Spruce beer: the choice of tree-chuggers

One of my impulse buys in Montreal was a can of spruce beer that I spotted it near the back of a shelf in the Gai Village’s Metro supermarket. It was painted with evergreen branches that bent slightly in front, like a meek dog waiting for permission to look someone in the eye, and it made me think of Christmas, which is a powerful feeling for someone traveling alone. (Religious cults ought to give it away at street corners to lure the emotionally vulnerable.) It tasted awful, of course. Imagine a floor so clean you could eat off it. Now imagine that no one has dropped any food, so you lick the floor instead and get a mouthful of Pine-Sol. I gave it about four sips before I poured the rest in the kitchen sink at my B&B — making the place smell, for an instant, like a camping tent in a Quebec forest. I expect that to satisfy my desire to experience the great outdoors this summer, unless I stumble upon some Beavermeat Saspirilla. (And I don’t mean at Mado.)