Motherfucking Booze Time: Sake

This actually exists.

Japan used to be an exotic land of mystery, full of mythical creatures and people who routinely accomplished incredible feats of skill. Now, Japan is pretty much the weirdest fucking place on earth. It's a country that produces millions of hours of porno a year, much of it consisting of artistic renditions of young girls getting raped by alien tentacle creatures, yet they can't tolerate the sight of normal human genitalia. If you'd like another example or two, go Wikipedia the word tamakeri or watch a few Japanese commercials.
That being said, before Japan collectively stopped taking their medication, they created some really awesome stuff... swords, aikido, pottery, and sake (pronounced SAH-kay, not SOCK-ee) to name a few. I'd also like to note that the preceding paragraph is going to lead to some very disappointing Google searches.

The History of Sake or How to Make Booze out of ANYTHING!

Trying to date sake is like trying to date water. It's been around for as long as anyone can remember. The earliest written record of the drink was penned sometime in the 3rd century, which predates the fucking compass. The Japanese had been drinking sake for more than a thousand years by the time word that such a thing even existed reached the western hemisphere in the 18th century.
Sake production was solely the job of the government until the 10th century, when (who else but) monks started brewing it. They held the job for around 500 years, until average schmucks were finally allowed to open breweries in the late 1800s. Sake remained extremely popular in Japan until World War II, at one point making up a full 30% of national tax revenue. Rice rationing during the war really put a damper on sake production, which would never return to its former glory thanks to all the new, foreign booze pouring in.

Motherfucking Booze Time: Brandy

 There's a fuck load of science involved in allowing you to get shithoused at the bar on Friday night. Despite this, people have been creating alcoholic drinks since damn near the dawn of time. Fermentation was one of the first chemical reactions mankind figured out how to control. That puts making booze in the same class as making fire. This is some fucking fundamental stuff.
The difference between the method for making wine and the method for making whisky is essentially the same as the difference between baking and frying. There is, however, a sort of hybrid between the two that you've probably heard of.

What the Fuck is Brandy?
To understand what brandy is you need to understand the difference between fermentation and distillation. Fermentation is simple: yeast interacts with sugar to produce ethanol, which gets you drunk. Many popular alcohols are made in this way, including beer (fermented starches ranging from barley to rice), wine (fermented grapes), and mead (fermented honey). Distillation is the process by which you concentrate alcohol and other good bits from a fermented mixture. This is how you get rum (distilled sugar), whisky (distilled starches), and tequila (distilled blue agave). Basically, fermentation makes it alcoholic while distilling makes it super alcoholic.
So, finally answering the fucking question: Brandy is distilled wine. Basically, it's like whisky made with grapes. It tastes very earthy and smokey, like a good scotch, but with an undeniable sweetness. It isn't for the amateur drinker, no matter what Young Jeezy would have you believe.

Motherfucking Booze Time: Cabernet Sauvignon

Young Earth Creationism at work

Wine has been around for eight thousand years. According to many young Earth creationists, the earth has been around for just less than 10,000 years. What does this mean? Well, first it means that young Earth creationists are fucking morons. Second, it means wine must be pretty fucking important for it to be on a list with "name all the animals", "figure out what this 'sex' thing is for", "avoid dinosaurs", and "plant fossils to confuse people 10,000 years from now". Over the centuries, lots of wine has been made, drank, and debated. It stands to reason then that the most popular wine in the world would be tried and tested throughout the ages. A taste so studied and reflected on that its very name evokes the essence of what wine is and should strive to be. Whatever it is, it certainly couldn't be an accidental creation less than three hundred years old that we didn't really know anything about until the 90s.

The History of Cabernet Sauvignon or Hangin' Tough by New Wine on the Block

Cabernet sauvignon originated in the 17th century. That's right, Cab is about as old as the Liberty Bell. Compare that with pinot noir, which has been grown in the Burgundy region of France alone since 100AD. Wine has been around practically as long as grapes, so it's not surprising that the history is somewhat hard to pin down for most varietals. Within the past 20 years, they've actually begun doing DNA testing on grapes to see where certain types come from. Before the late 90s, rumor had it that cabernet sauvignon was an ancient grape use to make Roman wine around the time of legendary historian Pliny the Elder. That was complete fucking horseshit. Cab is actually the offspring of Cabernet franc and Sauvignon blanc, likely a chance crossing sometime in the 17th century. To recap: a grape called Cabernet sauvignon is a cross between a grape called Cabernet franc and a grape called Sauvignon blanc. We needed DNA to tell us this.
Despite its relative new comer status, Cabernet sauvignon is possibly the most well-known red wine in the world. It is planted in virtually every vineyard in every corner of the globe. Only Merlot is more widely available, a fact only true as recently as the 1990s.

Motherfucking Booze Time: Stouts and Porters

Today is Saint Patrick's day and, more importantly, I'm heading to New Orleans tomorrow. These two things are pretty much unrelated... I'm going to Louisiana to see some friends for spring break and I don't need a fucking holiday to tell me when to drink. Everyone knows the best time to drink is now, followed closely by later. However, Saint Patrick's Day and my trip do have one thing in common: they're both to be a celebration of my favorite kind of beer.
I like my beer the way I like my women: dark, cold, slightly bitter, and filled with alcohol. Stouts (also called porters, but we'll get into that fucking subject later) are the darkest and among the most alcoholic of beers. Now, I'm not one to drink something just because it's loaded with booze... but when you're looking for something with a powerful taste, alcohol comes with the territory. I can't handle the generic, pissy beer taste of your Budweiser and Miller Lite. I want something with some balls. Whether you're a beer drinker or not, I urge you to give a stout a try. It really is a whole different league as far as flavor goes... and, hey, they even make some of them with chocolate.

