The Proof is in the ... Proof.

Hello. One of the things Rachel and I noticed in our brief trip to West Virginia was that you can buy hard liquor pretty much anywhere there. We do not disdain hard liquor — we enjoy it straight-up, with a Bogart-wince, from time to time. Rachel’s a bourbon woman; I favor rye. But there is something a teensy bit unnerving about the sheer ubiquity of the places in West Virginia that sell the stuff: Rite-Aids. 7-Elevens. You can even buy it at convenience stores in gas stations, venues that seem to stand alone among the places where most consumers arrive and depart in a self-operated conveyance.

So, in a small, self protective way, Rachel and I were a bit relieved when we left West Virginia on Friday for a leisurely trip back home, with Lexi. We had made it safely across the border and entered Maryland, which by law does not permit liquor sales in many types of places, including gas stations.

We pulled into a gas station, for gas. There was a liquor store attached; it is possible that it had different management from the gasoline part, though the two stores were physically interconnected, and the same folksy cashier seemed to shuttle between them, selling both windshield washer fluid and vodka.

But it wasn’t just that this place trafficked in alcohol, right next to the highway. It went all-out Dogpatch, U.S.A. about it. It sold stuff marketed as moonshine — you know, hooch, booze, rotgut — sold in Mason Jars, just like Snuffy Smith did it, on the mountainside, while watching out for the revenooers. Some of the products in this store’s Mason jars were clearly marketed for rawther immature tastes, such as the “Eggo Brunch In a Jar,” pictured above, which appears to be a 40-proof waffle-flavored velvety liqueur “sippin’ cream.” It goes down fine, I reckon.

Also, as you can see, there is chocolate sippin’ cream, and, as pictured below, Red Corn Moonshine, fermented from pure corn -- colorless, almost flavorless, at 100 proof, which is the strength of Slivovitz, the Eastern European plum brandy that, it is said, can strip paint from a cistern.

Anyway, if you have any pertinent observations, please send them to the observations-about-this-thing button, which is here:

And finally, please take our Gene Pool Gene Poll, which is about an evidently unspoken law throughout The United States and all of its incorporated and unincorporated territories and districts and commonwealths. The law seems to require all public venues — restaurants, supermarkets, shopping malls, grocery stores, tattoo parlors, waiting rooms in hospitals and in automobile service centers — to play, as background music, the same earnestly wholesome 10 or 15 songs recorded by several different artists over several different decades, songs joyfully celebrating the holiday season, until the end of the holiday season shall have passeth.

Good. Also, during this holiday season and beyond, might you consider buying me a small Dunkin’ Donuts latte once a month? You might? Yay! You rock. Well, this here thing is the same price:

See you on Tuesday, or before.