This SFGate.com article asks a question of interest to all barflies:  Which Muppet would you most like to have a beer with?

You can choose from any of Jim Henson’s Muppets… you know, the ones that were on the late ’70s TV show The Muppet Show.

For me personally, I know this is going to seem like the obvious choice, but I don’t see how you can go wrong with Kermit.  Kermit is just a regular guy… or, frog.  He seems like someone who’d be fun to chill out with, and I bet he’d have a ton of celebrity stories to share.

Fozzie Bear?  Um, no.  Fozzie is the annoying guy in the bar who will talk your ear off.  He’ll come up and sit next to you and start chattering on and on about topics which you have absolutely no interest in, and if you show even the slightest interest - anything more than a nod - he’ll take that as encouragement and talk even more.  If you try to excuse yourself and move to a different part of the bar, he’ll move too.

Miss Piggy?  HELL no.  She’d purposely try to get you drunk, and after 6 or 7 beers she might start to look good.  Um, make that 17 or 18 beers.

The old guys who sat in the balcony might be interesting bar buddies.  Good people to sit around with and make fun of everyone else in the bar.

If extended to include the Sesame Street Muppets, Grover wouldn’t be a bad Muppet to sit next to at a bar.  Elmo’s too young to drink, and is hyper to the point where he’d quickly get on my nerves.

Down here in Memphis, home  of the Mid-South Alcoholic Supply HQ, we’re big fans of Leinenkugel Sunset Wheat, a wheat-flavored beer with hints of orange and blueberry.  Leinenkugel Red is also quite popular, and competes favorably against more well-known beers like Killian’s Red.

According to this Chicago Tribune article, we’ll soon have a new Leinie to enjoy.  The brewery plans on rolling out Classic Amber, a new year-round beer, on a national basis March 1.  The beer is made from 4 varieties of hops and has a light copper/golden color.

Leinenkugel is a subsidiary of MillerCoors.  Be sure to enjoy your Leinie beers in our fine glassware.

Yesterday I made fun of an article online that suggested “glasswear” in which to pour beers.  This reminds me of a suggestion I have for bar owners and managers:  Open up your spell checker in Microsoft Word (or whatever word processor you use).  Type in the name of every beer, liquor, wine, and specialty cocktail you carry.  Then, anytime you work on anything your customers will read - a flyer, something that will go on your website or MySpace page, menus, whatever - make sure you run it through spell check first.

I remember last year, when a bar down the street from the Mid-South Alcoholic Supply World HQ put up flyers all over the place advertising a sale on “Guiness” for St. Patrick’s Day.  Not good.  You wouldn’t misspell words on your resume, would you?  In a sense, your menus, flyers, and online communications are your bar’s resume.

MSNBC reports on a great way to impress your Valentine on a budget in this article.  Instead of taking your sweetheart out for a fancy restaurant dinner, why not impress her with a meal made at home?  Chef Frank McLelland, author of the book Wine Mondays: Simple Wine Pairings with Seasonal Menus, has plenty of recipes in his book that are not hard to prepare and are paired up with wines that make the meals complete.  Cooking for your significant other is more personal than dinner at a restaurant, and you can customize the meal (and the wines) to suit her tastes.

Recipes are taken from the chef’s weekly Wine Mondays event in Boston, where a four-course meal is paired with four wines.  The book Wine Mondays can be purchased from Mid-South Alcoholic Supply here.

This South Florida Sentinel article discusses an upcoming TV show on the Animal Planet cable channel.  It will focus on dogs, particularly on training them to fetch beers for their masters.  The show is tentatively titled Fetch Me a Beer, and will star animal trainer Zak George.  If you have a talented dog, auditions are being held through mid-March.

Perhaps for season 2, the dogs can learn not only how to fetch a beer, but to pour it into one of Mid-South Alcoholic Supply’s beer mugs.

Financial planners talk about the power of time to compound money.  Did you know that it works for wine too?  Stock your wine cellar with good stuff, and over period of years you’ll reach the point where you’ll be able to re-load your wine cellar for free.

