Shout About Alcohol

posted by Jodie Alcopops on Jun 23

I have never understood why some health guidelines state that you can have the occasional drink when pregnant. It is common sense that if you are drunk then the little one inside you will be to and all you are doing is putting your babies life at risk!

So the government have realised a statement that now states that alcohol should be avoided altogether! Not only should you not drink alcohol if you are pregnant you should also give up on the pop if you are trying to conceive.

It is pretty disturbing to read that 9% of expecting mothers drink more than the recommended limit. Heavy drinking whilst pregnant can cause retardation, poor memory and, in the worst cases, facial abnormalities…would you really take this risk just for having a drink???

With these new guidelines in place hopefully it will cause less confusion on what your limits are and it is now crystal clear if you are pregnant or trying to conceive ditch the alcohol!!!

posted by Jodie Alcopops on Jun 22

Ok so i usually tell you what’s hot and not when it comes to alcohol but if like myself you have Monday blues and still nursing a hangover from the weekend here is a few tips on how to wake up feeling fresh and not head sore!

One thing that i am bad for especially on Friday’s is not eating tea before i go out. I usually finish work and go for a drink and then there is no stop in me and having tea slips my mind. This is why i usually retire early with my head in the toilet and wake up feeling like i have had a round with Mike Tyson, not nice at all!!! So you really should make sure that you eat before you start on the drinks, even if it just a couple of slices of toast to line your stomach. Not only will you wake up feeling ok you will be able to stay out and play later as the drink will not go to your head as fast.

If i know that i have a busy day after a night on the razz i will purposely stay clear of red wine and brandy as these drinks cause the more severe hangover.

Easier said than done this one but try and have a glass of water in between drinks. Alcohol is bad for making you dehydrate hence the pounding head in the morning so just a few glasses of water in the night to keep you hydrated will help you in the morning!

Try and get as much fresh air as possible especially before you jump in a cab home! I had one very bad experience where i felt perfectly fine then jumped straight into a cab to get instant head spin when the heat hit me and the next thing i was being sick in the taxi and the worst is to come, i am actually squirming in my seat typing this but i was on a date and the sick went straight into his lap, whoops! Trust me i have learnt a lot from this experience and will never get straight into a car without standing outside for a few minutes first.

Drink 1 pint of water washed down with 2 headache tablets when your night is over. I do this without fail every time i have had a drink and seriously you will not wake up feeling dehydrated or hung-over.

If you stick to this and you still wake up with a hangover i would be pretty concerned about the amount you drank the night before! There are ways to cure a hangover if you wake up with one.

Try some of the below to help you through the day:

A fry-up and i don’t mean drive down the road to your nearest greasy grub house actually cook the fry up yourself and grill the food. You will only feel worse if you eat a calorie packed fry-up that is under cooked and fried.

Caffeine for an emergency quick fix like coffee, coke or tea. I have done this before but you will only feel like you have more energy for short term.

Drink water, water and more water. As i keep banging on you have a hangover because you are dehydrated!

Eat fruit to replace lost vitamins and boost your energy levels.

If everything is failing i would suggest just going to sleep!

If you can think if any magical cures you can share please let me know???

posted by Jodie Alcopops on Jun 19

Hurray the weekend is here again! So that means getting merry and letting my hair down and i can’t wait!!!

Tonight i have a few friends coming over so drinks will be starting at mine and instead of going for the usual cocktails i thought i would do a bit of something on the side and that bit on the side has to be the one and only vodka jelly, yummy!

I love vodka jelly and it doesn’t take any effort or hard work to make and it goes down a treat at house parties.

See below for ingredients and how to make vodka jelly:

Let’s start with the ingredients:

Firstly you need to buy some jelly cubes, any jelly flavour will do i tend to go for raspberry but there is loads to choose from depending what you fancy.

Buy a bottle of vodka, because the vodka is mixed with jelly and the taste is more fruity i buy Tesco value vodka (i really hope none of my friends are reading this!

A large bowl

Small jelly bowls

Fruit – strawberry, rasberrys, grapes and oranges.

So here is the fun part, making the jelly…

Pour 40% of hot water into your bowl and mix the jelly until it melts and cools down then add 40% of vodka and mix in some grapes. When it has melted place in your fridge over night. In the morning chop up your strawberries, raspberries and  oranges and place over the top of the jelly bowl and leave in your fridge for the day. Then all you need to do is pour the jelly into your jelly bowls and hey presto your done!

Now here comes the best part…drinking and eating the jelly!

Enjoy! x

posted by Jodie Alcopops on Jun 18

I am a huge fan of wine, i drink rose on a night out, white wine for a civilised meal and red on a Sunday with my Sunday roast.

One thing i love is trying different types of wine i never go for the same brand as there are hundreds out there so why always drink the same one? There has been some occasions though where i have had a glass of the most tastiest wine and had no idea where it came from with much regret!

Recently I have started to do a bit of research myself on French wines. I thought it was a must-do as I get through so many bottles a week myself and was pretty intrigued.

