dirty gifts, dirty pleasures and a grip of Heineken

Near the small northwestern Colombian town of Puerto Triunfo, Pablo Escobar once built himself a vacation getaway befitting a man of his stature. Hacienda Napoles was just shy of paradise, spread across almost 5,000 acres (7.7 sq-mi.) and featured everything from pools to a bullring to an exotic zoo with hippos, giraffes, elephants, and more. Stories of enormous drug-fueled sex parties at Hacienda Napoles with some of Colombia's most powerful and most beautiful in attendance continue to circulate, contributing to the legend of Escobar. opulence at its height, this drug laced I want it,..i get it lifestyle makes what we lust for now further out of reach but somehow Spartan in comparison. however, pity our hearts and ceramic minds, our insatiable need to be involved with all celebs and to stay tuned to all the drama,…all the glitz and all the naughtiness …well, its almost like we all secretly want to be… modern day Escobars.

Today, however that paradise is in ruins and the days of spelling your name in cursive with a 24 inch line of pink flake have come and gone. Even at the PE palace, everything that could be gutted has been gutted by people looking for rumored stashes of coke or cash. Its only residents are families of refugees from the country's war against guerrilla fighters and about 20 hippos which roam the area with the same kind of impunity that Pablo enjoyed decades ago. I began Thinking about ole PE this morning as I recalled my 2009 thanksgiving après party 5hat went down gracefully in the basement of a friends home in a rural outskirt of Atlanta Georgia. An geographic eternity away from Colombia but little did I know how just how close to the legend,…the man,…the myth himself I actually stood.

After a brutal ending to a sixth or maybe it was the seventh game of billiards, a dozen and a half bottles of an famous green glassed eastern European lager, the sundry aromas crept down the flight of stairs and apparently took hold on my countenance. Initially, I was just one of the gang. ..one of four dudes hanging out working off the mysterious potions, hops, vinous libation and 20K plus calories when one member of the opponents team began wondering if I was actually who I said I was. Totally unprovoked and bizarre …this situation is, even as I write this days later, remains difficult to articulate. im not sure ive ever been in a situation where introductions were made, conversation was had, laughs were shared and then,..suddenly, all at once like the de-guising after a masquerade ball, you are instantaneously viewed as if you were …well, ..in this case, standing next to Pablos true cousin,… I was most certainly a Colombian secret intelligence agent camouflaged as a balding middle aged man with three kids and a bronze colored SUV. I suppose most of us have no real understanding of what it must be like to have relations of this nature and to be a literal living remnant of the PE empire. Like fleeing from an accidental childhood murder or a really bad lie, I guess the family of PE remains on high alert defcon 24-7 sleeping with an eye open looking to the rustling tree tops and an ear to the words of the street. On this night though, my curious nature and whimsy almost put me on the wrong side of the fence..or up in a tree, or in an unmarked Colombian police car..sheesh,…I dunno.

Strange things happening in a not so strange place makes for even stranger memories. lets just say that sharing a case of Heineken and copping a good buzz with a family member of an ex south American drug lord brings no measure of security to the situation. I think it could have been the beer actually. Simply that I never drink the stuff and then, suddenly, there I was guzzling the brew became my little wrinkle in time. an anomaly of astronomic proportions that invited a freakish injection into my personal time space continuum. this time round,…a denim clad Colombian expatriate. who,…what? …why??

Heineken lager
My first taste of Heineken occurred quite a few years ago. I had seen the advertisements, and I was under the impression that Heineken was a far superior product to any pathetic beer that the U.S. brewed. if you or any of your friends actually feel this way today, you should purchase a tongue scraper from a nearby health food store, go see an ENT and get your taste buds evaluated.

If I were to give a short description of Heineken's flavor, I would label it crisp and generically German-tasting. Heineken reminds me a lot of many characterless crappy German lagers I've sampled, such as Beck's and St. Pauli Girl. I don't know what gives the beer that distinctive nipping bitter metallic flavor, but it is unlike any domestic lager I've tasted, and I think that it's a good thing. well,..thank god anyway ! this beer does have a pretty good hop character for a lager and I suppose Heineken is a “refreshing” beer. It does have a light mouthfeel and a slight bitterness from the hops that I guess could be perceived as thirst quenching. I should also point out that Heineken has really sweet undertones, almost reminiscent of honey. There is not honey in this beer to my knowledge, but the sweet taste makes this stuff really noticeably sweet... almost to the point of oddity. I always say sugar rules in America. that’s goes for wine, desserts and I suppose some really popular beer too. so, next time you find yourself in the basement playing pool with a soft spoken south American that wears the bill of him cap low on his lobe, show him photos of you eating a cheeseburger at Disney world .