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I (heart) malt liquor

What goes good with hurricanes? Well, malt liquor, of course.

I wrote a few days ago about my frustration with trying to shop for groceries post-evacuation from Gustav here in New Orleans. Things are still crazy. I was in one grocery store Sunday afternoon when several of the checkout workers were about to go on strike.

This one proclaimed to everyone in sight that she was N-O-T coming to work on Monday. She'd been working three straight days and the traffic in the store had been unbelievably tense and steady.

I went to Winn-Dixie Monday afternoon to get bacon bits and ice cream. (No lectures, please. I'm still coming off my carb-heavy evacuation diet, and I'm trying to slowly ease back in to a life of slightly more healthy fare. I haven't had grits in four days, so things are looking up.)

Anyway, the grocery store was still half-shelved with goods, and the entire ice cream section was cleaned out. Apparently, ice cream and hurricanes go together well.

Which brings me to my new-found appreciation for malt liquor. And I'm not talking Colt-45. I'm talking an expensive, it's all the way from freakin' Belgium, malt beverage.

After I left Winn-Dixie Monday, I swung by the fancy-schmancy grocery store down the block from me called Whole Foods (or as us poor folk like to call it, Whole Paycheck.) Anyway, I went in looking for ice cream, and of course, everything there was like all natural, no dairy, no taste stuff. Where's my Blue Bell? (Whole Foods is known for offering all natural/organic products. Whatever.)

And so, I found myself on the beer aisle. If I couldn't have ice cream, beer it was. But there were only fancy beers left. Up in the corner, though, an oddly shaped container, a cross between a beer bottle and a wine bottle caught my eye. I recognized the label instantly - it's what one of my Boston friends used to drink all the time. (How fancy is it, you ask? It has both a non-screw-off bottle top AND a cork.)

It's technically called a lambic. It's made by Lindemans in Belgium, which has made this kind of brew since 1811, according to the label. It tastes, in layman's terms, like you mixed wine and beer, but in a really good way, and then threw some fruit in. The malt beverages come in a variety of flavors - peach, black cherry, raspberry and green apple.

According to the label of the cherry malt liquor I drank Monday night, it is "a lambic made from local barley, unmalted wheat and wild yeast. After spontaneous fermentation, black cherries are added, creating a secondary fermentation and yielding a beer of exceptional flavor and complexity."

Translation: Yummy-D.

The only problem with getting hooked on this swanky version of malt liquor is the price tag. I can hardly even type the number, but a 12-ounce bottle is $7. ( I think I only used to pay $2 for a "forty" of Colt-45 from the bootlegger in high school.)

Yep, I'm big city now, baby. I'm drinking fancy beer. Who knows where my post-evacuation life will lead me next? Tofu? Wheat grass shakes? Soy milk?

Posted by Lara Richards at 4:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)