It is bitter, and yet…
Where do you go for the latest in cutting edge medical information? Yes, me too: the trans-Atlantic in-flight magazine. There, snuggled between the barf bag and the instructions for using your seat cushion as a flotation device (I wonder, has anyone ever survived using a seat cushion as a flotation device? I think not), I found an article on Angostura bitters.
They were invented in the 1820s by a German doctor serving in Simón Bolivar’s army. He intended them as a general health tonic, but they quickly passed into folklore in Venezuela and the Carribean as a sort of cure-all. I mean, raising people from the dead is pretty good going for a cocktail. No-one outside the firm knows what’s in them, apart from sugar, alcohol and gentian.
The author of the article I read swears that a few drops in a small amount of soda water will settle an upset stomach and crank up appetite (and I’m sure we’re all searching for an easy way to increase appetite!)
The British Royal Navy latched onto them as a seasickness cure, which is why pink gin is the official drink of the Navy. A shiny new sixpence to the lad or lass who manages to think up the “pink gin/homosexuality in the Royal Navy” crack that eludes me here. Feel free to work Hornblower in somehow. Anyhow, you make a pink gin by swirling Angostura bitters around the glass and then filling it with gin. Mmmmm! Pink!
I really like bitter, ouchie beverages, so I made a mental note to order some of this stuff. Then I saw it in the booze section of the grocery store here. I’ve been a-drinkin’ pink vodkas ever since: vodka, tonic and a splash of bitters.
It’s…nice. It’s not reallly bitter, though. It tastes like this professional dentifrice my dentoid used when I was a teenager. Why I should find that appealing, I…point you to the observation above about my love of things bitter and ouchie.
I give it …
three and a half drunken weasels.
December 11, 2008 — 7:43 pm
Comments: 38
Step away. From the news. NOW.
Absolutely no analysis you read or hear in the immediate aftermath of this election will be accurate. Except this one, of course. Duh.
I live in the most reliably blue state in the country. All my friends are lefties (art school! What a great idea!). I’ve been in this place many times. It is not a nice place, but every political junkie gets a turn in the box now and then.
We ran a dreadful candidate with a dreadful campaign at a dreadful time and we got good and beaten. But we didn’t get drubbed. And that is very, very interesting. We’ll think about that. Later.
But now is the Time of the Gloating , and you really don’t need a dose of that. So just…don’t do it to yourself. Don’t go there. Nothing to be gained. Stay off the news sites. Have you seen how much great radio is being streamed these days? How many books available on Project Gutenberg have you always meant to read? How about now?
A jet fuel truck rolled over on I-95 this morning, and my boss won’t be in for hours. There’s always something good, if you aren’t the guy driving the truck.
November 6, 2008 — 8:47 am
Comments: 82
I wanna get reincarnated at this lab
The University of Utah has a pretty neat site called learn.genetics, which breaks complicated ideas down into moron-sized bites using podcasts and colorful Flash animations. I love the internet.
I particularly recommend the module on addiction. There you can explore drugs of abuse and examine a variety of stoned mice without having to cut them up or anything.
I don’t mean to ruin the suspense or nothing, but it seems to me from cursory examination that all high-inducing substances work by fiddling your dopamine somehow (except LSD, which works via leathery, batwinged, brain-squeezin’ imps). I guess they feel different because they do kind of the same thing in different areas of the brain.
And if you read it all the way through, you’ll find neat tips for making your highs higher and more long-lasting.
I feel sure.
July 14, 2008 — 2:49 pm
Comments: 12
Wine makes old ladies scowl and forget to comb their hair
This is Anne. She drinks a couple of glasses of wine a day. If she continues recklessly for another twenty five years, experts say she will look like the lady on the right — and they have a super scientifical Photoshop hit-job to prove it. If she stops right now, she has a chance to look like the lady on the left.
Excuse me…WHAT THE FUCK? What’s the difference? What on earth is the matter with Boozy Betty that a smile and a hairbrush wouldn’t fix? If that Photoshoppist couldn’t take all the pseudoscience in the world and make two and a half decades of hooch look scarier than that, he’s fired.
