The Washington Post recently did a feature on the Siam Sunray, a cocktail which is only months old but is already gaining a reputation as the signature drink of Thailand.  Ingredients include coconut rum, ginger, lemon grass, and small Thai chili peppers to use as a garnish.  The taste of the drink is said to perfectly complement the complex flavors of Thai cuisine.  If you’re a fan of Thai restaurants, you may want to click the link and print out the recipe, to explain to the bartender how to make the drink; or, you could get take-out and mix your own Siam Sunray at home.  It’d go great in one of our old fashioned glasses.

It was 6:50, and I dashed out the door, and hurried the three blocks down the street to the corner brewpub.  “Happy hour is about to end,” I thought.  “If I can make it before 7, I can get a large beer for the price of a regular.”

At 6:54 I darted through the bar’s door, dashing by a couple of friends who wondered why I didn’t stop to say hello. Gotta get to the bar, gotta get to the bar.  6:55 - made it!  A bartender came over and I placed my order.

“Sorry, hon,” she told me.  “Happy hour ended three minutes ago.”

I looked at my watch.  WTF?  I pulled out my cell phone and looked at its clock.  It also said 6:55.  I protested.

“Our clocks run 8 minutes fast here,” the bartender explained, “so our happy hour ends at 6:52.  But look on the bright side.  You can come in here at 3:52 and get happy hour prices.”

“Yeah, but at 3:52 this place is a ghost town,” I replied, “because nearly everyone is still at work.”

I can’t see any legitimate reason why a bar would run its clocks 8 (or however many minutes) fast, other than to screw customers on pricing.  You can’t tell me that it’s that hard to reset a clock using standard bar-terminal software.  Seems like if my computer and my cell phone can connect to the government’s atomic clock to keep the official time, that bar computers ought to be able to do the same thing.

Just ranting a little… anyone else experienced this?  Any servers or bartenders out there who’ve been told to cut off happy hour early by management, or been told not to reset the clocks on their terminals?

Happy Easter!  A new church in Little Rock, Arkansas called “The River,” has decided to try something different to encourage people to come to Easter services:  They’re holding the services at a bar.  According to this MyEyewitnessNews article, this is an attempt to attract a new audience to its nondenominational Christian ministry.  Services will be held at the Rev Room, a bar/nightclub in Little Rock’s River Market district.  If it goes well they’ll have Mother’s Day and Father’s Day services there too.

Not a bad idea… for the past several years, my Easter basket has been a bucket full of ice and a bottle of champagne, sitting next to a carafe of orange juice to mix mimosas.  If you want to get drinkers to church, you’ve got to meet them halfway.

Last week Guinness announced that it will release a limited-edition version of its stout, which will be maltier and fizzier than traditional Guinness beer.  According to this MSNBC article, the new stout will be called Guinness 250, and will celebrate the 250th anniversary of Arthur Guinness signing a 9,000 year lease in Dublin, Ireland, for the building that became their flagship brewery.

The new stout will be higher in alcohol than traditional Guinness - 5 percent vs. 4.2 percent.  It will be made with a double brew stream that combines two types of malts, ale and stout.

The new beer will also have a one-part pouring process.  If you’ve ever ordered a Guinness at a bar, you may have found that it takes a while to get your beer.  That’s because the correct way to pour traditional Guinness is to fill the glass three-quarters full, then waiting until the surge of the foam settles before pouring the rest.  The limited edition stout can be poured all at once, at an angle.

The new beer will be available only in the U.S., Australia, and Singapore, and will hit the shelves April 24.

Enjoy your Guinness beer - the classic one or the new one - in Guinness pint glasses, available from Mid-South Alcoholic Supply.

When you think of America’s largest brewery, you immediately think of Budweiser, right?  Nope, acquired by foreigners last year.  MillerCoors as well.

That leaves Boston Beer Co., maker of the Sam Adams line of beers, as the largest pure American brewer.  However, riding a 20-year wave of growth, Yuengling is rapidly closing in on that title.  Right now the beer is only available in a dozen states, so there’s plenty more room for growth too.  Check out this PennLive article for lots of info on Yuengling’s history and how the brewery got where it is today.  There’s even a video of the Yuengling brewery.

If it’s available in your area, enjoy some “Vitamin Y” in one of our many fine beer glasses.

If you like martinis, check out this Chicago Examiner article.  It explains the difference between a classic martini, a dry martini, and a vodka martini, and discusses how anything in a martini glass has come to be known as a “martini” in modern times.

