What's in a name, anyway?

I broke Passover last night with my mom and brother at the Pizza Cookery, where I gorged on garlic rolls. Mmm. Garlic rolls.

Then I met Evan at Pickwick's, having gone all of Pesah (Passover, for those not among the Hebraically literate) without any alchohol save some Joyvin and Manischewitz.

I started the night with one of my usual, a pint of Blackthorn Dry Cider. (I could sit here and take flak from people who say ciders are pussy drinks, but, well, they're just ignorant... Blackthorn is a fine British cider, and they were drinking cider in this country way before them Germans brought beer over.) Evan had his usual, a Guinness draught.

After that first round, I headed into the pub to get another. I told the bartender, "I need a Blackthorn and a Guinness, please."

"In the same glass?" she replied.

"No, separate. Wait, people do that?"

She explained that people get their cider and stout in the same glass, layered with the Guinness on top (like a black and tan), and that they call it a "black velvet." It sounded worth a try, so I had one. It was good. So I had another. And another.

I got home at midnight and passed out on the couch watching Penn and Teller: Bullshit (which last night officially became one of my favorite shows, up there with West Wing, Ed, SportsNight and Dead Like Me).

Today I've done some research on this "black velvet" thing. Turns out there are lots of names for it, and lots of people disagree. My research indicates that a real Black Velvet is Guinness and champagne. When you use cider instead of champagne, it gets called a "Poor Man's Black Velvet" (and if it's just a bit of Guiness, they call it a Priest's Collar). Some people call the cider/Guinness drink a Snakebite, but most places (like this one and this one) say that a Snakebite is cider and lager (while ale and cider is called a Scrumpy, or, if the ale in question is Bass, a Bassbite). I'm also looking forward to trying a "spicy cider," which, of course, is a pint of cider with a shot of rum in it.

So whether you call it a Black Velvet, or a Poor Man's Black Velvet, or a Snakebbite, or a Priest's Collar, I like 'em. And They knocked me on my ass last night. And this morning. So, ya know, that was pleasant.

Comments

[Stacy]

Try goldshalger (sp?) and Cider, also tasty!

[Peter Mason]

A lot of pubs in Britain refuse to serve snakebite, as it's the classic drunk-student-who-refuses-to-leave-at-closing-time drink. Small goth girls drink snakebite and black and get sexually predatory after the second pint. In the eighties there was the Atom Bomb;-K Cider (revolting superstrength cider sold in black bottles) and Tennants Super, the ugliest lager ever. The attraction of all these drinks is that the extra CO2 in the synthetic ciders pushes the alcohol into your bloodstream faster.

Please learn to love your tastebuds (and your drinker's soul) by changing back to ales. They're not quite as alcoholic as snakebite, but only a little. A night of Bass drinking is a far far better thing than a night sullied by blackthorn. Honestly.

Lovely to find someone who relishes alcohol, though, particularly in the context of a religious life. I call that well balanced.

[mrs mcmuffin]

Just had to drop by and say that scrumpy is not cider and ale. It is a lethally strong cider that you have a great time on for about 20 minutes, then you collapse! I'm with Peter, a pint of bitter is a far superior choice.

Snakebite and black is an equally lethal combination that I recall from my youth, however I had a friend who disparaged snakebite as 'wormbite' and insisted it was made with cider and something like whiskey. He was wrong.

Well, I think that's all you need to know. Enjoy your cider.