Scotty’s Drink of the Week from the Kickstarter episode of Sanity Claws Radio!

Traveler’s Time Traveler Strawberry Shandy – Historically speaking, the shandy is a style of beer originating in Germany.  Traditionally, a shandy is a 50/50 mix of a pilsner and lemonade and is consumed seasonally in the spring and summer months.  Beer aficionados commonly refer to a shandy as a radler (the original German name for this concoction).  What the Traveler Beer Company has created here is an unoffensive, lightly flavored, strawberry-alcohol beverage.  Checking in at 4.4%, this is a slightly better alternative to Leinenkugel’s *shudder* Summer Shandy (seasonally available starting in… February?  /PublicShaming)

Consensus 3/5 – Average, but not bad.

Honey is a wonderfully diverse booze ingredient that can compliment a variety of styles of brewing, vinting, and distilling.  The crew put together a great sampler of extremely tasty beverages.  And, though many photographs were taken during the show, this one truly exemplified exactly how we all felt by the end of the night!

Honey Liquors

Dogfish Head’s Tweason’ale – A new year-round offering from Dogfish Head combines buckwheat honey with strawberries to make liquid magic!  A sweetly refreshing wheat style beer delivers a crisp flavor that doesn’t overstay its welcome.  This beer is certainly worth a try if you ever run across it, and is hopefully signaling the way forward for the use of honey in brewing.  At an ABV of 6.0%, Tweason’ale also happens to be GLUTEN FREE!

Wild Turkey’s American Honey Whiskey – The first, and by our measure still the best, of its kind.  This honey whiskey is just that: whiskey with honey in it.  But it is magnificently smooth drinking in warm weather.  86.6 proof and freaking amazing.

Barenjager Honey Liqueur – The most recognizable and widely distributed of the honey-based liqueurs, Barenjager is quite sweet without being overly sweet and makes a rather pleasing dessert beverage.  Barenjager can be consumed straight, but is featured in a variety of popular cocktails.  70 proof.

Chaucer’s Mead – The original honey-based adult beverage, mead was discovered on accident when some Vikings’ honey stores got wet and fermented.  The rest, as they say, explains the prevalence of Mead Halls in Beowulf… or whatever.  Chaucer’s Mead is vinted in California and is widely regarded as one of the finest examples of a mead that is produced in the U.S.  Take it from us when we say, “That s**t is good.”  ABV – 10.5%

Scotty’s Drink of the Week from the E3 2014 Roundtable episode of Sanity Claws Radio!

Short’s Cinnabilly – This summer seasonal from Short’s Brewing boasts a mixture of cinnamon sticks, brown sugar, and vanilla with flavors ranging from toasted almonds to graham crackers.  Yes, the flavor palette is as complex as it sounds.  No, it does not blend well.  This beer tastes at best confusing and at worst muddled.

Scotty – 3/5 (Average, but unique); Jon, Steve – 2/5

Scotty’s Drink of the Week from the Controversial Topics episode of Sanity Claws Radio!

SoCo Lime – Another in the line of ‘traditional bar shots,’ this one is likewise rather vanilla – both in complexity and originality.  Add 1.5 oz of Southern Comfort to a shot glass then add a splash of sweetened lime juice.  That’s it.

Side note:  It took us months to get a picture for this post, mostly because nobody actually wanted to purchase a bottle of Southern Comfort.  Once we finally got the hooch, the sassy, old cat in the picture refused to move away from the area where we were staging the photo.  But after waiting as long as we did for this picture, we pretty much just said, “F**k it,” and ran with what we feel should be Southern Comfort’s new ad image.  There.  It’s done.

Steve’s Drink of the Week from the BadgerCon 2014 episode of Sanity Claws Radio!

Lagers!

Lagers are beers that are fermented and conditioned at low (cold) temperatures.  This is in contrast to their sister, ales, which are beers that are fermented and conditioned at higher (hot) temperatures.  That is the basic fundamental difference between lagers and ales, and the resulting lager tends to taste smoother with less carbonation across the tongue.

Phuket Lager – Made in Thailand by Phuket Brewing and named for an island in the Indian Ocean, Steve purchased this beer because he thought the name was funny.  Brewed with Jasmine rice, Phuket checks in with an ABV of 5%.

HELLS YES! – This offering from OddSide Ales is a fine example of a Helles (or Munich) German style lager.  This lends a slightly malty Munich flavor (like in Spaten or Hofbrau’s Oktoberfest beers).  Not too shabby.  ABV – 4.5%.

Radler – A radler is the German style of beer that spawned the all-too-popular-in-the-States summer beer style known as the shandy.  A true radler is a 50:50 mix of lager and lemonade and is widely enjoyed throughout Bavarian countries as a summer thirst quencher!

Mai Bock – Brewed in the German tradition is good ole Detroit, Atwater Brewing’s Mai Bock (or spring beer – see commonly; “maibock”), is a traditional spring seasonal lager.  Made in the same style as a helles, this maibock checks in at 7.0% ABV.

Local’s American Lager – From Short’s Brewing in Bellaire, Michigan, this lager is notably very light in body and flavor.  Still good beer, but a bit too light for our liking.  ABV – 4.0%

PT78 – Steve’s blind taste test and a jerk way to get everyone at the table to drink Bud Light Platinum.  To all of our credit, without knowing what this beer was, we all agreed that it was possibly the worst thing we’d ever consumed.  Slante.

Scotty’s Drink of the Week from BadgerCon 2014!

