Oh sweet mystery of life. . .

It's a rare and beautiful thing.

Hello, dear blog readers.

I want to take a break from regularly scheduled programming. I had originally planned to post the exciting conclusion of my adventure with Dan, but something's happened. Something. . . fantastic.

I was wandering through my local foodmart this evening and decided to browse the wine section for a little funtime refreshment. I don't drink beer, but I wanted something light and refreshing, so I perused the selection of ciders.

Okay, this isn't my wine aisle, but you get the idea.

Nothing was really jumping out at me, when all of a sudden. . . The clouds parted and there stood - Babycham!

I had never seen or heard of it before, but I am a sucker for attractive packaging. Ask anyone. It's how I choose my clothes, kitchen appliances, sports gear, and friends. So when I saw Babycham's dark green bottle with metallic baby blue label featuring gold and silver accent, my hand was drawn to it. I had to take a closer look.

"Babycham: Sparkling Perry Pear Cider." Hmm. I do like the sounds of that. It's a silly name with a rather silly yet intriguing description. And what's this? There's an adorable fawn frolicking his way over the lettering! How winsome! Upon further inspection, I saw this phrase:

Happiest!

"The happiest drink in the world."

Really. In the world. While the deer looks a bit hesitant, it certainly seems to be effervescing happiness. I mean, look. There's little star glammers in its wake. I think any rational person would be tempted by this.

Oh, did I mention that it was $3.99? Yeah. Not even on sale, that's regular price, baby. So to recap: Pretty colors, shiny label, frolicking woodland creature, catchy catchphrase, and dirt cheap. This product was effing made for me.

So I brought it to the register and made it mine. I even have pretty dark green glasses to drink it out of - how perfect is that??

From my set of three.

I sampled the brew. So I've had pear ciders before. Ace makes my favorite one. Spire is also a fine pear cider. Wyder's is even pretty good (even though it's Canadian). This one? Well. . . it's not awesome. It's got a faintly sweet pear flavor, but a distinctly unpleasant mildly sulphuric essence. What's up with that? Surely this can't be a bad beverage. It was made for me, after all. I just need to give it the right flavors to accompany. Something to enhance it's very. . . babychamquois.

So I decided to conduct a little experiment. My first thought was cheese. It's the classic pairing: wine and cheese. Classy. I thought perhaps a nice emmental or a gruyere. Perhaps even a camembert to bring out the subtler notes of the cider.

However all I had on hand was this.

I'm so damn classy.

So I went with it.

A bite (a string?) of cheese followed with a sip of Babycham and. . . no. Absolute fail. If anything, the cheese actually enhanced the sulfur-y scent in my nose. Yeeg. Cheese is clearly not Babycham's friend.

Moving on to the next:

Ok, a bit classier.

I learned from Pretty Woman that strawberries enhance the flavor of a nice champagne, so it's not a huge stretch that a sparkling cider would also benefit from this pairing.

Erm, apparently it is. The taste of the berry totally overpowered the subtle pear flavor, and the sweetness made the cider seem far less sweet in comparison. Another fail. Try something else.

Classiness gone. Sigh.

Okay, before you judge me, it wasn't my first choice. It wasn't even my third. But my fridge is uncharacteristically bare right now and I didn't have a whole lot else on hand. Plus, my dreams of savoring a nice glass of Babycham after crushing my enemies were quickly fading. I had to try something drastic.

And. . . huh. It works. For some crazy reason, the pickle brings out the pear flavor of the cider, enhances the sweetness, and totally kills that nasty sulfuric element. It's a pairing made in heaven. Specifically for me. The girl you will henceforth find in the corner of the party, sipping Babycham and munching pickles.

You might also recognize me because of my fly Babycham gear.


I am going to collect it all.

So I will soon post my Danstravaganza: Part Deux (spoiler: it involves hamburgers!). In the meantime, go get yourself a jar of pickles and a bottle of Babycham. Life is too short not to.