I went to a combined beer/wine tasting last night, hosted at
my favorite liquor store. I go to these
all the time, but this was their big Spring high end event. Instead of the typical beer one and beer two,
they had distributors of some really good double IPAs and Belgian triple
bocks and Imperial stouts and that kind of thing. The wines were also better than
the usual wine tasting fare. They also
had a table for a local bakery that was trying to get some shelf space, even
though this particular liquor store doesn’t have a food section (except for the
candy by the register).
Because I am WAY behind on my grading, I spent most of the
afternoon at the office and got to the tasting about 30 minutes before it
ended. I spent a little time at the
bakery table at the front talking to the rep there about what it’s like for a new business trying
to get into new vendors. It was a brand new
bakery apparently and they were trying to expand their business by getting
local businesses to carry their breads.
They made everything in baguette shape, and had seven grain, date/nut,
and regular baguettes there for sampling.
I was the only person who likes the elbows of the bread (the ends that
are mostly crust), so I sampled those, which were all still sitting around even
though it was near the end of the event. The rep
didn’t have a chance to sample any of the wines, so I asked her what her
favorites were and I got her a few samples.
It just seemed like a nice thing to do.
When I went to the beer tables, I was really excited by the
beer selections. Double IPAs are by far
my favorite beers. Nothing else comes
close. One of the tables had a habenero
IPA, which was absolutely phenomenal.
Because the distributor had been there for three hours, he missed the
end of the Red Sox/Yankees game. Despite
the terrible way the game ended, I shared it with him because I had been
listening to it on my MP3 player on the way to the tasting. He was grateful. At 8pm when they were closing up, the
distributor asked if I wanted to take a leftover 24oz double IPA bottle home
with me. I hadn’t seen him offer anyone
else anything, but I was extremely happy to accept. I think I was the only one. Just a small gesture, giving him the last
innings Red Sox play by play, evoked some good karma.
As I walked out of the store, I passed by the bakery table
as she was cleaning up. She still had most of the elbows left because most people
don’t want them. She asked if she could
put them in an empty baguette bag for me to take home. Again, I hadn’t seen her offer this to anyone
else, but again I was quite happy to accept.
So I went home with a bottle of awesome double IPA and a bag of great
bread elbows. Just for doing the basic
nice things that seem like what anyone would do. Getting the bakery vendor a few glasses of
wine and giving the Red Sox play by play to the beer distributor.
Walking home, I have to admit that I was pretty toasted from
the 20 wine and 20 beer samples. But I
was feeling pretty good having the IPA bottle and the bag of bread elbows in my
backpack. And on WAAF double shot
Saturday, I got 45 minutes of AC/DC Led Zeppelin, Coldplay, and Radiohead. Even though I didn’t get my grading done and
hadn’t had a very good day up to that point, I felt pretty good. I made myself a great salmon dinner with a
garlic/cumin/mustard/sriracha sauce.
Making dinner, I dropped a bottle of malt vinegar that
smashed on the floor and left glass all over my kitchen. Took an hour to clean up the glass and the
vinegar. This morning, my kitchen still
smells like malt vinegar. But it doesn’t
bother me. Not just because malt vinegar
actually smells pretty decent, but because of how good I still felt about last
night. Karma.