Think I made this up? Nuh uh! Have a look at it in color — (yup, alcohol makes you wear ugly-colored sweaters, too). No offense to old ladies — one of which I desperately aspire to be some day — but how fresh is a dame expected to look at 77, anyway?
Brits drink more than we do. Or, at least, they drink more unashamedly (it’s probably us and religion and that whole Prohibition business and all). Lately, there are definite conspiracies afoot to change that. They’re taking aim at two targets: underage binge drinking (of which “cheap alcohol” is a sub-complaint) and the middle class drinker. Not flat-out lush, mind you. Prosperous, middle-aged professionals who come home at night and split a bottle of wine with the other half in front of the fire in their 16th Century farmhouse.
The Daily Mail is trying as hard as anyone — which is heartbreaking. They’re about the best low-rent down-market right-wing tabloid in Britain (think a slightly trashier New York Post). If they’re joining the League of Po-faced Killjoys, we’re doomed.
I know what you’re thinking: socialized medicine. This is what happens when the state owns your liver. Except newest clinical data suggests a few glasses of red wine a day is good for you — and the good-for-you amount seems to creep up with every study.
Nah, this is down to free-range assholes, wandering the landscape looking for innocent joys to crush. And you wonder why Brits say “cunt” so much.
March 3, 2008 — 1:07 pm
Comments: 21
I dub thee Flaming Asshole (in honor of Johnny Mc)
…click above to view this masterpiece of the toper’s art in glorious color…
Because Enas Yorl dared me to, that’s why.
It’s a jigger of Sour Puss, a jigger of creme de banana and a jigger of creme de noya (made from real fruit pits!) mixed up in a bud vase (looks all Star Trek, don’t it?) and stuck in the freezer for an hour. It’s…not as vomitously hideous as you might think. It’s…tart. And kicky. Yeah, I’m finishing it. Shut up.
So today, I saw the mover and the exterminator. Tommorow, the dentist, followed by an all day Division meeting.
But tonight belongs to Flaming Asshole.
January 31, 2008 — 7:42 pm
Comments: 9
Some chores are more onerous than others
The contents of the liquor cabinet. Not the day-to-day booze, but the Sunday-go-to-meeting booze. The guest booze, as it were. See, you can’t really move liquor, and you can’t pour it down the sink, so what’s a weasel to do?
Some of it is going straight down the sink. That thing in the middle? Sour Puss? It’s a raspberry liqueur. To the right of it is creme de banana. And way over to the left? Creme de noya, “a naturally almond-flavored liqueur made from fruit pits.” These apparently date to a time of life when I was batshit insane. Or twelve years old.
I’m tempted to mix these unique specimens together and invent my own cocktail. I think I’ll call it a ‘BLAAAARRRRRGH’ or possibly a ‘WAAAAAAUUULLLLkoffkoffkoff.”
Don’t dare me.
The balance, I’m pleased to note, is heavy on the Jack Daniel’s and other fine American whiskies. And what’s that I see? A brand new unopened bottle of Glenmorangie?
Oh, it’s rough duty, I tell you what.
January 29, 2008 — 7:13 pm
Comments: 5
Oh. Goodie.
So I stayed up too late and drank too much last night in an orgy of weaselly exuberance. Yeah, I know…not exactly “stop the presses” stuff. But then I remembered I have my annual performance evaluation this morning.
Swell.
Eh. We’re talking “job” not “career” at this point. And my boss is pretty cool. I think it’ll go okay. I’ve been practicing:
How’m I…am I…doing good? Am I doing good? How’m I doing, good? You okay? We okay? You okay with me? Okay? Good. I’m good. Really good.
Yeah. This’ll go fine.
Pray for me.
September 25, 2007 — 8:51 am
Comments: 33
Let’s talk whiskey!
I love whiskey, which makes me feel pretty stupid. All that money and snootiness and bullshit and, really, whiskey is only old stank barrel-flavored vodka. Word.
