Words On Wednesday

I expected February's Thirsty Thursday Eve to be another cocktail, probably a Cuba Libre. However, much like getting laid off from work, sometimes unexpected things happen. Beer Cart was a Lima staple. When we were in office, it was the highlight of the week. After we went remote, I still went in occasionally on Thursdays when it lined up with manager training or an important meeting with the IT department. Over the past few months, I started trying to go into the office at least once per week for visibility and collaboration. If it wasn't on Coffee Monday, it was typically Beer Cart Thursday. As I left the office on Thursday, January 8, I had no clue it would be my last Beer Cart. Earlier that afternoon, I sent a picture of the beer fridge to some friends to gauge what I should get. I wanted a Ranch Water, but the officially branded ones weren't available. Instead, the Senior Director of Operations and official beer stocker recommended the High Noon Tequila Seltzer. Good ...

I'm not a weeb , but I think everybody should keep a bottle of sake on hand. Name: Sake Gekkeikan Source: Gekkeikan Style: Sake ABV: "15% to 16%" Price: $5.99 Volume: 750ml Price per oz: $0.24 Sake is a very... specific drink, for lack of a better term. I'm not opening up the liquor cabinet and arbitrarily landing on sake. And honestly, I don't ever get a craving out of the blue for sake. However, if I'm at a ramen shop? Sake hits the spot. Getting hibachi with the family? Sake would be great right now. It is very much associated specifically with Japanese cuisine for me. Truthfully, I don't even really like sake all that much. As a rice wine, it sits with most other wine in my opinion: below most beer and FAR below most distilled spirits. I couldn't tell you why, but wine isn't really my bag. But something about the combination of sake AND Japanese food is just appropriate. I listed $5.99 for a fifth because that's what Total Wine had availab...

I'm not a huge fan of most beer, but Leinenkugel's Summer Shandy is one I'll make an exception for more often than not, especially during a hot southern summer day when the beer is ice cold. Name: Summer Shandy Source: Leinenkugel's Style: Weiss (Wheat) beer ABV: 4.2% IBU: 11 Price: $27.99 per 24 pack Volume: 12 oz Price per can: $1.166 The story behind the summer ale/shandy as a style is that an influx of cyclists through Germany influenced some bar owners to cut their standard wheat beer with lemonade. Whether this was to stretch the beer further or appeal to the tastes of the bikers seems to be up for interpretation, but the style was apparently a hit. It has since become a summer phenomenon worldwide. I couldn't tell you when I first tried specifically Leinenkugel's Summer Shandy. I've enjoyed lemon-infused wheat beers for a while. Samuel Adams has a Summer Ale, a "crisp wheat ale with citrus," which I had at least as far back as 2018. And as ...

Dunkin’ has released a new line of alcohol, dubbed “Dunkin’ Spiked.” These assorted flavors of hard iced coffee and iced tea drinks sound like a natural hit from a chain that does drive thru beverages so well. But are they? Name: Dunkin’ Spiked Iced Coffee Source: Dunkin’ Style: Malt Beverage ABV: 6% Dunkin’ (Donuts, because old habits die hard) has let me down in perhaps the most devastating alcoholic revelation of the past decade. They took coffee and alcohol, and somehow managed to put them together in some abomination that is abhorrent to both coffee drinkers and alcohol drinkers alike. I am frankly amazed that they managed to take two individual things that are independently so good and make an amalgamation that is so terrible. I first heard about these beverages back in March. A news article informed me of their existence and I quickly began searching for them. The locator on the Dunkin’ Spiked site suggested that a nearby convenience store sold them. I happened to be driving pas...

The beer flight is reaching a slow and inevitable death, and there’s nothing that you or I can do about it. Picture it: you walk into a new bar or micro brewery and their tap list is both overwhelming and intriguing. Everything sounds great, but you can’t say from the name and style if it’s something you would like. Instead, you order a flight of four different beers and sample each of them. A flight, for those unfamiliar with the term, is “a line of four or five small glasses atop a long, wooden board” (Dunphy, 2024). It makes more sense to order four small pours of four different beers, rather than stake your entire pint on something at random or on the recommendation of someone else. If any of them strike your fancy, you order another pint of that (because too much of a good thing is never enough). Breweries and their administration would have you believe this isn’t the appropriate way to consume beer. You can’t possibly appreciate the nuance of a specific brew if you’re only drinki...

It has occurred to me that despite participating in the beer cart for nearly two years now, I have yet to describe that in the most obvious place: Thirsty Thursday Eve at Words on Wednesday. Oh, the beer cart. During the phone interview that landed me here, the manager was explaining the benefits and mentioned how on Thursdays, they push around a stadium cart and everybody grabs a beer from it. That sounded awesome. My understanding was that you grab a beer from the cart, then you take it home to enjoy after work. Imagine my surprise when, instead of giving us a beer to take home, we got a beer to open and drink right there in the office. I was excited about the prospect of trying new drinks on someone else’s dime. I had no idea we would be drinking the beverage as soon as we picked it up. I’ve worked in offices where the Christmas Eve breakfast always involved someone sneaking in a bottle of alcohol and sharing it with a few coworkers. Never would I have guessed that it would be so re...

