If you like rugged scenery and quirky small towns, work in a trip to the Stewart, B.C.-Hyder, Alaska area some day.

I haven't been up here since 1980, the last time as part of a very impromptu road trip (like, "You guys are on your way right now to go get drunk in Alaska? Make room: I'm in") when I was a forestry summer student in Burns Lake, B.C.

Last time, drinking was front and centre. Part of the ritual was getting Hyderized.

The waitress would pour you a double shot of Everclear pure grain alcohol. You had to toss it back without coughing, hacking it up or making a face -- like a man, in other words.

A lighted match would be tossed in your glass. It had to burn for less than 10 seconds.

If you accomplished those objectives, the drink was free, and you could consider yourself Hyderized. If you failed, you had to buy a round for the house.

Well, when in Hyder ...

Doing it a second time a quarter-century later wasn't as quite as big a whoop. For one thing, Everclear these days is only 151 proof, while it was 190 proof back in the day.

One-fifty-one still packs a punch (most booze is 80 proof), but at 190, you could feel the shot move throughout your body, much like a rock thrown in a still pond causes ripples.

Now, you just pay your money, they pour you a shot (they tell you you can't smell it or taste it first), and then give you your Hyderization certificate. Where's the risk of being on the hook for a round if you can't hack it?

Not only that, the Glacier Inn doesn't have sharpened pool cues hidden in plain sight like it did in the old days.

Things change, and not always for the better. :)

more later ...