There are four factors that affect the old stank barrel flavor of whiskey:
What the alcohol is made from
How thoroughly the alcohol is distilled
The container it is aged in
How long it is aged
I suppose you could add “what sort of water it is diluted with afterwards,” but the sort of airy-fairy people who style themselves connoiseurs of the taste of water, for chrissakes, really get on my nerves. So…no. Shan’t.
What the alcohol is made from
Yeasts eat sugar and pee ethanol. Deal with it. So, you can feed yeasts on sugar or molasses (rum), or fruit (wine, brandy) or honey (mead).
Starch can be converted to sugar by enzymes released when grains are sprouted. A malt is a grain that has been sprouted to release enzymes and then heated to arrest further growth. (This is where peat comes in; the malt for some Scotch whiskies is heated over peat fires).
So that adds corn (bourbon, Tennessee whiskey, moonshine), rye (rye whiskey, rye beer), barley (beer, Scotch whiskey), rice (sake)…wheat, sorghum, millet, potatoes. Koolaid. Table sugar. Doritos. Whatever. Any old carb. Most alcoholic beverages are made from more than one of these things, mashed together into a mash.
How thoroughly the alcohol is distilled
If I were to seal you in a box, you’d soon breathe up all the air, replace it with carbon dioxide, and die in a puddle of your own filth, gasping for release. Well, that’s what happens to yeast when it reaches a certain concentration; it eats all its food and drowns in its own pee. That’s why unfortified wine has a maximum alcohol content of around 14%. In technical terms, 14% is the yeast-to-pee death ratio.
To get alcohol purer than that, you need to distill it. Turns out, that’s really very easy (and fairly illegal. Just saying). See, water boils at 212° F and alcohol boils at around 170° F. So, you heat the mash in some kind of alchemical doohickey just until the alcohol turns into vapor but the water doesn’t, then collect, cool and thereby condense the vapor until it turns back into a liquid. Voilà! The miracle of booze!
Commercially distilled ethyl alcohol is getting on for chemically pure. I know you think you can taste the difference between cheap vodka and the expensive stuff, but you can’t. And, frankly, I’m getting pretty tired of telling you so.
For the purposes of whiskey, however, too much distillation would make all that pretentious peaty, single-malty shit look pretty silly. So spirits for whiskey are distilled until they are about 95% pure.
The container it is aged in
Oak barrels, generally. Bourbon, to call itself bourbon, must be aged in new, charred white oak barrels (so does Tennessee whiskey, but its unique attribute is an initial slow filtering through a big stack of charcoal). Scotch whisky (and rum) are often aged in old bourbon barrels. Scotch is also sometimes aged in old port wine or sherry casks. One year, Sandy Claws brung me a sampler of little Glenmorangies aged in different sorts of casks; you really can taste the difference. It was de-lightful and in-toxicating.
How long it is aged
Rum can be aged for as little as a year, though it is usually longer. Whiskies can be aged for as little as three years, but again…usually more. Higher heat and humidity make spirits ‘age’ faster. As whiskey ages, alcohol is constantly escaping from the barrels, enveloping the distillery in a sweet, boozy vapor traditionally known as the “angel’s share.” By the time the barrels are opened, the volume of liquid has been reduced by as much as half. Whiskey at “cask strength” is generally 50-60% alcohol and is then diluted for bottling to 40-46% alcohol, and sometimes (controversially) filtered as well.
So, that’s it. Whiskey is vodka that has been soaking up burnt wood for a decade. Doesn’t that sound lovely?
Here’s a nice glossary. And here’s a good whisky blog. Here’s another. And here’s information on the American Whiskey Trail, as fine a way to spend a Summer vacation as a weasel ever did hear.
July 16, 2007 — 6:01 am
Comments: 22
Jack Daniel’s really needs a good stiff one (and probably a drink, too)
Okay, I was wrong. I told Enas Yorl that the difference between Jack Daniel’s green label and black label is age. It’s not. Green label is just the stuff the official Jack Daniel’s tasters consider not quite good enough for the Brand.
