Shaken, not stirred.

[davywavy]

Every year I give up something stupid for lent. This is rather to prove that I can give stuff up and there's nothing short of absolute essentials which I can't walk away from should I so desire. However, last year I went with something different and tried to live as if on income support for six weeks. It was an interesting experiment, and fairly achievable if you are rigorous in your budget.
And so this year I'm doing it again. Not so much out of a lenten desire for asceticism this time round, but more because living on a strict budget isn't a bad idea when the economy is going badly tits up and it's wise not to make too many financial plans.
The trouble is, though, this leaves me with the problem of maintaining my lifestyle in straightened circumstances - and perhaps most importantly, drinking like a secret agent with an expense account.

The search for budget booze has led me to some interesting places; cheap off-licences in South london where they have rack upon rack of oddly shaped and coloured bottles of unnatural-looking foreign liqueurs which no sane person has ever even heard of, let alone tasted. These places tend to be dingy, lit by one or two flickering strip lights and with almost no room between the shelves for curstomers to pass, as they have to maximise the stock:floorspace:customer ratio in order to stand a chance of competing with the whopping great ASDA up the road.
The problem is, even like this they can't compete. You see, some investigation has led me to the conclusion that the cheapest alcohol I can find is 8 litres of Sainsburys own-brand cider for £3.30. However you look at it, that's cheap inebriation right there. At 7.5% by volume, that's less than 30p per unit of alcohol - it contains as much as I'd normally put away in the space of a month or two. To put it another way, by drinking less than £10 worth of that stuff I could put myself on a drip for the rest of my life.
Alas, it wasn't for me. Cider at the best of times makes me feel ill, and I suspect that drinking cider whose list of ingredients doesn't actually contain any mention of apples might make me feel worse. And so, to maintain the secret agent theme, I instead invented the Value Vesper. Or Vespulike, as it seems to get called. The original James Bond Vesper contains such natty things as Gordons Gin and triple distilled Stolichnaya, but that's right out for me at the moment. Instead I'm having to make do with generic brand grain spirits with names like Utterly Vodkaly! and I can't believe it's not gin!, and replacing the twist of lemon with potato peel I think was, perhaps, a step too far.

Still, it's the thought that counts. Hic!

Comments

[robinbloke.livejournal.com]

In my eternal quest for decent cheap vodka I have determined that, pound for pound (and hazy slurred expression to wobbly walk) a 1.5 Litre bottle of Waitrose own vodka represents best value for booze for me.
It's a very nice vodka for a home brand, perfectly drinkable straight, and the 1.5 litre bottle at 17 quid is darned good value. Given that say smirnoff (Bleh!) is 16.98 for a litre anyway.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Personally, I thought you'd appreciate Utterly Vodkaly! (Which doesn't actually exist, I just thought it was funny).

[robinbloke.livejournal.com]

I did think that was good :) And of course conjures images of I can't believe it's not vodka and so on...

[janewilliams20.livejournal.com]

While I have never done the research myself, a friend in college had very good reason to find out exactly which purchase got you maximum alcohol per pound. His answer, then, was Woods 100 rum. I don't know if the logic still holds, but it might be worth looking at.
(The last I heard, his liver surgery had been successful. Needing half a bottle of the stuff before breakfast to stop your hands shaking is not a good sign.)

[the-mendicant.livejournal.com]

no room between the shelves for curstomers to pass

Ah, I always wondered who shopped at these places, Curstomers it is! Now I have an image of an inebriated Glaswegian shouting 'Outa my fecking way, I NEED tha Cida!'

[sea-of-flame.livejournal.com]

Once one has made the intial investment in equipment, homebrewing is cheaper still (and far tastier) - a budget bitter kit starts from about £10/40 pints (about 22 litres, I think?) - and even the top end ones are about £18...say add a couple of pounds on for sterilizer & replacing bits of equipment, still only talking about 50p a pint :)

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

I'm actually quite reassured that someone else thinks about these things.

[sea-of-flame.livejournal.com]

Let's see - yorkshirewoman by upbringing if not birth, and following in the footsteps of both grandfathers, who were accountants & homebrewers (I wonder whether the legitimate tax-avoidance element of it links the two?)...my father was weak and didn't continue either, though he did try both!