Of course, enduring the holidays is as much a tradition as celebrating them. And so this week, your challenge is this: Make a drink for when you need to calm down before the guests get there, or for when you're celebrating their departure.

And, of course, bonus points for the best holiday drinking stories.

Be sure to tag your post: SKC holiday host drinking

Scoring and winning

Scores will be very scientific, given for creativity, execution, appealing photos, interesting stories behind your submissions, and touchdown-to-interception ratio.

AND NOW, LAST WEEK'S WINNER!

Last week's contestants created dishes commemorating formative political events of their lifetimes. And the winner is ...

Rebecca Farwell! For a five-course dinner in honor of Nixon's resignation, rich with culinary and linguistic punnery -- 18 minutes of missing linguine! A caught-red-handed lobster claw! -- that, all wit aside, sounds spectacularly delicious.

AND HOW ABOUT A HAND FOR OUR CATEGORY WINNERS?

In the Most Gracious Dinner Party Host category:

Kathy Riordan, for the Checkers Gala, featuring the amazing, cross-language punny Agnew Stew: "Oh, hello there. You look great. Here, try one of these. I was just telling Martha about Wyoming."

And for the category of Most Obvious Contempt for Mike Huckabee:

John Blumenthal, for discovering a Cro-Magnon archaeological dig in the former governor's yard. "Skulls, fragments of primitive tools and remnants of petrified human vomit were found on the scene." And it goes downhill from there. 

Far from being the first such concoctions, these are just the latest of a number of "extreme beers" that have hit the markets in recent years – for a list of others, check this roundup on Asylum. But if you’re anything like me -- and you like your beer in a pint glass and, well, easily drinkable -- you might also be wondering why anybody would bother. So we called up Brooks Hamaker, ex-vice-president of Abita Brewing Co., brewmaster, food writer, beer expert and member of our Kitchen Cabinet, to ask about the surprising appeal of hyper-alcoholic beers, how they're made, and why alcohol-content laws keep small brewers down.

First of all: Why are brewers making these incredibly extreme beers?

When you get the price point they're hitting -- Utopias sell for $150 a bottle – it’s really more for beer connoisseurs. The brewers are only going to make so many of these. In Boston Beer Co.'s case, it comes in a very odd bottle and the whole package is very exclusive.

At a certain point, with a certain alcohol content, you've got a lot more flavor and a lot more complexity, and people are willing to pay more money for that kind of thing. They’re not the kind of beers where you're going to knock back five or six at a time. It’s the kind of thing where, if somebody buys a bottle, they're buying that to share, and you’re likely to drink it out of a sherry snifter.

At that point -- with 20-30 percent alcohol -- are they even beers?

Technically, anything that’s made from barley, malt, hops, water and yeast is beer. Does it behave and act like beer? No, because you can't carbonate something that's 32 percent alcohol, or at least not very well. It's got too much sugar, so it won’t hold on to the carbonation very well.

Do they actually taste good?

A lot of them are really good. The very high-alcohol ones tend to be very sweet because there's still a ton of residual sugar in them. They can have a fairly hoppy character. They’re very heavy on the tongue, and thick in terms in body.

There are also a lot of beers that have emerged in the last four to five years that have slightly elevated 8-12 percent alcohol content that are delicious. The one that stands out to me is Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA. It's a really well-balanced beer.

How are these extreme beers made?

It's a pretty simple process. It's the same as making regular beer, except you use a lot more barley at a higher concentration, so you're raising the initial gravity [or density] of the beer. Then you find some yeast that's highly alcohol-tolerant (most beer yeast can only tolerate 7 percent alcohol), and pitch the beer multiple times. It also takes a lot longer to make.

Forgive me for being cynical, but aren't they also largely publicity stunts?

Boston Beer Co. can use it as a publicity stunt, because they can afford to, but a lot of small breweries are doing it for their own personal reasons -- because they can't easily market a $150 bottle.

The latest Utopias beer is banned in 13 states because of its alcohol content. What do you make of some states' bans on high-alcohol beers?

I think it's completely ridiculous. Removing a ban opens up an area to lots of non-mainstream beers and breweries, which can spell trouble for bigger brands, so it’s largely tied to wholesalers and market share. Even the states that don't have bans have different label laws, which is a problem for small brewers -- because creating multiple labels is expensive.

So these alcohol content laws keep small brewers out of these states?

That coupled with transportation issues. Shipping beer costs so much because you can only put so much beer on an 18-wheeler. But, then again, many of these craft brewers still sell most of their beer near their brewery -- plus most of these products aren't pasteurized so they don't keep very well. One of the advantages of a high-alcohol-content beer is that it keeps very well -- and in many cases gets better and better with time.

There is much to learn from Ziliak's mildly inebriated story of "Guinessometrics," to be published in the Journal of Wine Economics' special "Beeronomics" issue. For example, I did not know that Nigeria is Guiness's third largest market after the UK and Ireland. And I was sadly unaware that "Fermentation studies have been at the center of quantitative progress in science."