These canned cocktails are EVERYWHERE now, but are they any good? In my experience, yes, but not quite as good as the real thing. They are undeniably drinkable. They are even close to the flavor of the drink they're trying to imitate. I spoke a while back of the Bud Light Mixx Tail, and these are even closer. With the Mixx Tail, you can see what they were trying to get at. Most of the canned cocktails I've had, I'd say it's very clear what the drink is supposed to be and it's pretty close. I worried at first that most of them would taste like a very synthetic form of the intended cocktail. In at least most of the versions I've tried, that isn't the case. My first exposure was the Jack Daniel's Whiskey & Cola. I feared it would taste like it was trying to be a Jack and Coke, but no, it genuinely tasted like a pretty strong pour of Jack and Coke. Now, mind you, we have to look at the companies who make these drinks. Mixx Tail was made by Budweiser, a b...

I love a good bock, and I am always super excited to find a new one. Name: Andygator Source: Abita Style: Helles Doppelbock ABV: 8.0% IBU: 25 Price: $12 per pack ($2 per bottle) My wife and I went to The Lost Cajun for a date night a few months ago. Our dates usually consist of going to a restaurant that our kids would never consider eating from, and maybe having a few drinks while we’re there. I didn’t plan on drinking that evening, but I saw that they had a doppelbock on the beer menu. Given how uncommon of a brew that is, and how much I tend to like them, I had to try it. The waitress brought out a bottle, and the first sip was just as good as I hoped. I didn’t plan on getting more there, because I hate paying restaurant prices, but I had to have some for home. I looked up where it was available in stores, and the only place around me seemed to be The Lost Cajun. Unfortunate that it wasn’t in a grocery store somewhere, but hey, at least I was in the place where I could get more. One...

I always enjoy a good beer, but sometimes a particular beer becomes more than just a beverage. Name: Brown Eyed Squirrel Source: RJ Rockers Style: American-Style Brown Ale ABV: 5.6% IBU: 18 Price: $9.47 per 6 pack at Ingles (0.132 per oz, ~1.58 per can) The first time I ever had Brown Eyed Squirrel was at a friend’s bachelor party. We were sitting at the bar in Spare Time, waiting for our escape room session. I asked the bartender for “the maltiest thing you have.” Probably 75% of the time, this question gets met with a blank stare, and then I just ask for a Sam Adams or something they’ll recognize. The remaining quarter, I’ll get something I almost universally enjoy. Fortunately, this bartender knew her stuff. She told me that they don’t have a lot of malty options, but that she would probably recommend Brown Eyed Squirrel. If somebody is informed enough to answer that question, their recommendation is probably a safe bet for me. I gave it a shot, and sure enough it was really good. T...

I love all things coffee. When I saw PBR hard coffee at a nearby ABC store, I had to give it a shot, even with the unusually high price point. I’m no stranger to coffee-alcohol fusions. I’ve had my fair share of coffee-based mixed drinks, as well as traditional beer styles with coffee included. The only one I’ve mentioned here was the Thunderstruck Coffee Porter from Highland , but there have been plenty more before and after. I’m always on the lookout for the next spin on coffee and booze. For what it’s worth, I haven’t found one yet that I didn’t like. A few weeks back, I was cheating on my usual ABC store with another one that has a slightly larger selection. While we were perusing the aisles, my wife pointed out this curious hard coffee from Pabst Blue Ribbon. Initially, I dismissed it. PBR is supposed to be cheap, not good. And with a 4 pack of cans at roughly $10, that was way out of the normal range that I’d spend on PBR. Even for stuff I really like, that’s a hard sell. How...

I’m not typically a huge fan of cider, but I’ll try just about anything once, and I’m a sucker for limited availability stuff, and I do love supporting small, local businesses. Hence, I had to get some of the hard cider that Sky Top orchard produces. Let me just point out that Sky Top is awesome. It’s been a fall tradition in my family for the past few years. They have tons of varieties of apples available, and they have awesome apple cider and apple cider donuts. In case you missed it, here it is again: apple cider donuts. One more time. Apple. Cider. Donuts. Anyway, moving on. We noticed last year that they have a hard apple cider, in addition to their jugs of just normal cider. I’m weird in that I love a good quality non-alcoholic apple cider, but hard cider just isn’t my thing. I can’t place why. My wife, however, loves cider. Hence, we’ll get new ciders for her to try on occasion, and I’ll finish them off if she doesn’t like them. Otherwise, I steer clear. But again, Sky Top orcha...

I went to Lidl for a dutch oven and left with an interesting new wheat beer. The search for the dutch oven may have been unsuccessful, but I wasn’t disappointed with the Hypnotic Beast Apple Cinnamon Wheat Ale. I really don’t go to Lidl often, nowhere near as much as I should. Pretty much everything they have is really good and super cheap, and their fresh bread display smells heavenly. Still, they’ll advertise a sale every now and again that entices me inside. Case in point, they advertised a ceramic dutch oven similar to Le Creuset at a fraction of the price. I’ve never used a dutch oven, nor do I really need one, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to pick one up. Unfortunately, they were completely out of stock by the time I got to the store. That happens for most of the items I see the advertisement for, but I still go in anyway just to check. While I was there, I decided to hang around and shop some. I looked over their bread, and almost bought a few baguettes and a couple of...