The first couple of weeks after Labor Day are a doozy. It still looks like summer. It still feels like summer. But all of a sudden the rules change. The douchebags who so graciously departed for the Hamptons in June have returned en masse. Kids are back in school. People have to start paying attention at work again. Football makes its violent, militaristic reappearance. Those awesome seersucker and linen suits? Back in the closet for nine months. Sure, it's still warm and lush and green outside. But the waiting game has begun. When are the fall clothes going to come out of mothballs? When's the first frost? When are you going to look around and say, "Holy crap, how did it become winter?"
In a nutshell, I hate this time of year. But good booze always helps mitigate the crud factor of autumn, and this autumn there's a ton of very fine new bottlings out there. Most of them should be on your liquor store shelves by now, and the few that aren't will be launching within the next few weeks. There's something for just about everyone here, from bourbon to rum to liqueur to absinthe, and at price points ranging from $20 to $5,000. Try one or, as I did, try them all -- just not in one night. Autumn unfolds slowly, so take your time.
Photo from xlibber, Flickr.