Although it sure makes sense when you think about it. If necessity is the mother of invention, then the necessity of brewing quality spirits should naturally be the mother of quantitative progress in science. Of course Joseph Priestley discovered carbon dioxide while "studying gases emitted from experimental beer he was brewing." And of course Lavoisier's brilliant insight into "the principle of conservation of mass" came in the context of his description of what happened when he experimented with fermenting grapes into wine. Who says science and alcohol don't mix? Without alcohol, we might not have science. Or at the very least, chemistry.

I am not well enough versed in the history of statistics to judge Ziliak's central thesis, which is that the legendary master brewer William Gosset's "exacting approach to discovering the sources of errors, both random and real, in his and in others' experiments on fermentation and plant inputs, marked a significant advance over the approaches taken by previous students." But packed in with so many jokes about hops and yeast, one hardly wishes to quibble..

Say goodbye to the "look-touch-and-sniff approach of 18th century craft brewers." By the time Gosset arrived, in the early 20th century, Guinness was the largest brewer in the world, and Gosset had to solve some hard practical problems. For example, when producing beer by the millions of hogsheads, how do you ensure the quality of your ingredients when dealing with huge quantities? As Ziliak notes: "You don't have to tell a brewer that running a series of experiments on malt characteristics or of yield trials on barley can grow expensive, fast." You can't test it all: In fact, there's an economic imperative mandating testing as small a sample as you can get away with. But the smaller the sample tested, the larger the potential error rate. According to Ziliak, Gosset devoted four decades to refining the state-of-the-art in statistical analysis on such subjects, all for the greater glory of Guinness.

But then again, how does such brilliance compare with a can of Coors Light featuring mountains that turn blue when the "world's most refreshing beer" is appropriately cold? How come Gosset never thought of that?

Combine the ad’s risqué message with a visual on Anheuser Busch’s Web site that not so subtly calls to mind getting it in the pop top, one understands why Bud chose to brand this particular product as “the good time lime.” Limes: truly the sluttiest members of the citrus family.

Welcome to the brave new world of branding, where advertisers don’t need no stinkin’ editorial controls to plumb the depths of their own tastelessness. Envelopes are still harder to push in magazines and television, hence Bud Lime’s alternate ads featuring healthy young people dancing, playing volleyball and grabbing their surfboards to the hipster strains of Santogold.

But traditional outlets aren’t enough these days, and advertisers are increasingly wooing consumers with their, ahem, backdoor strategies. Bud’s CEO Dave Peacock said last month, “What drives pop culture doesn't necessarily emanate from television anymore, it comes from digital.” The brewer has been an innovator in that realm, offering a bleep-heavy "Swear Jar” spot and a much-forwarded, blush-inducing bit featuring the escalating humiliation of a regular Joe purchasing a six-pack and some porn. The ads aren’t remarkable for much besides their shock value, but there is something weirdly liberating about the Bud ads nevertheless, their grown-up acknowledgment that men and women alike curse, consume porn, use safewords, play with sex toys, and occasionally take trips where the sun doesn’t shine. Personally, I’d pick sodomy over a flavored light beer any day, but it’s nice to have options.

But does an ad’s buzz translate into anybody actually getting buzzed? As AdAge pointed out recently, thanks to the recession and fickle, younger consumers, Bud Light is this year facing its first ever sales decline. Attracting attention is easy -- just make a few entendres that barely qualify as double and wait for the knowing gasps. Selling suds in a weak economy? Turns out it’s a real pain in the ass.

Recently I've become really good friends with a girl that I work with -- for the purposes of this letter, I'll call her Caroline. When we first met, one of the first things I mentioned to her was a brew that I had just been working on, but the conversation moved on and we found out that we had a lot in common. As time has gone by, we've started spending a lot of time together, connecting on much more personal issues, like our shared religion, experiences of God in our lives, our childhoods growing up with learning disabilities, mutual friends that we've known our whole lives. It's exciting -- I love meeting new people, and it feels great to make friends in this new place. But the other day she mentioned that she is a recovering alcoholic, that she has been attending AA meetings and has been sober for three years. She told me the whole story of how she had realized what trouble she was in (at age 18, no less) and how much better her life has gotten since.

I am sincerely happy for her. I have seen a lot of alcoholism in my family, and I know firsthand how devastating it can be. For this reason, I've always been careful about my own drinking, as well as other habits that might be addictive or harmful, because I know that this disorder can manifest in a variety of ways. I make a conscious effort when planning social events to try and choose places where people can choose not to drink, or specify if there will be alcohol at a party, and I always provide nonalcoholic drinks like sodas and iced tea, too. I always thought that this would be enough, that if I had a friend who was a recovering alcoholic they could easily intermingle without revealing themselves or feeling tempted to drink. But since getting to know Caroline, I don't know anymore. It occurred to me that while I have known a lot of alcoholics, I've known very few alcoholics who have chosen recovery. I've rarely ever met anyone as confident and well adjusted as she is, alcoholic or not.