I was going to call “official taster” my dream job, but apparently I have a positive preference for inadequate whiskey. I love the green label. I suppose they could go with the “Weasel likes it, it’s crap!” gambit.
What is Jack Daniel’s Green Label Tennessee Whiskey?
Jack Daniel’s Green Label is a lighter, less mature whiskey with a lighter color and character. The barrels selected for Green Label tend to be on the lower floors and more toward the center of the warehouse where the whiskey matures more slowly.
Lighter. ‘Bout right. As in “lighter fluid.”
I’d give a link for that quotation, but I can’t. By law. I went poking around the Jack Daniel’s web site (which is right where you think it is) and I spotted this:
IF YOU HAVE, OR PLAN TO HAVE, A WEB SITE AND WISH TO LINK TO OUR WEB SITE, PLEASE ENTER INTO THIS LINKING AGREEMENT AND PROVIDE YOUR INFORMATION BELOW.
“Fascinating,” I thought. “Tell me more.”
Each site shall only market products to adults and shall have an independently audited demographic indicating at least 70% of its site visitors are of legal drinking age.
Uh oh. I don’t know how to “independently audit” you guys, but if 30% of you aren’t under the age of 21, then you’re clearly in the developmentally delayed demographic. Is it legal to market likker to retards?
No site will use religious or other cultural symbols in a way that is likely to offend a particular religious or ethnic group.
Oh.
No site will use sexual slang, situations or depictions, or exploit the human form in any manner that offends local standards of decency.
Ummmmm…
You agree not to use the link on any web site that disparages the Brand, the Site, or the Brand’s products or services, or which infringes on the Brand’s or Brown-Forman Corporation’s or its affiliates’ intellectual property or other rights.
Ah. Well, see…
You agree not to use the link on any web site that contains, or links to any other web sites that contain obscene, discriminatory, offensive, political or pornographic material of any kind.
Okay. Thanks.
There’s a lot more to it, which you can read for yourself by going to the obvious URL and adding /linkingpolicy.aspx (I couldn’t link to directly in any case because “You may link only to the opening page for each of the Brand’s Sites and you may not skip the web pages requiring the viewers of our Sites to verify their age.”).
Who knew distillers were such tight-asses?
I’ve cracked open my brand new 1.75 liter bottle, and it’s delish. Happy Friday the 13th! My uvula just went numb.
July 13, 2007 — 4:48 pm
Comments: 16
The Gathering o’ the Mustelids
So, why does Clan Weasel gather here every year? This is why: the Grandfather Mountain Highland Games, the largest Scottish games outside Scotland. It started in 1956, about the same time my father and grandfather built the original hunting cabin on the side of the mountain. My dad hasn’t missed the games since.
He hasn’t been to the actual games in years (and neither have I, for that matter). But he wears the tartan hat with the ribbons and deedly-ball on, and stumps around rolling his R’s and saying “wha hae!” and drinking whiskey.
The joke is, as far as anyone knows, there’s not a drop of Scots blood in my dad. He descends from a line of pasty English people who were deported to Virginia in the 18th Century for either religious nutcasery or poaching, depending on who you ask.
My mother’s family traces its origins to a Scot, however. Clan MacStoat will be there. I think our clan motto is “another wee dram won’t kill me.”
When I were a puppy, some damn fool bought me the whole suit, with the jacket and the knee socks and everything. I loved that thing. I swaggered around in it long after I’d outgrown it. By the end, I bobbled out of the seams like some obscene tartan sausage.
There will be ALL KINDS of merchandise on offer up the mountain. If you’re bored some day, pick a Scots surname and Google for the original version of the family coat of arms, and compare it to the Americanized version. The American version always has twice as much shit on it, with extra tinsel and sparklies and unicorns and orcs. Like it came out of the Society for Creative Anachronism’s prom decoration committee.
And that’s what we’re not doing Tuesday.
July 10, 2007 — 1:18 am
Comments: 49