Arctic Winter Games

Wed, 14 Sep 2005 20:42:59 GMT

Gimme a chance to catch my breath and I'll tell you; why I called me blog, "Overproof Rum etc."

In 1970s Yellowknife, within my circle of friends and fellow employees (those that didn't wear cowboy boots, anyway. They drank whiskey). I never drank Rye Whiskey again after the night in the YK Inn, I discovered to my chagrin, it's a depressant and tends to make you ram yer beaky nose into people's fists.

Overproof (151) Rum was our winter, beverage of choice. We drank a lot of it. Lambs, Old Sam, HBC, Bacardi, Lemon Hart.....we didn't care. We drank it with whatever other liquid was handy. Cola, Limon, coffee, hot chocolate, frozen beer, koolaid...whatever. I first tried OP Rum in 1964, it made me gag...........later on I got over that.

I had a Texas Mickey, with a pump, of the stuff inside the cabin door. I'd top it up every payday. I carried a flask of it with me snowmobiling. Many happy evenings were spent at the cabin drinking OP Rum and coffee/hot chocolate. Many tales were told and many adventures were planned. Many adventuresome snowmobile rides were made with Old Sam riding on the back. More than a few, exciting 4x4 outings, were driven by Sam. He pretty much went everywhere with us. Of course, impaired driving was still considered a challenging, full contact sport in those days. Frowned upon now and dealt with severely, all the fun has been taken out of it. The/my/our 70's were fuelled by Steak, and Overproof Rum.

In the summer, we switched to 'normal' rum. Not quite so intense don'tcha know. I remember spending several Saturday nights, in the back of a friend's camper out on the Prelude Road searching for the perfect 'dry' rum. A bit of a futile exercise considering we mixed it with cola.

Can't do it anymore, nowadays a couple of light beer go straight to my head, plus they have the detrimental effect of refusing to blend with any solid foods I put in my stomach. BURP!

Smoked? Of course we smoked, everyone smoked, even Bill Clinton smoked, didn't you? It was cheap and dare I say even encouraged. We're talking about the Age of Innocence here, none of that stuff was harmful back then, minority driven, squeaky-wheel groups, hadn't been invented, Governments hadn't jumped on the Anti-Everything Bandwagon yet.......Ooooh, was that a rant? Sorry, I don't want to rant. Ranting detracts from my stories.

Ol' Sam. A Work in Progress.: Food and drink

Arctic Winter Games