Cocktail Confessions

On Christmas Eve I was introduced to a very nice bottle of bourbon by my parents.  My mom and dad know I enjoy a good whisky and these last few years they occasionally prurchase me a nice bottle on special occasions.  Which now that I think about it is very weird because I can’t even begin to guess how many times I was grilled when I was a teenager and even of legal drinking age of the dangers and ills of drinking.  I can vividly remember having to pass breath tests when I came home late at night when I was still living with my parents, and now today they are bringing over high end bottles of booze.  Mixed message anyone?

Anyway, I was introduced to a 750 of Bulleit Bourbon, which averages about $20-25.  All I can tell you it was very clean and smooth as I sampled it ‘neat’, not mixing it with anything, and I’d easily buy this again in the future.  The flavor profile is as such: hints of oak and spice, crisp, clean flavor that isn’t harsh in the throat along with notes of vanilla and honey.

I came across this blurb on the net and thought I’d share it with you, unedited, because it’s an interesting story:

Tom Bulleit is a Southern gentleman in the truest sense of the word, but his considerable charm and family pedigree are only part of the story. He is a former Marine, a combat veteran of the Vietnam War, a successful Lexington attorney and the founder of Bulleit Bourbon, a brand he created based on a family recipe dating back nearly 200 years.

Bulleit’s great-great-grandfather Augustus emigrated from France to New Orleans around 1800, eventually following the commerce of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers to Louisville, where he became a tavern keeper. Of French heritage, he relied on his knowledge of brandy-making to create small batches of Kentucky bourbon in the mid-1800s. Soon his product was traveling with the tide of pioneers headed westward. Business was good, but in 1860 Augustus disappeared while transporting whiskey to New Orleans. One family story said he was killed by his business partner. Another said he disappeared into the sumptuous life of the French Quarter. In any case, his bourbon died with him. Until Tom Bulleit came along.

Tom Bulleit was raised in Louisville and worked in distilleries before joining the Marine Corps in 1968. Later he went to law school. During his law career, Bulleit was active in the campaign for a Vietnam Veteran’s memorial in Washington, D.C.

But Bulleit couldn’t get bourbon out of his blood. In 1987, venturing into a new frontier, he created Bulleit Bourbon from the original recipe.

“I always loved the business,” Bulleit said. “My father couldn’t understand why I would leave a successful law practice, but I was attracted to the creative and entrepreneurial challenges of making this brand of bourbon and doing it right. I guess you could say it became my passion, and it still is. We are creating one of the definitive styles of bourbon currently distilled in this country. It is one of the most distinctive mash bills out there. The high rye content, absence of phenol alcohol and at least six years of aging produces something really special.”

Bulleit Bourbon was awarded the Brown Spirits Gold Medal at the 2004 San Francisco World Spirits Competition.

The Bulleit legacy is a compelling chapter in the story of Kentucky bourbon, that most American of spirits. Bulleit resurrected a whiskey that was not only a lost piece of his family’s history, but of an American era. He is one only a few remaining scions of a Kentucky bourbon-making family whose name is on the bottle.

Now, onto the fun part…(you knew it was coming you cheeky little monkey’s, didn’t you?)

BLT

• 1 1/3oz Bulliet Bourbon
• Lemon wedge
• Tonic

Preperation: Serve over ice in a rocks glass and garnish with generous wedge of lemon.

Bulleit Mint Julep (serves 12)

• 15 oz Bulleit Bourbon
• 30-40 fresh mintleaves
• Simple syrup (1 cup sugar disolved in 1 cup water)

Preparation: Wash mint leaves, pat dry and place them in small mixing bowl.  Cover with 3 oz of Bulleit Bourbon and let soak for 15 minutes.  Remove mint, then place in a clean cotton cloth and wring over bowl thus bruising the leaves.  Dip back into bourbon and wirng again.  Repeat this process several times to create mint extract.  You can put leaves back in for an hour for a more concentrated mint flavor.  Combine mint extract (leaves included, if preferred) with symple syrup in a covered glass container or jar and refrigerate overnight.  Fill julep cups with crushed or shaved ice and insert a fresh mint spring.  Add 1 oz of Bulleit to each cup and then add marinated julep mixture to taste.

Before you feel the need to send me an email to remind me that my last two entries were about me making a concerted effort in dropping my cholesterol, weight, and putting off a few cocktails for a couple of weeks, this is in fact a blog that I like to share recipes with you.

