cottage – Ben's Beer Blog

This installment of “What to Drink This Week” features a drink that for me is a summer time staple. It’s supposed to feel like close to 30 degrees today, and I’m sure that won’t last, so why not try to squeeze out a little more summer with a cocktail today before we all hunker down for the winter with dark beer, brown liquor, and German erotica….er, just me?

Anyway, this is a summer drink I thought I invented–but most certainly didn’t.

The beverage is technically the French 75, though my version is modified slightly and rechristened The Southampton.

Both beverages are a ridiculously potent mix of champagne or proseco and gin.

The French 75 was so named because the act of having a few is not unlike the feeling of being assaulted by the French 75mm light field gun, arguably the first piece of modern artillery, capable of delivering 15 rounds-per-minute (which was not bad when facing an enemy with bolt-action rifles in 1897). Continue reading “What to Drink This Week: The French 75 (aka The Southampton)” →

For the past week or so, I’ve been at a cottage which is situated virtually on the beach at Lake Huron and which, for whatever reason, has virtually no cell phone reception, and no trace of anything like an “internet service provider.” Accordingly, as you might imagine, I’ve had very few decisions to make every day aside from how early I should crack my first beer and when I need to fire up the barbecue for lunch. I’ve also had ample time under the influence to create stupid word combinations–or stuwocombos–in an effort to save time.

It’s possible I got too much sun.

Anyway, in order to prepare for my vacation, I first took a trip to the Summerhill LCBO, aka my happy place. As a sort of experiment and a means by which to drunkenly preach my own fiercely local brand of craft beer evangelism when people joined my wife and I at the cottage, I made it my mission to bring up almost exclusively Ontario-made beers. Continue reading “Drinking Ontario – The Rifleman’s Ration” →