It's International Nude Day!

It's the holiday where folks here at Shades of Gray let it all hang out -- International Nude Day!

Happy birthday, Gina Gershon!

Actress Gina Gershon turns 60 today. Here are some pictures celebrating her decades in front of cameras!

Bones Coffee's Birthday Suit

In 2021, Bones Coffee Company celebrated their 5th year in business by releasing a special flavored blend. So, we're starting the new year off by reviewing a blend that celebrated the birthday of its maker.

Feel free to assume this is Your Host, drinking coffee in his birthday suit.

 BONES COFFEE COMPANY: BIRTHDAY SUIT
The packaging, Bones' sell-copy, and the stated motivation for releasing this "limited release" blend, all make it very clear that this is coffee that should taste like birthday cake. Could it live up to expectations? Would I be treated to a birthday-cake-in-a-cup, or at least something that tasted like coffee-soaked birthday cake? Either way, I was very interested in how this would turn out. (Hell, for all I knew, it could be a big gag and the Birthday Suit blend was just coffee-flavored coffee--black miracle juice not dressed up with anything at all!)

 

As the coffee brewed, though, I could smell the aroma of birthday cake in my office, which is down the hall from the kitchen, so the blend was clearly more birthday cake than birthday suit--yay! Interestingly, the aroma wasn't as strong once the coffee was poured into the cup. Even more interesting, the birthday cake flavor isn't detectable when you first sip the coffee, but it fills your mouth as you swallow it. The cake flavor was an aftertaste, but it was a strong and absolutely wonderful aftertaste! It was an aftertaste that lingered, so the more I drank of the coffee, the stronger it became. Unlike some other Bones Coffee blends with sweet flavors that become overwhelming (like Strawberry Cheesecake), Birthday Suit remains just right. I think this is because it is more of an aftertaste and, although the flavor remains in your mouth as you drink, it has a bit of reset with each swallow.

But the above only applies if you drink the coffee black, which I would have been perfectly fine doing, even considering that I NEVER drink coffee black, except when I'm doing articles like this. And then I only do it so I can talk about what the drink tastes like on its own--more often than not, I like any coffee better (except in really small portions) with stuff added to it. And once I added a dash of sugar-free Italian Sweet Cream creamer to my cut of hot Birthday Suit blend coffee, the birthday cake flavor moved to the front and the experience of drinking this became even more tasty and wonderful. In fact, it was exactly like you might imagine a birthday soaked in coffee might taste like. This blend was made to celebrate Bones Coffee and its fabulous flavors, and it rises to the occasion!

Everything above applies whether you are drinking Birthday Suit hot, at room temperature, or iced. At room temperature, the birthday cake flavor seemed to be strongest, but it never became so strong it was overpowering.

When I added unsweetened Almond Milk to the Birthday Suit blend, the other thing I usually do when drinking these coffees for review, it added a sour undertone to the flavor that made it very unpleasant to drink. In was so bad, in fact, that I dumped out my cup without finishing and I didn't bother testing this blend with almond milk at room temperature or iced. (I did make sure that it wasn't a problem with the almond milk by not only drinking some of it without putting it in coffee, but trying it in a different cup of freshly brewed Birthday Suit... and it definitely was not the almond milk.)

In the final analysis, Birthday Suit is another excellent flavored coffee. One just has to be careful with what one mixes it with. As I departure from my usual review regiment, I tried a cup of Birthday Suit black with Stevia added. I liked the blend better with the sugar-free Italian Sweet Cream, but the Stevia helped bring the cake flavor immediately to the front as well.

Here's Gina Gershon in her birthday suit. Just because.

It's International Nude Day...

… and we're getting as close to celebrating it as we can here at Shades of Gray!