Thursday Drink Night (TDN)

I'm back.

Reports of my demise are greatly exaggerated. Many people I've heard from said that I died in a booze related incident on the plane. I've heard a few "they didn't have scotch so he had a heart attack" stories. Lies. The most embarassing is a story that I got cut off and in a desperate, lurching attempt to steal a few bottles of Glenlivet off the booze cart, was subsequently aerated by a Glock 17 firmly in the grasp of an Air Marshall.

All slanderous lies.

I am indeed in fine form and fiddle. All of the booze that I smuggled onto the plane in my checked bag not only made it through Customs but made it in one piece. My cigar collection remains in it's blissfully humidified state as well. I'm actually reconditioning my humidors to store these delicious little bad boys. Life is sweet for the time being. And it's about to get even sweeter.

One of the traditions I take part in is the bi-weekly or weekly Thursday Drink Night. It is a conglomeration of internet chat room and online Tales of the Cocktail. It involves a lot of cocktail geeks getting together and mixing up drinks based on the theme selected. Some of the past ones have been sponsored events (like the Mandarine Napoleon one) or just straight up silly ones like Charlie Sheen. Only those that have put in their chops get to set the coveted topic: a topic based on your persona. There have been many TDN in the past devoted to the lovers of shaken lore and stirred magic. Last week, Rumdood had the fortunate opportunity to have a cocktail named after him. A few years ago, an entire TDN was devoted to creating cocktails for all the cocktail nerds, geeks, and dweebs going to Tales of the Cocktail. While I haven't put in my chops, heavy and significant bribing of Sean Mike Whipkey of Scofflaw's Den resulting in the greatest of honors falling into my lap.

So here's the nitty gritty:

Next week, Thursday, September 15th from 8pm until whenever you feel like passing out is...

THURSDAY DRINK NIGHT: IN WITH BACCHUS

That's right. You too can participate and make cocktails that mock my sense of pride, self-dignity, and weight. You too can take part in the ribaldry. To do this, follow a few simple directions.

Step 1: Go to your local liquor store and stock up your home bar. Recipes for all of the cocktails are posted in an online chat room and it is your job, at home, to recreate the cocktail and denote whether or not they need adjustment (either in ingredient list or technical work) or if they're spot on. Some of the people there choose the craziest ingredients so don't feel bad if you don't have everything. Feel free to sub out. If you don't know what to sub out for, ask.

Step 2: Invest in a lot of beer. Ice cold. Put the kids to bed. Gonna be a long night.

Step 3: Go to bar.mixoloseum.com and sign up for an account. It's easy, it takes 10 minutes, and it'll last you for a lifetime. Pick a good name otherwise I'll probably get drunk and make fun of it. So make like Indiana Jones and choose wisely.

Step 4: Next Thursday, log in and participate. Feel free to submit cocktails, chat with the folks there, and just shoot the shit. It's fun.

Now, if you have decided to join us, know that you will be rewarded for your creativity. I've managed to finagle (BRIBE AND BLACKMAIL) a few prize sets. The firm categories will be:

Best Name
Best Cocktail
Most Representative of In With Bacchus

For your troubles, the prize packages are...

1 Momokawa / Moonstone Sake set courtesy of SakeOne. A sweet sake glass, a t-shirt in your size, and a few bottles of Momokawa and Moonstone sakes (good stuff) to fiddle around with at the bar or just to drink.

1 SakeOne G set. A bottle of the SakeOne G sake (their equivalent of a cask strength scotch) along with a shirt in your size.

More prizes will be added as I blackmail my way through my contact list. Just kidding, I don't have any dirt on anyone I've chatted with. Or do I...

Also, if you want to iron out the whole TDN thing early, tonight from 8 - whenever is TDN: Football. Sign up for an account and get a taste of the mayhem!

What I've Learned in Scotland

On Sunday I went to Whisky Fringe.

It took place at the Mansfield Tranquair (which is where the Boutique Bar Show took place). I had an awesome time. Lots of fun. I met up with Dave Broom (who poured me a Jamaican rum that smelled like eating bananas foster next to a tire fire), tried the entire line of El Dorado Rum (more on this later), and drank super special whiskies from all across Scotland. Then we went to Bramble and I drank a bunch of Negronis (one with Campari, one with Fernet Branca) and shots of corn whiskey.

At this point, I could get into the nitty gritty of what expressions I tried, what the tasting notes are, and overall what I thought of the Whisky Fringe. I could do this.

I'm not gonna.