And what two better ingredients to talk about than bacon and bourbon?  They say everything is better with bacon and who am I to disagree?  I will prove to you here today that in fact alcohol is indeed better with bacon.  Bourbon pairs very well with cured pork.  Haven’t you ever heard of the Jack Daniels brand of BBQ sauces? 

Whisky goes hand in hand with grilling, so it only makes sense that a relationship between bacon and whisky should be as natural as peanut butter and chocolate.  The lingering caramel hints match keenly with the richness and smoke of bacon while the whisky’s spice brings it all together like a warm hug from Olivia Wilde.

So let’s get to it.

You’ll need the following:

• A Lindsey Lohan starter kit of good bourbon, say 750ml of the decent stuff….don’t go generic or cheap on me here.  The impurities and bite of low grade whisky can make this slightly bitter and won’t help the headache front at all.  Go just about middle of the road, so as you aren’t spoiling the real good stuff either.
• 1lb bacon.  Also, look for as slab that may not be too high in salt or preservatives.  You’ll disappoint me if you buy the cheap bacon as well.  As a matter of fact, if that’s what you’re determined to do, then stop reading this now and move along….I don’t want to talk you.  No, seriously, move along and leave this to the proper gentlemen.
• A pitcher with a wide mouth. (Insert your own Kardashian joke here).
• A fine mesh strainer.
• Unbleached coffee filters or like filtering material.

Directions:

Start be frying the bacon up and reserving all of the grease.  Be careful of not burning your bacon….the burnt taste will infuse the grease which is something we want to avoid, that is unless you like the taste of charcoal briquettes.  Strain the grease and allow it to cool (be very careful, grease burns and accidents are painful).  Once cool, pour into pitcher along with your whisky, give a good stir, and place in freezer for a few hours (preferably overnight).  BTW: You have a pound of bacon to contend with now, so make yourself a salad or omelet or something.  When cold, the bacon grease will float to the top and form a solid fat cap.  Remove this solid cap as best as possible and strain the rest to remove any lingering fat chunks.  Your newly minted bacon infused bourbon will keep in the fridge for about 2-3 weeks.  Now try a pinch in a cup of hot chocolate, or other favorite whisky drink.  *You can use the same process on either vodka or tequila and wow your friends with a very unique Bloody Mary.

This past weekend we celebrated my wife’s 40th birthday with a BBQ at our house. Not only was it a celebration of her birthday, but also a few of our neighbors birthday’s as well that all fell around the same time frame these past two weeks.

I’m not exactly sure how and when it happened, but it seems that our house is the goto house for parties as of late, since our other neighbor picked up his family and moved out to Texas last year.  See, we used to have block parties that spanned the end of our culdesac street that primarily centered out of his driveway and that of his neighbor. But now that they are gone, the street scene now tends to migrate down to our house. Not that I’m complaining. We enjoy entertaining and hosting cookouts. We have a corner house with nobody behind us, and a nice sized backyard. The only issue for me is I kinda do get tired of cleaning it up the next day. In that respect, I wish my neighbors volunteered their homes a bit more often.

So the main theme was somewhat latin in flavor. We decorated the house and backyard with Mexican themed streamers, banners, and cutouts.  Tacos, Spanish rice, ranch style beans, and margaritas were on tap, but these weren’t your typical tacos. I ended up making two different gourmet style types. The first were three large top sirloin steaks in a citrus-chipotle marinade that were cooked out on the grill and then cut up for easy service.

The second was a slow cooked pulled-pork shoulder that I had marinated in an achiote paste recipe served with roasted peppers and grilled pineapple. All the usual condiments were present: sour cream, shredded cheese, red onions, cilantro, various salsas and hot sauces. Monica happened to make a salad as well, and we had plenty of margarita’s, Jack Daniels, wine, and beer on hand.

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Listen to the podcast on how I prepared the pulled pork, and check out my earlier post on achiote paste and powder to know what it is and how to make. I can tell you it was delicious and I got some solid thumbs up from our guests.  I also discuss the preparation of roasted pasilla/pablano and Anaheim chili peppers (on the grill or in the oven), along with grilled pineapple.  I guarantee the added color and texture of fresh roasted peppers along with the sweet caramelized taste of fresh grilled pineapple bring these pork tacos full circle as a treat to the taste buds.

