Drunken burritos and liquor store etiquette.

So, I had to make an emergency liquor store run at 10am.
It happens.

My goal for the day was to make this slow cooker burrito beef that I had found a recipe for. Last time I tried to make it, I forgot the white wine, cilantro, green onions and hot sauce - pretty much everything but the meat. I had the meat.

Today, I was prepared. I had gotten all of the ingredients. Except the wine.

It takes approximately 9 hours to cook this meat. This means I had to roll out of bed at 10am to get this stuff cooking.

I know. It's sooooo early.

Anywtfitsmydayoff, as I'm slaving away in the kitchen (basically this involves taking a frozen rump roast from the freezer, into the crockpot and pouring hot sauce over it), I realize I forgot the white wine.

Dammit.

You would think there was some alternative at hand. The marsala wine seemed a little too marsala-y. The sherry cooking wine didn't really smell like what I wanted my burritos to taste like (that made sense in my head). The grape smirnoff that someone left in my fridge was really not what I needed. The Grand Marnier...well, that's really to be enjoyed on it's own.

So, I found myself in my pj's googling what time the liquor store opens.

Then, I got dressed really quickly, threw on a respectable looking outfit and headed to the liquor store. You really have to try to look respectable when you are the first customer waiting at the door for the liquor store to open.

It's etiquette. Or something.

Anywhinos, I learned a few things while at the liquor store at 10am on a weekday.

1) Newman's Own makes wine...along with just about everything other product you could ever want.

2) Wine does not come in those convenient little purse size bottles like the good stuff. I was tempted to ask the clerk if they had them, but he didn't seem like the helpful, 'I just need 1 cup for a recipe', kind of guy.

3) I know nothing about wine. Seriously. Chardonnay, reisling, sauvignon blanc...it's all so confusing. Thank God there was a $6.99 bottle of wine that actually said 'white wine' on the label.

4) Even $6.99 bottles of wine can require the use of a corkscrew to open.

5) I have no idea why we have a corkscrew or what to do with the cork that is now stuck on my corkscrew. How do you wine drinkers do this? It's a very complicated beverage.

6) A little swig of wine makes the grocery store much more tolerable.

7) Drinking from a black plastic bag in public tends to attract attention. Hence the need for purse size bottles. Discretion, people. Discretion.

So, everything is in the crockpot and at around 9:30pm, we will be enjoying delicious beef burritos with a little white wine. I have almost a whole bottle left and I hate to waste things.

This has the potential to be a very good meal.