Put Rumple Minze on the Christmas Tree

As you may know, I have been struggling with bad cold the last week.  I’ve done bourbon, hot toddies and beer to ease the scratching in my throat.   Yes the drink was strictly for medicinal purposes :P.

While walking through my local Mosier’s, I spotted something that looked like fun.  Rumple Minze.

Rumple Minze started at an early age for me…….probably around 7 or 8.  Not with me drinking it, but instead seeing the add in issues of my Dad’s Playboys.  You might recall it, the armored woman on a polar bear.

The Taste Beyond Bold.

As I moved into my teenage years, and started gaming, that image solidified for me what a woman warrior should look like…..on a polar bear.

I didn’t learn what it tasted like until I was at Ft. Devens.  You remember those heady years where you really start to investigate drinking.  I was at a party for our graduating class and we had someone over 21 go into the Class 6 Store.  I wanted Cpt. Morgan’s Spiced Rum (another marketing gem that set my expectations of Pirates) and my friend wanted  “Peppermint Schnapps”.   At the party I tried it, and was immediately hooked on it’s sticky sweetness….the candy cane flavor.   I was still to novice in the ways of hard drinking to realize the advantage of no hangover in the morning too.

Flash forward to me in Germany a few months later.  By then, I was an accomplished drinker……versed in the ways of beer and bourbon.  While I wasn’t an expert on quality, I definitely knew quantity.

In a bar in Germany, I decided to order a Schnapps….I thought, what the hell….I had had it before. 

Let’s just say, German Schnapps is not the candied liquor that Americans drink.  Instead it is gasoline with a little bit of flavor (if you ever had Rocktopus…..you would see colors shimmering on top, just like gasoline in a puddle). 

So, I was now officially OFF the schnapps bandwagon.

Now here we are, 20 years later and nostalgic memories of D&D Erotica, Military Service and a crappy sore throat collide at a rural grocery store in MO.

So how was it?  Nirvana. 

Next year, I am going to find miniature bottles of this to replace the candy canes on the Christmas tree.  They would be more than an adequate substitute.

The smooth taste covers the fact that this is 100 Proof liquor and alcohol has a great soothing effect. 

The peppermint isn't overwhelming and the only way I can describe it is “Candy in a Bottle”.

I wouldn't drink it every day, but it worth the $18 I paid……especially since (as I noted earlier) there was no hangover the next like I normally get from the sweet liquors.