Drink away 2020

There have been a lot of pointed and gleeful celebrations of the impending end of 2020. Most of those have included “naughty words”, and that trend has popped up here in New Zealand—in gin of all things.

Hamilton-based company Good George Brewing has released a limited edition gin called “Fuck Off 2020” (image above). The first batch sold out, and the second is going fast, too. The company says on its website:

Fuck Off 2020 is a limited run of gin we’re producing to mark the end of a year that can totally take a hike. The label says so because we’re choosing to tell it like it is, and we think it’s funny. If you’re offended, consider that we had much more colourful language we could have used instead to convey the sentiment we all feel towards the year that was.

We hope you don’t mind the label, but if you’re not offended by something these days, you’ve been spending 2020 under a rock. Whether it’s cancelled travel plans, lockdown boredom, or alert level confusion, there was a lot to be frustrated with. Bubbles were getting popped, not in a fun way, and we still haven’t got the hang of Zoom.

They also note that even their manufacture of gin got sidelined by the pandemic when the company switched to making hand sanitiser at a time at the beginning of lockdown when there was a shortage in New Zealand. Other companies also began producing the sanitiser, and some university students who couldn’t do their normal science coursework worked with their lecturers to keep themselves busy doing something useful. And it was very welcome.

So now life in New Zealand is pretty much normal again, and it’s the perfect time to say what we really think of this horrible year. “Fuck Off 2020”? I’ll drink to that.

This post was pre-scheduled to publish while I was away because I knew I wouldn't have time to do it do it manually (like I usually do) on the day I was getting my procedure.