Guest Post: The Drunkest Ballplayers of All Time

[special treat today: a guest post from my good buddy over at The Desk of Solomon Kelly. Dude writes an absolutely wonderful sports blog and he sent over a post that's thematically appropriate with what he do here (make awful decisions). Enjoy!]

I've been a fan of the Gutrotter since its inception. I think it's a goddamn brilliant idea - and the fact that it must one day end is bittersweet (that my boy might be able to live to thirty is definitely a "pro").

Today I bring you a shiny new entry in my site's continuing Profiles in Not Giving a Fuck series. Tighten your sporting boots, pull up your stockings, wax your mustache and rescind upon a woman's right to vote because this one is all about the Deadball Era of baseball.

MIKE "KING" KELLY 


"It is literally astounding, how few fucks I am inclined to offer on the matter."

King Kelly had fine-tuned his skills as a World Class Hellraiser in Chicago and didn't miss a beat setting up shop in his new home upon being sold to Boston for a then-unheard of $10,000. Despite four recorded instances in which he managed to steal bases by darting across the infield while the umpire was distracted, Kelly was a great player - ultimately, he was as good at base running as he was at drinking.

And he was very, very good at drinking. 

Kelly's habit was, understandably, the stuff of legends. Some of which seem pretty damn plausible, all things considered (like the one where he brought a mug of beer with him onto the field) - but the actual, factual historical record is just so much better. Once, Boston's League Director himself had to pay a $200 bar tab for his star player's adventures from the night before. The same day, he gets forwarded another one, for another $200 - same night, different bar. In today's currency, that's right about $3,000 apiece.

Yes, yes of course he was Irish. Just bringing home the stereotype, there's the fact that at his wake, "Nothing is Too Good for the Irish" and "Poor Mick" were sung.

Basically, this.

WALTER "RABBIT" MARANVILLE

Rabbit Maranville is like this close to being baseball's Patch Adams. Except for the fact that, goofy hat trick aside, dude had an especially dark sense of humor and an insatiable thirst for the cheap stuff.

He once got hammered and, for shits and giggles, staged a murder in his hotel room - complete with gunshots. After screaming and wailing and breaking shit for a few minutes, he stopped, cooly walked by the terrified throng of people amassed outside his door in the hallway, saying only "Hiya fellas!" along the way.

So dude was like... Nega-Patch Adams.

BOB "FATS" FOTHERGILL

When the New York Yankees' Leo Durocher first laid eyes on Fothergill, the man they called Fats was digging in at the plate. Durocher called for a time out and made the spectacle of running down from the outfield to the umpire to protest. He yelped "Both those men can't bat at once!" When the inning was up, Fothergill chased Durocher into the Yankees dugout and proceeded to beat him down.

He drank hard and lived hard. Legend has it that he once beat Babe Ruth in a drinking contest which is an awful lot like beating Babe Ruth in a whore-mongering contest. Fats also bit an umpire on the hand once, likely mistaking the man for bacon. He ordered steaks by the pallet and was legally classified as a moon. His blood type was "ham".


PAUL "BIG POISON" WANER

It's as though Paul "Big Poison" Waner looked back into the past out at the legacies of great ballplaying drinkers like King Kelly and, having already been shitfaced to begin with, pissed all over their shoes.

TheDeadballEra.com cites Waner as having "the sharpest bloodshot eyes in baseball" and the legendary Casey Stengel once said of him,

"He had to be a very graceful player because he could slide without breaking the bottle in his hip."

LEWIS "HACK" WILSON

Hack Wilson was built like Mr. Incredible after he stopped fighting crime.

He weighed 195 pounds and stood only... holy shit, really? 5'6"! Oh my God, that's the best thing I've ever heard. Hack drank, he fought and he played baseball. That was this dude's life. Rumors that he also gave a fuck have since proved to be false.

Before playing ball for a living, Hack dropped out of the sixth grade and made $4 a week swinging a sledgehammer. Then his big break came and, ultimately playing with the Cubs, Hack put up simply outstanding numbers. He was also arrested in his first year in Chicago at a speak-easy while trying to escape through a back window. Ostensibly, having gotten stuck like Winnie the Pooh, kicking his teeny tiny little legs in the air.

In 1928, he climbed into the grandstands to fight a heckler. In the ensuing chaos, about five thousand people rushed the field. He fought opposing players on the field (like when he walked into the Reds' dugout and pummeled Ray Kolp) as well as off the field (like Pete Donohue, whom he felled at a train station). He was traded only when he fought a pack of reporters.

