God damn you 2020

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Not all human drinks are sweet and happy and cloying!

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Root beer. Is that the stuff that tastes like sickly sweet mouthwash/cough syrup? You couldnā€™t pay me to drink enough until I was deluded it was palatable!

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You must be thinking of Irn Bru. Root beer is the stuff that uses sarsaparilla root, thus the name. Not to be confused with Vita Malz or other ā€œmalt beersā€, which are basically wort without hops.

EDIT: which would make an interesting topic for itself: which nonalcoholic beverage is an appropriate stand-in for root beer in other languages/cultures? I know in German it would be Malzbier, but what of Italy? Greece? Spain?

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No not irn bru, that doesnā€™t have the medicinal taste iirc. Just the syrup. I think Irn Bru is meant to be lucozade.
Is mountain dew a kind of root beer?

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No, mountain dew is a somewhat fruity, highly caffeinated, dental-decimating, sugary, nuclear waste spill. Think of it as methamphetamine, in beverage form.

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Nope. Mountain Dew is basically caffeine with a sort of citrus-ey component. Root beer is dark in colour, like a porter, and it is the sarsaparilla that gives it the unique taste.

I did some reading, and originally the root beer was alcoholic. Itā€™s thanks to Prohibition and Hires selling his root tea as ā€œroot beerā€ that started the modern version. Oh, and the stuff that gave root beer its flavour? It was banned in 1960 in the USA for causing liver damage in rats (and eventually proven only in rats, not in humans or other mammals).

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I donā€™t drink soda; so they all suck to me. Even as a kid. If itā€™s carbonated - it needs alcohol. Some tonic for my G&Tā€™s are okay.

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Yeah but one of the things. No wait I canā€™t think of another good thing about 2020 at all. Anyway the one thing I liked about 2020 was I discovered Negronis. Friday evening turn off the computer and pour a Negroni (Iā€™m not a purist I use one part gin, one part red martini, one part martini Blanco served over sliced orange on ice). I know itā€™s meant to be campari but Iā€™m not fond of that cough mixture taste either. Iā€™ll sometimes add some nice bitters. And recently Iā€™ve been using orange gin. The cheap Beefeaters blood orange, not the posh tanqureay Seville (though that sounds lovely) because Iā€™m a cheap date.

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My gins of choice are Bluecoat and Hendricks. I donā€™t drink a lot - so If Iā€™m going to drink - it best be what I like. Scotch is Balvenie.

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Add this as to why I am cursing this year, my local supermarket stopped stocking Bundaberg ginger beer, though as consolation a local hipster bottler is offering decent ginger beer and tonic water*. I guess itā€™s only a matter of time until my supermarket gets rid of Crodino as well.

*I assume itā€™s good, as I only bought the ginger beer for now. They also sell ginger ale, but the ginger beer is still cloudy and nice and sharp.

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Only available for shipping in Texas, unfortunately. Best ginger beer I have ever had. The extra ginger is amazing.

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Alien ā€œinvasionā€ from outer-spaceā€¦

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I do believe you can get Blenheimā€™s shipped.

http://www.blenheimgingerale.com/

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I, for one, welcomeā€¦pretty much whomever.

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We will welcome them as liberatorsā€¦

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Only in the USA. I am in Munich, Germany, living the expat life (and to refer to another thread, once again contemplating if itā€™s really worth staying an Americanā€¦ and then getting more active in Democrats Abroad)

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God damn you, 2020.

I have to admit, the whole time I can hear 2021 chuckling in the background, looking at a smug 2020 and saying ā€œhold my beerā€.

Too many open bills, the damage to the environment is only now starting to show its consequences. Itā€™s only gonna get rougher from here on out.

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Umā€¦

image

Maybe not just anyoneā€¦

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