Girl Drink Drunk: Garrison Nut Brown Ale

Something I have become more than a little bit interested in lately is food and drink pairings. Wine pairing is fairly easy to get into in a beginner sort of way and for the most part is very straightfoward (the heavier the dish, the heavier the wine, in as near as I can tell). But beer pairing ... now that turned out to be a whole level of weirdness I was entirely unprepared for. I do all of my research online, and all of the websites I looked at had oddly specific pairings. Like, if you're having spicy Thai-inspired noodles with tofu, you should have whatever, but if you're having Ritz crackers with roquefort cheese, you should have whatever else. It makes about as much sense to me as "have beans with your budweiser because the next full moon is on a thursday"

I just wanted to know what I should have with my damn mac and cheese. So I went for the cheese pairing. (Now, I apologize because the reference material I went with was just stuff I found on google and saved to my phone. Looking through the images I can't actually figure out how to find what website they came from... so I kinda fucked that up. Damn you, technology) According to the one particular guide I found, the name of which is now lost in the ether, brown ale goes with cheddar cheese. With that, I went and got me some Nut Brown Ale brewed by Garrison right here in Halifax.

I got no glasses

I've had Garrison's Nut Brown before and I quite like it - I'm very fond of darker beers and this one does not disappoint. It's kinda tart, and kinda earthy, and although not as rich and creamy as a stout or a porter (my favourite beers), it's light enough to actually enjoy with a meal, rather than replacing a meal. If it has not become apparent by this point, I know next to nothing about beer. But it's brown, and nutty, and an ale, and my favourite of Garrison's beers, so it's got that going for it.

Anywho, it's kind of bitter and fairly mild and while it gave my mac and cheese a slight smokey hint, it wasn't really strong enough flavourwise to have much effect on my appreciation of the meal. That being said, I think next time if I were to change anything for this particular combination I would use stronger cheese. The "old cheddar cheese" I got from the sobey's left a whole lot to be desired. Next time I make some mac and cheese, no matter what the hell I'm drinking with it, I'm making it with real cheese.

Fuck you, mac and cheese

 Garrison Brewing Company's website can be found here. They have a lot of different beers which are, from what I've had, tasty as fuck. And they're local (if you live where I live, which is right here).

Girl Drink Drunk: Caribe Cocktail

One thing I really like about some other blogs is how they have regular features, or columns, or whatever you want to call them and I decided I wanted to do something like that on here. Since the only thing I do on a regular basis is drink alcohol, I figured why not have a weekly booze review? And now you got girl drink drunk, named after this Kids in the Hall sketch which I always thought evoked the idea of a progression of sorts (girl > girl drink > girl drunk).

For the inaugural voyage, I'm drinking the Caribe Cocktail.

Look at that mofo

2 oz dark rum
1/2 oz lemon juice
Pour over ice in a cocktail glass (I just used a big ol' wine glass), fill the glass with pineapple juice and fire a hunk of lime in there like you just don't give a fuck.

For rum I used Cruzan Black Strap Rum, introduced to me by my brother who lovingly refers to it as 'tar', as far as I'm concerned (and I am far from being any kind of rum afficianado) it's the best rum money can buy.

Oh, Cruzan, get inside of me

It's sweet and syrupy, like molasses. If molasses had a 40% alcohol content. That was the highlight of the drink, actually, the delicious, buttery rum. On a whole, it was kinda too tangy to be a sweet drink, and too sweet to be a tangy drink. It just couldn't make up its mind. I think I I was to make this drink again in future I would just cut out the lemon juice, going with pineapple juice, rum and lime.

However, I'm much more inclined to drink Black Strap straight up.

The original Caribe Cocktail recipe can be found here
Cruzan's website, where you can read about their products and shit, is here