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#171741 - 11/09/12 01:07 PM mini bottles of happiness
balzaccom Offline
member

Registered: 04/06/09
Posts: 2232
Loc: Napa, CA
Since we are both pretty darn interested in the world of food and wine, we try to bring a little bit of luxury along on our hikes, especially a treat or two for the palate. A dark chocolate bar seems to hold up just fine, as long as we keep it pretty well insulated in our bear canister.

And we've been known to take wine as well, now that we have a few lightweight plastic bottles that we have saved from the garbage heap or an airline. Chilled in a mountain stream, wine is a wonderful way to celebrate dinner.

(These bottles work great, by the way, as long as the wine is young and fresh--not recommended for aged Bordeaux.)

Of course, that's still a lot of weight on a longer trip, so for those we've taken to filling a few of the miniature bottles with Scotch, Anisette, or even Absenthe for our hikes. It only takes a small amount of the good stuff to give us a nice lift after dinner. And whenever we do, we remember the lines from the great poet Omar Khayyam, in the Rubaiyat:

Here with a Loaf of Bread beneath the Bough,
A Flask of Wine, a Book of Verse---and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness---
And Wilderness is Paradise enow.

Exactly.
_________________________
Check our our website: http://www.backpackthesierra.com/

Or just read a good mystery novel set in the Sierra; https://www.amazon.com/Danger-Falling-Rocks-Paul-Wagner/dp/0984884963

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#173793 - 01/13/13 01:14 AM Re: mini bottles of happiness [Re: balzaccom]
Jim M Offline
member

Registered: 11/23/03
Posts: 430
Loc: Kitsap Peninsula, WA
I agree.
"the springs of enchantment lie within ourselves: they arise from our sense of wonder, that most precious of gifts, the birthright of every child"
Eric Shipton---from his personal autobiography
_________________________
Jim M

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