According to this Reuters article, Snow brand beer, brewed in China, has overtaken Bud Light for the title of the world’s best-selling beer.  Snow overtook Budweiser in 2007, and with a 19.1% increase in sales volume last year, it jumped ahead of Bud Light as well.  Brazilian beer Skol and Mexican beer Corona round out the top five.

China overtook the U.S. as the biggest beer-drinking market earlier this decade, and is now more than 50% larger.

Be sure to enjoy a best-selling beer in one of our best-selling beer glasses.  Well over a thousand to choose from.

Here in Downtown Memphis, home of the Mid-South Alcoholic Supply World HQ, we have a large number of homeless people who sleep on the streets and in parks.  We have several homeless shelters that would take them in, so why do they refuse these services?  Because most shelters prohibit the consumption of alcohol, and in many cases require guests to take part in treatment programs for alcoholism.  Many homeless are not ready to trade their addiction for a place to sleep.

A shelter in Seattle had a novel idea:  Why not let the homeless keep drinking?  So they opened a shelter that not only has no treatment program requirement for alcoholics, but actually allows drinking on the premises.  Needless to say, this has been somewhat controversial.  However, studies have indicated that daily alcohol consumption fell by 2 percent a month for those in the shelter.  “The longer the participants stay in the housing program, the less they drink,” said Mary Larimer, a psychology professor at the University of Washington who led the study.

There were benefits to the public as well.  The study indicated that the participants were less likely to end up in jails and emergency rooms at taxpayer expense.  Before the shelter opened, the 95 individuals who participated cost the public more than $4,000 a month each for their care and housing.  After 12 months, the taxpayers’ bill had been reduced to $958 per person on average.

Not a bad idea… offer help unconditionally, and let people come to the decision to conquer their demons when they’re ready.  Maybe more cities should take this approach.

Here in Downtown Memphis, home of the Mid-South Alcoholic Supply HQ, Old Style beer is a party favorite.  Specifically, it’s a favorite because it’s cheap.  When I need to bring beer to a party, I can drive across the bridge into Arkansas and pick up a 30-pack for $12.99 plus tax.  Now that’s a drinking bargain!

There’s also a local bar that sells dollar cans of Old Style when the Chicago Cubs are on TV, that being the beer of choice for Cubbies fans.

This NewsNetBraska article says that Old Style is updating its image.  They’re using a different brewing method called “kreuzening” which changes the beer’s thickness and fizz levels.  It’s part of an effort to update the 100-year-old brand, long considered an old man’s beer, to appeal to younger, hipper drinkers.

One change that Old Style drinkers are not going to like is the change in price.  In Lincoln, Nebraska, where the article was written, a 24-pack’s price jumped from $12.99 to $18.99.  I haven’t been across the bridge to Arkansas recently, so I’m not sure if the price has jumped for my 30-packs.

Pabst has re-positioned its beers successfully in the past.  Over the last 10 years its flagship beer, PBR, has made a big comeback, and last year the brewery re-formulate Schlitz to make it more appealing.

Try an ice cold Old Style in one of our beer mugs for maximum enjoyment.

Last month, a bar called the Silly Goose a few blocks away from the Mid-South Alcoholic Supply World HQ started doing Depression Mondays, in observation of the recent economic downtown.  From 5 to 7 PM they sell 16 classic Depression-era cocktails for a dollar each.  Cocktails like the Rob Roy, the Manhattan, the Cuba Libre, and the Tom Collins are on the list.  They also serve free tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches in honor of the ’30s soup and bread lines.  For beer drinkers, they sell PBR for a buck.

This weekly event is quite popular with my group of friends.  We go down the list every Monday, trying various cocktails.  There are lots of gin drinks, some bourbon drinks, rum, even one made with absinthe.  But, one of my friends pointed out, “There’s not a single drink on this list made with vodka.”  I wondered why.

This Detroit Examiner article on flavored vodkas has the answer. We were slow to adopt vodka in the United States after Prohibition, seeing it as a Commie liquor.  As of the end of World War II, the article explains, not one in a thousand Americans had tasted vodka.  It finally gained acceptance in the 1950s, when a cocktail called the Moscow Mule, made with vodka, lime juice, and ginger beer, became a big hit.

Nowadays, we Americans can’t get enough of vodka.  Check out our bartenders’ guides for classic cocktail recipes and modern vodka-based recipes.