Oh Boy! Sunday Night with Litre.

Good day to you, I hope you said your prayers and took your vitamins. This is the second last week that you have to deal with my ridiculoUsness. Honestly hat tip to Yeah Right, the absent BeerguyRob, and all of those who do a weekly post here. Your creativeness and hard work is amazing as this is the 1st year I have tried to do it every week and it’s difficult. I drink wine, smoke weed, sleep very little and can’t be damned to remember which one of my stupid travel stories I have told. I hope I didn’t repeat any.

That does count for my usual opening thought so I’ll blend in a couple music vids as I seem to have stopped doing that week to week. Yes these dudes look like pinheads that you would hate to meet at a house party but Holly Walker is amazing.

From wikipedia “Maribou State are an English electronic music duo consisting of Chris Davids and Liam Ivory. To date, they have released eight EPs and two studio albums, Portraits and Kingdoms In Colour. Besides their own material, the two producers have also done remixes for the likes of Alpines and Lana Del Rey”

Which Holly Walker hairstyle do you prefer?

Travel story.

Full Moon party in Thailand? Have I told you about that dumbness?

So, I was in Ko Pha Ngan for a few days which happened to coincide with a full moon party. I loved to party but I was on my way from Scotland to Australia and decided to spend a couple weeks on the islands. I was staying on the north side of the island and it the full moon party takes place on the south side. No fear, the hotel proprietor would drive us there and would pick us up at 6 am. For reference the notorious party is in Haad Rin and I was staying in Thong Nai Pan. It was about a 90 minute drive through the jungle sitting in the back of a pickup truck.

The pickup truck  picked up a bunch of backpackers from a few different hotels on our beach and headed into the jungle. I made some friends on the truck and we decided as a gang to head out together for the madness, safety in numbers and all that.

Southeast Asian Redbull and mushrooms, not legal, but available everywhere were taken after the sunset. The set up is a dumb amount of clubs set up on the beach with incredibly cheap drinks and loud dance music emanating from each venue. The gang of eight went at sunset and decided to indulge with some mushroom tea.

If you have ever been to Thailand you have probably had a “bucket”. A bucket consists of a half mickey of Thai Rum, 2 cans of coke and a bottle of the Thai medicinal Red Bull all in a kids beach bucket. It. Is. Rocket. Fuel.

There was an English couple among our group of eight, who seemed like great folks. They were chatty, engaging, nice and friendly. We all partied until the wee hours, dance, drank walked along the beach. At some point we had to jump off the 2nd story of a bar to the beach but to this day I have no idea why.

At this point it’s 4 am in the morning, very inebriated we grab some more buckets and head to the beach for sunrise. Sitting around, having a couple darts, some buckets, I suddenly notice my watch had been lifted. I start to freak out (drunk, high) as I had purchased it in Geneva and was my only souvenir as that place is expensive as hell. To calm down I went for a wee swim (smart!) I then came back to no shirt and no sandals where our gang was gathered.

“What the fuck? Where is my shit?”

English broad – “What shit.”

“Well, now I have no shirt, no shoes, no watch. Who stole my shit?”

Silence. Uncomfortable.

EB – ” Probably my boyfriend he is a kleptomaniac.”

“What the fuck?” (Rage rising as she is still sitting with us and he is gone)

So she sighs and seems bothered as hell to find her boyfriend to get my stuff back. Apparently this is a regular thing for them?!??!? I didn’t get my shirt or sandals back but I did get my watch. I had to go to the middle of town at Haad Rin at 5 in the morning to meet up to get it back. I made the truck home with my shorts, and my watch, Nothing else. No money, no shirt, no shoes, just my watch, and my shorts. I slept for 20 hours after that and woke up not having any idea where I was.

Full moon party? Recommend. Also that island has backyard thai kickboxing nights where you can gamble!

Wine time!

Next week I will give a wee breakdown of what we have learned this offseason to help you in a wine store, trip, restaurant, or all of the above!

Today we hit Chile, and more specifically Carmenere as it was requested by a DFOer.

There are three main wine regions in Chile, the Colchagua Valley, the Elqui Valley and the most famoUs one the Maipo Valley. From what I have red they consider this valley the Bordeaux of the Southern Hemisphere and looking at the varietals that they grow I can see that. Due to climate Chile is more well known for their red varietals like Cab Sauv, Merlot, and Carmenere.

Carmenere is rich in fruit as most reds are in the New World but you do get an unmistakable pepper taste from them. When you see a Carmenere bottle keep in mind that it can contain up to 15% of other grapes for blending. There definitely are 100 % Carmeneres out there but blending it with old school french grapes gives it a bit more smoothness and softens the tannins.

Carmenere originated in France but really was only used for blending whereas it has taken off in Chile and is incredibly important for their wine community. Think of it like Sauvignon Blanc for New Zealand which is their flagship grape and they are known around the world for it.

With food due to the softness of the wines it produces it pairs well with pork, lamb and will not be overpowered by fatty steaks. Personally I love Carmenere paired with duck, which makes sense as usually I would go for a Grenache with Donald as it is not too big to overpower the meat.

Weird fact that I ran into is that up until the 90’s people just thought that Carmenere was Merlot as their leaves look almost identical, they are both quite soft and grow the same way. That being said it was found out due to the fact that it seemed to take some Merlot a lot longer to grow (A month or two). They then did tests and found out a whole lot of what they thought was Merlot was actually Carmenere.

One more week to go gang then it is football time!