Prohibition Harvest Ale (Pumpkin Spice) - 5.50

Mood: wanted something fall-like

Where to Buy: BC liquor

Price: 5.50

Beer Type: Ale

Ingredients:

Country: Canada (Kelowna)

%: 5.5

ml: 650ml

Appearance: a darker ale look, looks like a pumpkin!

Smell: like cheap beer from undergrad (keggers)

Taste: not really sure, tastes like normal beer, but much more bitter, and I dont taste pumpkin or spice, unless that's the bitter taste....

Mouthfeel: 

Finished: bitter but wait... there it is!  I taste some pumpkin and some spice! score!

Overall: Not a fan.  It tastes cheap.  I know that wasn't the effect that it was going for, but seriously. Its super bitter in the mouth (not IPA hops bitter, just bitter beer bitter) and there is no pumpkin or spice to be had except for the lingering aftertaste.  Boo.

3/10

White IPA - Electric Unicorn - ???

Mood: saw the label and needed this bottle. Eff the beer inside, the bottle is mine!!!

Where to Buy: BC liquor (Tofino?)

Price: ???

Beer Type: Belgium IPA

Ingredients: malted barley, hops, water, yeast, natural blackberry flavour

Country: Canada (BC)

%: 6.5%

ml: 650ml

Appearance: a white IPA look

Smell: a light IPA smell

Taste: like Ricards white. But less bubbly and hoppy. A nice white IPA if need be. 

Mouthfeel: crisp, clean, orange rind.

Finished: not as bitter as other IPA's I've had. 

Overall: I'm not a huge fan of IPA's at all, but considering it's still a hefty alcohol content I expected the taste to be more overwhelming.  I'm glad it wasn't. A light beer I would be happy buying again, but only in bottle form so I can keep all the bottles....

6/10

The time I tried a Dr. Oz 3 day detox...

So before I start my review on this, just one piece of advice... make sure to look at reviews or internet write-ups about certain diet changes before just jumping in full force.

Even a 3 day detox changed my body for the better, and the worst... so it would have been nice to know certain things before I got the symptoms...

For starts, I decided to try a 3 day detox found here, I mean it's Dr. Oz!  After the hype that my mom puts on this guy (like he's GOD or something)  I didn't believe that he could steer me in the wrong direction,  that, and I don't have a juicer... so I had to do a smoothie one. Perfect!  Found one!

So the first day I started this and after picking up all the ingredients I didn't really realize how heavy all the ingredients were going to be.  Like not weight wise, like fat wise.  Coconut milk, nuts, avocado... I think the main one was the coconut milk, you figure a cup here and a cup there in a mixed smoothie wouldn't make that much of a difference, but after 3 meals a day consisting mainly of that and other fatty ingredients (to no doubt keep a person full) It starts showing....

for me, it was pimples.  and lots of them.  I just finished my last smoothie of my third day and I have 6 new pimples on my face, not little weeny ones, like giant zits.  So I decided to finally look up the symptoms thinking it was because of the fat in the food I was eating.  Online it explains that I made a drastic change in my diet so my skin was like WHAT THE FUCK and decided to go haywire on me, including zits and oilier skin.

So this detox (due to the high level of good fat) wasn't for losing weight (nor was I doing it to lose weight, but I didn't expect to possibly gain weight???) rather it was just there to clean out my gut or whatever.  I don't know I just figured I had 3 days to kill, why not try it?

So since I gave you the link I don't need to describe what I ate or when etc, rather I will leave you with the pro's and the con's of my experience.  It's your choice if you choose to try this yourself...

PROS:  
I felt "clean",  I can't explain it... no weird gurgles or stomach aches, rather just a nice all over feeling inside.

I found some great recipes that i'm gonna keep using after these 3 days! Like the Curry Lentil Soup.  AMAZING mmmmm

I slept through the night, which I have been having a huge issue with since I moved to Vancouver.  I mean sleeping through the night for me ment like 5 or 6 hours, but no joke I usually wake up every like 2 or 3 hours randomly usually...

I had energy.  It wasn't like super pronounced energy, but I had energy.  Keep in mind I don't drink coffee on the regular so i'm sure if I was cutting out a stimulant like that for 3 days I would probably get a serious headache

CONS: 
With the words "detox" I thought I was supposed to be completely "cleaned out".  Not the case. Due to the change in diet my body said WTF? and clogged me up, kinda. I read after that people can also experience the reverse.

Can you say ACNE?  I look like a boy experiencing puberty after eating a bucket of grease right now. Bah!!!! And believe me I drank a crap load of water during this time too.  At least 2 liters a day.  I washed my face like 4 times a day during this because of the feeling of "oil" on my face.

I had cravings.  But just dull in the back of your head cravings.  Nothing that got me to go AHHHHHH I NEED THAT FOOD NOW (like in the special k commercials.... crazy...)

Healthy taro chia pudding

A little rendition of the usual tapioca taro pudding.  Swapped the coconut milk for skim milk and the tapioca for chia seeds. I wouldn't say it tastes the same, but it's delicious and healthy none the less!!!

Ingredients

1/4 of a large taro root

4 tablespoons chia seeds

1 1/2 cups milk (any type. I used skim to make it healthier but use 2% or homo milk or creaminess)

1/4 cup brown sugar

Combine milk and chia seeds. Let sit for 20-30 minutes storing every 5 minutes to remove clumps.  While letting it sit....

Cut the taro into small cubes 

Bring a pot of water to boil and add the cubes. Make sure the water covers all the taro. Turn the stove to medium high and let boil for 25 -30 minutes.

Drain taro and mash very fine 

Add chia seed milk mixture and sugar, stir.

There you go! Simple, delicious and nutritious. Add more milk or sugar if need be!

