When I was a kid, when I was really sick, there was no help for it but to pick up a 4-pack of “Jamaican Olde Tyme” ginger beer. Good ginger beer is something special; it’s sweet, but also genuinely spicy – spicy enough that you find yourself wanting a cold drink to wash it down with, sometimes. Unfortunately, so far as I can tell, the product is long gone.
Our roommate, Rain, is one of those astoundingly thoughtful people. If you mention, in passing, that you’ve been looking for something, she will somehow find it. I don’t know how. She managed to get me a copy of Whipping Star, which is one of my all-time favorite novels of any sort. It’s one of Frank Herbert’s best novels; it’s better, IMHO, than the best of the Dune series. That may not sound impressive, but it’s been out of print forever, and it’s one of the books I’ve spent the longest looking for. The other record-holder in that category was The Dosadi Experiment, which is actually sort of a sequel to Whipping Star; one of the tragedies of the success of Dune is that Herbert’s other material is not getting as many reprints as it needs.
Anyway, back to the ginger beer. Having heard my lament of not being able to find anything quite like this ginger beer, Rain apparently started noticing and remembering ginger ales and ginger beers. And, a while back, she stumbled across a very interesting ginger ale, which was hot and spicy. (This is a bit odd; normally, the ones that are stronger flavored call themselves ginger beer.) And she told me about it, and I declared that I would find some and try it out. Only, of course, I forgot.
Well, what should happen today, but a crate of it shows up. A while back, we did a couple of favors for Rain’s family, and apparently her mom decided that this merited the delivery of 24 bottles of absolutely excellent ginger ale, with a very touching note.
I’m not sure why this makes me so happy; it just does. It’s not that I could never have afforded ginger ale on my own, or anything. It’s not that the favors we did them were undertaken in the hopes of obtaining flavored fizzy water. It’s just… No warning, no explanation. BAM! Ginger ale.
And man, oh man, is it good.
A bit of effort at google turned this page up:
And yes, it really is that spicy. If you would not put a full teaspoon of cayenne pepper on a plate of pasta, it may be a bit much.
Mmm. Ginger ale.
Anyway, thanks, Jenine. Very much appreciated.
Comments [archived]
From: PlaidMan
Date: 2006-11-02 10:25:41 -0600
I wonder how this compares to Reed’s Extra Ginger Ginger Brew, which is also strong, but can be found in all the local grocery stores.