Foe this review Ahm going to tawk with a Southawn accent because that’s how ya’ll should tawlk when consumin'
a fine Kentuckeh straight bourbon whiskeh. Even if it’s with Cone Pops. 1
No fuck that, the whiskey is hitting me too fast to keep an accent straight, and my monitor is specked with bits of
whiskey and corn pops. 2 I look over my shoulder and see a bag of apple jacks looming on my dresser like a portent
of ethanol spiked doom. Did I just say portrait or portent? 3 I meant the latter.
Focus, Hoffman, focus, the task at hand is everything. You’re here, with an empty bowl full of booze slime, to
write an article about what was in that bowl. There, now we’re back on track. Forgive me dear reader4, this
stuff has hit me even harder than the Goldschlager did. When I started to pour the whiskey onto my Corn Pops they absorbed
it rather quickly so I kept adding more…… and more.
Gandalf.
Ahem. What the fuck? Now that that too is over with, I must report on my findings. The first spoonful wasn’t
too bad. A bit strong, but not bad. The whiskey had a nice warm and tingly thing going on. Spoonful after wretched spoonful
followed. My tongue began to go numb. The Corn Pops were also getting soggy.5
Alcohol, I’ve found, is a potent solvent in relation to cereal. The mushy booze soaked cornflakes were, well,
mushy booze soaked cornflakes. But aside from the numbing affect and the alcohol melting in my mouth and causing firey sensations,
it wasn’t bad. The flavor was corny with hints of caramel, very well balanced. Perhaps one of the nicest combinations
I’ve had since Lucky Charms and Bailey’s.6
And then came the tragedy. I was near to the end, so very close to freedom. I decided to do my traditional bowl tipping
and slop the remaining corn mush, or in whiskey terms, sour mash, into my mouth. Turns out it wasn’t as absorbent as
I thought. All the whiskey was just hiding under the Corn Pops like a Trojan horse. It’s wicked whiskey, it is!
So I ended up pouring all that into my mouth. I hadn't been prepared for the liquor and when it hit the back of my throat
and my little dangly thing7, the natural reaction was to do a spit take. I’m sorry I couldn’t capture
the moment properly on camera.
I dropped to the floor. Would I survive? I did not know. Having found the taste pleasant enough I had let my guard down.
In this business, boys and girls, such an amateur mistake might be your last. But out of the corner of my eye I spotted something,
a reason to keep going.
The whiskey hadn’t killed me and so, feeling invincible, I got a new bowl, deciding to use the remaining pictures
on my camera and get the apple schnapps and apple jacks out of the way. Sadly, I didn’t have a spoon. I couldn’t
reuse the one from my previous excursion because of scientific ethics or some shit, which are very important to me as I conduct
my important liquor/cereal experiments. So, in order to be more scientific, I decided to test the effects of a spork on liquor
and cereal.
On went the liquor and into my mouth it traveled. My conclusions: Those things were FUCKING GOOD. There were no cereal
marshmallows to sully my liquor, so the worst that got in the stuff were some of those little red specks of fun. And the taste
was really spot-on. You couldn’t tell where the apple jacks ended and the apple schnapps began.
This is my most highly recommended liquor and cereal pairing. Yum! (Author's editing note: My tummy did not find this so
yummy.8 Probably didn’t mix too well with the whiskey and the Goldschlager chaser I took afterwards for a
photo.)
It was only after the dish was done and I’d imbibed more alcohol than was sensible that I began to examine the Corn
Pops box.9 It seems that Kellogs cereal gives you energy to perform at your best in any sport you play. “But
I don’t play sports,” you complain.10 Well, fatty, they have a remedy for that, and I’m going
to help you play a sport. It’s called “Run Your Silly Ass Around a Stolen Road Cone.”
Kellogs suggests that you use eight cones for this. Bitch, if I was physically fit enough to steal eight road cones, I
wouldn’t need to be running around them and following instructions from a cereal box. If I was that good I would fucking
own this town.
Oh, an addendum. It’s not Kellogs’ idea anymore. Now that I read it properly it’s “Try the
Adidas zig-zag tag drill*” Wow. What an awesome name. They really have been doing great work at their marketing department,
and no doubt fatties across the country will soon be shaping up as they play zig-zag fag-tag.11
So they have a bunch of nonsensical directions but they basically amount to run around like a spaz. So that’s
what I did. Spaz running is hard when you’ve just chugged three different kinds of liquor. After I’d fallen over
I needed another drink of whiskey to ease the pain as I realized that no, I would never be a zig-zag tag champion.
When I went back to the box to see if there was a prize for second place in the game, I noticed the asterisk:12
“Children participating in any physical activity should be in good physical health, play safe, and be supervised by
a responsible adult.”
Fuck. Not only did I suck at the zig-zag fag-tag, but the league would never admit me anyhow. I don’t think I
stand much chance of convincing them of my responsibility or my adulthood when I appear at tryouts soaked in whiskey and wobbling
from side to side.
So it is with a heavy heart that I must resign from the zig zag fag tag league.13 Today, I consider myself the
luckiest man on earth.
1 Cone Pops are a central Virginian delicacy made primarily of ground raccoon tail and discarded chicken feet,
colloquially known as "hot dogs" by much of the US. It may also be that the author actually meant to say "Cawhn Pops." He
is often ambiguous and cruel to the English language.
2 For someone who drinks like a fish, it seems that the narrator cannot hold his liquor very well.
3 The author first used the word "portent."
4 Speaking directly to the reader, commonly referred to as "breaking the fourth wall," is a bold move in this
context because it implies an expectation that the reader has actually read the author's previous works.
5 Soggy Corn Pops are no fun for anyone. I always eat my cereal very quickly to avoid it becoming soggy.
6 This is clearly a gross exaggeration, as no liquor or liqueur could ever top the taste of Bailey's Irish Cream;
certainly not something as base as cheap whiskey.
7 It is unclear here whether the author is referring to his uvula or an alien parasite that has taken up residence
in the back of his throat.
8 The author engages the reader's sense of the absurd via a ploy through simplistic language and the aa rhyme
scheme.
9 This point was clearly after the first spoonful of Corn Pops and whiskey.
10 Some early translations write this as " 'But I don’t play sports!' you exclaim."
11 An early rejected title for this game was was "Swerving, Homosexual, Consensual, Nonsexual Touching /
Avoiding."
12*
13How can the author resign from a league that he admits he could never join? It is a mystery.