The year he quit drinking, his batting average actually went down substantially. Then he hopped right the fuck back off the wagon in 1930 and managed to hit fifty six home runs and maintain a batting average of .356. He was voted MVP that season by the Baseball Writers Association of America.

New and Unimproved Four Loko (Red Dye Flavor)

First off, wanted to let my readers here know that I'm writing a new blog over at triumphlit.blogspot.com on literature-- similar attitude, slightly different style, but if you dig me here then check it out.

Welp, Four Loko is back in stores now that they've taken the caffeine out, so college kids are gonna have to go back to just crushing Adderal into vodka for their buzz and I have an excuse to review it again. This time I picked the "fruit punch"--or, as the other side of the label warns, FD&C Red #40-- and thought I'd see if it was just as bad as it was before the retool and remarketing.

"We're thinkin' 'Cyclone Beta!'"

By the way, Karim--who's a chemist-- did some research and found out that the red dye in this drink is made from petroleum. Which is an improvement on its original basis: coal tar. Also, there is a correlation between drinking it and being stupid (that's not a joke, that's actually on its wikipedia page). It's also banned in most of Scandinavia. And look, people say a lot of things about how Scandinavia's a nanny state and don't like freedom, but you can get away with a lot of shit in Scandinavia.

Stabbed a dude 26 times in the skull. Spent 12 years in prison. Less evil than FD&C Red #40.

LOOK
It's actually not red--it's pink. It's very much the color of a watermelon Jolly Rancher--the completely artificial, not-appearing-in-nature-fucking-anywhere pink. There's honestly not a lot I can say here beyond that. I'm a believer that booze should really only be the color of grains, wood, or natural plant matter that goes into making it, and the fact that this candy-colored (the candy-colored fail they call the Loko) speaks volumes against it. Loko just shouldn't be, and if you look at it (which, to be honest, requires drinking it out of a glass, which I can't see any reason to do) it instantly becomes apparent that its only goal is to get you drunk while treating you like a child.

I will do anything for a Gary Glitter joke.

God, how did people never figure out what the hell Gary Glitter was? The man looked like a mascot for a sodomy-themed polo team.

NOSE
The aroma's strange here. It smells like children's fruit soda and watermelon candy, but it also smells like really skunky, stale malt liquor. It doesn't smell like the two mixed together, but somehow simultaneously both, separately. It's a weird Schrodinger thing where it is both candy-juice and hobo-drank and somehow completely both at the same time. which is, honestly, a pretty accurate prediction of what the drink is. It's multiple things at once, and they're all terrible in unique ways that reveal the sins of all those who consume it.

Have I told you about the Alien God Hivemind today?

TASTE (STRAIGHT)
Don't take a really big gulp. Don't, for the love of God, swish it around like it was fancy wine. Don't hold it in your mouth, and don't let it get warm.

There is a deep and ancient evil in the core of Four Loko, and all of these things make it bubble to the surface and then claw into your body. The candy sweetness disappears really quickly and there's this spoiled, poisonous bitter flavor like biting into a block of soap. And then it makes you feel ill, not from the bitterness, but from that cold and isolated feeling a wormwood high give you. William Vollmann said that the best thing about absinthe is that it severs the cord that connects the soul to the body and lets you observe yourself in a slow chilled void while still being present. That's here slightly, only you're just disappointed in yourself and you just wanna run away from a body that is increasingly full of Four Loko.

"I asked if he knew how to knife fight and he said, 'have you ever met a gypsy who did not?'"

The lack of caffeine does hurt it here--I remember the last can as being bad, but more fun. The caffeine counteracts that tired sick slowness--which isn't a bad feeling brought about by something tasty, but is godawful here--and you feel lethargic and a little fevery and anaesthetic.

TASTE (MIXED)
We made a Four Loko cocktail. We named it the Chernobyl (after the Ukrainian word for wormwood), used sweet vermouth (which used to have wormwood in it, hence vermut), and our old strange Croatian friend Pelinkovac, the cinammon-y wormwood liqueur. If I had absinthe I'd throw it in there too, but let's see how this works with a little lemon, brown sugar and Peychaud's Bitters.

Well, it looks like Cherry Coke mixed with spit, but it doesn't taste bad. You should never ever make a Four Loko cocktail, but this actually worked. The Pelinkovac's spices added some depth to counterbalance the candy flavor, the vermouth helped to nullify the skunky beer flavor, and the lemon and brown sugar counterbalance the wormwood. Still though, I'd rather taste the ingredients in their own drink, without the Loko around, but if you need to drink Four Loko (like need, like Hans Gruber is holding your family hostage unless you drink it and you're too much of a pussy to stop him), this'll choke it back.

"I'm going to count to Four Loko. There will not be a Five Loko."

