 Don't get excited. I don't care about football. Tomorrow's laundry day. You know how it is. My current self loves liquor stores the way my 20-year-old self loved record stores. They're kind of the same. The charm of the mom-and-pop shop, the thrill of the hunt, finding something unexpected. See? Now you got me waxing. But there's one thing we agree sucks. The liquor section's the most grocery stores. Poor selection, obvious brands. Little to no decent rum. But depending on the store, they do have the occasional gem. Case in point? Audrey received this as a birthday gift because she loves unicorns, and she's graciously allowed me to try it. So what is this? If you hold it up to the light in just the right way, there's a sticker that says Brandy XO. It also says it's a product of France, whatever that means, and is 40% ABV. Since this isn't cognac and it's from a sketchy producer, there's no way of knowing how old it is. In other words, that XO don't mean s***. Now let's try it. Hmm, not much color. It smells like cheap booze. To be fair, there are some notes to be picked out. There is a little bit of wood, but mostly it's just raisin. I hate repeating myself, but this is mostly just raisin. The rest is mildly unpleasant. I did go to the trouble of opening this, so I might as well make a cocktail with it. Be right back. I kind of wanted to go Brandy Cresta, but I felt the other ingredients might interfere, and I kind of want to just see what this is like in a cocktail. So instead, I just made a sidecar. It's not that bad, but the Quattro is definitely carrying the drink. In fact, that's kind of all you taste. I mean, I guess the Brandy's there a little bit, but since it's not super pleasant to begin with, I can't say it's making the drink better. This is reminding me a phenomenon I hear about in bars a lot. People have an aversion to a spirit because of some experience they had in college or something. Most commonly, it's with tequila and gin. People think they can't drink tequila because they made them really sick once. Well, guess what? Tequila didn't make you sick. Cheap tequila made you sick. From tasting it earlier, I'm already starting to feel a bit eh. So yeah, and now I have this whole drink with it. Hooray. Hey wife, want to try cocktail? Yo. Yarp? You like? Yeah. You want it? You want it? Yeah. Okay. You don't want it? There we are. And there you have it. I passed something I don't like off to my wife who has very expensive taste and she likes it. It just goes to show you there's no such thing as booze that everybody likes and there's no such thing as booze that nobody likes. Switching gears, the announcement was made this afternoon that restaurants in the LA area can reopen. I have no idea what this means for my bar, but I expect to be hearing from them within the next few days. The effect of this love on my publishing schedule is also unknown, but I will continue to publish, maybe just not as often. If you liked it, hit like, consider subscribing if you haven't already, and if there's something you think I should try, let me know in the comments. Stay safe, follow the advice professionals, and I'll see you next week.