This Examiner article explains how to do it. The trick is to have a refrigeration system or other controlled environment to let your wines age for a period of years.  Over a period of time, say 5 years, because the wines have aged they will sell for more than you paid for them.  So, when your bottles are ready, you can drink a few, sell the rest, and use the proceeds from the sales to re-stock with more wine, to begin the process anew.

Mid-South Alcoholic Supply sells wine refrigerators to store your wine for the aging process.  The other thing you’ll need, patience, can’t be purchased at any price.

Many states have passed laws banning smoking in all bars… however, that’s not the case here in Memphis, home of the Mid-South Alcoholic Supply World Headquarters.  The state of Tennessee did ban smoking, but made an exemption - bars who only allow patrons 21 and up may continue to permit customers to light up.

Needless to say, nearly all the bars I frequent filed for the exemption the day the law went into effect, putting “21 and up ONLY” signs on their doors.  I’m a non-smoker, but I didn’t mind much, because I’m used to smoky bars, and I’d guesstimate about 80% of my friends smoke.

However, the problem is, I wind up with clothes smelling like cigarettes - my leather jacket in particular, and jeans, which I see no reason why they shouldn’t be worn two or three times between trips to the washer.  So Sunday I found myself on the way to a Super Bowl party, and I thought… “Uh-oh, they don’t allow smoking at their place, except on the balcony.  If I go over there smelling like an ashtray, people will notice.”  So out came the Febreze, the spray that takes the stink out of clothes.  I liberally dosed my jacket and jeans and was good to go.

For those who spend a lot of time in bars, you may want to consider buying a 10-pack of Febreze, available on Mid-South Alcoholic Supply.  That’ll keep you smelling like lilacs for a while.

Just in time for the Super Bowl, I have a couple of booze-infused recipes that you can make for the big game-watching party on Sunday.

First up is an entree - a Providence, RI TV station ran a recipe for grilled rum-soaked shrimp with mango lime relish.  Since a picture is worth a thousand words, not only does the site list the ingredients and cooking steps, but it has a video where the chef explains preparation of this dish.

Then it’s time for dessert - warm vanilla pudding cake with bourbon cherry syrup.  This recipe was originally created by a Louisville chef for the Kentucky Bluegrass Ball.

I’m getting ready for a Super Bowl party down the street at a friend’s house.  My buddy Chuck is preparing his famous Italian roast beef sandwiches - which doesn’t have any booze in it so the recipe doesn’t qualify to be on here - but rest assured I plan to wash it down with plenty of cans of PBR.

Little Rock-based TV station Today’s THV reports on a study indicating that seniors who engage in light to moderate drinking may be better equipped than most to keep physical disability at bay.

According to the study, compared to abstainers and heavy drinkers, seniors who are light to moderate drinkers are less likely to develop minor disabilities that prevent them from performing common tasks such as walking, dressing, and grooming themselves.  They were found to be 9% less likely of becoming disabled or dying within five years than abstainers, and 3.7% less likely than heavy drinkers.

So drink up!  Get the grandchildren to order you some wine glasses or martini glasses from Mid-South Alcoholic Supply.

U.S. News and World Report recently published a survey listing the top 10 cities for drunks.  Not surprisingly, some of the nation’s most well-known party cities finished near the top, with Reno in first place with 9.4% of the population identifying themselves as heavy drinkers.  Palm Bay-Melbourne, FL, Boulder, Austin, and Charleston, SC rounded out the top 5.

Too bad they didn’t do neighborhood by neighborhood, rather than city by city… I’d put Mid-South Alcoholic Supply’s neighborhood of Downtown Memphis, TN up against any neighborhood in the country for percentage of highly accomplished drinkers.

They listed the most sober cities too, and again, no surprise… cities in Mormon-heavy Utah finished at or near the top.

Not a heavy drinker?  Mid-South Alcoholic Supply’s collection of drinking games will help you turn into one.