Drunk of the Day: Just Like a Lollipop

Why, when people are drunk, do they pretend to lick other drunkards? It’s a question that will riddle me until…wait, is it lunchtime already! Yum, I love turkey clubs.

Meet Randall

Lookie here! It’s my latest Gourmet column, about insanely flavored beers. Read it here, or look below.

On an average day, Manhattan’s Blind Tiger Ale House pours 30-plus unique beers on tap, from dark stouts to pumpkin ales. But few are as weirdly wonderful as the Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA—a highly hoppy, malty ale—that will soon be infused with lemongrass, tropical fruits, pine and spruce tips, fresh hops, or leafy mint and bourbon ball candy.
“It’s all thanks to Randall the Enamel Animal,” says Blind Tiger owner Alan Jestice.

The Randall, Jestice explains, is essentially a sealed, cylindrical water filter filled with loosely packed flavoring agents and connected to a keg line. When beer is drawn, it passes through the Randall tube, picking up aromatic oils and flavors. The secret is using snifter-worthy 90 Minute IPA, which contains 9 percent alcohol by volume. The alcohol strips off flavorful oils, essentially instant-infusing the beer. (The “Enamel Animal” sobriquet references the fact that extremely hoppy, resinous beer often feels like it’s dissolving teeth enamel—the pungent resins can taste gritty.)

Dogfish Head’s gonzo device is a technological twist on brewers’ centuries-old tweaks: Porters and stouts have long been seasoned in oak barrels, while Hefeweizens and Belgian ales are often re-fermented with additional doses of yeast. These flavors can be subtle and nuanced, but not so the tastes of bourbon ball candy and fresh mint. They’ve transformed the IPA into an ersatz mint julep. Several mint leaves tossed on top provide an herbaceous nose, but the flavored beer is almost oppressively sweet.

“The beer washes the sugar directly into the beer,” Jestice explains.

It’s difficult to drink a full glass, so I switch to the lemongrass-infused Simple Thai. The citrusy herb counteracts the hops, resulting in an almost vegetal quaff. Sometimes the sum is not greater than the parts. Same goes for the Summer Fresco. The dried-melon-and-pineapple barely magnify the IPA’s fruity essence.

More successful is the Northern Winter. Pine and spruce tips imbue the beer with a Christmas-tree nose, and an evergreen-fresh flavor that’s a perfect accompaniment to the already piney IPA. However, my favorite is the Hoppy Giant. A strong dose of whole-leaf hops gives the IPA heady aromatics, resulting in a smooth, delicious flavor. It’s the difference between eating a beefsteak tomato and a farmers market heirloom.

“That’s what’s great about a Randall,” Jestice says. “It’s not meant to transform a beer. It amplifies beer’s natural flavors.”

Gut Instinct: Legs and Eggs

“Want to visit Montreal?” my friend Aaron emails.

“What’s the lure? Smoked meat and poutine?”

He points me to the Rental Car Rally site. I squeal like a piggie in mud. “I’m in,” I reply, my bad-idea bone piqued: In the RCR teams rent cars, then slalom through fog-shrouded country roads to Montreal. Liquor-soaked festivities ensue. Then hangovers are packed and teams motor home—all in 36 hours.

“Can we consume jerky and crazily caffeinated beverages?” I ask.

“We better.”

“Huzzah!”

Despite astronomic gas costs and carbon-footprint guilt, I’m a sucker for stupid road trips. Last summer I traveled across Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan’s bumpy wilds, collecting yak teeth and chomping camel kebabs. The Montreal trek would be similarly bizarre, with fewer rifle-wielding nomads.

We corral a leather sedan with a thumping sound system. Our team is rounded out by Meat-Purveyor Dave, Crazy Chris and Scientist Aaron. We dub ourselves the USA(holes), buy presidential masks and dress like Point Break’s bank-robbing criminals, except with short shorts cut to our butt cheeks.

“I’m Dick, baby,” I tell my girlfriend, modeling my smirking Cheney mask and abbreviated blue shorts.

“Please don’t get arrested or killed,” she says, sighing.

“Want to see my presidential aspirations?”

“Uh, no. Now remove your mask so I can kiss you good-bye.” I do. “Remember: I’m not bailing you out.”

“No worries, I’m an adult.”

“We’ll see,” she says, planting another peck on my pucker.

