By OWEN MORRIS
Yesterday I talked about an assortment of family-friendly drinks that go well with this glorious season. Today I turn to drinks that are not so family friendly but still an important part of celebrating the fall: booze.
Hard Cider It perturbs me that Bulmers -- the best cider in the world -- is not available in Kansas City. Bulmers is from Ireland and although we Americans might think of cider as a "sissy" cousin of beer, the Irish proudly display the Bulmers' taps next to their manly beers like Beamish and Guinness. Bulmers has made headway into the States under the name of Mangers but has yet to make it this far inland. I haven't tasted a cider I like as much as Bulmers but I have tasted a couple I really dislike, one of which is the widely available Hornsby's Cider. It tastes artificial, like the alcohol is added in like charmat with sparkling wine. It's the equivalent of an American Idol singing a Beatles' song; it sucks on its own but is painfully sucky in comparison to the original. (That would be Bulmers.) I've about given up on alcoholic ciders in Kansas City but I will try the Sam Adams company's Hardcore Cider when I can find it.
Southern Comfort When you'd like hard cider but only have the weak stuff on hand, adding Southern Comfort gives the cider a bite that tastes like concentrated cider and warms the belly. The wickedly spiced cordial goes great with a lot of things year-round, but fits best with cider at a bonfire while toasting marshmallows.
The other big alcoholic drink is pumpkin beer. I was going to write about O'Fallon's pumpkin beer since it's the one I'm most familiar with, but the two liquor stores I went to were out. At the second store, I started telling the clerk that it was hard to find pumpkin beer when he rolled his eyes at me and pointed to a shelf behind me. "Try looking there."
The store had a build-your-own-six-pack shelf I had totally missed. (Build-your-own-six-pack is one of the great inventions of our time, along with NASA and the McGriddle.) Several pumpkin beers were on the shelf and I decided a tasting was in order.
Results after the jump.
The contenders were Arcadia Jaw Jacker Ale, Schlafly Pumpkin, Blue Moon Harvest Ale, Shipyard Pumpkinhead and Dundee Oktoberfest (not technically a pumpkin ale). I gathered up a team of tasters and let them pumpkin themselves out. The results are from last to first.
Shipyard Pumpkinhead
"This tastes like there's a penny at the bottom. There's a lot of unpleasant flavors but where's the pumpkin?" "There's this burned rubber quality and uh, I don't think it's on purpose."
Quote that best sums up the beer: "It's very close in flavor to what I imagine an actual shipyard to taste like. They really hit that name on the nail.
Harvest Moon Pumpkin Ale
"The beer is weak with a capital W." "Really average flavor." "It has a pukey flavor. Really, is it that hard to make a pumpkin ale?"
Quote that best sums up the beer: "I think they took a dude who drank a lot of original Coors and ate a lot of pumpkin pie and then had to burp. Because this tastes like a burp of Coors and pumpkin pie."
Dundee OktoberFest Marzen
"Mild yet very flavorful." "I know this is the control, but I like it more than some of the pumpkins." "This beer has a really strong smell but the taste is not as strong." "There' a lot going on in this beer."
Quote that best sums up the beer: "If I had to taste blind between the Harvest Moon and Dundee and guess which one was the pumpkin beer, I'd go with Dundee."
Arcadia Ale Jaw-Jacker
"It's darker than the others and a lot more hops." "Tastes soupy and totally lame." "Very gingery, like ginger bread." "It's like a medicine not a beer. Weak."
Quote that best sums up the beer: "It smells like it will be great. The smell is full of pumpkin and nutmeg and ginger and other shit but it smells better than it tastes."
Schlafly's Pumpkin Ale
"Oh that is good." "Yummy, yummy, yummuy." "By far the best beer amongst the group and the only one that tastes like pumpkin." "This is so good! I love the cinnamon undervibe it's got going on."
Quote that best sums up the beer: "If I had to put a delicious pumpkin pie into a bottle, this would be it."
The Schlafly's pumpkin ale blew the competition away, decimated all the other beers. Every single person had Schlafly's by a mile. The Schlafly Brewery really nails what a pumpkin beer is supposed to taste like, which is pumpkin pie instead of just a beer infused with pumpkin a la any other fruit. (Yes, pumpkin is a fruit.)
St. Louis must really know how to work a pumpkin, because Schlafly's fellow St. Louis-area brewery, O'Fallon, also makes an excellent-tasting pumpkin beer. If we'd included it, O'Fallon probably would have ranked in the second spot and maybe even pulled some votes for first place. Still, I've had plenty of O'Fallon pumpkin beer but Schlafly is the best I've ever tasted.
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GAF in Waldo had Magner's on tap the last time I was there (Sep).
Samuel Smith's cider is also somewhat recently available in the US. I've seen it at Royal (99thish and State Line).
Seriously....there's no mention of Bob's 47 in a Kansas City magazine!!!! For shame Pitch! For shame!
When I was but a boy the staple winter drink by the adults in my small town was schnapps.
A shot of cinnamon in your mulled cider from the orchard, or a splash of peppermint in your hot coco. It wasn't unusual to find several thermoses of each at late fall hayrides or football games when I was a kid.
When I was old enough to try them myself I found both to be quite nice on a chill night, but put me down as a cinnamon and cider guy.
Maybe they changed the recipe since last year, but I remember the Schlafly to be awful. Pure awful. When I drink it, all I taste is cloves with maybe a hint of pumpkin. Can't stand cloves. Although, from the rest of the swill you picked, it probably was the best beer there.
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