could get more than twice as much for the same price or perhaps a single dollar more?  Hey, if these were pricing mistakes from the part time clerks, I sure am not going to point it out.  Their loss….my gain.

Not that I’m bragging, but we spent roughly $150 that day and I feel as if we walked out of that BevMo with closer to $250 in spirits, soda, and beer that should last us a bit longer than usual.

I’m really looking forward now to getting the podcast portion of this site up and running so I can try some of these with my friends for you all, describe them, and have a good time overall.