SavageLlama
10-21-2004, 18:45
I think we can all relate to this one... :D
A beer lover with a taste for wine discovers there's a flip side to pop tops. Wine wins - but not because of superior flavor
By Matt Sartwell
The Journal News (White Plains, NY)
October 17, 2004
Thoughtfully weighing wine
Stooping over the side of the trail, I slung my pack off my shoulders and onto the ground. My dog, The Bruce - 110 pounds of blonde, panting, trail-trotting canine - looked up from my side. As I untethered the top of my pack and undid his saddle bags, I said, "Sorry, boy." Then I took six cans of beer out of my pack and put it in his.
It was a traitorous thing to do, but that moment set me on the path from typical beer-guzzling outdoorsman to a more sensible wine-sampling backpacker.
The difference between wine and beer - no matter what you might have read so far - is how much it weighs. And when I say this, it comes from a lifelong appreciation of both beverages. I'm one of those guys who can drink PBR at trunk temperature and actually like it. Not too picky. Or tell you that merlot is great, but I'd rather have a French Hill Grand Reserve Barbera if I can find it on the wine list.
Know the expression "A pint's a pound the whole world round?" It means that16 ounces of beer or water weighs a pound. So a 12-pack of 12-ounce cans weighs roughly 9 pounds. Doesn't sound like all that much, until you place it on top of the 41 other pounds in your backpack.
In the past, this extra weight never fazed me. From the black folds of a freshly spooned Guinness to the ice-cold refreshment of a Budweiser on a scorching summer's afternoon, beer is the 365-day-a-year cure for what ails.
But recently I found a place where beer had no home: my backpack.
My Jansport, not your average rucksack, has been up and down some big Western mountains and in and out of some icy Eastern climbs. Slung down conveyor belts and chewed through by chipmunks the size of your arm.
But it wasn't until I started hiking up Anthony's Nose across from the Bear Mountain Bridge off the Appalachian Trail that I realized that the beer just had to go. At 31, I am just too damn practical - and my hindquarters possibly too rotund - to lug it. Gone are the days of have beer, take beer.
Anthony's Nose isn't the hardest hike I've ever done, but it begins at a fearsome pitch, nearly straight up off of Route 9D in Cortlandt. No warm up. As I sputtered to a stop that day, and unloaded some of the weight into The Bruce's red sack, I vowed that was it for my days of beer on the trail.
When the two-day trek was over, I was kicked back at the Acapulco in White Plains telling my woes to a co-worker over a pitcher of Sangria (for an interesting twist on this fruity wine-beverage replace the usual cognac with champagne), when she suggested boxed wine - sans box.
Malleable, way lighter, and without that burning, warm-liquor aftertaste often accompanying warm liquor. The perfect camping solution.
Off I went to my local liquor store.
I waffled between two boxes of wine: Franzia, the brand I'd seen most often in my days in the restaurant business; and a California brand called Delicato. Knowing that Franzia, although familiar, is the laughing stock of boxed wine (this was always what my college friends would run to after the keg was kicked), I went to the counter with the Delicato Bota box. I found out later that a bota is the traditional leather wineskin you see sheepherders pull out in old movies. Perfect.
And boy was it. It turns out that the Delicato Chardonnay I'd selected was a U.S. Wine Producer of the Year International Wine & Spirit medal winner in 2001 and 2002.
Crisp and convenient, with a flex tab spout, I couldn't believe how easy it was to make a cradle out of my 30-foot length of static line and sling the entire bag over a maple branch.
It was like having a bottle of wine attached to a tetherball pole. I sat on a stool and swung the bag over to my girlfriend in the hammock for refills.
Although I'll never be sure if The Bruce will forgive my traitorous actions, I can at least assure him that in the future I'll carry my own weight on the trail - as long as it's in a box.
- - - -
A beer lover with a taste for wine discovers there's a flip side to pop tops. Wine wins - but not because of superior flavor
By Matt Sartwell
The Journal News (White Plains, NY)
October 17, 2004
Thoughtfully weighing wine
Stooping over the side of the trail, I slung my pack off my shoulders and onto the ground. My dog, The Bruce - 110 pounds of blonde, panting, trail-trotting canine - looked up from my side. As I untethered the top of my pack and undid his saddle bags, I said, "Sorry, boy." Then I took six cans of beer out of my pack and put it in his.
It was a traitorous thing to do, but that moment set me on the path from typical beer-guzzling outdoorsman to a more sensible wine-sampling backpacker.
The difference between wine and beer - no matter what you might have read so far - is how much it weighs. And when I say this, it comes from a lifelong appreciation of both beverages. I'm one of those guys who can drink PBR at trunk temperature and actually like it. Not too picky. Or tell you that merlot is great, but I'd rather have a French Hill Grand Reserve Barbera if I can find it on the wine list.
Know the expression "A pint's a pound the whole world round?" It means that16 ounces of beer or water weighs a pound. So a 12-pack of 12-ounce cans weighs roughly 9 pounds. Doesn't sound like all that much, until you place it on top of the 41 other pounds in your backpack.
In the past, this extra weight never fazed me. From the black folds of a freshly spooned Guinness to the ice-cold refreshment of a Budweiser on a scorching summer's afternoon, beer is the 365-day-a-year cure for what ails.
But recently I found a place where beer had no home: my backpack.
My Jansport, not your average rucksack, has been up and down some big Western mountains and in and out of some icy Eastern climbs. Slung down conveyor belts and chewed through by chipmunks the size of your arm.
But it wasn't until I started hiking up Anthony's Nose across from the Bear Mountain Bridge off the Appalachian Trail that I realized that the beer just had to go. At 31, I am just too damn practical - and my hindquarters possibly too rotund - to lug it. Gone are the days of have beer, take beer.
Anthony's Nose isn't the hardest hike I've ever done, but it begins at a fearsome pitch, nearly straight up off of Route 9D in Cortlandt. No warm up. As I sputtered to a stop that day, and unloaded some of the weight into The Bruce's red sack, I vowed that was it for my days of beer on the trail.
When the two-day trek was over, I was kicked back at the Acapulco in White Plains telling my woes to a co-worker over a pitcher of Sangria (for an interesting twist on this fruity wine-beverage replace the usual cognac with champagne), when she suggested boxed wine - sans box.
Malleable, way lighter, and without that burning, warm-liquor aftertaste often accompanying warm liquor. The perfect camping solution.
Off I went to my local liquor store.
I waffled between two boxes of wine: Franzia, the brand I'd seen most often in my days in the restaurant business; and a California brand called Delicato. Knowing that Franzia, although familiar, is the laughing stock of boxed wine (this was always what my college friends would run to after the keg was kicked), I went to the counter with the Delicato Bota box. I found out later that a bota is the traditional leather wineskin you see sheepherders pull out in old movies. Perfect.
And boy was it. It turns out that the Delicato Chardonnay I'd selected was a U.S. Wine Producer of the Year International Wine & Spirit medal winner in 2001 and 2002.
Crisp and convenient, with a flex tab spout, I couldn't believe how easy it was to make a cradle out of my 30-foot length of static line and sling the entire bag over a maple branch.
It was like having a bottle of wine attached to a tetherball pole. I sat on a stool and swung the bag over to my girlfriend in the hammock for refills.
Although I'll never be sure if The Bruce will forgive my traitorous actions, I can at least assure him that in the future I'll carry my own weight on the trail - as long as it's in a box.
- - - -