Starting off with the sweet white wine:

In order to get sweet wine at the end they leave the grapes longer before picking them so that they are dryer (over ripe) and there is more sugar in them. The grapes used are “Chenin blanc”. It’s quite simple really; it’s all to do with the right timing.  A nice sweet wine that you can get in France in the Loire Valley is the “Coteaux du Layon”. This wine is perfect with a dessert or as an “aperitif”. Some good vintages for this wine are: 1989, 1995, 1997, 2003 and 2005.

The problem with rosé is that unless you know your wine you don’t know if it’s sweet or dry. There are a few ways of making rosé wines but a popular one is to leave the grape skin on whilst the grapes are being crushed but then filtering them before fermentation.

Just in case you didn’t know, there is a rumour going round that making rosé by mixing red and white is not going to be allowed in the EU, why, why, why?????

posted by Jodie Alcopops on Jun 17

I have been doing some research on what the world’s strongest alcohol on the market is and i was gob smacked to find out that there is an alcohol that is 190 Proof, OMG!!! Surely this can not be drank? I recently did a post on Absinthe which i absolutely slated as i think it tastes vile but that’s nothing at only 55% alcohol!

It comes to no surprise that Everclear has been outlawed in many places now as it has actually caused death!!! To be fair the guy who died from Everclear did drink 22 shots and his friend had 21 and ended up in come to awake after 1 week with severe liver damage and blind in one eye and another student drank 15 and died. I wouldn’t even sample 1 shot of this stuff never mind 22 and i hope this will put people off ever wanting to try Everclear.

The liquor is meant to be classified as vodka but i would say its more like paint stripper. This stuff must destroy your insides and i would not like to imagine the pain you must feel when it hits the back of your throat. Reports state that when you have a shot you will have an instant coughing fit and hit the ground immediately.

If you were to survive this alcohol i hate to think of the horrendous hangover that you will suffer from in the morning!

Please, please, please let me know if you have ever tasted Everclear???

This really is Killer stuff!!!!!!!!!!!!

posted by Jodie Alcopops on Jun 16

I was lucky enough to sample some of Donald Trump’s vodka and i must share with you that this is the finest vodka i have ever tasted.

As we all know Donald Trump owns an empire of business ranging from hotels to clothes so when i got the opportunity to sample some of his vodka i presumed it would be average as i have never heard that he owned his own vodka brand and wow have i been missing out!

The taste of the vodka is to high quality and demands the same respect as Donald Trump himself. Not only does he offer original vodka it also comes in orange, raspberry, grape and citron flavours.  Unfortunately i have not sampled any of the other flavours but i am keen to try the raspberry flavour, especially on a hot summer’s day.

This is going to make me sound vain now but i am a huge sucker and will buy into anything if i like the packaging and if you are lucky enough to get your hands on a bottle of Trump vodka you definitely will keep the bottle! The bottle is unique with a luxury design, to be fair it has been designed by New York artist Milton Glaser so quality is expected.

There is one slight negative comment i have to make…you will wake up with a sore head!!! But trust me it is worth it!

posted by Jodie Alcopops on Jun 15

I attempted to write a post yesterday but my hangover got the better of me and eating chocolate all day was much more appealing than trying to work a computer!

As you can see from my last post i was pretty excited for the weekend and drinking Sex On The Beach cocktails!!! So as planned we started off with the cocktails and then headed to a curry house and drank white wine, note-to-self never ask for house white wine in a curry house as it arrives in a fish bowl with no label and looks likes a urine sample from the doctors and funnily enough tastes like one!!!

Anyway less of that…The night was going well until it come to drinking shots time, Sambuka shots yes, Absinthe shots big NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

My first experience with Absinthe was when i was 18 and sat in bar, i had my cocky head on and believed that i could drink anything, i mean it couldn’t be much stronger than my blue WKD that i was drinking! Ok that’s what i thought at the time and o how wrong i was! I knocked the shot back in one and the next thing i know i was leaning over the bar struggerling to breathe and violently being sick, all that in the space of 5 seconds! Classy! Since my ever so embarrassing experience i have purposely stayed clear of Absinthe on a night out and have no intensions of ever drinking the dreaded poison again!

That’s why on Saturday when my mates got a round of Absinthe in i proudly rejected and watched in horror as they downed there shot. There faces said it all when they finished and so did there behaviour, if you want to pull your crazy ex who will not leave you alone, who you have been trying to avoid for months then Absinthe will make you think there Megan Fox and you will be straight in there arms again…well until the alcohol is out of your blood stream, that’s what happened to one of the guys i was out with on Saturday and another one spent the rest of the night lay on a bathroom floor with there head in the toilet, nice!!!

So if you want my opinion i think your bloody crazy if you drink Absinthe and if you have never tried it before don’t try now as you are not missing out! I love shots like Sambuka, Tequila and After Shock and these are all pretty harsh but they taste like water compared to Absinthe.

If you have had any bad experience with Absinthe let us know?????