For real wormoody flavor we would have used Malort. But seriously, I don't want to drink Malort ever again.

We then decided to make a Loko Sidecar--substituting the awful for the Cointreau--because we're scholars goddamnit. This, was, well...we renamed it the creeping horror. The brandy isn't sweet enough to negate the bitterness and the lemon doesn't counteract the candy flavor. The whole thing tastes really bitter and not refreshing in the least. I'm just puckered and sick-feeling now. It just makes everything worse, and marks one of the only times I've just disgustedly thrown the remnants of a glass into the sink.Thanks Brandy. Thanks Four Loko.

YAH WELCOME JASPAH.

FINAL THOUGHTS
Welp, they should have left caffeine in. The buzz here is just awful-- slow and unfeeling and the sense of wet steam. What Tom Waits described as "ragwater, bitters, and the ruin." Don't drink Four Loko. I mean, if you're at a party and crazy and a goddam hipster, knock yourself the fuck out, but don't drink it if you wanna have a good quiet evening.

FUCK FOUR LOKO.

The American Vodka

So I was feeling really shitty earlier today--no particular reason, just y'know, brain problems. Probably from all the Thunderbird--and I was driving around town blasting the Moon Colony Bloodbath EP to get my head in the right place. And then I found myself in the vicinity of the town's big nice ABC store, which is also the same place I got Pelinkovac, one of the weirdest and most out-of-place things I've ever reviewed.

And there it was. It was cheaper than Five O' Clock, at like five bucks for a 750 ml bottle--making it twice as alcoholic as and only 50% more expensive than Thunderbird. It had a bizarre, ambiguous name that didn't make any sense. And that label:

LET THE EAGLE SOOOOAAAAR

(I feel kinda dirty now-- lemme wash that out). Oh, can I just mention that, of course of course, this was distilled and bottled in Bardstown Kentucky? Yes, it was. Jesus that place is like the Mordor of booze.

LOOK
It's clear. 

BOTTLE
First, I wanna say that I don't know if I love that label or fucking hate it. I mean, yes it's really cheesy, but (although you can't see it in that photo), the silver and red on the crest are both reflective. And it's in bas-relief. Plus the fact that the banner in the Eagle's claws says "Quality and Integrity" is fucking hilarious.The colors are mis-aligned though, so they can't print their kickass logo right.

Gonna ride a big truck / gonna kick some ass / gonna kick some ass in the USA.

I also really hate the name. Americans can make good vodka. We can make fucking amazing vodka-- Tito's holds its own against anything. That's The American Vodka. This is only representative of America around 1799, when our navy was twenty ships and our president so depressed he just left town in the middle of the night.

The bottle also has a huge, obvious seam in the glass and-- is that a fucking bubble? There's a bubble in the glass. Way to go guys.

NOSE
Well, I'll hand The American Vodka this-- it doesn't smell sugary or industrial like a lot of the vodkas I've reviewed. It doesn't smell like much of anything.

Oh, apart from the alcohol of course. That's there. Is it ever. TAV makes up for not having any real aroma by smelling roughly like 100% alcohol. Just taking a strong huff makes me woozy and tingly.

Looks like I picked the wrong fucking vodka.

TASTE (STRAIGHT)
 There is...there is something definitely weird going on here. There's a little sweetness, and a lot of chemical flavor, but there's some other thing going on. Like America, its true core is elusive. There's... it's a little bit like broccoli? I think?

It's kind of...creamy, I guess. A little buttery. Like a broccoli-croissant sandwich, which actually sounds delicious, but not in alcohol form. Putting on ice lessens the burn and brings that more to the forefront, but it also makes this weird bitter note more apparent. Like...spoiled milk, I think.

I'm not gonna lie, this shit is weird as hell.

"Weird like the Polish."

It doesn't taste like vodka, to be honest. It's too tart, too creamy, too herbal. It tastes like some new kind of liquor which no one ever invented because buttered-sprouts-with-lemon-aquavit is a godawful idea. I don't even know what's going on here, but it does taste vaguely like milk and vegetables. So...healthy?

TASTE (MIXED)
My girlfriend got me a nice martini shaker with recipes engraved on it for Christmas. She only just got it to me recently, because that's how she rolls, but hey. It's a good gift, and she knows me well. And I just fuckin' defiled it to see how this would taste with lime.

What I did.

Well, lime, brown sugar, splash of water. It's supposed to be a great mixology secret for how to make anything drinkable (also how to make a caipirinha), but man, it just does not work here. The lime mostly covers up The American Vodka's flavor, but what remains (namely, the creaminess) is just awful alongside the lime. It's like Thucydides's theory about the Peloponnesian War (later applied by Cold War historians)-- in any conflict in which the winning side has two powerful, yet opposed forces (Athens and Sparta, USA and USSR, lime and creamy vodka), they will restructure the world and instantly be in conflict as soon as the reason for their alliance is defeated.

