On Car Bombs, Boilermakers and Their Ilk

Only in Olympia, Washington, my home of eight years, would the resounding yell of Car bomb! go over well, and in fact, splendidly.

My visit to the Pacific Northwest (one day for every year I lived there) was made up of drinking, sometimes to excess, going out to eat, and my favorite bagels bought at the co-op. I won't even tell you of the tiny organic nectarines, when I am so spoiled on the huge ones I can get down the street in Hollywood. On this visit, I was introduced to Boilermakers, made with Coronas and Johnnie Walker Black Label, curiously poured from a glass carafe and then swished using one's tongue as the stopper as the bottle got tipped back and forth, mixing the potent amber into the innocuous gold. After two, the world is a little squishy. Then, when you walk downtown and someone buys you a real bar-made Boilermaker, dropping the shot glass into the pint glass, you are humbled. And then, when someone suggests Car Bombs, you grip the edge of the table and know that one will probably do it.

With the drink known as a Car Bomb, there is a curious legend attached, which can be guessed at due to the ingredients, and there is a serious curdle factor. There is also an obvious consequence of too many. The fact that this is a chugging kind of drink will limit its users to those who chug gloriously and those who will try at least once (I fall into the latter category). Most of all, there is something decidedly wicked and irreverent about a table full of activists of all ages yelling Car bomb! in a crowded bar with country-western music playing in the background.

And I haven't even mentioned the meals...!

Comments

[karrie]

The country-western music adds a nice touch, indeed.

Hey -is this drink illegal under the PATRIOT Act? ;)