Mike's Hard Sausage

the three most chilling words in the English language

Hey, clowns!

I want to start off by saying thank you all so much for the words of support from the other week, after I told you about how our family suddenly lost my dad. I have been very open with you about how difficult this year has been, and all the love you’ve showered me with has been nothing short of awe-inspiring.

You took what could have been a horrible crash landing and put a mountain of pillows beneath me. You wrote comments, emailed me, sent me notes of encouragement on social media, signed up for paid subscriptions (jeez, guys), and sent unexpected gifts. Even though things still suck, and I feel like I’m barely hanging on by a thread most days, I know I’m cared for and loved by so many of you.

That being said, I know you’re all here mainly for one thing, and that’s to watch I, Dannis Ree, the greatest food writer in all of history, fuck around with food. So today, just as you have been here for me, I am here for you.

There is zero doubt in my mind that when some of you saw the subject line of today’s edition of the newsletter, some of you choked and quickly switched browser tabs at the office. Or perhaps you stifled a giggle on public transit when everyone turned to stare at you. And fess up, which one of you is laughing on the toilet right now?

That’s because you’re probably assuming that the words “Mike’s Hard Sausage” is some kind of boner joke. Grow up, guys. Also, as some of you have rampantly speculated, it’s a boner joke. Grow up, guys.

The idea for today’s newsletter comes from Davida, as many of the best ones do.

We were tooling around at the grocery store looking for dinner stuff, and I’d found some bratwursts that were on sale because of the recent Fourth of July holiday. I usually make brats by poaching them in a beer bath before I grill them, so she and I were in the liquor department grabbing a tallboy.

As we walked through the refrigerated cooler section, she saw the display of Mike’s Hard Lemonade and muttered to herself, “Mike’s Hard Sausage.”

I involuntarily twitched and stopped functioning. Some of you new to the newsletter might not know this yet, but Davida’s from around the greater Sheboygan area, which is known as the bratwurst capital of the world. But as the rest of you know, we happily live in Chicago.

I thought to myself, “Dannis Ree, your Sheboyganese wife just gave you another idea for the newsletter. How about you apply bratwurst cooking techniques with Chicago ingredients, along with Mike’s Hard Lemonade, to create one of the dumbest threesomes that ever existed?”

I could take the most Chicago of sausages, the Italian sausage, poach it in Mike’s Hard Lemonade like I would a brat, and grill them off. It would be the perfect marriage just like ours, a unity between Sheboygan and Chicago. Plus, uh, with Mike’s Hard Lemonade.

Wait. You didn’t think I was going to stuff boner pills inside a sausage, did you?

When we headed back to the meat section, Davida and I stumbled across a curious version of Italian sausage.

Usually the Italian sausage on hand at the store is one of three varieties: hot, mild, or sweet. But one version our store carried included cheese and peppers stuffed inside it, which is something I don’t recall seeing terribly often. I obviously had to get that one.

Time to get started!

Here’s a little insider knowledge: If you order an Italian sausage at a hot dog stand here in Chicago, you can ask for it dressed with “sweet” peppers, which are simply soft-cooked bell peppers (the other option is “hot” peppers, aka giardinera).

So I chopped some up into long slices, and since hot dog stands here will occasionally include grilled onions with Italian sausages, I sliced some of those up as well.

I tossed the veggies into my Dutch oven and let them soften up over low heat with a bit of olive oil.

As that was happening, I whipped out the real star of the show, the Mike’s Hard Lemonade.

Oh, man, I hadn’t held a Mike’s Hard Lemonade in my hand since I was in, like, college.

I felt like I was handling a chemical weapon, and I could just feel my stomach curling up on itself, thinking about all that sugar. Fortunately they’re only 5% alcohol, but that means if you drink enough of them to be hungover the next day, you are guaranteed to feel like absolute garbage.

I always did fancy myself as more of a Zima guy anyway, but Mike slayed Zima in the Great Malt Beverage Wars. Those were some truly dark times in our history, and we all need to observe a moment of silence for Zima.

I took a tiny sip of Mike’s malternative nectar, and man, this shit is sweet. It tastes like lightly alcoholic and carbonated Country Time Lemonade, which sounds cute, but in reality is pretty gross. I handed the bottle to Davida, who also took a sip of it. Oh, did I mention it was at room temperature?