Thucydides, more like Thu-bitch-y-please.

FINAL THOUGHTS
The American Vodka, like America, is pretty unique. But it's also like Howard Zinn's America, in that it's pretty shitty. Honestly though, for its price, you could do a lot worse. It's probably the best non-flavored vodka I've reviewed. Although I don't know. I think the flavor might be...Eldritch?

Or maybe freedom.

Mogen David Blackberry

This is it, people. I didn't even know they still made this. But I turned a corner in the grocery and there it was.

Mogen David wine.

This is an important thing. Mogen David went on to become MD 20/20, but when it was this it was just kosher table wine. Kosher table wine that became well-known for sweetness and cheapness. And so became popular among poor folk. And so it became hobo-wine, back in the 30s and 40s.

This is the first bumwine. This is where it all began. This is the prequel to the legacy this entire blog lives to uphold-- or, well, experience. You have no idea what a treat this is for me: the label says that it's America's Classic Wine and in a way, it's right. Mogen David-- there's a legacy here and I'm so proud to bring it to you. Now let's see if it's as awful as its children.

As I Lay Dying is a hell of a book.

I should point out this actually our second bottle-- the first slipped out of the back and shattered on the sidewalk. The beer and scotch did not, and they hit it just as hard. I guess they just wanted to live more. Gee, I wonder why.

LOOK
It looks a faaaaair bit like red wine, but not exactly. Like a lot of the MD brand, it seems close, but just a little off from how wine should. It's the uncanny valley effect, but applied to alcohol. We are most repulsed by something that seems not different, but wrong.

Man, what about Heavy Rain isn't creepy and off-putting? Well, except for the things that try to be.

There's a more purpley tinge here, which I think is because it's supposed to blackberry. But it still looks like it should be red wine. It's halfway between the two, and so, y;know, failure. So I guess it definitely fits into that part of its legacy well. Congrats Mogen David. You do not disappoint as far as disappointing utterly goes.

NOSE
Not at all like wine. It smells really sweet, but there's no bitterness or acridity to the scent, which would normally be good. But wine's supposed to have a tinge or sourness to it, which is completely lacking from this. There's a really strong beer flavor to the odor, which I suspect is mostly the aroma of yeast. It does smell a little vegetative though, or a little fruity. Like sweet potatoes, I guess. What I'm saying is that this blackberry wine smells like neither blackberries nor wine.Yet another in the series of curious failures that make up Mogen David.

This is a Heaven's Gate joke.

TASTE (STRAIGHT)
 I can safely say that the creation of the first batch of Mogen David in 1933 was, while the definitive lowpoint, certainly a lowpoint of the Jewish community in 1933.

The Gutrotter welcomes its first celebrity follower.

It doesn't taste outright unpleasant, actually. It's definitely drinkable. But it mostly tastes like a generic "fruit" flavor. Not grapes, not blackberry. Like just, if you fermented generic "fruit juice," into not-very-good kosher table wine. (How do you make wine not kosher? Do you drain the juice out of the grapes inhumanely? Do you get horses to stamp it down? Do you have the juice agitated by shrimp?)

It doesn't taste wretched-- it's about twice as good as MD 20/20 but it's also only half as alcoholic. And let's face it, you're not spending 3.50 on wine so you can savor it.

Also, there's something vaguely eggy to it. So make of that what you will. What I make of it is a  flashing sign saying WHAT THE FUCK?

TASTE (MIXED)
The back of the bottle suggests mixing it with something, and what we have is orange juice. Normally we would call this a screwdriver. But that's the name of a neo-nazi punk band and this is Kosher wine, so we're gonna call it a Jewdriver. And well, sorry jews because I think we just did the neo-nazis a favor on this one because it tastes bad.

Ya...ya just say bingo.

Mixing with orange juice just amplifies the generic fruit flavors, but it doesn't really change the wine that much. It tastes almost the same, just watered down and, well, bitter. Really, driving down to the cold hard core of the fact, this is what makes it even bumwine-ier. You can't hide it or bury it. It is Mogen David. Like the people it was made for, it endures and continues, it inspires an entire culture. Only, y'know, the equivalent here is Woody Allen marrying his daughter.

FINAL THOUGHTS
I just wanna say I'm proud of keeping the Jew jokes to a minimum here. That's why I've never reviewed Manischevitz: I don't trust myself. Also my friend Emma drank like half this bottle. What the fuck is wrong with her.

