Drunk-dialing: When you get really sloshed and then decide you NEED to call your ex-lover and express your sorrow for no longer being together.

Drunk-writing: When you’ve finished a significant quantity of barley-wine and try and write a review of it.

Both are bad ideas.

Like one of the little pink piggies on the Avery label, I’ve sprouted wings and am flying at about 42,000 feet, heading vaguely S-SW at 130 knots, landing gear only half-retracted. I don’t even remember my first taste of the stuff, other than it physically assaulted me with barley. Less a taste and more like having it hand-stuffed into your mouth by someone who’s in a hurry. The malt is present with each swig, but then takes a back seat. Not a back seat in a car, either, but the back back seat of a bus, the very last one. Filling the rest of the bus is the barley and hops, and man, they are having a party!

Why? Because of all the damn alcohol!

Barley has a boom-box thumping out some serious hip-hop, while the hops have their own boom box pumping out wild jazz-rock fusion. The bus is chaotic, and the driver is asleep. No one is steering. It doesn’t matter, because the whole thing is up at 42,000 feet with me holding on to the luggage rack with both hands, while the wind is trying to rip the feathers out of my little piggy wings.

Who needs pink elephants when you have pink piggies with wings? I mean really. The label for this stuff is perfect.

I guess this is hog heaven? Yes, I believe it is.

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