Spirits
Let’s talk about spirits. Not about that crap about so-called ghosts, I mean real spirits. Alcoholic spirits, that is. And her sisters, beers and wines. (Is alcohol female or male? Who cares?)
Good ol’ alcohol has a lot of origins. There are traces of fermented beverages in the ancient Egypt: the Pharaoh drank beer made of papyrus, for example. Beer is the oldest alcoholic beer we are still able to enjoy, especially when it cold as a banker’s heart. There are several varieties of beer, from ale to lager. The man that makes beer is called a brewer. The brewer brews beer in a brewery. Now try saying that last sentence in fast pace. My preferred variety of beer is cream ale. You need few ingredients to brew good quality beer: water, malted barley, and yeast. The process is more complicated and I won’t discuss it here, because I don’t understand it at full and I don’t want to screw it, but its basic steps are mashing, sparging, boiling, fermentation, packaging and drinking (Cheers!). There is a beer-type beverage brewed from honey, called mead.
The second oldest alcoholic beer is wine, made from the juice of the fruit of grapes (not grapefruits). It is only a wine if its made from grape juice, everything else is either a spirit or a beer. There are three varieties of wine: white, pink and red. But there are classifications for wines. I tend to prefer beujolais, but I’ll never say no to a nice cup of sherry, brandy or cognac. I have a favourite dessert wine, icewine to be more precise. It is a late harvest wine, that is, a wine made from the very last grapes of the season in cold enviroments, those grapes that were there when the first cold came and became frozen grapes. It is sweet, very sweet, and delicious, very delicious, and expensive, very expensive. It’s easy to make your own wine, but you have to be careful if you don’t want to end having vinegar instead of alcohol.
But spirits are another different thing. In fact, different things. Technically, spirit means a distilled beverage containing at least a 35% of ethanol by volume and no sugar added, such as absinthe, gin, grappa, rum, tequila, whisky and vodka. There are also liqueurs, distilled beverages with sugar and flavourings added, such as Grand Marnier, Frangelico and schnapps (at least american schnapps). You can also make fortified wines, just by adding a distilled beverage to a wine. Spirits are made of almost everything that can be fermented, even grape juice (brandy, cognac, and pisco, for example). And you can mix spirits to prepare coktails (you can do sangria with wine, but that’s not exactly a cocktail).
However, there is a beverage that can be named the best of all the Galaxy, the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster. Drinking it is a special experience, comparable only to been hit in the head by a slice of lemon wrapped around a large gold brick. It is quite an easy recipee too.
- Take the juice from one bottle of that Ol’ Janx Spirit.
- Pour into it one measure of water from the seas of Santraginus V
- Allow three cubes of Arcturan Mega-gin to melt into the mixture (it must be properly iced or the benzene is lost).
- Allow four litres of Fallian marsh gas to bubble through it (in memory of all those happy Hikers who have died of pleasure in the Marshes of Fallia).
- Over the back of a silver spoon float a measure of Qualactin Hypermint extract, redolent of all the heady odours of the dark Qualactin Zones.
- Drop in the tooth of an Algolian Suntiger. Watch it dissolve, spreading the fires of the Algolian suns deep into the heart of the drink.
- Sprinkle Zamphour.
- Add an olive.
There is a small problem mixing it, however. There are a number of environmental and weapons treaties and laws of physics which prevent the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster from being mixed on Earth. But there is a version made of Terran ingredients you can drink:
- Take the liquid contained in a 200 ml (6.75 oz) bottle of EverClear to remind you that your head will be clear forever if you drink too many Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters, and that your brain will clear of anything soon after you start drinking some, if not before.
- Into it, slowly pour a 750 ml (25 oz) bottle of Bombay Sapphire to remind you of the marvelous beauty of the old Santraginean seas, or an equal amount of Jeremiah Weed in acknowledgement of what has happened to the Santraginean Seas and their lifeforms.
- Now add 750 ml (25 oz) of Cold Wild Turkey, letting it run into the mixture as we run through life to remind us of all the lifeforms we meet and experience while hitchhiking through the galaxy.
- Speedily stirring, add 375 ml (12.7 oz) of Tequila, mixing it in to commemorate the galactic hitchhikers who died of pleasure among the vapors and gasses in the marshes of Fallia.
- Over the bowl of a silver spoon, let flow 1 litre (34 oz) of rum in memory of the waterfalls and their glorious rainbows encountered on your journeys through the galaxy of life.
- Next, drop in the worm found in a bottle of Mezcal, watching it dissolve into the mixture. If the bottom falls out and the worm survives, drink at your own risk.
- Finally, sprinkle into the mixture some Gatorade to commemorate the lifeforms which have vanished and are becoming extinct, both sentient and non-sentient, especially those most in need of aid.
And finally, drink… but… very… carefully…
Cheerio, partner.
V.
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Comments
Don’t mean to come on by and correct you mate, but you are off a little on your definition of “mead”. Mead is not a bear made from honey. Mead is neither a wine nor a beer.
Generally however, it is a much closer cousin to wine than beer.
Beer requires grains. Mead does not. Wine requires grapes…mead does not.
You can mix and match mead with other ingredients. Grains + honey = braggot. Grape + honey = pyment. But no matter how you slice it, mead is it’s own animal. It will mix nicely with others including other fruits (honey + pear = melomel) or spices. But at the end of the day if honey is in the mix it is not a beer, nor is it a wine.
Cheers.
CL
Why, welcome to my humble let’s-call-it-blog, interesting comment, very interesting indeed. Very refreshing, I was tired of deleting viagra and car insurance comments.
Well, I think that mead, like sake, is a beer-type beverage. Of course it’s just an opinion, and there are lot’s of opinions. I even have contradictoy opinions. I’ve heard that, at least for Japanese people, sake is rice wine. Of course it’s not a wine: it’s main ingedient is rice and the process of making sake looks more like beer than wine or other spirits. And for me, at least, mead is more closer to beers than wines or spirits because of the way it’s brewed.
But, truth be told, I don’t care.
Why? Because, after all, I wrote this piece as a kind of exercise, just to practice my English skills. I wrote this from memory, and if the mead reference is my worst offence, then I’ve passed the test and learned three new words in the process.
So I thank you for your time. See you later.