Burnett's Sweet Tea Vodka

Well, before we tear into the meat of this review (the meat is awful-- I think it might be people), a bit of housekeeping.

1. Gutrotter's gonna be on a more sporadic schedule from now on. I'm not living with a roommate anymore, so there's a lot less potential for fun times when I'm drinking terrible things and these reviews are a lot sadder when I'm just in my room drinking and listening to the Mountain Goats version of "The Boys Are Back in Town."

Mostly I just spend my time making these.

2. I've got another review coming tomorrow night as well. This is in part to make up for a lack of activity and in part because I found...well I found something. I don't wanna tell you what it is. It was one of those magical moments when I discover something I didn't even know existed but can tell you with 100% certainty is going to be absolutely god-awful. Like when you first learn there's a country named Uzbekistan and you don't even need to see pictures to know it's sad.

3. I've mentioned this to a couple people in person, but the Gutrotter's shutting down in a few months' time, after I graduate. There a few reasons for this. Once I'm out of college I can't keep doing this to my body guiltlessly, I wanna finish up on a high note instead of dragging the blog on after I've run out of things to say, and, finally, I'm actually starting to straight run out of things I can easily get my hands on that would be fun to review. I'm gonna try and have a big blowout for the last post and round up the worst offenders for people to sample, and when all this is over I'm definitely gonna put all the reviews into an e-book or something with introductions and commentary. But we got a few months before then, so let's buckle down.

Man, writing all that made me feel like a real journalist. (That's a very young Hunter Thompson, by the way).

Some friends recently were partying, and there was a bottle of this vodka there. This sweet tea vodka. And, despite the fact that it was mostly empty by the time it passed into my hands, there was apparently a unanimous agreement that I had to try it (I was not there. I was watching Robocop). This is never, ever, a good sign-- my friends aren't exactly snobs about alcohol, so when there is unanimous agreement among people that I need to do an article it ends badly. This also happened with Johnny Bootlegger. And, these are the same people that I have, repeatedly, coerced into drinking banana liqueur, Thunderbird, and Kentucky Gentleman. I wouldn't blame them for having it out for me.

LOOK
I don't  even know why I'm bothering with this section. For starters, it's vodka-- I know it's flavored, but if your vodka has color fuck you I'm not drinking your vodka. But it does have color-- except that the back label says "caramel color added." So fuck it, just... just fuck it. There is literally nothing this section could contribute to the review, so have a couple illustrations I've wanted to use but never found a place for:

You're welcome. Seriously, you have no idea how frustrating it's been not being able to use those, they're both so wonderful. I guess the top one would have been good in my Old Mill Stream / Sonic Underground review but hey, as Samuel Beckett would say, Worstward Ho!

No no no, Samuel Beckett.

NOSE
Well, it does smell kinda like sweet tea. I can go back-and-forth on sweet tea: sometimes it's really what I'm in the mood for (especially when half of it is lemonade. Or rum), but other times when it's not made well it tastes like pancake syrup.

I do not go back-and-forth on the way this smells. It smells like sugar mostly. And a little tea. But not, y'know, Russian tea. Just like, hotel-brand breakfast tea. Also what the fucking fuck according to the label it was made in Bardstown KY?! Fuck you Bardstown, and fuck Riva, Kentucky Gentleman, Mill Stream, and everything else that oozes out of you. I'm tempted to just do a review of Bardstown (in terza rima, 33 cantos), but, as Samuel Beckett once said, it's never the same pus from moment to moment.

God damn it, I'm talking about the Irish one.

Anyway this smells like bad sweet tea and bad vodka, which I imagine makes it pretty much the best representative of the glorious culture of Bardstown. Also, can I just not that the label for this bottle has like, five tea leaves and giant fucking pile of sugar on it? Yeah, they know how their flavors are balanced.

TASTE (STRAIGHT)
Fuck, it's so much worse than I thought it would be. Now I know how the president felt in 2007. Jesus.

It doesn't taste like bad sweet tea. It tastes like bad vodka and sugar. Not even good sugar. It tastes like a couple packets of sweet 'n' low in a bottle of Riva. There's a little bit of what might be tea there, but, here, lemme take another taste-- no, no it mostly tastes like coffee grounds and sugar.

Fuck, I gotta stop making David Lynch jokes. I promise, more Alejandro Jodorowsky jokes in the future.

There's a real bitterness in it too, despite how sugary it is. Like, after drinking some I really want a big glass of water. It's the same effect as if you leave tea steeping too long, which just drives home the fact that this doesn't just taste like bad tea, it tastes like bad tea made badly. Mixed with bad vodka and bad sugar. There's layers upon layers of incompetence here, all influencing each other. It's like if instead of being a surrealist, Max Ernst was just all-around shitty.

