What has been keeping me busy for the past year

Mirrorchild
You dig hard cider?

When I was a kid, the local area had a lot of apple trees with small apples. The apples would fall to the ground, be gathered and crushed. NO sterilizing or pasteurizing. Maybe there was even some cow manure in with the crushed/pressed apples
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The apple cider did not last long before it got a bite to its taste. I used to drink some cider that went off but back then most people didn't drink cider for an alcohol buzz. Back then "real cider" cost about twice as much as gasoline per gallon. It turned nippy in several days so most people drank what they made or bought fairly soon.

Now the cider comes from across the country, is pasteurized and lasts weeks before getting that nippy taste.

Back to your question Hard cider, yes or no? I suppose I would try it, assuming it was concocted to be an alcoholic beverage. I have tried many drinks but I still enjoy the orange juice, and other ingredients as they are in non-alcoholic drinks.

Notmuch beats a fountain Cherry Coke fizzy drink so that will still be at the top of my list. I cut back on sugar intake so the runner up drink is a fountain Diet Coke fizzy drink. Straight milk, chocolate milk and other low sugar content fruit juices are better than beer or bourbon. The butter milk is a throw-back to some times when there was not much in the house to eat or drink. My mother made a lot of things at home that people only buy now. Sour milk got turned into cottage cheese. Select weeds from the lawn or along side the road were "salad fixings" as they say in the south USA.

Maybe I should just go out and buy a couple containers of so called "Hard cider." I have had "Mike's Lemon-aid" with the alcohol content.


Right now a fountain "cherry Coke" from Hardee's is top notch.

There is a commercial hard cider sold in bars and liquor stores that I rarely buy, but enjoy greatly called Angry Orchard. Tastes just like apple cider which I love, but it is alcoholic. I also greatly enjoy buttermilk, which I dont think many do. That is thanks to my dad. I recall him drinking the buttermilk years ago claiming it cured some ailment. I did not like it so much then, but came to love the taste as I turned into an old fart! Since I am roughly 50% Swede/Norwegian I have a huge love of pickeled herring, several sharp and stinky cheeses,and other Norse type delicacies many others share no fondness for. Just all part of my charm!😁

Angry Orchard, I think I need to try a bottle or can. Of course, this time of the year, the politically correct version of apple cider is in several stores. I don't think the "real apple cider" could legally be sold. Point #2 it doesn't last long even when refrigerated so not many companies would be making and selling it. "Shrinkage" (things that go bad)cut into the profits very fast.

Mirrororchid
I get buzzed on a whole one and I find it a bit disturbing.

That half of a bottle or can used to be me when it came to alcoholic beverages. I might be strange but I drink to ingest liquids and if the flavor is good, why add the buzz. When my son makes beer, I get involved in the mental process and have 12 or 16 oz while he tells me what each ingredient or process adds to the final product. It is more about the intellectual process than drinking. I like to know how many things are made and even watched a ton of Youtube videos about how things were made or discovered. Even going across a bridge, I often think that I could watch a time=laps video of its construction.

Wendys has the 100 flavor drink dispensers which means the extra flavors are from very concentrated syrups. They just do not taste as good as the older traditional syrup and water drink dispensers like Hardee's has in my city.

I often try different flavor drinks so I have had the Dr Pepper and Coke varsities. Cherry Coke from Hardees still wins top place for me.


Back in the 1950's the real unpasteurized apples on the ground, dirt an all, apple cider was 0.50 or 0.75 cents a gallon. now the politically correct stuff is $6.00 a gallon. OK progress and all of that safety stuff still means I need to indulge and do it very soon.

Don't tell anyone, I don't think I would buy unpasteurized cider shipped from across the country.

Last year I bought some Ziegler's brand cider and it came from Pennsylvania and was sold at Walmart in Montana. That was the same company I bought cider from back in the 1950s. A company operating back then from a building the size of a 6 car age. I used to ride my bicycle past the building on my way to school. I have no idea about the size of their processing plant but it is not the old location I used to know.

Some years ago when life was good, I rented a farmhouse from an old German farmer that was very old school, did his own butchering (yup, I got to participate in that party, it was great, even made his own sausage. Quite an experience) coming to the point he made his own beer! I loved the taste and readily agreed to participate the next time he made a batch. His long suffering wife got the joy of bottle, tub and container sterilization though she did not drink the beer.

The old man in a huge stone crock mixed water, molasses, barley, hops, and yeast as I recall then gently stirred the ingredients around with a large wooden ladle. (My memory of ingredients might not be totally accurate as this happened 30+ years ago) anyway, following the stir he put a thin tea towel over the top of the crock and secured it with a huge rubber band. Then he hung one of those silver bowl clamp lights about 6-8 " over the towel with the light on to make the yeast activate.

He did this in his basement and said to come back the following Saturday and we would be ready to bottle beer. During that week he went back down to the crock several times and he would rake off and remove excess foam the yeast produced from the top of the beer and by the following Saturday I returned and we bottled about 4 cases of the old Germans beer.

That was by far, the best beer I have ever tasted and I really wish I had gotten the old man recipe. I am sure he would have been delighted to share it since his own kids were too stupid to love his beer.

Ah the regret, that beer was unequalled, i have never tasted any other as good.

To continue the story of my medical challenges, I had 5 trips to the emergency department in the past several months, resulting in me being admitted to the hospital for various things mostly related to kidney function or infections. My diet restrictions put 85% of the foods in the store off limits because of Sodium, Potassium, Phosphorus, Protein limits. No one said much about dietary restrictions until I ordered spaghetti while in the hospital the last time I had a several day stay.

Needless to say a SM is the least of my problems right now and the cancer thing needs another round of chemo (diarrhea included).  That is solvable with some medications but if I poop my pants, I just walk into the shower, turn on the water and undress to clean up the mess as I go.  BTDT several times before so I have experience and know what to do.  Disposable under pants help to a degree.

I will still comment on newer posters threads with information I think might help them cope with their individual situation.

Me? I just try to take one day at a time.