I think the 20 quid I paid to get in serves a better jumping off point for something else. Mainly, what I've learned from Scotland (much like my IPCPR post). I was thinking of actually doing this AFTER I left but that won't be for about another month and it's fresh in my mind at the moment. So let's roll with it then.

1. Scotland is awesome.

This is a pretty roundabout and vague title so let me explain (read: get ready for an anecdote). I realized this at the Bruichladdich booth at Whisky Fringe as we were sitting around sipping on a 7 year old single barley varietal whisky (to be released in the near future), as well as gin. I'm standing there, chatting with Natalie, an awesome and patient worker at the Bruichladdich booth.

 Some guy in a blue checked shirt, obviously blootered, comes up next to me and asks for a try of their gin. He's jovial, to say the least. In a heavy Glaswegian accent, we start chatting about Scotland and scotch when another guy comes up to say "hi" to Natalie and offer a card of some sort. This ends up forming into an improptu discussion of the liquor industry in duty free, then to travel, and then to my accent. I tell them that I'm, indeed, a Yank and that I'm from NY. The guy next to me says that he was in an elevator in NY once with a guy who commented on his Scottish accent and asked him where he'd been. He said Las Vegas and NY, to which the guy replied "you still haven't been to the US." Natalie said that she'd love to go to NY, to which I replied this:

"It's a nice place to visit but not to stay, I think. The people there...they just don't care about other people."

And then it hit me. Of all the places I've been both in the US and abroad, the NICEST people have been in Scotland. Everywhere you go, people are warm and inviting. In London, I definitely got a weird vibe from people because of my weight but here, they just don't care. If you need help, you can literally ask anyone and they'll reply, politely and with a smile. Just walking by people and catching their eye leads to a "Hullo" and a grin. I dunno what it is about this country but everyone here is, to put it most accurately, awesome. They're accommodating, generous, helpful, and warm. I suppose I should amend the title to say "Scottish people are awesome" but that's not the entirety of the story. Just looking in ANY direction in Scotland is breathtaking. I look out my window to not just one, but two sets of mountains in the distance. From my classrooms, there's beautiful views of sweeping fields, stoic mountains, and the history of Edinburgh. So I'm sticking by what I said. Scotland is awesome. If you ever get the chance to come here, do. Without hesitation. Just bring pants and a rain jacket. You'll need it, no doubt.

2. It's important to push yourself

This is a big one for me and I've really been hesitating writing about it for awhile but I think it's really time to set things straight. I talk a big game on Twitter, I really do. Truth be told is, I drink maybe a 10th of what it sounds like I do, mainly because of the medication I'm on. If I drink too much, my heart might slow down enough to stop. Or I could just get violently nauseous. Either way, I lose. If you've ever seen me at an event, chances are I haven't taken this medication so that I can actually do a solid tasting without blarfin everywhere. And I'm generally extremely nervous. Why? The reason why I'm on this medication is for anxiety. I'm not going to lie, it's a crushing anxiety. I'm literally sweating bullets and panicking as I write this. Thanks to my extensive medical history, I have a little something commonly reserved for soldiers that have returned from combat. I have Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. I won't bore you with the details and such but, suffice to say, 26 surgeries have made me a jangling bundle of nerves for my whole life.

It was a huge step for me to go to undergrad, five hours away from home. My PTSD meant that I would have constant and severe panic attacks during anything remotely stressful. Like tests. Or interacting with my professors. Or being a normal human being. I wasn't diagnosed with this until right before I went to college and I didn't get a medication regime that worked until about two years ago. Thus, when I say moving to Scotland to pursue a degree in Brewing and Distilling Science was a "big step", it's a bigger step for me than for most people. If I sweat, shake, get nausea, shortness of breath from tests, think of how I was taking on a $32,000 loan to move 4,000 miles away from home to a completely different culture. The first week or so here was...intense. And it's been pretty difficult ever since. I've done fairly well in my classes and I'd like to think my thesis is going quite swimmingly (for someone that had to do pretty much ALL of the work themselves, without help). And I've learned a whole lot about myself and my capabilities. Yeah, it was rough but I think it was definitely a good thing. Doesn't hurt to come out with a degree from it either.

But this doesn't mean that it's all been gravy. I've mostly kept to myself the entire time I've been here. I use video games and movies to escape from my anxiety. Also, that $32,000 didn't go very far with the fluctuating exchange rate so money anxieties have really kept me from doing anything with the people in my program (If any of you are reading this, sorry. I know I came across as the weird loner kid. I tried though.) That and the anxiety of being in a completely different world and culture. Like above, I've done the equivalent of only going to Las Vegas and New York while I've been here. Realistically, I haven't "been" to Scotland. But hopefully when I'm stupid rich later on I'll amend the hell out of that. So stay tuned.