It's called culture.

Like, no one thing about this is god-awful. But they blend together perfectly, interlocking into sort of a buckyball, but instead of carbon, it's... actually, it does legitimately taste kinda burnt. Somehow.

TASTE (MIXED)
I poured some Triple Sec in the bottle. It dilutes the bad flavors and replaces them with orange. All in all, this is a more bearable, slightly less alcoholic way to get this shit into your body.

  FINAL THOUGHTS
Don't drink this shit. Get some mediocre vodka and get a jug of sweet tea. It will be cheaper and better.

Don't do that either.

E&J "Temptation" Cream Liqueur

You know what E&J stands for? Ernest and Julio. "But Jasper," you ask? "Who are Ernest and Julio? Are they brothers? They sound like brothers. Do they go and have adventures together? They're like Mario and Luigi, right? Adventurous Italian brothers who love each other?"

Ernest and Julio Gallo.

So, you know, their adventures are really more on par with these brothers.
Oh, uh, spoiler warning for those of you reading this from 2005.

I have a history with Gallo, in the way that Eastern Europe has a history with Kalashnikovs. Thunderbird. Night Train. Their execrable vermouth. Gallo are people who don't fuck around in the game of putting disgusting things in my body. Ernest and Julio Gallo started making wine because there wasn't a market for the tears of infants. The proper cheese to accompany Gallo wine is something a step below Kraft singles individually shrink-wrapped American. They make the perfect thing for sitting at home, opening a bottle by yourself and having a quiet night in, when that home is a refrigerator box and it's quiet because Cat-eye Dave put a screwdriver in your ears because you thought his pressed tinfoil collection was trash.

So let's see how they do with their thing-that-should-be-a-bottle-of-Bailey's.

LOOK
It looks like non-dairy creamer, which, let's be honest, is probably what it's made with. Come to think of it, I wonder how veganism looks on cream liqueur like this. Well, I mean, hopefully they frown on this specific brand, but I don't know-- vegans keep buying shit from American Apparel too, and if massive sponsorship of anti-gay groups won't turn 'em off of something I doubt knowing that the forces behind Thunderbird profit from it would.

The other 90% of your brain is curds and whey.

It's a lot lighter than Bailey's is. Instead of looking like a blend of whiskey and cream, it's more of a sort of gray milk. It's just kinda gross-looking: rather than like a thing-within-itself (hey there Kant!), it looks like a spoiled version of something else.

NOSE
What the fuck this smells like grape soda. Like, almost exactly. Now, this might be expected because I think it has brandy in it and brandy is made of grapes, but it doesn't smell like grapes, it smells like grape soda. With a lot of the weird hiccups and deformities of the things I review, it's a matter of deficiencies or deliberate cost-cutting measures. But the only explanation for this is that Gallo was producing some kind of industrial grape-related runoff from the Thunderbird factory and, knowing that releasing it into the environment would be disastrous and reporting it to the government would have them erased by a wetworks team, they decided to mask it under the other flavors in a liqueur they thought no one would buy.

Pictured: Ernest Gallo, still alive due to his ability to feed off of pain.

Or it might just be the corn syrup and caramel that I'm sure this is loaded with. Both equally likely.

TASTE (Straight)
Well, at least the nose doesn't mislead. This pretty much tastes exactly like non-dairy creamer mixed with packets of artificial sugar. With a splash of alcohol in it. In other words, this is just a cocktail of what your basic office worker could put together between the communal supply in the fridge and the secret supply in the back of his desk.

It's a lot less charming when you wear a polo shirt and your charismatic speeches are passive-aggressive hints to Donna that you know she ate the cookies in your lunch.

There should be a special mention of how alcoholic it tastes, though-- it's only 15%, but taking a full shot of this is hard. In part it's because the flavors don't marry well, so the alcohol's sharpness really comes through unmitigated. And that sourness shouldn't really be in a cream liqueur at all. When I'm drinking a tall glass of milk, the last thing I wanna think is "mmmm...tangy."

TASTE (Mixed)
Well, I decided to make a Jack Torrance with it. Technically you're supposed to use advocaat, which has eggs in it, but technically you're not supposed to drink anything Gallo makes. So drop a dollop of rye whiskey into that glass of shitcreme and let's see how it goes down.

This is a fucking great idea, lemme tell you.

Eurgh. Worse than expected. It actually tastes legitimately spoiled, somehow. I thought it would just be like whiskey and cream, but no, this metastasized into a special kind of awful. I don't think it actually curdled anything, but the Temptation was already too sour and didn't have enough of a cream flavor to it, so when you combine it with a really sharp whiskey it tastes simultaneously milky and sour.

