When my brother, sister and I were kids, we used to love going and playing "bartender" in our grandparents' basement bar. One of our favorite "toys" was a ceramic statue of a portly drunkard; when you wound it up, it would play "How Dry I Am."

Brother, I feel your pain.

Leaving work in something of a foul mood thanks to the rain and general malaise that is a Thursday, I decided tonight would be the perfect night to kick back on the couch with a couple of bottle of the "Beer that made Milwaukee Famous."

So much for that.

A trek to numerous liquor establishments, grocery stores and bars on the East Side and Downtown was fruitless. I must have made a dozen calls to Google 411 trying to track down even a single bottle of this liquid gold, with nothing even remotely close to success.

Nobody had it. Nobody knew when they were getting it back in stock. And nobody knew where on God's green Earth I could find it.

So here I sit, at my computer, typing this blog and feeling a little dejected ... yes, over beer. I'm really curious how its possible that demand for this beer is so high. Is this a marketing ploy by Pabst (which owns the label); is Miller (which brews the beer -- in North Carolina -- under a contract with Pabst) behind on production; or is the new old Schlitz really that good?

Whatever it is, I can't wait to get my hands on that first bottle. I guess the old Schlitz marketing campaign is right: "When you're out of Schlitz, you're out of beer."