Monica did very well in the gift department as you can tell by the pictures, that is if you like alcohol as a gift. The more I think about it though, it may appear that by the amount of Crown Royal she received, one would think she has a problem. But I’m sure that Crown will be used up by everyone in future parties and I’m sure I’ll have a slug here and there.

As the night marched on, one of our friends Anthony found himself taking a liking to the Jack Daniels…perhaps a bit too much…and we had an entertaining ‘exit’ show as his wife (who drove) was rounding him up to leave.  There were plenty of hugs to go around initiated by Anthony, as well as multiple ‘good-byes’ and the almost wipe-out of our entertainment center which includes a 42″ plasma television, blu-ray player, stereo system, XBox and Wii gaming systems.

Even later when the natives got restless an impromptu session of Rock Band 2 broke out, with yours truly attempting to sing, and sing badly I did.  Girls took turns playing the drums and guitar and even singing.  Needless to say, there were plenty of pictures taken and all had a good time. 

The part at its peak was about 30 people strong, enjoying each other’s company, the outdoor fireplaces, drinks, jokes, games,and of course, food.  It wrapped up by 1:15am, and I did some preliminary cleaning until I finally crashed at 1:45.  The next day consisted of cleaning the house and resting.

Show Notes:

• Intro Song: Cumbia De Los Muertos (track 3) of the self-titled debut album, Ozomatli.
  

  Ozomatli

• Pulled Achiote Pork preparation along with roasted peppers and grilled pineapple.
• The Crown Royal Easter bunny.
• Anthony almost takes out the entertainment center.

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This episode was a little fun to do. I started off of a script that I had written out which I thought was pretty good and witty, but upon reading back into a portable recording device, just sounded stiff and un-natural. After a few additional attempts and not liking any of them, I decided to throw the script out the window and record free style…in one take.

The result is something that sounds more real and fluid, although like most, I needs to work on my “um’s” and “uh’s”.

In this episode I start off by talking about a dinner party I was recently invited to by my friend Jon, and avoiding a piano bar party that my wife attended that resulted in chaos (people throwing up, getting thrown out, loosing articles of clothing) to a posh little place called Hush in Laguna Beach, CA. It’s a swank place with very good food (I’d give it a 4.25 stars on a scale of 5), great atmosphere for an intimate dinner party or romantic evening with your significant other. They have a very cool bar that is relaxing on the eyes and a mellow vibe with top shelf liquor.  Hush is a small place, but sometimes smaller is indeed better, and it’s hard to put into words, but the aesthetics is akin to a mash up of modern art meeting an episode of Miami Vice.

Next off we end up at the local chapter of Long Beach’s, “Club Bounce“, which none of us was really prepared for.  This Laguna iteration can be found in a subterranean bar on PCH that doubles as The Main Street Bar.  What I and most of our party didn’t know is that this location is a gay and lesbian watering hole, and needless to say it was quite the eye opener.  I loosened up with some liquid encouragement in the form of Manhattans and ended up dancing the night away, even if I was just a piece of meat in an all girl mechanic mosh pit.  I did learn a few things the next day however: 1) I need to work on my cardio as I was totally out of breath at various points in the evening, 2) my club shirt was the most feminine article of clothing in the joint clearly labeling me as a ‘metrosexual’, 3) cheap whisky and heavy handed sweet vermouth equate to a serious next morning headache.

 - gallery coming soon -

I also finally saw the movie juggernaut that is know as Avatar, but in 2D.  It was good and I enjoyed it, but because maybe I didn’t see it in 3D or IMAX I’m not sure what all the hype was about.  In my personal opinion it wasn’t as good as people made it out to be, and I also understand why some critics call it ‘Dances with Wolves’ in space.  I saw a lot of other, shall we say ‘borrowed’ elements and ideas from World of Warcraft and the Star Wars franchise, especially ‘Return of the Jedi’.

Finally a few tidbits on some of the science fictions shows I’m currently watching such as Lost and FlashForward.

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Yesterday was St. Patrick’s Day, one of those pseudo holiday’s that we as Americans have hijacked as one of our own in order to justify the act of getting piss ass drunk for no real reason at all and kid ourselves we really do indeed look good in green.

