More Vodka. More Uses. Who Knew?

Most of the people who spend any time with me know that vodka is my hard liquor of choice. It wasn't always that way. Really. Wine was my drink and I didn't really get into that until I was well out of my young years (defining young as late 20's). I just wasn't a drinker (that and I didn't talk much back then either, both true, both pretty unbelievable now, but still true).

Vodka and cranberry as it is meant to be used

Then I moved to St. Croix, where a glass of wine was about three times the price of a glass of rum or vodka and whatever mixer you chose. So I chose rum and coke. Not because I particularly liked rum and coke, in fact, I really do NOT like much of any cola drinks, but it seemed the drink of choice. Until one day, a guy at a party thought it would be amusing to give me 151 rum in my drinks, which I drank like it wasn't. I can still barely write about it without a bad odor wafting through my imagination into my nose. So I decided on vodka. And cranberry juice. It worked for me, even if some people think it's the most disgusting combination on earth. I liked gin and tonic too but when I moved to Culebra (this is a true story) there seemed to be...no gin. Well, drinking mixed drinks on Culebra back then is a other whole story, so back to vodka.

Vodka. I like it. That's all I know. So when there are interesting stories about vodka, say, when organic vodka first came out (now there are a slew of them and I can pretty well promise you none of them are on Culebra) or weird flavors - as the writer of this article says "Vodka, being flavorless on its own [ed. note: not true and it can be smelled as well; you've been warned], can be infused with all kinds of wacky flavors – the question these vodkas raise is: should they?" - I usually get something in my email to let me know all about it.

For someone who usually drinks vodka, I have an oddly large number of photos of myself drinking wine, most of which will never appear on this blog. This is one of a number of favorites.

The following story I not only saw myself but also had it emailed to me. Twice. I mean, if you are going to mix up two subjects about two extremely (or so I thought) separate things, about two things I really like, this sort of story is an attention getter.

Titled Cocktails in the Coop, it's all about using vodka as a cleaning agent in chicken coops. Really. Now, I will admit I have tasted vodka that I thought should be used to clean, and probably de-enamal, toilets, but I never thought of seriously using it for a cleaning product. First of all, I really didn't know I was supposed to clean the coop. Oh, I rake it up and around once in awhile, but clean it? Now I'm supposed to try vodka to do it? I might need vodka to even think about cleaning it...
 

From the author: "I have to say that the research for this post was rather..."interesting" to say the least! Do yourself a favor and don't Google "vodka" and "chickens"...all I can say is, it takes all kinds to make a world. While I was only looking to see if it was safe to SPRAY vodka AROUND chickens, it seems that some people have actually fed alcohol to chickens...some claiming it has medicinal properties, others looking for a sick laugh. A lot of home-brewers feed the left over fermented grains to their flock."

  

I am taking her advice and not googling vodka and chickens. Having seen drunk chickens, and seagulls too, for that matter, after they've imbibed on the berries of a tree that grows like a weed in my yard, I can tell you it is hysterically funny to watch. But I had nothing to do with making it happen and I plan on keeping it that way. 

This is what I wrote about that, back in 2009: Today was also drunk chicken day. I was suddenly brought out of my reading zone because of a squawking gawking rolling talking of chickens. It wasn't the "Let's have sex, baby, no nononookay" of the rooster hen dance. It wasn't the hens running madly protecting their chicks. So I had to look. It was a hen on my TELEPHONE wire (my frail connection to the world) and a rooster on a piece of steel pipe (don't ask), doing the 'we ate the berries and we are sooooooooo drunk' chicken call. I tried to take a video of it but I was rather concerned that the dance was being done on my lifeline and...the video went like this: Chicken going almost over, righting herself, me laughing, her bouncing, me forgetting the camera was still on yelling, GET OFF OF MY TELEPHONE LINE while the camera wildly waves around in my own chicken get off the line flailing. Too embarrassing, so this is all you get!

Somewhere is a photo of the drunk seagulls too, but I can't find it. They were doing the loop-de-loo's on tree branches, going crazy like the chickens, but this time I had figured out what was going on. Um, okay, back to the vodka. Vodka that I am not going to give to the chickens.

While I didn't research vodka and chickens, I did research cleaning with vodka. The articles are everywhere. I don't know any of these people. I don't know any people who would do this, although apparently, there are plenty of people who use vodka for cleaning and a whole lot of other things beside drinking it. From destinking your tennies to cleaning your jewelry to getting shine in your hair. Or on it. Or something. I don't know much about hair products, obviously. 

I am, for those of you who knew her, channeling Gail's laughter here at the very idea of the above. I miss you, Gail!

 

 

this

   plus

      this ? 

equals a clean chicken coop? I don't think so!

Although maybe one of these is truly awful, on par with Nadja, and could be used that way. I'll never try to find out.

Anyway, I just had lunch at El Batey with some friends. I imbibed vodka along with a great cheeseburger. Then I came home and checked on the chickens. They seem perfectly content in their less than sanitized coop. Maybe I should go pull some drunk berries and...no, never mind.

Have a watery wet your whistle washing Wednesday. Do something (un)wasteful.