While stocking up on drinks for the super bowl tomorrow, I tried to find some variants of Hard Cider. My first stop was a local food & liquor shop. They had your run-of-the-mill alcoholic beverages, nothing too fancy, but a good selection.
While there I picked up a 6 pack of Guinness Draught. This is something I had never seen before since I’m not really a big drinker. Basically, it’s got something called a “Rocket Widget” in the bottle:
The patented ‘Rocket Widget’ capsule has been specifically designed for this bottle. When the bottle is opened, the capsule creates a surge inside the bottle, releasing nitrogen and carbon dioxide. This creates the famous creamy head that you find on Guinness draught served in a pint.
I admit, after taking a swig from the bottle, there was definitely a creamy head that was a little bitter and sweet at the same time. Very nice…
I also picked up a 6 pack of Mike’s Hard Lemonade, Berry flavor. I’m usually a fan of Cranberry Lemonade but I hadn’t seen the Berry before so thought I’d give it a try. Looked around for any versions of hard cider (Hardcore, Woodchuck, etc) but nada.
I decided to make one more stop to a new liquor store that opened up in the neighborhood. After walking in, I was confronted with crazy liquors from all over the world. They had stuff from russia, mexico, chile, argentina, etc.. In the front, they had this little table with opened bottles for ‘test tasting’.
The owner asked me if I like wine and I told him sure, even though I don’t really drink wine nor know anything about wine. He asked if I liked sweet wine and I nodded. He then opened up a bit of this german white wine and gave me a sip. It was pretty good and told him to put a bottle on the counter for me.
Next he gave me a sample of something called Coconut Tequipal. It’s basically a mix of Tequila, cream and coconut. It was very tasty and reminded me of pina coloda. I knew my wife would like a taste of this, so I asked him to put this one on the counter for me too.
I then asked the owner if he had any brands of Hard Cider. At first he looked a bit puzzled so I told him some popular brands were Hardcore and Woodchuck and that it’s basically alcoholic apple cider. He began walking back to the cooler with a smirk on his face but not really saying anything. I know.. a lot of ppl think Hard Cider is not a very ‘manly’ drink but I admit it, I like fruity drinks and I like Hard Cider 
He looked through the selection in the cooler and just apologized.
I told him when I lived in Minnesota, pretty much every liquor store carried some selection of Hard Cider. A lot of them would carry more than one. Even some of the bars serve Hard Cider from bottles.
Oh well, went to two places and didn’t find any Hard Cider. It would be a shame if there is NO hard cider in my area as I do miss the taste. At least I got my Mike’s Hard Lemonade..
This actually made the ‘side-together’ steps of waltz basic much easier to do. We were much more mobile and were able to quickly move and change directions. I started going a bit lower and got blasted for not going too low! The instructor said I’ll lose mobility if I go too low. Just keep the knees slightly bent.