Where as Cinco de Mayo is to tequila body shots and garish ranchero music, St. Patrick’s day is about kissing strangers, copping feels and pinching.  You don’t even need to be Irish or red-haired, just some green accessories such as old Mardi Gras beads, paper top hats, and the requisite “Kiss Me…I’m Irish” shirt…even if you’re more Indian than a tech-support call center employee.

This year, it happened to be on a Wednesday, and I did pretty good job of surviving.  In years past when I lived in Huntington Beach, CA (I was in my mid to late 20’s) the ‘it’ places to be on March 17^th, was the ever popular Malarkey’s, known for their Sheppard’s pie and cheap drinks.  If you were near Costa Mesa, then it was The Harp Inn.  Hennesy’s Tavern of either Dana Point or Laguna Beach were other local favorites. 

All these places had a few things in common: 1) they were ridiculously over-crowded, 2) they often shook you down with a $5-$10 cover charge for no other reason to get a few more bucks out of you, 3) and usually offered some sort of live entertainment in the form of an Irish band.  I remember seeing The Finnegans a few times before they got as big as they are now.  I also drank copious amounts of Guinness or Harp beers, and danced the night away to bag pipes and folk music and was still able to bounce back the next day and make it to work.  I even hooked up a few times as well, but those are stories for another time.

This year I happen to meet some friends over at Rudy’s of Foothill Ranch.  It’s current incarnation is that of a sports bar and it seems to be doing fairly well.  It’s changed names and management at least four times in the last eight years, but I have a feeling Rudy’s may be around a while. 

It was decidedly un-Irish, other than the fact they added food coloring to their beers and cocktails and had reduced pricing on Guinness.  No real decorations, no Irish swag given at the doors, no corned beef and cabbage plates, and the music was satellite radio classic 80’s and 90’s mix.

They happen to have a fairly sizeable patio area, and it was so warm yesterday (I think the high was 88) we chose to sit outside and gab.  I guess you could tell we’re all in our late 30’s and early 40’s now as we were noticeably much more subdued than I can recall from years past.  I had a total of 4 green pints of Bud Light.  Yup, that’s it.  I didn’t hit any hard stuff like whisky or cocktails, although my wife did actually have green Crown Royal on the rocks.  By the way, that green die they use is nasty.  After a few drinks, everyones lips, tongue, and even teeth had a sickly greenish hue to them.  Not appealing unless one has beer goggles I suppose.

Our appetizers included chips & salsa, French fries, and Kobe sliders.  Doesn’t that just scream Irish to you?  Just to let you know, Rudy’s fries are indeed some of the best French fries I’ve ever had in my life.  They are always perfectly cooked, crunchy, and golden.  Their sliders are pretty damn good as well as they use Hawaiian bread for the buns.

Whereas in the past St. Patrick’s Day would keep me out to the very late hours or closing time and begging for a hangover, this time around I was in and out after just two hours.  No, I looked forward to going home, taking a nice hot shower and sitting my duff in front of the boob tube with my dog on my lap.

I think I’m saving myself and my energy for this upcoming weekend.  We plan on having a large BBQ at my house with neighbors and friends to mark the passing of myself into the realm known as being ‘middle-aged’.  The weather has been very nice and I look forward to grilling and sipping on beers with my closest friends.

Well, here it is, Episode 15.  I wish I could say I’m really happy with the outcome, but in my own humble opinion, it’s “meh” at best.  Why you ask?  Originally, I had sat down last weekend with my friend Brian Liles (yet again) and had made a sweet recording that was a good solid hour plus.  It could have easily been broken into two seperate Podcasts, and I think it was one of our best yet.  There was a myriad of interesting topics on the table as well as we had at least three to four craft beers in us each as we made it.

However, due to the fact that I hadn’t take the time to reboot my computer after some auto-installed patches from Microsoft prior to our recording, it seems that Audacity (my podcast recording software) somehow corrupted the data.  No matter how many times I tried to recover the orphan files after a failed save attempt, I just couldn’t resurect it.  As I say in this podcast, let that be a lesson to all you tech heads out there.  Always reboot your PC after critical patches are downloaded and installed.  I clearly should have known better, so I have no one to blame but myself.