I'm just gonna throw the rest in the sink, because drinking it makes me taste kinda legitimately queasy. So this has failed conclusively at mixing, which cream liqueur should be able to do, since nobody wants a straight glass of that. Congrats, Gallo. You failed the easiest test on this blog harder than anything else I've reviewed. I honestly feel kinda sick now. I'm gonna get a cold glass of water. Fuck you Gallo, and why don't you hold on to that Fuck you for a while because you're gonna need anytime anyone drinks what you make.

FINAL THOUGHTS
Gallo, did it ever occur to you that people use the word temptation to refer to things they know they shouldn't touch?

Triumphant Return / Malort

Well will you look at that, I'm alive. Where ya been Jasper? Screw you I been busy. I got problems, and also I had a lot of final exams and then I was in Europe for three weeks. But I'm back, and I brought something special.

I had Gammel Dansk (Danish), Becherovka (Czech), Pineau des Charentes (Charentes region, France), Violette liqueur (Paris), scotch and cognac in their respective nations. It was all pretty good stuff, and I celebrated Hogmanny with a Scottish Nationalist.

And then I come back to America. To a Swedish drink only popular in Chicago, a sad town that may or may not exist. A drink that no normal human would ever enjoy drinking.

Yeah, I don't see how this disproves anything I said.

But I figured I'd make p for my absence with something special. Something that even the maker knows is infamous. The makers of it themselves say that:

"Most first-time drinkers of Jeppson Malort reject our liquor. Its strong, sharp taste is not for everyone. Our liquor is rugged and unrelenting (even brutal) to the palate. During almost 60 years of American distribution, we found only 1 out of 49 men will drink Jeppson Malort. During the lifetime of our founder, Carl Jeppson was apt to say, 'My Malort is produced for that unique group of drinkers who disdain light flavor or neutral spirits.'

It is not possible to forget our two-fisted liquor. The taste just lingers and lasts - seemingly forever. The first shot is hard to swallow! PERSERVERE [sic]. Make it past two 'shock-glasses' and with the third you could be ours...forever"

Jesus christ, fucking Sweden, what the fuck.

 And yes, as the copy-pasted note from Wikipedia points out, they did misspell that shit. And they're proud of the fact that only 2% of men would enjoy their vile brew. Meaning 1% of the general population-- slightly less than the percentage of the population who actively suffer from schizophrenia. You know. The lucky ones.

The people who drink Malort...they think they're sane. Only you and I know the truth, and we are mad as well.

Anyway. Malort is made from wormwood, which I'm no stranger to, but usually as an element of absinthe or pelinkovac or... four loko. But not by itself. This is the liquor equivalent of "I love a good curry...let's eat some curry powder out of a spoon." Only, you know, it tastes like "baby tears and gasoline". Which, let's be honest-- this was made for me. It is perfect for this blog. To be honest, I'm not sure there's anything I've wanted to drink more. But being perfect for me doesn't mean it's good.

Spoiler: this comic doesn't end well.

LOOK
 Kinda...beige. It looks a lot like original flavor listerine, or kinda like wood polish. But not the healthy brown that good wood-aged liquors have. Kind of sickly and phlegmy. It's not a color that food should naturally be, it's a color that appears vaguely spoiled. Like boiled millipedes. That's what Malort really should be-- some weird alchemical ingredient. Like "take an alcohol and wormwood solution and mix in equal parts with quicksilver and cod semen. Drink. You will see a man of silver who shall move the colors for you."

That last bit's not even made up. Isaac Newton believed that shit. AND NOW YOU BEEN EDUCATED LEMME GET THAT SWEET NPR MONEY.

NOSE
This smells the most legitimately poisonous out of anything I've had. A strong overlay of rubbing alcohol, with notes of paint thinner, acetone, and--for a bit of the more fruity flavor--model glue. It mostly just smells incredibly chemical. There's very little natural to this, which is weird as it's made from plants. In the same way that I suppose a sack of ants is natural. Hooooo boy. Not looking forward to this. Not one bit.

TASTE (STRAIGHT)
IT DOESN'T GO AWAY FUCK I HAD THAT SHOT LIKE TWO MINUTES AGO AND IT STILL LINGERS STRONGER THAN BEFORE.

