Sloe gin not just for fizzes anymore

Want a different tipple to fill up your hip flasks for cold weather? A spirits expert writing for the Washington Post has a scintillating suggestion for you: Sloe gin.

Immediately, an American drinker thinks of the refreshing “sloe gin fizz” (pictured) upon hearing the term “sloe gin” and thus associates the good stuff with summertime drinks; Jason Wilson, author of “Boozehound: On the Trail of the Rare, the Obscure, and the Overrated in Spirits”, makes a salient point in explaining that the product’s British creators mostly guzzle it in autumn.

Thus, writes Wilson, “Tart, viscous sloe gin is the kind of thing you’d keep in a hip flask during hunting season.”

For those willing to give the British product a try, Wilson also advises avoiding most all American-based brands of sloe gin as they’re artificially flavored (!), but bottles from reputable producers may be had for a reasonable $42 or so.

In summary: You gotta love a new way to lock and load that hip flask for nippy climes…

Directory World

The $151,000 flask

Another great reason to cherish a good flask? It might bring $150,000 at auction someday!

Okay, so the truth is that your everyday run-of-the-mill hip flask won’t ever command the kind of scratch usually brought in by auctioneers on art, baseball cards or limited-edition collectibles — not in your lifetime, anyway — but the burgeoning worldwide group of flask collectors is driving prices of rare flasks to new heights.

Case in point: A 19th-century historical flask sold at auction by Norman C. Heckler & Company in Connecticut. The glass flask (see photo above), dating from the 1820-40 period and emblazoned with a bust of General (later President) Andrew Jackson, had been appraised for as much as $80,000. By the time the gavel pounded, the surprise (and probably glee) was surely apparent to Heckler & Co., who’d managed to attain a record-breaking bid of exactly $151,000.

This huge figure shattered (so to speak) the old mark for an object of this type: In March, Heckler & Co. auctioned off an 1820 flask for “just” $100,620.

The punchline? The $151,000 bottle was last sold for $41.80 – in 1971. (For those of you keeping score at home, that’s an appreciation rate of over 3600% in just under 40 years…)



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Now here’s an excellent celebrity endorsement for the usefulness of a hip flask, particularly if you’re, ahem, working outdoors in one of the colder areas of the world right now.

Billie Piper, best known for her recent work on the BBC TV science-fiction series and a brief “teen idol”-type pop career, was recently caught by British tabloid photographers taking a healthy swig of whiskey (not sure how they knew it was whiskey, but there you have it) from a flask while filming scenes for the last episode of “Secret Diary of a Call Girl.”

One can hardly blame Ms. Piper for enjoying the nip provided by co-star Paul Nicholls: Imagine having to stand around by the Thames River in a leather mini-skirt tiny enough to barely fit the term with brisk English November winds tearing at you. Yeah, you’d want a little bit o’ the good stuff, too.

In a special Billie Piper-endorsed model! (Just kidding.)

Baseball’s Texas Rangers, who have never been to an American League championship series and are now 0-7 at home in the playoffs all-time, demonstrated the lack of experience last night to blow game one of the AL series.

Giving up five runs in the eighth inning to lose, 6-5, puts the team in a fairly serious hole early and fans in an unfamiliar position, namely: How to deal with a gutwrenching loss like this, to the universally reviled New York Yankees no less?

Enter the miracle of Twitter and ESPN’s “Sports Guy,” Bill Simmons. Directly following the game, user Lsujw tweeted Simmons thusly: Us rangers fans are new at this … How long of a walk do you recommend tonight?

The walk lsujw refers to here is that impossible one you expect to clear your head yet never does after, say, a breakup or an eighth-inning Rangers-like self-immolation.

Replied Simmons: “At least 45 minutes. And bring a flask.”

Good advice from a guy who knows.

Just when you think Italy can’t get any awesomer … the World Heritage site Cinque Terre National Park, a coastal area encompassing five villages and the nearby hillsides, has not only improved its environmental policy, it’s encouraging patrons to bring hip flasks!

Reportedly some 400,000 plastic bottles are thrown away in Cinque Terre annually – in the month of August alone. All in all, three million visitors come every year and dispose of at least that many bottles.

To combat this onslaught of refuse, plastic bottles are now banned throughout Cinque Terre. At the entrance, visitors are offered a one-liter (about one quart) reusable metal bottle and are reminded that they may bring their own flask for carrying … water.

By November 1, the first five of many public water fountains will be installed in Cinque Terre.

Who needs a Surgeon General’s warning when you can just package the damn stuff to remind you of mortality? The horror ‘n’ gore loving folks over at Fear Net have got quite the creepy little conversation piece to drink from these days, it seems, with the “Coffin Flask” available through Amazon.

And sure enough, yep, it’s a coffin shape. We have to say, though, this one seems like purely a gag gift. First off, there’s a reason why flasks aren’t traditionally shaped like a stiff-holder – or vice versa, for that matter: It’s not exactly the expected shape for a beverage container. Second, it holds a piddly 3.5 ounces, whereas the traditional sized hip flask is in the 8-ounce range.

Then again, 3.5 ounces is probably just enough for your friendly neighborhood vampire’s tipple – if the hemoglobin count is high enough.

Now here’s a romantic tip the guys can definitely dig on. In a recent puff piece space-filler light-hearted story for The Guardian newspaper entitled “How to make your romantic day out even more romantic,” the humble hip flask gets props.

So sayeth the advice (right there near the top, too, getting the second mention … ah, England): “Take a secret hip flask or a mini bottle of champagne to whip out at an appropriate moment.”

Right, that’s definitely a piece of advice to use straight away and so let’s get to planning … sorry, what’s that?

Supposed to *share it with her*?

Oh.

Better make it two flasks, then…

Who would have thought that the latest technological advance in the common flask would come out of Turkey? Nevertheless, that’s the case with a new product from Arzum Small Domestic Appliances’ new toy.

The “Termotwin” was deemed groundbreaking enough to be displayed at the IFA show, which is known as Europe’s largest consumer electronics and home appliances event. The underlying concept behind the Termotwin: a double container inside.

In other words, flask-toters who choose Termotwin have options. As Arzum press material notes, “For example coffee and milk can be served by Termotwin separately.” Right! And luckily, for all those coffee-outta-the-flask types out there, the compartments can hold a temperature for about four hours.

Arzum also draws attention to the flask’s extra compartment, “which can be used to store sugar or tea leaves.”

Or maybe olives. You know, for the coffee.