Okay, so I don't want to sound like an alcoholic ( I may still occasionally be surprised by a hangover, but overall, I don't think I really drink that much). But.....
I hadn't realized how much I suffered because of the state system in Pennsylvania. I do miss being able to buy a bottle of wine & a six-pack in the same place, in fact, I miss being able to buy a six-pack for less than $20.
PA's system is this: the state runs the alcohol game. They buy certain wines, and spirits, and sell them in state liquor stores. But, you can't get just any wine you want. And I think, you can't have wine sent to you from a vineyard out of state either (although that may have changed recently). And, most importantly, you can't buy beer there. If you want beer, you have to go to a beer distributor. They generally carry crappy, hugely commercial beer. And you have to buy a case - there are no smaller quantities available. Don't ask me how this supposed to discourage drinking in large volumes, I have never understood it. Except that when I first moved there, I didn't have access to a car, and I wasn't going to carry a case home (plus it would take me over a month to drink that much), so I stopped drinking beer. Except at bars. The exception to the case rule is that you can buy a six-pack at a bar - but at bar prices. Hence, a six pack costs, on average, $20. I guess that does cut down on beer consumption. Plus, now there is an additional 10% tax on poured drinks in Allegheney county (which includes Pittsburgh, thanks Dan Onorato!), so drinking at bars is now pretty distateful to me, and D flat out refuses to go out for a beer.
So, to get back to my point, I decided, on the way back to my hotel room, to stop at a liquor store, and pick up a bottle of wine. I'm still in Michigan, so it's different here. I walked in, and was instantly stunned. So many different wines! So many different beers! I didn't know what to buy, and I decided to pick up some extra, different beers (i.e. ones we don't get in PA, and that our friend Mike hasn't brought to our house yet). I spent way more money than I planned to, but still less than equivalent beers would have cost me in Pgh. (Oh, Pgh is the abbreviation for Pittsburgh, which only people who live there recognize. You can even mail things with Pgh as the city, and the post office knows what it is. But maybe only if you mail it from Pgh. THis also relates to the URL for this blog: I do neuroscience in Pgh. Get it? Very creative, I know ;)
Here are the beers I purchased (I tried to get local ones, the lambic was just because I love the stuff, and it was really cheap here):
Arcadia Ales Cocoa loco, brewed in Battle Creek, MI
Existetinal Ale, brewed in Holland, MI
Issaquah Brewery Menage a frog (okay, it sounds gross, but it has a cute picture of frogs on it!), brewed in Issaquah, WA
Lambic Framboise, brewed in Belgium somewhere (I've gotten up off the bed too many times to try to photograph these, only to find out that the stupid SD card shouldn't be formatted after all, and now I can't see the pictures on my computer. Darn technology!)
Unibroue Ephemere, the apple one, this is a brewery in Canada, and very good! When D & I were in Seattle last year, we went to a National Park on Puget Sound, and afterwards we found this place in the middle of nowhere (Stanwood, WA, the Stanwood hotel) and had a really good Chicken Philly sandwich, and Ephemere on tap - served in Bell Jars. It was awesome!
Okay, enough about beer. Someday I will actually post pictures from the camera - but in the meantime, here's one of my work photos. High affinity Choline transporter (green) + vesicular acetylcholine transporter (red) in the retrochiasmatic division of the supraoptic nucleus:
3 comments:
And I don't know how to get the picture to appear at the bottom of the post where it belongs.
Ok, that took the wind out of my sails commentwise. Umm, can we smuggle you beer and good wine? Because Florida is like the alcohol, pornography and firearms loving state. We can buy enormous bongs and a hooker at the local gas station. Probably dynamite too. I don't know about shipping restrictions to you, but the local winery puts out some kick ass stuff-not in the like "mess you up, mad dog 20/20 kind of way, in the mess you up, sophisticated Zinfandel kind of way. Or grappa. Which is basically jet fuel.Which they try to get you to drink when you come in to buy a bottle for dinner at noon(DON'T DRINK THE GRAPPA IF YOU HAVE ANYTHING ELSE TO DO). I wonder why it's so weird there, you would think that the state might encourage people to get drunk. Like they do here. All Happy Hour , All Happy Hour, All The Time!"
I respectfully refuse to drink Grappa. or Ouzo. I just can not deal with that much booziness. Although staying up drinking in my backyard until 3 in the morning after declaring that it would be an early night, that I can do!
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