Feeling somewhat pressed to have a new episode ready, I took my portable Zoom to work and made this recording on my lunch break while sitting in my car.  I’m happy with the audio quality, but as you’ll hear, there was really no set agenda for this one.  It’s about 40 minutes of me ranting on some of my political views, Howard Stern, and my upcoming business trip to Atlanta, GA.  Also, I was able to throw in a cocktail recipe, the ‘original’ Texas-tini (not my version from a few weeks back in which I thought I was so clever with the name), and a recipe for grilling artichokes.  Hence the title ‘Smorgasbord’.

In other news, I’m rapidly approaching my 40th birthday (8 days from this writing) and I am clearly having a mild midlife crisis.  I hope its not too evident in my recording, but I’ve been feeling a bit under pressure lately in various personal aspects: financial, work, trying to be a father to a teenage girl, etc. So perhaps that lends to my somewhat dour attitude in if you pick up on it.  Hopefully I’ll snap out of it soon because it really just doesn’t feel like me and I’m very aware of it.

I’ll work on the show notes and recipes contained within later if I get a chance, but suffice to say I will be out on business the next week (starting tomorrow) so I most likely won’t be making any updates here for at least a week. 

As I usually do, I try an pick an intro song that encapsulates either my mood or something that somehow pertains to the audio content of the episode.  Here, I chose “Take this Job and Shove it” by Johnny Paycheck.  I have two comments about this: 1) Yeah, I’m not gonna be quitting my job anytime soon, but the last few weeks, I really feel as if I’ve been holding back my frustration on various career related issues and I’m just not that happy overall, and 2) I really thought Johnny ‘Paycheck’ was a fake name and he was trying to cash in on the name Johnny Cash, especially when you have a song about a job and then shoving it.  Turns out, I was partially correct, as his real name was Donald Eugene Lytle.

Texas-Tini II

• 3 oz whisky (try a sweet or smooth blend like Crown Royal or Canadian Mist)
• 1.5 oz sweet vermouth
• 1/2 oz Blue Curacao (orange flavored liquer, but blue in color)
• Shake all three ingrediants over ice and pour in sugar rimmed martini glass, or mix all three in lowball glass over ice and skip sugar.

Grilled Artichoke

• 2 fresh artichokes, stems cut at least 1 inch from base.
• Place artichokes in pot of boiling water with the freshly squeezed juice of 1/2 lemon to reduce oxidation of leaves (prevents leaves from turning brown). (Optional: zest some of the lemon peel and add zest (to taste) to fresh mayo.  Mix, and chill in advance for dipping.  Lemon zest adds a nice fresh, flavorful kick to the mayo).
• Remove after 25-28 minutes of cooking, drain excess water, and let cool enough to handle.
• Preheat grill to medium-low heat/flame.
• With sharp knife, cut artichoke in half, lengthwise and remove choke/heart (purpleish center with bristles) with spoon.
• Brush halves with olive oil and season with kosher or sea salt and fresh ground pepper.
• Place flat side down on grill, cooking approx 2-3 minutes, then turn 45 degrees and cook additional 2-3 minutes or until nice grill marks appear.  In the last few minutes, ‘drizzle’ some quality balsamic vinegar over artichokes for additional flavor and color.
• Serve with fresh lemon zest mayo (above), and/or melted butter and garlic combo.

Show Notes

• Coming soon

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In the era of Sex in the City, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, and half the shows on the CW these days (should I admit I actually watch many of them?) many cocktail concoctions took on some frilly characteristics.  There were a lot more pink umbrellas, red sugar rims, and fruit floating about in poolside glasses than most men would like to admit too.  When was the last time you saw Steve McQueen, Tito Ortiz, T.O. or Derek Jeter sipping on a cosmo? (Well, the jury is still out on Jeter, but that’s another story).

Anyway, I want to introduce you to a few libations that are gonna put a little kick back in your step, make you howl at the moon, and thump your pecs like a silverback gorilla.  Yes, some manly men drinks sure to darken your roots and ground you back in the ’50s where men worked and there was a pot pie, a pipe, and slippers waiting fro you when you got home.

With no further ado:

The Rusty Nail

Straight out of a construction site nail gun, we’re talking two ingrediants – Drambui and Scotch.  Drambuie is a liquer made with a blends of herbs, spice, a touch of honey, and get this….more Scotch!  Liberals be damned when you pour this down your gullet.

