Welcome again to What We Drank Last Night.  In-depth beer, wine and liquor reviews are great, but the average North American has neither the time nor the attention span for “notes of smoked blueberry” and “nuances of toast.”  WWDLN is more like if Robert Parker was a methed-up ferret.

Here’s the required format, as set forth in The Holy Writ:

• A picture of the beverage, if available. Can be a stock shot, still life in a glass or being poured over an attractive person’s body.
• A one-sentence description of the beverage.
• One sentence about about what you liked or didn’t like (herbal, too sweet, tastes like Andy Reid’s taintsweat, etc.)
• A picture or gif representing your rating of the beverage, preferably in a humo(u)rous manner.

This week, we find ourselves in The Holiday Twilight Zone.  Thanksgiving is gone, and thanks to Amazon Prime shipping we haven’t started panic-shopping for Christmas yet (much to other retailers’ dismay). The days are short, the nights are dark and the ground is too hard to conveniently dig even a very shallow grave.

On the upside, this is some of the best drinkin’ time you’ll see all year. The lack of meaningful external stimuli makes it a great time to venture outside the mainstream of alcoholic beverages. Plus, trying the weird shit someone brought is one of two decent things about Awkward Christmas Parties.

So: here’s some weird shit I tried in the last year or so. This week’s ratings will follow a Futurama-based system. PARTICIPATE BELOW, FELLOW HUMANS!

PERNOD 68 AUX EXTRAIT D’ABSINTHE

DESCRIPTION: It’s absinthe, the Green Fairy, muse to Parisian Impressionists and pretentious theatre kids alike. I had it at a Christmas party hosted by one of the latter, poured over a sugar cube through a slotted spoon while fell passages from L’Étranger were chanted by robed adepts.  Mostly licorice and herbs with notes of sugar and fart-sniffing. I don’t like licorice and it did not induce hallucinations, so it had nothing to offer me.

RATING:

Jeppson’s Malört

DESCRIPTION: Oh god. Oh God. I can still taste it in the sinuses of my memory. It is also an herbal alcohol based on wormwood (just like absinthe) but designed for the sole purpose of being repellent.  Sold almost exclusively in the Chicago area and enjoyed nowhere. I’ll leave the characterization to the experts:

A burnt condom filled with gasoline- Drinking Buddies

“[I]t’s like a flavored vodka basically, but flavored with darkness and pain…It tastes like pencil shavings and heartbreak”- John Hodgman

“The taste just lingers and lasts – seemingly forever. The first shot is hard to swallow! Perservere [sic]. Make it past two ‘shock-glasses’ and with the third you could be ours… forever.” -the label on the back of the bottle.

RATING:

NEW HOLLAND BEER BARREL BOURBON

DESCRIPTION: It’s the inverse of the modern trend in barrel aged beers- bourbon aged 3 months in New Holland’s Dragon’s Milk Stout barrels instead of the other way around. It’s pretty good- caramel, vanilla, malty goodness with a little bit of burn; familiar but with a slight twist.

RATING:

BALVENIE 14 YEAR CARIBBEAN CASK SCOTCH

DESCRIPTION: Speyside scotch aged in rum casks. As sweet as you would expect from that– like liquid alcoholic toffee.

RATING:

TEJ

DESCRIPTION: It’s Tej! Ethopian honey-wine, like mead with the addition of a hops-like plant called gesho.  It’s actually pretty delicious, though I’m not sure I would want any more than one glass at a sitting.

RATING:

WHAT DID YOU DRINK, MUTHAFUCKAS?