At midnight on the anointed day, our five-man team departs Queens in a hail of honking. Following behind are teams in minivans, a flame-painted jalopy and even a bumblebee-yellow Corvette. We aim north to Montreal, guided by dulcet-toned GPS instructions. Hours pass. Switchback roads are conquered. Deer are avoided. Men snore. Cops question us (“We’re on vacation!”). Hunger hits. It’s 6 a.m. at a sleepy Amsterdam, New York gas station. I bypass energy beverages like the syrupy Venom and glistening hot dogs in favor of pizza topped with yellow clumps and brown crumbles.

“What is that?” I query the cashier, flashing my bare-thigh assets.

“Breakfast pizza,” she says. “It’s got bacon, cheese, eggs and sausage—all the good things in life.”

“And people eat it?”

“This is our third pie today.”

“It’s 6 a.m.”

“It’s popular.”

I grab a slice—only $1.93—and bite. The omelet-like toppings relent to a thick, pillowy crust. Sausage and bacon play a greasy symphony on my tongue, before thudding into my belly like a cholesterol bomb.

“It tastes like a heart attack,” Scientist Aaron says, as we pile back into the car. Hours—and countless burps—later, baby-faced border guards welcome us into Canada. We speed to Montreal, eager to feed several kinds of hunger.

“It’s time for legs and eggs,” Dave says upon reaching a blackened-window bunker topped by a satellite dish: the diner christened Les Princesses Super Sexy. We discover upon removing our masks and entering that privacy is most important, because the waitresses wear birthday suits. I won’t reveal where pens and pads are stored.

“Gotta love topless waitresses and bottomless cups of coffee,” Chris quips, as we settle into a plastic-protected table and peruse egg-heavy menus. Nothing costs more than $10. Pro wrestling plays on TV. Bristly men solve crosswords and sip coffee, poured by semi-nude servers carefully keeping hot pots from delicate parts.

“Burns must be a serious job hazard,” I whisper to Chris, as our waitress—a brunette with chunky glasses, pierced lip and frilly, flimsy skirt—fills cups with steaming caffeine. It’s a restaurant scene repeated millions of times daily, just with less attire.

“Am I supposed to ogle?” he asks, his eyes cemented to the menu. The room, much to patrons’ delight, is nicely air conditioned.

“Maybe a little bit,” I say, ordering le camionneur. “The trucker” contains bacon, sausage, ham, potatoes, French toast, toast and three eggs.

“Over easy?” the weary waitress asks in French-accented English.

Does she mean herself or the eggs? I nod, perplexed. Les Princesses exists in limbo between irony and sincerity, a joke lacking a punch line. Is the focus on novelty? Cuisine? Cutting down on dry-cleaning bills?

It’s definitely not cuisine, we deduce, as our greasy breakfasts are delivered with a jiggly flourish. Fatty bacon, pinkie-size sausages, limp ham and shriveled potatoes join eggs far stiffer than anything in our pants. We dine in silence, enveloped by the awkward hush that descends upon sober men when faced with bare flesh. Without alcohol’s aid, we’re meek, confused mice.

“I was 13 years old the last time I was this perplexed by breasts,” I declare, as we depart the foreign eatery in search of bad ideas we can better comprehend.

Drunk of the Day: Is That a Gun Up His Butt?

Seriously, is someone pointing a gun at his rump? Weird, weird torture porn, I tell you. America, what’s happening?

Drunk of the Day: Where’r My Shoes?

Ah, yes. Nothing like getting so drunk that you’re as helpless as an infant. Are his pants coming on or off? I cannot tell by the beautiful belly flash.

Drunk of the Day: Gator Fun

Ahh, nothing like sweet alcohol to make you consider beastiality with an inanimate object.

Drunk of the Day: More Tongue

Because you. Just. Can’t. Have. Enough. Tongue. What is it about men, alcohol and homoeroticism? Maybe the Greeks had it right.

Gut Instinct: Kiel-ing Her Softly

There’s something genuinely appealing about smacking my sweetie with a length of processed pig.

“You’re really enjoying yourself, aren’t you?” my girlfriend asks. Much to the amusement of passing Greenpoint grandmas, I’m pummeling her patootie with paper-wrapped sausage.

“Other women would die to be smacked with three pounds of such delicious kielbasa,” I counter, spanking her rump once more—a love tap, if you may.

“Hitting my ass with meat will not make me give up vegetarianism.”

“A man can try, can’t he?”

“No.”