Hard Ciders

Strongbow – This cider represents a more traditional, dry approach to hard apple cider.  This English style cider balances crispness with a subtle sweetness.  A tasty harvest-time treat, Strongbow checks in at an ABV of 5%.

Woodchuck Hard Cider – This cider is as Americanized as it gets.  The balance of English style ciders is cast aside for a sugary blast of extreme sweetness.  Woodchuck represents the American style cider, which is to say it is very, very sweet.  This is not an indictment of very sweet ciders, just a word of warning: Approach with caution.  ABV – 5%.

The Anvil – The Anvil is the hard apple cider from Sonoma Bourbon Ciders.  The bourbon barrel casking of this cider lends a dry, white wine-like quality to this new-to-market beverage.  A rather nice surprise to have stumbled upon, The Anvil checks in at 6% ABV and is USDA Certified Organic!

The Pair Perry Cider – This Apple/Pear hard cider from Michigan-based orchard and brewery J.K. Scrumpy’s was our hands-down favorite.  The blending of fruit flavors is expertly done in this USDA Certified Organic cider.  Other than that, we’ll let this seasonal beverage speak for itself.  ABV – 5.5%

Hard Pumpkin Cider – ACE Brewing out of California offers up this unique gourd cider.  Frankly, it just sounded interesting to us.  But honestly, it tasted like cold vomit.  Thanks to a mid-show recommendation, we tried mixing this with spiced rum.  A brief trip to the microwave later, we were rather enjoying what Steve termed, “Hangover Juice.”  ABV – 5%.

Cherry Hard Apple Cider – This exceptionally tart offering comes from Blue Mountain Cider Company.  We saved this cider for last under the assumption that it would be sweet, like a dessert.  Catching us completely off guard, this cider can only have been crafted from the tartest cherries available through dark collaborations with the f**king devil.  Not bad, but very, very, very tart.  ABV – 6.25%

Scotty’s Drink of the Week from the Freemium Games episode of Sanity Claws Radio!

Oberon – This summer seasonal wheat ale from local brewer Bell’s is a Michigan staple.  Featured way back on our Summer Beer 2012 show, the listeners felt that Oberon was deserving of it’s own post.  So, here it goes:  Oberon was the King of the Fairies from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.  Midsummer is a traditional Wiccan sabbat, or holiday.  Therefore, we sought out our resident witch (Karen 2.0) to pose with the beer.  We assume that this is what the listeners were asking for.  ABV – 5.8%

Scotty, Steve – 3/5 (balanced and exactly what you would expect a wheat ale to be); Jon – 4/5 (Yum!)

>>>  Thanks, Space Pope!

During the Whiskey episode of Sanity Claws Radio, we had a great time – so much so that this is the only picture we took of the whiskey!  Enjoy Badger in his second evolution!

Jameson Irish Whiskey – Being distilled in Ireland is all it takes to be considered an “Irish” whiskey.  However, an Irish whiskey is clearly differentiated from other whiskeys by both its light golden color and sweet, crisp taste.

Glenlivet 12 Year Single Malt Scotch – Scotch, like Irish whiskey, is so named because it is distilled in Scotland.  Scotch is typically aged in oak barrels for at least 10 years, which contributes to its robust palette – the longer the aging process, the more developed the flavors.  A single malt means one distiller, one aging process from start to finish.  Single malting typically leads to fewer, more clearly defined flavors.

Johnny Walker Black Label Blended Scotch – Blending a Scotch, or using multiple mashes, smooths out the resultant flavors.  This blending process also leads to more complex bouquets and pallets.

Jack Daniels Sour Mash Whiskey – NOT a bourbon, despite popular belief, Jack Daniels is a great example of the sour mash style of distilling whiskey.  In sour mash distilling, 10% of the mash from a distilled batch is saved and combined with 90% new mash in order to create a new batch of sour mash whiskey.  Tastes like pure gasoline.

Maker’s Mark Bourbon – Any whiskey with a mash of at least 51% corn is technically a bourbon.  Due to the vast corn yields in the United States, this whiskeying method became the most prevalent and cost effective.  Bourbon is the taste of the old west and as American as it gets when it comes to whiskey.  Drinking Maker’s Mark is like kissing the frontier on the fist.

Scotty’s Drink of the Week from the Current Events – March 30, 2014 episode of Sanity Claws Radio!

Brain Candy – Combine in a cocktail shaker with ice: 1.5 oz Passion Fruit Alize, 1 oz coconut rum, 1 part orange juice, 1 part pineapple juice.  Shake and strain into a cocktail glass of your choosing.  Add a splash of grenadine then float a splash of ginger ale on top of the beverage.  Garnish with cherries and a caracara orange wheel.  Start with this brain slug of a cocktail, and then just continue drinking straight from the bottle of coconut rum.  Mmm… Coconut…

>>>  Thanks, Karen 2.0!

Scotty’s Drink of the Week from the Game Length episode of Sanity Claws Radio!

Old Rasputin – This Russian Imperial stout is brewed in the same manner as the beers England supplied to the Russian Royal Court in the 18th century.  This bottle of history checks in with an ABV of 9% and boasts two distinct movements of flavor – one upfront and one in the aftertaste.  Each of these bundles of flavor is worth the time to dissect as they continue to mature while this stout grows closer to room temperature.  Old Rasputin is certainly a beer for beer lovers.  Just make sure to check in with the court mystic before your audience with the Czar!

Consensus – 4/5