• 1oz blended Scotch.  Pick one with enough bite to counter the slightly thicker and sweetness of the Drambuie.
• 1oz Drambuie.
• Lemon twist for garnish.
• Take a lowball glass with ice and pour both ingrediants in.  Stir quickly and drop lemon twist in, allowing natural oils of rind to blend with drink, and then pretend ‘The View’ never existed.

The Negroni

Hey look, I didn’t name this drink so back off.  I know what you’re thinking, but we evolved since then.  Negroni combines gin, vermouth and Campari and supposedly stimulates the appetite and promotes digestion.  Just what the doctor at teh Tiajuana clinic ordered.  It may be a bit tough to get used to, so you probably won’t get many requests to share, but savor this strong and in your face flavor and imagine Mel Gibson handing it to you for a job well done.

• 1oz gin (say Plymouth or Tanqueray)
• 1oz Campari (a bitter apertif)
• 3/4oz sweet vermouth.
• Put ingrediants in shaker full of ice and shake well.  Strain into a chilled cocktail glass or lowball filled with ice.  If you’re confident enough in your masculinity, you can add a cherry, but stare down anyone who gives you crap about it.

Blue Blazer

Sounding more like a mexican luchador (wrestler for you non-bilinguals), this has the added component of fire, always sure to amaze and impress.  It’s a bit more involved in preparation and not for the timid or drunk to try and mix.  We’re talking boiling water and fire, and silver plated mugs people!

• 2.5oz high proof rye whisky (100 proof or better is recommended)
• 2.5oz boiling water.  Yes, boiling.
• 1 teaspoon powdered sugar.
• lemon peel for garnish.
• 2 silver plated mugs as most other materials can’t hold up well with flames involved.
• Pour whisky in one mug with sugar and mix slightly, and boiling water in other mug.  Ignite whisky (be careful) and pour into mug of water.  Continue pouring back and forth to mix displaying a stream of fire.  When done, add lemon peel to glasses.  You are now the ‘most interesting man in the world’.

After some self-induced procrastination as of late, I finally sat down earlier this week to record this ‘filler’ episode for you all.  I’ve been kind of disappointed with myself as of late allowing my recordings to fall slightly by the wayside and it’s actually surprising how much I kinda forgot in producing an episode.  That includes the formatting, the folders, the uploading, fiddling aith Audacity, etc.  I made a few mistakes along the way, but it all came back pretty quickly and I hope to get back on track soon enough.

Episode 11 is completely unscripted, meaning, I had no idea what I wanted to talk about or where I was going with my blathering.  I just sat down, turned on the mic, and went at it hot.  Before I knew it, I was at the 30 minute mark or raw recording and didn’t feel as if I stumbled too much. 

In this episode I speak briefly about a new hobby of mine I stumbled into not too long ago and really found myself enjoying it: Model railroading, and my foray into n-scale structure modeling.  I then talk a bit about my experiences in multi-level marketing and how my wife has recently jumped on the pyramid band wagon and my chagrin about it.  But maybe she’ll prove me wrong (I hope she does actually) and make some money at it.  Finally, I attended the inaugural Long Beach Comic Con this past weekend, took some pictures, bought some artwork and action figures, and my overall critique of it….hopefully it is better next year.

Show Notes:

Intro – “Kryptonite” by 3 Doors Down as a tie-in to the comic con.

 1:00 – Powerade cocktails: Grape Powerade and Rangpur gin – good.  Grape and Jack Daniels – bad.

 1:52 – My mid life crisis in defining yet another new hobby for myself and my foray into the world of N-scale train modeling.

 7:50 – Multi-level marketing scheme’s and the wife’s recent plunge into it.

15:48 – Long Beach Comic Con – My critique and observations of has-been stars, artist alley, the worthless DC Nation panel, and organized chaos. (See pics in gallery).

34:10 – Wrap up.

Long Beach Comic Con Gallery

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A load of crap

Yeah, I know I’ve been a bad blogger as of late.  When i initially started this blog a few months ago, I really did have all of the best intentions to bring new content (in the form of podcasts or text entries) on a pretty consistent schedule.  However, as things happen, (namely me being lazy and suffering from writers block), I haven’t posted much as of late.

I can tell you I haven’t abandoned this project at all….I’m in it for the long haul…but all things being the same I really have been at a loss for words lately and other things have cropped up to keep me very busy.