“Perhaps I just need a bigger kielbasa,” I say. Lord knows I could return to Steve’s Meat Market (104 Nassau Avenue betw. Leonard & Eckford Sts, 718-383-1780; B’klyn) and score a larger sausage. Since before Watergate, Steve’s has cranked out massive lengths of house-smoked, all-pork kielbasa. Unlike other surly Greenpoint butchers, Steve’s men are patient. They’re happy to decipher the dozen-odd kielbasas spelled with a jumble of z’s, c’s and the occasional w. My minutes-earlier experience was indicative of their demeanor.

“How can I help you, sir?” queries the white-capped butcher as I step to the counter. He’s wearing a red T-shirt emblazoned with kielbasa power. It features an egg-shaped sausage possessing skinny legs and bulging, ’roid-rage arms.

“Something for the grill,” I say, licking my wind-cracked lips.

He ponders the plastic pig on the counter and then grabs a couple coils of firm, lightly smoky and lusciously fatty podwawelska ($3.75 a pound). “This will cook juicy and crispy,” he says.

“The grill thanks you,” I say, cradling the waxy package like a newborn. Following the ass affair, my girlfriend and I bike to our pal Angela’s Williamsburg abode. She’s turning 30. To celebrate, the ex-cheerleader-turned-advertising vice president is hosting a block party behind the BQE. There’s beer, a booming sound system and a Hibachi.

“Can I be grill master?” I ask Angela, as excited as a politician near a prostitute. Short of devouring dumplings while receiving a hummer, nothing makes me giddier than grilling. Perhaps it’s control; being responsible for folks’ feeding is as intoxicating as the scent of sizzling flesh. However, I chalk it up to the madeleine effect: Grilling transports me to my greasy Ohio childhood.

After my elementary school’s final bell rang, I’d hustle home and fire up the family gas grill—my urges were fueled by equal parts pyromania and hunger. My chosen meal was a snappy Hebrew National frank or a homemade hamburger patty. Each hot bite brought me a happiness I’d be hard-pressed to match until I discovered beer.

Angela understands my grill glee. “Fire it up,” she says, pointing me toward charcoal. I stack a pitch-black pyramid and toss a lit match. Flames relent to a measured burn. In celebration I crack a creamy and hoppy Bell’s Two-Hearted Ale. Because the Michigan brewery doesn’t distribute to New York, I demand any visiting Midwestern friends bring me a six-pack or, if they care to crash on my couch instead of the unmopped floor, a case. My last visitors wisely bequeathed a case.

“Are you OK?” my girlfriend asks, checking on me.

“Am I doing OK? It’s meat time,” I say, grinning toothily. I bend the kielbasa into a smiley face and hoist it to mine. She covers her ass and shuffles away, shaking her head and likely wondering: What past-life crime did I commit to deserve him?

Free of womanly influence, I spend several hours tending the glowing grill. With a scientist’s locked-in focus, I cook kielbasa, burgers and hot dogs to charred perfection. Partygoers rush over, hands grabbing, mouths chewing. Soon, bellies are ballooned. Coals have cooled. It’s time for dessert: cans of Coors Light and cornhole. This does not entail group sodomy, an act for which I’ve never developed a knack. Cornhole is a Midwestern leisure sport. Two raised platforms containing a circular hole are set 33 feet apart. Participants take turns trying to toss square beanbags into the hole.

“It’s more of an excuse to drink,” I explain to my girlfriend, like tailgating or days of the week ending in Y.

“And you’ve played cornhole?’ my girlfriend asks, as incredulous as if I said I wrestled raccoons.

“Do dogs like to hump legs?”

“The more I learn about you and Ohio, the less I understand,” my girlfriend says.

“We’re both a four-letter word for a good reason,” I say, grabbing a fistful of beanbags and tossing them high into the air, aiming for that dark, shallow hole.

Drunk of the Day: Closer…Closer…I’m Almost Licking You!

Perhaps the spiky-haired lad has mistaken his pal for a lollipop. It happens all the time. Trust me.

Drunk of the Day: Ride My Devil Horns

This picture hails from New Jersey. That will explain everything nicely.

We Need a Hero

Who’s hungry for heroes? Yum times, y’all. To read about my picks for NYC’s best breaded wonders, lookie loo over here. Huzzah!

Drunk of the Day: Nerdz!

Alcohol knows no boundaries. It gives teh nerdz lots of pleasure too. Wait—is that a frozen chicken on the counter?