True Story – small dead animals

Me, turning to the man waiting to pay behind me: “Raspberry rum”
Man: “?”
Me, gazing down at the label: “You have such wonderful liquor stores in America….”
Man: “Where are you from?”
Me: “Saskatchewan.”
Man: “Oh, in Canada”.
Me: “Yeah. Where I come from our socialist government owns the liquor stores”.
Man: “Really?”
Me: “They make us line up to buy bread flavoured rum“.

64 Replies to “True Story”

A few years back my Dad and I were returning from B.C. to Alberta after purchasing a fishing boat. On our return we had to stop in kamloops for the night. We stopped in a small town along Hwy #1 cant recall the town. But they had one government liquor store… no cold beer, just warm stuff on the floor. When we crossed the border back into Alberta and passed Jasper, travelled through Hinton, the first 2 stores seen were a private liqour store with a gun shop right next door. God bless Alberta.

An oldie but a goodie that may apply: “There’s something about an aqua-velva man….”
Our small-town store had a list of who wasn’t allowed to buy scope or lysol.

2 ice cubes. Check.
Enough Vodka to cover. Check.
Enough Kahlua to colour. Check.
The makings of a Black Russian…a sipping drink to take the frost out of a frozen Canadian’s bones.

I don’t know if the government owning liquour stores is the issue here. Compare any private Canadian shop to an American one and you will see a large difference in range of choice and overall quality. Canadian consumers are easy to please. We like poor quality stuff, even though – in a purely value-for-money sense, we are overpaying for most of it.
It applies to your rice, cookies, chips, sodas. Why shouldn’t it apply to liquor? We’re just a small market aimed at appeasing oligopolies. In the US, companies compete to bring prices down. In Canada, companies collude to see how much more they can fleece out of consumers. An Air Canada ticket from the US West Coast, passing through a Canadian city, to Europe, costs less than an Air Canada ticket from the Canadian city to Europe. Its all about competition. We don’t like that word up here. The Harper government is blocking access to foreign airlines because they might hurt Air Canada’s market share. If you want a crap product, but a happily employed neighbour, Canada is for you.
And no, I’m not holding my breath to see Harper change it all. This Tory government actually overruled the Canadian Radio and Telecommunications Commission’s call for breaking Bell Canada’s monopoly on wires. Instead of encouraging competition by giving other firms access to the infrastructure, they have allowed Bell to keep control of infrastructure that was built using profits it gained through a government-granted monopoly. The end result: Canada has some of the highest internet rates and the worst value-for-money products in telecommunications in the OECD.
And you’re complaining about Rum, Kate? Try just about everything else in this country. The Socialists have the redeeming virtue of doing exacty what they say they will do. This brand of Harper Tories say one thing, and then promptly imitate the left. And their supporters – the ‘smart’ ones – buy it unquestioningly.

“Pickle juice and vodka” how urbane.
Pickle juice and home brew, that’s how you do it, after a couple of drinks you forgot to worry about whether or not the brewmaster condensed his product in a lead soldered radiator.
When the local supply of home brew dried up, Everclear became the poison of choice.

Anybody heard of Crystal Head Vodka?
Available in just about any liquor store…except in Ontario.
It’s a “special order” only product.
The crystal skull motif was deemed thus by our betters at the LCBO.
“The image of the human skull is the thing that’s really problematic for us. That’s an image that’s commonly associated with death. It’s especially problematic at a time when there are concerns around binge drinking by younger adults, which in some cases unfortunately has resulted in alcohol poisoning.”
F*ckers.
Stupid F*ckers.
No! God-DAMN Stupid Mother-F*ckers.
DaWG
A resident of America’s Hat©

Here in Washington state, all hard liquor must be bought at state-owned liquor stores. (You can buy wine and beer at supermarkets.) We may get rid of them, through voter’s initiatives this fall.
When I lived in Pennsylvania, everything alcoholic except beer had to be bought in state-owned stores.
(The rules for beer were complicated; you could buy it in small quantities at taverns and such, but larger amounts had to bought at “beer distributors”. You could get around that part of the law by making a series of small purchases, and taking the beer out to your car after each.)

Well, thanks for bringing up memories of cheap booze in Texas and depressing me. I will say though, here in Nova Scotia the guvm’t stores actually have a half decent selection of a lot of booze although, tequila selection is thin, the prices can make you cry, and most of the imported beer is European, they have finally brought in Dos Equis, rum selection is good and they are open late and on Sundays. Now if they could only get some Aussie beer here…
On the subject of flavouring yer booze, I am not a fan. I want lemon in my martini I add lemon or lemon liqueur. Lets just hope no Blue Noser decides to make lobster vodka.
Stay thirsty, my friends.

Lobster vodka, with a hint of butter!
Yum!

Now if we can just have some real genius brewmaster whip up some Grade ‘A’ Alberta Beef mixed with some of that Lobster Vodka, we could have an awesome Canadian drink, “Surf and Turf”.

Ahhh, Takka Vodka and Zing-Zang, throw in some pickled asparagus, stringbeans and celery hearts, with a dash of lemon-salt. You can also cut up cucumbers in circles and throw a couple in the bottom of the glass before adding ice.
Makes a great winding down drink.
.

To The Glengarrian at 9:46:
We know you drink Black Russians when the weather is hot too. I’ve seen the poor guy with the round baler, trying to navigate your serpentine windrows of hay.