“I can’t think of anything sadder than sitting inside on a rainy day drinking warm Mike’s Hard Lemonade, but that’s exactly what I just did,” said Davida, watching the raindrops drip slowly down our front window.

When I make brats, I always cook down the onions down a bunch before I pour the beer in for poaching, because I like them slightly caramelized, plus I like how they flavor the cooking liquid.

I figured I’d take the same route here, so once the peppers were soft and the onions were golden, I poured in the Mike’s.

Once the Mike’s Hard Cooking Liquid started bubbling, I gently slipped the Italian sausages into their bath.

Also, this is one of the greatest photos I’ve ever taken, but I don’t have the words to describe exactly why. I just feel it in my sausage.

I let the sausages simmer with the lid on for about six minutes per side, but then Davida and I noticed something strange.

The apartment was starting to take on a foot-like “odour,” as they say in the UK, and Davida remarked that she wasn’t a fan of the way our place was starting to smell. The kitchen smelled fine when I’d been cooking down the peppers and onions, and the Mike’s Hard Lemonade had simply given our place an added sweet aroma, which is why this sudden foot-like scent was puzzling.

I couldn’t understand where the toejam smell was coming from until I looked at the ingredients on the package of sausage. That’s when I found the culprit. There was Romano in it, which was the mystery cheese inside this sausage.

Romano used to make my fingers stinky when I worked at the pizzeria some years back, which is how I got the ol’ nickname “Mr. Stinkyfingers.” The rumors about my fingers being stinky for other reasons are wholly incorrect.

Once the sausages were done poaching, I went and finished them on the grill, even though it was raining.

My grill’s awesome, by the way. And by awesome, I mean it’s completely unpredictable. There’s a few incredibly hot spots on it that turn your food black instantly, but mostly it undercooks everything, so every meal I make on it is up to God to sort out. That’s what I get for buying the cheapest smallest grill at Home Depot with my stimulus check back in 2020. Those were the days, I tell you.

It was finally time to dress my hard sausage.

Another detail I’ve noticed is if you buy an Italian sausage from a hot dog stand here, aside from sweet peppers and hot peppers, the people running these places don’t generally offer you any other condiments with it. I’ve always thought that was kind of odd, though I’ve never thought to ask for anything additional with mine.

There’s no red sauce, adding mustard really isn’t a thing, and if you ask for ketchup on it, you will be sent to another dimension. So that’s why I left Mike’s Hard Sausage draped with onions and peppers, but otherwise dry.

I took a few big bites of the Mike’s Hard Sausage and came away scratching my head.

Man, this thing was bizarre. The sausage itself was fairly sweet, though it was hard to tell if it was naturally seasoned that way or if the Mike’s Hard Lemonade bath had something to do with it. It definitely had a slight Romano funk, but what really messed me up was the onion and pepper mix.

That’s because the veggies were sweet, and when I say sweet, I mean they tasted like they were candied. Mixed with the semi-stinky Romano cheese flavor, my brain pretty much didn’t know how to process this combination, which is why I kept eating it, even though I wasn’t exactly enjoying myself.

Davida picked through my leftovers, also noting that the sausage was oddly sweet and adding that the onions and peppers were “fucking disgusting.” Then she flicked them aside and went to go do something else. Okay, so beer makes for good sausage cooking broth, but Mike’s Hard Lemonade is only good for a hangover and a sugar crash, not for cooking with. So much for discovering the next great Midwestern cooking technique, and uniting the greater Chicago and Sheboygan areas together in culinary harmony.

That’s okay. There’ll always be one thing that brings us all together, and that’s a good old-fashioned boner joke.

Thanks for keeping it hard, Mike.

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Thank you guys for reading the newsletter, as always, and I can’t believe I get to do this every week. Here’s the deal—I’m still trying to grow the newsletter, because why the hell not? But that means I can always use your help in sharing it.

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That’s right, next month is Food is Stupid’s fifth birthday. That is literally hundreds of editions to sift through (I’m not joking, try counting them). And if you get bored of that, you can read through my old blog, The Pizzle, which goes back, holy shit, another FIVE YEARS.

Hey, you can’t say I’m not consistent. And that includes my childish sense of humor. I hope that means something to you.

With that, I bid you clowns a wonderful weekend, and don’t forget to wear your helmet the next time you get on your unicycle. As always, I love you all, and I’ll hop into paid subscriber inboxes next week.