 It is so much worse than I thought, my best unbeaten brothers. It tastes like awful vodka when it goes into your mouth and then as it goes away it gets worse. Incredibly bad vodka. Like, Riva bad. And then holy shit the aftertaste. It's incredibly bitter. And it hangs in the back of your throat exactly like bile. I know I've compared stuff to vomit before on this blog but I'm not even using metaphors here. It legitimately tastes like seasick bile on the back of my tongue, and like rubber on the front. Like bad meat and an angry robot who just grabs you by the hair and will not get its robochode off your gag reflex, cause it don't give a fuck about you, robot's horny tonight.

Like if you could liquify this and just suck the slurry out of a turkey baster.

 

Look, just look how miserable we were. Just look. You know whatever's in our mouth don't taste good.

That's your Gutrotter christmas card, right there. Malorty holidort.

I am told (TOLD, by someone else, not me, who only had a couple drops, and I cannot validate) that it tastes like chewing a used condom. I can see that. I can see it really--

Anyway, the organic, non-chemical burn flavor here tastes a lot like actual wood, like just chowing down on something you found in the woods. I'm reminded of a line from a poem, from the wonderfully bitter and clever Tony Hoagland:
"...with a wife whose lack of love for me
is like a lack of oxygen,
and this dead thing in my chest
that used to be my heart.

Oh, if he were alive, I would tell him, "Dad,
you were right! I ate a lot of stuff
far worse than bugs."

And I was eaten, I was eaten,
I was picked up
and chewed
and swallowed

down into the belly of the world."

That's right. Malort tastes like the pulp that comes out when you a crush a soul in the machinery of the modern life, like misery itself. I don't even need metaphors anymore, I and every other poet with an inheritance of depression and a drinking problem and a habit for hurting women can pack up because the swedes can make you feel it in your gut.

"Even--" Fuck off Billy you too.

 

 

TASTE (MIXED)
Yep, we're making a cocktail out of this. I figure, with the perseverance of the killer cracking open a Glade plugin to cover up the stink of his mother's body in the crawlspace, that it might help hide it. Inspired by a Malort-based cocktail called The Bukowski, I decided to create a similar concoction. It's not named after a Chicagoan, but after a writer who, like Bukowski, dealt with the everyday life and its impact on the soul, who was a working schlub with a deep dark heart of bitterness. And who screamed so much it damaged his throat, which seems only fitting (by the way, it's been like half an hour and the taste lingers like guilt). Ladies and gentlemen, say hi to the Pekar.

I collect bad experiences, Harv. I don't suggest you try it.

The Pekar
1.5 oz. Malort
1 oz. Drambuie
.5 oz Basil/Rosemary vodka

The vodka's homemade-- just soak a wad of basil leaves and a couple sprigs of rosemary in a mason jar with vodka for about a day, more if you want it stronger. I figure the herbs should complement each other and the honey in the drambuie should overpower the bitterness. And might I suggest going real heavy on the ice, and then getting someone else to drink it?

Welp, the Pekar is made and ready, let's see how it goes down.

Yum!

Fuck, it's like the bit at the end of a horror movie where you think they might get out and then the killer comes back and the harpoon they put in him just made him mad. Only Jamie Lee Curtis ain't getting out. Nothing stops Malort. You can't keep a bad taste down any more than you can your dinner after Malort.

See, the problem lies in underestimating my enemy here. The Drambuie, rosemary/basil, and the bad vodka flavor all marry fairly well-- in fact, I may have discovered a pretty winning combination in the Drambuie and herbal vodka, and I'd imagine they'd go well with some gin or especially genever. But they're both fairly light on aftertaste. You know, the worst part of the whole experience. It's like invading a country in a fairly turbulent, incredibly diverse region: you might defeat the army there pretty well, but good luck making a country out of it afterwards.

The aftertaste remains no matter how much delicious honey, rich scotch, and carefully made homemade liqueur I mix it with. Nothing dilutes it, nothing overwhelms it. It endures like time and the relentless march of entropy into a world that is cold, so cold, and so devoid of anything except the flavor of cold rubber and the struggle in the dark to keep my meal down.

Too late. Too late. Too late. Too late. Too lort. Ta lort. Malort.

FINAL THOUGHTS
If you ever have a chance to drink Malort, don't turn it down.  Yes, it's awful-- probably the worst thing I've ever tasted for this blog. It's miserable, it malicious, it's malorty. But it's incredibly unique, and it induces a disgust and horror I've never had from alcohol before. It's kind of like the raw cobra heart of liquor: is it tasty NO, is it actually good in any way NO, but should I have one WHY THE FUCK NOT. Yes, your mouth will taste like a tire fire for an hour afterwards, but hey, on the plus side...well, you get the experience of your mouth tasting like a tire fire.

And here at The Gutrotter, we hold that experience is worth it. Still holy fuck that was terrible fuck everyone who said I should do it.