With Ontario now in its second lockdown of the COVID-19 pandemic, the popularity of homemade sourdough has fallen just as quickly as our loaves rose (sometimes). But no need to fret. There is a new culinary kid on the block: bathtub wine!
“Sourdough is just so much work,” says Emily Baker, a lazy millennial whose three part-time jobs put her outside the bracket for government assistance. “Sourdough requires you to go out and get a starter from your weird Aunt Ruth or that girl from high school who sells essential oils now. But with bathtub wine, I have all the ingredients I need already fermenting at the back of my fridge!”
Plus, the bathtub is a more readily available space for food preparation, chimes in Austin Bailey. “Here in Toronto, I really need my oven as extra storage space for my dirty dishes and sneaker collection,” shares Bailey, who shares a bachelor apartment with three other men. “But I gave up on personal hygiene way back in the first lockdown, so who needs a bathtub?”
Bathtub wine is also far more accessible than sourdough, as it can be produced under a variety of conditions. For example, white wines are best made in a classic porcelain tub, whereas red wines are better suited to a tub where you recently cut yourself shaving. Still expert sommeliers remind would-be winemakers that it’s only champagne if it comes from a tub in the northeast region of your apartment – otherwise it’s just bubble bathtub wine.
Winemakers can add notes of smokiness by getting stoned while making their booze, and achieve a more full-bodied flavour by actually climbing inside the tub with the wine. But no matter which wine you’re making, be sure not to clean the bathtub beforehand – that’s where all the flavour is.
As for the ease of preparation, bathtub wine is once again far superior to bread. “Making sourdough is such a knead-y process,” says Baker, who may have already been tipsy at the time of the interview. “But with bathtub wine, I can just throw all the ingredients in the tub and forget about it until it starts to smell. Easy peasy!”
Most importantly, bathtub wine is more direct means of achieving everyone’s goal in second lockdown: getting absolutely fucking hammered. “If it’s slushy outside, it’s sloshed on the inside,” says Baker, who then cried when she realized we have been in quarantine for nearly a full goddamn year.
As for what culinary trends will rise in the inevitable third, fourth, and fifth lockdowns, only time will tell. Toronto’s Bailey has his money on free range raccoon jerky, whereas Baker has already begun brewing something she refers to as Sink Sambuca.