3. Learn how to do stuff for yourself

I've heard people say "necessity is the mother of all invention." I'd like to take this a step further and also state that "hunger is the mother of all innovation." Being generally flat broke here, I've learned how to cook in a pretty rapid time. I went from buying the cheap, ready made meals to making my own. I actually just pulled a mushroom and bacon pie with flaky crust out of the oven. I've learned how to brew my own beer and come up with recipes (although that's a lot of the degree's doing). I've learned how to fix just about anything with compressed air, string, tape, and paper clips. I've learned how to garden and sew. I can make a damn fine cup of builder's tea, jars of pickled eggs, and oatmeal. I can also make a mean bottle of limoncello and I've learned how to make an fantastic cup of coffee in a moka pot. I suppose making my own stuff has been a combination of being broke as well as needing something to do but I've learned a lot over here not even remotely related to my degree. Even my buttermilk biscuit recipe is coming along nicely. They've just progressed from the threshold of "only edible if soaked in gravy" to "edible". That's gotta count for something, right?


4. Never wear shorts on the Royal Mile / Princes Street

I learned this one from the ungodly amount of people doing it. You look like a tourist. Just stop. How are you even warm? It's 55 and raining.


If I come up with any more, I'll add them here. For hanging in there with my rambling, have a Negroni from Bramble:

Macanudo Cru Royale Robusto - Wednesday, July 13th

I'll admit something, right here, right now. I'm not a huge fan of Macanudo. Well, let me be more specific, I'm not a fan of the old Macanudo. I've had the Cafe, the Robust, the Maduro, and the Gold and, for me...it was less smoking a cigar and more sucking on a straw. They didn't pack a whole lot of flavor. I tried a few times on each and they just didn't do it for me. Try as I might, they were just wayyyyy too mild for me. To steal Yogi's thing, they're milder than your average cigar. And I like my cigars like I like my women: robust, full bodied, and with spirit.

I also like them older than me but that's here nor there.

Thus it was with great trepidation that, during the IPCPR last year, I learned that the Macanudo line was getting a new baby brother: the Macanudo Cru Royale. For me, I thought "fancy name, same-old same-old." I got a few samples of it at some point during the show and put it out of sight / out of mind. I knew I wasn't going to like it, it's a Mac.

I'm not a proud man. I'm not overly vain or egotistical. Hell, I'm not even humble. I'm borderline sadistic when it comes to promoting myself. I THRIVE on self-defacing humor. So it's easy for me to say this:

I was wholeheartedly WRONG.

This was an enjoyable cigar. I sparked it up again today and it reminded me how absolutely solid and in-line with my taste preferences it was. With no further ado, here he is, the Macanudo Cru Royale:

Look at 'im. Big, bold, and brash. A wrapper darker than a German film noir. It just screams "light me on fire!" So I did. Here's the notes:

First quarter: Surprising amount of complexity. It starts with a new leather taste; heavily tannic (in a good way). Woody too, oak. Spurts of nuttiness (peanut?)

Half way: Mainly that fresh leather flavor. Some hints of cinnamon in there too. Black tea as well. But predominantly leather. Complexity has definitely faded since the first quarter.

Third quarter: Intensity of the leather dies down. Dark chocolate. Velvety, almost creamy now. I get toast too. A buttered toast thing going on. Mmm.

Overally, a very solid addition to the Macanudo line. Is it the best cigar available? Can't say that, sorry. But is it a solid, enjoyable cigar that is available readily and for a decent (~$6.50) price? Sure is. Would I pick it up? Yes and no. Depends on my mood. If it had maintained the complexity of the first quarter throughout then I definitely would. However, I feel it stagnated towards the middle and didn't really recover the complexity it had at the beginning. So it would depend on what I'm doing. Frankly, this would be the -perfect- golf cigar for me (or any "smoking + activity" cigar). Tasty, enough complexity to keep me interested without diverting my attention, and easy to smoke more than one of in a sitting. So take it as you will.

Wild Turkey 101 - Sunday, July 10th

Cheap bourbon is a fickle mistress. There are few bourbons that maintain both a low price and a palatable taste. Take for example Fighting Cock bourbon by Heaven Hill. It's a decent, six year old whiskey that clocks in at a healthy 103 proof. It's about, oh I dunno, $16~ish a liter. It is a decent bourbon for mixing but drinking it straight is a measure in sheer willpower. I'm not sure what it is but I can't drink that stuff neat no matter how much I try. And then there's Early Times. That's cheap and readily available. But I can't drink that in any fashion. It smells like corn soaked in paint thinner and tastes equally wretched. Budget bourbon is hard to come across and those that do find one jealously horde it.

