by Al Drinkle
One night last week, I awoke at 3:30 a.m. to the sound of my elderly dog maniacally running around downstairs. She’s good at letting us know when she needs to be let out in the night and I assumed that it was no more complicated than that. In fact, despite being quite deaf, she knew that there was a skunk in the yard and her previous altercations with those striped bastards hadn’t successfully dissuaded her from making conspicuous attempts on their lives.
Nika the dog suffered the expected consequences while the skunk in question suffered in no way, though it did elect to vacate the yard. Luckily we only had to wait 5 and a half hours until the pet store opened whereby we could procure a bottle of bio-enzymatic deodorizing shampoo. As my wife and I conducted the cleanse (and Nika shivered from hosewater and humiliation), we entertained ourselves by coming up with tasting notes for our skunked dog, becoming increasingly florid and ridiculous as we went on. The stench was patently reprehensible, but we were able to pick it apart…
There were notes akin to a diesel-burning exhaust pipe clogged with scorched chestnut honey. This eventually gave way to an emulsification of rancid truffle oil (have you noticed it’s always rancid?) with saponified dik dik fur. Upon closer inspection there were also wafts of wilting wintergreen plugging the cavities of charred teeth, something sulfurous like last year’s ostrich eggs boiled in sauerkraut brine, and finally, gangrenous scabs anointed with andouillette jelly.
This being a respectable publication, I’m omitting the more disgusting references, but needless to say, my capacity to write tasting notes has been exhausted for the time being. I hope that you’ll forgive my lack of magniloquent descriptors for this week’s feature wine and trust me that it’s delicious and will compliment your pizza and BBQ this weekend.