So I guess what I'm asking is this: Is it OK for me to invite Caroline into social situations where alcohol will be served or present? Should I warn her first? Should I warn my other friends that she'll be around? And what about that part of me that finds so much artistic release in the brewing of beer? Do I not discuss that with any new friends, just in case I'm talking to an alcoholic? Or should I assume that they understand that we're all different, and that for me, beer brewing is a lot like painting or playing guitar is to others? What if I get a job bartending or brewing, two things I'm really interested in? Do I have to lose my recovering friends? I don't want to put her off by appearing insensitive, but I also don't want to look awkward or like I think of her differently or more negatively. If anything, it's myself that I'm seeing differently. Now when Caroline asks what I did this weekend, I don't tell her that I was working on a bock lager that I'm really excited about; I just say "nothing much" and change the subject. And that feels wrong, somehow.

A Brewer

Dear Brewer,

Put yourself in her shoes. She's just a person who doesn't drink anymore. She doesn't need to be handled with kid gloves. A frank acknowledgment of the fact that she doesn't drink is appropriate, but there's no need to scurry about the house hiding bottles or hiding the fact that you were brewing beer over the weekend. Alcoholics have to live in this world the way it is. If she wants to drink she will find something to drink.

You can't stop her and and you are not responsible for her. This is a stark, incontrovertible fact. It is not a fact that we are taught in school. It is the kind of thing you learn by hearing alcoholics tell of the lengths they have gone to, the things they have stolen, the windows they have broken, the houses they have broken into, the hiding places they have found, the sacrifices they have made, the appointments they have blown off and the relationships they have destroyed, the jobs they have lost and the bands they have quit and the gigs they have sabotaged and the opportunities they have passed up and the money they have squandered and the cars they have allowed to be towed away and the jewelry they have hocked and the guitars they have sold and the amplifiers they have refused to buy because more than houses, love, diamonds, food or airline travel what they required was the warm, flooding, calming, intoxicating taste of just one more martini or one more tequila. You learn this fact by sitting night after night in substandard chairs under substandard lighting in substandard church basements listening to men and women who have come to the end of the line and teeter now on the knife's edge between obliteration and grace, and these stories become a part of you as they have become a part of me. You learn by sitting and listening and you come to know as I do that if an alcoholic doesn't want to drink then nothing will make that alcoholic drink but if she really wants to drink then no human force can come between her and catastrophe. Thus you acquire this dark but comforting certainty: No alcoholic who wants a drink will be deterred by the absence of beer at a party. No alcoholic who wants a drink will be satisfied by soft drinks with berry flavors. Likewise no alcoholic who does not want a drink will be tempted by a Niagara Falls of the finest scotch whiskey.

The alcoholic's problem is not the absence of alcohol or the presence of alcohol; her problem is that she needs protection beyond her own small capacity for self-protection; she needs a program, a method, a belief large enough to thwart the eventual, certain eruption of her cunning, baffling and powerful obsession. If she has that, she will be OK. If she does not have that, then she has no protection and any horror is possible.

So that is where we stand, my friend. There is nothing you can do to stop a drinker from drinking. Nor can you undo the damage done in your own family by the various alcoholics whose adventures you do not detail but which we can readily imagine because we know how much unspoken emotion lies behind the phrase "a lot of alcoholism in my family." If you had alcoholics in your family then you were affected. If there has been much alcoholism in your family, then alcoholism means something to you. It may mean loss or pain. It may mean fear. It may mean violence, or emotional withdrawal, or the keeping of secrets, or illness and early death, or life failure -- unacknowledged dreams, unacted desires, unaccomplished dreams. It may mean sudden wakings in the night, slammings of doors, yelling, disappearances, stinky breath, missed appointments, divorce, abuse, jail time. It means something.

So aside from suggesting you treat your friend with forthrightness and respect, knowing that her sobriety is her business, I hazard one word of advice for you, the passionate brewer of beer from a family of alcoholics: Be aware of your special history with alcoholism. Be aware that you may carry that peculiar love of hops, grapes and fermentation common to the alcoholic, that peculiar sensitivity, which some alcoholics call an allergy to alcohol, that causes you to react in  heightened ways.

Otherwise, just be straightforward and honest with your friend in recovery. Do not coddle her. Just be frank. You like beer. You make beer. You drink beer. It's not her problem.

As a host, try to make her comfortable in your home, as you would do for any guest. But do not shine a light on her alcoholism or her sobriety. It's hers, not yours.

---

What? You want more advice?

• Read more Cary Tennis in the Since You Asked directory.
• See what others are saying and/or join the conversation in the Table Talk forum.
• Ask for advice. Letter writers: Please think carefully! By sending a letter to advice@salon.com, you are giving Salon permission to publish it. Once you submit it, it may not be possible to rescind it. So be sure. If you are not sure, sleep on it. You can always send tomorrow. Ready? OK, Submit your letter for publication.
• Or, just make a comment to Cary Tennis not for publication.
• Or, send a letter to Salon's editors not for publication.