TGL – It’s all well and good to ostentatiously guzzle bottles of Remy and Henny if you have cash to burn. If you don’t, maybe you should try a substitute. Try Ricky Martin.

Drink no evil monkey says: “blah!”

Animal, Mineral or Vegetable: 

The tests just came back from the lab and were ‘inconclusive’. Seems to have traces of standard rice brewed ruou, with some kind of flavouring added, but both remain at large. Some experts remain convinced of an element of “Ricky Martin sweat, like Pokari sweat, but Ricky”.

Position on the periodic table of foodstuffs:            

It burns well, so it’s a spirit. It doesn’t burn for very long, although it does put out some heat. Not good for warding off winter chills.

Atomic weight:

While a test bottle was sent to the lab, another bottle was purchased pure for aesthetic and humour value. The liquid in the second, unopened bottle has changed colour. Weight is no longer an issue.

Description:

Ricky Martin, Whisky, Special Reserve, produced by the Vietnam Australia Vine & Wine Company, 175mls 40% alcohol by volume. And that’s just what it says on the front label. The rear label is an undecipherable collection of letters and squiggly lines accompanied by a variant of the spelling of the product name as shown on the front label.

The lab test, conducted one evening after closing on the roof of a downtown café, involved testing the nose, the taste and the combustion ability of the bottled Ricky sweat. The nose was highly offensive, a little reminiscent of paint thinner, or cassette recorder head cleaning fluid.

The taste, once a suitable guinea pig was selected to ensure all test subjects were not blinded, was nothing short of hideous and not what one would expect either whiskey or Ricky Martins sweat to taste like. It tasted more like thinner than head cleaner, so we ditched any high society wine reading accompaniment possibilities in favour of binge and purge in a bottle.

On the upside, it would make a perfect accelerant on a barbeque. Different measures poured into a variety of containers were lit on fire, then timed and tested for their hand warming ability. Ultimately, Ricky burns well, but a little too quickly. Remember, the candle that burns twice as bright, burns half as long.

Inert with:          

Keep it in the bottle. Even when it changes colour, just leave it there. Don’t pour it down a sink of outside drain. One day you will have a party and some drunken gate crasher will neck it, at their own peril and day(s) after expense.

Reacts with:

Fire, and like the creatures from the Alien series of movies, a few drops of it melted the all weather cover on the terrace table. This in turn reacted with the café owner. Chain reactions: bad.

The Good Life