For me, I have a broad range of cheap bourbons and, unlike some people, I'm willing to share. Fighting Cock and Buffalo Trace make it onto my bill of fare rather frequently and that's cool. But thanks to travel retail, I've found my favorite budget bourbon. Wild Turkey 101. Eight years old, 101 proof. It's a manly whiskey. It's got a kick like a mule and makes me think of the stuff they swilled down in Wild West taverns in the mid 1800s. But unlike that stuff, it tastes pretty damn good. And the best part? I'm equally comfortable mixing it (the higher proof holds well in a mint julep) and drinking it neat. Here she is in all of her bottled glory:

How does it look in the glass?

Looks miiiighty delicious. Here's the particulars:

Nose:  It smells like freshly hewn wood and corn oil. What must be a decent rye content gives some paprika and mustard powder-like spice. Busted, worn leather as well. Reminds me of the barn on my godparent's farm.

Taste: Honey and corn oil sweetness tempered with wood. Floral as well but I can't quite narrow down what it is. This fades to a robust vanilla and oak coupled with, strangely, a taste not unlike burnt ends from brisket. That mustardy/paprika rye taste is there too but buried deep. Finish is not warm, but biting and bracing like a bonfire on a chilly night.

When you can get a liter bottle of this for $20 at travel retail, you can't go wrong. This is the "girl next door" bourbon. Sure, there's prettier, fancier, more costly belles at the ball...but more often than not the best thing is something you've always overlooked. Although, frankly, I feel that way about just about all bourbon. There's your fancy scotch, your Japanese whisky, your Irish too. But that girl next door, that southern belle, always calls to me strongest. And I generally heed. Funny, that.

Guillermo Leon Signature Corona - Saturday, July 2nd

As you may or may not know, last year I had the extreme fortune of attending IPCPR thanks to Drew Estate. If you haven't seen the saga, check here. In short, I spent about 12 hours a day smoking my face off, carousing, and battling kidney infections all while bringing my adoring fans (read: no one) all the news that was fit to print. One of the gems that I got to smoke during the show was the Guillermo Leon Signature. Launched during the show, I had the great fortune to attend the launch party along with a bunch of other bloggers (like Barry of A Cigar Smoker). I smoked a few of these during the duration of the show and while different from what I normally smoked, I liked 'em. I brought one back home with me from the show to get decent pictures of and put a review up.

Then I moved to Scotland.

If you've never been to Scotland, I'd like to summarize the weather here. Fall...it rains. A lot. In the winter, it is precipitation. There is no "chance" of it, it just happens. Every waking second. Sometimes it's rather mild out for winter, other times its cold. The spring and summer mixes things up delightfully though. It's either sunny out and bitingly cold and impossibly windy...or warm and raining. Thus, conditions for smoking cigars without having the cigar go out, canoe like a Chippewa, or make me miserable and cold. So I've had to wait until one of those rare, dice roll days when it's warm, sunny, and not overly windy. When one of those days decided to show up, I sparked this bad boy. So, without much further ado...

Beautiful, no? Let's see how this beauty stacks up in the smokage department.

 First quarter: Man, effortless draw on this thing. Smoke is thick and rich. Starts off with a worn leather couch taste and a gratuitous amount of white pepper and toasted nuts. Sweet and medium-ish flavor at this point.

Half way: Body kicks up. The leather recedes and this powerful black coffee flavor bursts through. This would be a killer cigar with a cup of coffee. Cedar and leather intermingle in the background.

Third quarter: Coffee recedes and it reverts to the leather and white pepper flavor but more intense than the first quarter. I'd put it at a solid medium in terms of flavor at this point.

Last quarter: Power picks up a bit in the last quarter as a mustard like spice comes in.

Damn good cigar. It has the complexity of the heavier body, full flavor cigars that I like but I could definitely cruise through a couple of these in a day and still enjoy each and every nuance. While not fitting into my preferred cigar flavor profile (LIGERO), it is a pleasant smoke that can stand up to a day's worth of smoking. I'd imagine, with the heavy, predominant flavor of coffee that this would pair well in the morning with a nice cup of drip coffee or even a cappuccino. Would I recommend this? Definitely. Complex but not overbearing, ideal for days where you want to smoke a lot, and at about $6-$7, it's a pretty solid buy.