Note: the longer you let it sit out or in the fridge, the more pudding like it will be. So try letting it sit overnight if possible!

Blackberry Porter - Cannery Brewing - 5.25

Mood: saw it amongst the millions of craft beers, notice a trend of me getting flavours? Ya that's cuz I can't decide!

Where to Buy: BC liquor

Price: 5.25

Beer Type: porter

Ingredients: malted barley, hops, water, yeast, natural blackberry flavour

Country: Canada (bc)

%: 6.0%

ml: 650ml

Appearance: dark. As. Heck.

Smell: a fruity beer, dark smell, a lot like a  chocolate or coffee porter.

Taste: like the coffee porter I had at beer Fest. Strong, dark, nice rich flavour, good if you want a porter.... Bitter aftertaste!

Mouthfeel: crisp clean not creamy.

Finished: bitter, blackberry like!

Overall: exactly how I thought it would taste! Liked it!

7/10

Dye hair with Peroxide, Baking Soda, and Honey! (A.A. Stylez)

I know this post doesn't have much (ok... anything...) to do with alcohol, but I just couldn't bring myself to start a new blog for the amount of times I might actually be WRITING on something that doesn't involve drinking in my blog (wow.  I swear i'm not an alcoholic, I just feel it's stupid to write about ones self and ones daily life processes.  You shouldn't need praise and attention to enjoy what you do.)  But anyways... this is just an extra post that someone will find on google as evidence that the peroxide, honey, baking soda lightening method does work!

So I really wanted to do the ombre affect without paying a crap load of money to get it, because I'm just bored, not DIEING to change my hair colour, since I've been a natural brunette (with really healthy hair!) for about 9 years now.  Why dye your hair if at some point you're going to get grays and then hair dying will be a necessity???

Anyways, back to the ombre.  I thought I would try this method over other methods because after a little OCD researching on the internet, peroxide alone would take a few weeks to get to any results, and who wants to sit with peroxide wet hair for 8-9 hours a day/night anyways just to see results after 30 days???

Then I came across a faster method, mixing with baking soda and leaving on your hair for 30 minutes.  I liked the idea of a little honey as well, since it is a good moisturizer for your hair, and since I was literally going to burn my hair with peroxide I needed all the help I could get.

First round:  I mixed peroxide with baking soda to make a thin paste.  It's up to your discretion, you really can't mess this up.  Just know that if its too thin it will run off your hair, and if it's too thick it will clump up and you will have weird dye problems...  then just add a big scoop of honey to the mix.

After that start scooping and plopping into your hair and running it down the hair.  I put the tips in the bowl to completely saturate them, and put my hair half up and only dyed the underneath (just in case it turned out awful)  After that just wrap in tinfoil and leave for 30 minutes.

My hair looked lighter, but still natural.

If you don't notice a huge gradient (as I didn't  since I only died the bottom)  I spritzed peroxide on the middle half of my hair and the lower half twice over 2 days,  this lightened the dyed section slightly and lightened the non-dyed section a bit to blend in with the dyed bit.

Second Round: After a few days I decided I wanted to go a little lighter at the tips - DO NOT re-dye your hair right after the first round, or leave it on for more than 30-45 minutes at a time.  This is very drying already, and you might end up with broken hair - So I re-dyed 3 days later, same method, and noticed a change that I really liked.  I'm not going to go any further since my hair seems much more dry and brittle (but not destroyed, just slightly straw like (for a girl that hasn't dyed her hair in 9 years...) but I do notice there is a red tinge to my dyed hair.  Some people like this, and I don't MIND it, but I purchased a colour neutralizing conditioner (either for blond or silver hair, I got the silver hair one) which has a hint of blue in it so it will neutralize the red and look more blonde (hopefully???).  I didn't purchase the shampoo because I don't want it to colour neutralize my roots, just the middle and ends, where I use conditioner.  I will post about those results as well before you decide to go waste money on the product.



Cheers and happy dying!  It's really a fool proof method (I have never dyed my hair myself before...) and very easy and cheap (I already had all these ingredients at home!)  So go ahead, try it! :)

Pale Ale - Red Racer Pilsner - $5.15

Mood: very drunk when I purchased the cheapest beer I could find in the store  - 650ml

Where to Buy: Coal Harbour Liquor

Price: $5.15

Beer Type: pilsner and pale ale

Ingredients: ??? Barley, hops.

Country: Canada (brewed in German tradition)

%: 5.0%

ml: 650ml

Appearance: Wheaty. Between a normal and an amber

Smell: pilsner: normal beer pale ale: pale ale beer

Taste: bitterish pilsner, pale ale is good.

Mouthfeel: don't really remember

Finished: I remember not really liking the pilsner. The pale ale was ok though. Will buy again if I need a cheap pale ale (if I can find a better one)

Overall: considering it was the cheapest one I saw that night in the store, it was decent. No to the pilsner though and yes to the pale ale (but I don't really drink pale ale...)

7/10

Ginger Beer - Phillips Brewery - $4.99

Mood: first real drink in my place! Whoohoo! Still suffering from acid reflux though :( - 650ml

Where to Buy: BC Liquor

Price: $4.99

Beer Type: spiced beer

Ingredients: Water, barley, hops, yeast, ginger

Country: Canada

%: 5.0%

ml: 650ml

Appearance: Wheaty. Between a normal and an amber

Smell: slight beer... Alllllllll ginger!

Taste: bitter beer, alllllllllll ginger!!!

Mouthfeel: spicy! Can't leave it in there for long, makes a nice foam though

Finished: bitter beer taste :(

Overall: I was super excited to try this beer, but it just tastes like normal ginger beer with actual beer in it, nothing special, I think it would be great as a mixing alcohol

5/10