Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Broadening Our Horizons XXIII and Other Stuff

I remain impressed with the Cannon Airplane Patch Class VI store, which is among the very best I've ever seen.  Well, mebbe not evah, as the beer and alcohol emporiums on European bases were outstanding, given the selection of local wares available.  But here in the US?  "Best in Class," it is.  I'm open to contrary and divergent opinions unless your name is SN1... coz I've shopped your Class VI stores.  Forgive me, but they suck.

Cannon's Class VI, however, sucketh not.  Case in point:


That would be a super bomber... the B-52 of beer bottles, if you will... of La Fin du Monde, which is rated A+ (World Class) by the Bros.  An excerpt from one of the Bros' reviews:
Taste: This brew is very smooth and sweet up-front with loads of malt mouth-feel. A warming sensation begins in the back of the tongue and turns into a spicy, almost pepper, flavour. This flavour is the 9% alcohol which cleverly camouflages itself until consumed. A very light hop flavour is left behind, with warming esters in the mouth.

Notes: Truly a potent and delicious brew with many hard to achieve complexities. Unlike other brews of this strength, this one is extremely drinkable due to its balance of alcohol and dextrins. Outstanding.
"La Fin du Monde" is French for "the end of the world."  I'm thinkin' you'd experience a reasonable facsimile of that feeling if you consumed a whole bottle... as above... in a single sitting.  That's 750 ml (one pint and nine+ ounces) of 9% ABV beer, yanno?  It's a Great Good Thing the bottle is resealable.  Those Canuckians are very clever and thoughtful folks.

Oh.  The other bottle?  That's a Franziskaner dunkel... a variation on a theme of our favorite beer, rated B+ at Beer Advocate.  I'm thinkin' Happy Hour will be MOST excellent for the next few.

―:☺:―

We had a follow-up visit with our doctor yesterday and like most everything in this world there was both good and bad news.  

Good:  We got our meds re-prescribed and they seem to be working, i.e., I can breathe freely enough to walk across a parking lot without keeling over.  This is a significant improvement over where we were six months ago.  That which will ultimately kill me will be delayed for a bit.

Better:  My doc sez my lungs "sound better than last time."  Improvement is a good thing, nu?

Best:  We began on an up-note, whereby the sweet young thang of a nurse sez to me as we're walking to the exam room: "You're looking very good today, Mr. Pennington... and quite a bit younger, if I may so, than the last time you were in."  OK.  That does it.  The beard stays OFF.

Bad:  I received a gentle yet firm dressing down from my doc after we discussed my near-death experience of last August (and I exaggerate only slightly).  I also feel I must apologize to Kath and my other lady friends who badgered me to get to the doctor shortly after the onset of the-cold-that-came-to-stay.  That's because my doctor chastised me in no uncertain terms for failing to come in when I was sick... words to the effect of "you have COPD, asshat... that could have KILLED you.  I've seen it happen."  He went on to describe the grisly mechanics of death-by-phlegm, arrested breathing (which I thought needed no explanation, given my recent experience), and other macabre and less than wonderful stuff.  I left his office resolved to hie my old ass directly to the hospital should something like that ever happen again.  Which it most surely will.  We may be old but we are (a) not stupid and (b) we DO learn from experience.

And I got a flu shot.

Update, 1720 hrs:  Well, we couldn't wait.  Or we waited a couple o' hours until the beer was sufficiently chilled, in our hasty opinion, before we poured about a half-pint of La Fin du Monde for sampling.  And it is GOOD.  That said, we also discovered that re-corking the bottle is a fool's errand of the highest order.  Curses!  

Shorter: it looks like it will get seriously freakin' drunk out this evening.  It's either that or a goodly portion of excellent... not to mention pricey... beer will go to waste.  I think you know which side of that line we'll fall, Gentle Reader.  Prosit!

10 comments:

  1. Apology accepted.

    This time.

    And glad the news was brighter (nd beasrdless.)

    Pepper would just love your Class VI!!

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  2. Heh. Thank you for your gracious acceptance, Moogie. And I dearly LOVE my Class VI... it's a veritable oasis in a beer desert.

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  3. I'm glad to hear you are doing good, better, and best and that you are taking note on the bad, you handsome dog.

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  4. La Fin du Monde is good, indeed. I have had a full bottle in one sitting. More than once. Pleasantly intoxicated.

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  5. The Class VI here at Eddie's Desert Airplane Emporium does suck! One of the best, in my humble opinion, is at McConnell AFB in Wichita, Kansas. But we did have plenty of high quality liquor and beer emporiums in the local community. One of the Best was Jacob's Liquor.

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  6. Got the butt chewing from Kath, Snigs and a few others over my BP issues!

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  7. A clean bill of health is more than good reason to celebrate with Canuckian ;)refreshment. Darn defective corks.

    Here's a few chuckles forwarded to me from my buddy:

    http://www.moderndrunkardmagazine.com/md_youre_a_drunk.htm

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  8. Thank you for posting this. I love your page. Jeepers, that commoncents dude really makes the rounds.

    Buck, I know you dropped 10 years when you went to the razor. I seen it with my own two eyes!

    Good to hear of the improvement. Really good.

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  9. Men. (Major eye-roll here.)

    We're trying to keep you around!!

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  10. Lou: Thank ya, Ma'am!

    Andy: It got pleasantly intoxicated around here last evening,too. But I took it slow and made it last most all night, in the immortal words of Tom Petty.

    Steve: Thanks for dropping by.

    Glenn: I'm pretty sure Edwards has a different Class VI than the one that was there when I was, back in '70. At least I HOPE so! And yeah, we need our women to keep us straight now, don't we?

    Anon: Thanks for the link... those were good, especially this one:

    The liquor store clerk looks in your cart and says, “Woo! That’s gonna be some party!” And you think, “Party?”

    That actually happened to me, no shit really. Except it was a Skycop looking in my trunk during a random gate search when I was on my home from the Class VI.

    Jeepers, that commoncents dude really makes the rounds.

    Traffic building exercise, methinks. And thanks for the kind words re: beardless.

    Kath: Go ahead, roll them eyes... you are justified. But you KNOW how we are (men).

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Just be polite... that's all I ask.