The History of Stouts or The Best Way to Get Too Drunk to Carry Shit

The history of the stout/porter dates back all the way the 1700s. Like most booze history, the actual story is a little fuzzy at first... getting wasted for 300 years tends to change shit. Allegedly, the grandfather of the porter was actually a blend of ale, beer, and really fucking strong beer called Three Threads. This was a drink of the working alcoholic, primarily ship and street porters a.k.a. people whose job is to carry heavy shit. This was the primo drink for about thirty years, until a brewer managed to brew a single beer that had a similar taste (or it might have been brewed just because... this is one of those fuzzy areas) which he called Entire and the rest of England called porter after the folks that drank them. This same brewer was the first to age beer BEFORE it was sent out to the drinking public, lending even more punch to the brew.
Porters, along with dark, extremely alcoholic beers in general, were hot shit until about 1800, when the first pale ale was brewed. Tastes changed and porters got milder and milder, until most breweries stopped making them all together, leaving them behind as relics of a drunken century. With the micro-brew revolution, everything that was old is new again, and stouts are back in a big way.

Motherfucking Booze Time: Sparkling Wine

I was originally going to do this guide right before the New Year. Unfortunately, as you might remember, I was sick and didn't get around to it. Looking back, I'm glad I'm doing it now because one of the biggest points I'd like to make is that sparkling wine (including champagne) fucking rules. Sparkling wines should be thought of as standard wines and not some "special occasion" bullshit. The biggest issue to overcome here is champagne... that is, that all sparkling wines are considered inferior to champagne and the cost of a decent bottle of champagne dissuades purchase by the average wino (you and me). Don't fall into this group of slack-jawed swine fuckers. Think of champagne as a variety of sparkling wine, with its own pros and cons.

The History of Sparkling Wine or Why France is Stupid

Effervescence in wine is not new nor was it invented by anyone (especially not the goddamn French). Ancient Greeks and Romans wrote about it but had no fucking clue where it came from. They attributed it to demons, curiously never explaining why demons would use their terrible infernal powers to make little bubbles in booze instead of skinning infants or raining fire from the heavens. Wine from the Champagne region of France (today the only wine that can legally be called just champagne, which you would have known had you seen Wayne's World 2) had a tendency to both sparkle and explode (I'll explain why later). In fact, one exploding bottle would lead to a chain reaction that could claim an entire cellar and up to a half dozen French peasants. Yes, that does sound fucking awesome.The French didn't much care for glass shards  embedded in their little faces (pussies) and instead of trying to figure out why their wine was exploding, they, taking a page from the Greeks and Romans, just blamed it on the Devil. The volatile nature of the wine didn't stop them from shipping it to England, though. Why? Because fuck England. However, the English used stronger glass and cork stoppers when they bottled the wine, which kept it from exploding yet preserved the sparkle. In a big reverse "fuck you" to those French surrender monkeys, the English loved the wine and even figured out what made it effervescent. It's pretty likely that English merchants began producing champagne before the French using their grapes. The Brits taught the French how to do all this later... 200 years later.

So, what have we learned? Not only was sparkling wine not invented in France, those frogs didn't even fucking like it when they first tried it and probably weren't even the first to produce the shit with their own grapes. Yeah, France is full of morons.

Motherfucking Booze Time: Gin

I fucking love pretty much everything about drinking. I like the taste, the culture, the variety... the whole kit and caboodle. I'm a drinker, there is no doubt. However, we've seen a decline in recent years of knowledgeable drinkers. Too many dumb motherfuckers show up to a bar, plop down their money, and order a drink because they heard it on the TV machine. "Herp derp, gimme a jack an' coke!" "Derpy herp-herp... Jager bomb, please!" Fucking shoot me now. Half of these mongoloids couldn't tell you what "Jack" (an American whiskey) or "Jager" (a German digesteif) is, other than a liquid they drink to get fucked up and make bad decisions. It's essentially the booze equivalent of fast food.
This is why I'm starting a new series here on the Box called "It's Motherfucking Booze Time." I'm going to give you a quick primer on a selected booze, including production, taste, and history. I'll also include a selection of drinks made using said alcohol. It's like the Encyclopedia Brittanica, except not obsolete. The first entry in our series is gin.

What the Fuck is Gin?
To understand what gin is, you need to understand what neutral grain spirit is. Neutral grain spirit (also known as pure grain alcohol or pure grain spirit) is a spirit derived from mash distilled at so high an alcohol by volume that none of the flavor of the mash is left behind. Think of it like blank, flavorless alcohol. Some people do drink this shit, and usually brag about it later... which is kind of like bragging to a friend drinking a Dr. Pepper that you like to drink carbonated water. Yeah, congratulations asshole. NGS provides the basis for many alcohols, including gin.
Gin is really more a taste than a traditional variety of alcohol. That taste is derived primarily from juniper berries, which aren't berries at all... they're really cones with fleshy scales. Other botanicals, berries, and spices are added to give individual gins their desired flavor, but juniper berries are king.
Contrary to popular belief, most common alcohols (gin, whisk[e]y, rum, vodka, tequila) come in at around the same alcohol by volume... that is, about 40%. While you may find higher alcohol versions of many of these drinks, only whisk(e)y and gin will be at LEAST 40%. Alcohol by volume is just what it sounds like... what percent of what's in the bottle is ethanol. Sometimes the ABV is given as a proof. To determine the ABV, simply cut the proof in half... 80 proof is 40% ABV, 101 proof is 50.1 ABV, and so on.