I did however record a new 30 minute podcast last night, totally unscripted and on the fly.  I just sat down and turned on teh mic and talked about whatever came to my mind.  So you can tune in the next few days or so to listen to a little ranting on my thoughts on Xowii multi-level marketing pyramid that seems to be taking the Valley of the Dirt People (the often mocked Inland Empire) by storm, the questionable first annual Long Beach Comic Con (in which I actually attended), why grape Powerade and Jack Daniels are not friends, but Rangpur gin is, and finally my recent fascination with N-scale trains as a new hobby.

Lastly, there have been a few upgrades here behind the scenes.  A few plugins have been upgraded, although you probably won’t notice anything yet, but perhaps some new thinsg will debut soon.

What can I say?  For the better part of a few years, I’ve been on a self-imposed last ‘hold-out’ in gaining the courage to take my first trepidated steps into a BevMo store.  With absolutely no substantive experience to back up any of my outrageous thoughts, I have more or less had devised my own conclusions when it came to this so-called beverage mecha: 1) It’s chick territory — a pretentious haven where snobby, over-augmented, trophy wives that occasionally play Bunco and compare botox injections sip trendy wine spritzers all the while secretly craving the teenage pool boy bought their swill, or 2) A re-imagining of the old late 70′s-esque ‘Liquor Barn’ in which couch spelunkers counted out their laundry coins one by one for a cheap thrill in a paper bag came to shop.

What a surprise it was when I walked in this past Saturday and discovered a plethora of blended libations, unique hand crafted beers, sodas, and other goodies amongst various aisles.

The store’s asthectics are nothing to write home about, perhaps just a tad fancier than a big budget warehouse chain, but if it’s sole purpose is to provide alcoholic drinks in bulk, then I seriously doubt your average customer needs to be impressed by neon signs, chic decor and what not.  If you’re like me, you want in and want back out to the party as soon as possible.

There is an aisle of just standard mixers, and many of them were pretty standard fare, and even boring.  Take Bloody Mary mix for example….they only had about 3 or 4 different brands and nothing was too exciting.  I’ve personally had better luck at Home Goods, CostPlus and Mervyns with stranger and tempting labels.  The wall of soda was pretty much standard as well, but the Root Beer and Cream Soda section was really surprising.  Who knew there were so many varietals of root beer of all things, and is there really a need for 30+ brands of root beer?

I was pleasantly surprised with the micro and hand crafted beer section.  While not the largest I’ve ever seen before, there was quite an eclectic mix of regional brews to choose from, and of course I couldn’t pass up some of the stouts (podcasts on these will be forthcoming).  I also noticed there were many familiar labels from my college days: Lost Coast Brewery, Humboldt Brewery, Mad River, etc.  Pricing was pretty good as well.  BevMo certainly beat out my regular grocery chain when it came to certain brands by upwards of a few bucks a six pack.  But you won’t find everything here.  I didn’t see any Cheleda, certain standard imports, and many other common place beers were strangely absent from the scene.

There was a cooler of deli cheeses and racks containg dice and card games, and many kiosks with printed pint glasses if anyone was interested.

I more or less stayed away from the wines, as I’m not a big grape fiend, but then I came to the grail of the spirits I generally enjoy: whisky and gin.  I was overwhelmed by many of the varieties of whisky I’ve never seen or heard of before and prior to this outing I thought I was pretty well versed.  I was a kid in a candy store and just had to leave with some new bottles of stuff I can’t wait to enjoy.  We purchased an actual mason jar of corn whisky, and pre-mixed mint julep courtesy of Maker’s Mark.  I saw new bottles of Jim Beam and Crown I’d never laid eyes on before.  The same can be said for the gin and vodka selections as well.

The one thing that blew me away was the inconsistent pricing, generally to the customers favor if you just looked at the labels long enough.  For example, there was a standard 750ml of Tanguery gin for $36.99, and then right next to it was a 1.75L, also for $36.99!!  Guess which one I picked up?  I saw this time and time again on certain brands.  The same went for a few of the whisky’s as well…for $1 more, I could get a whole extra liter!!  What gives?  Why would anyone buy the smaller bottle when you could get more than twice as much for the same price or perhaps a single dollar more?  Hey, if these were pricing mistakes from the part time clerks, I sure am not going to point it out.  Their loss….my gain.

Not that I’m bragging, but we spent roughly $150 that day and I feel as if we walked out of that BevMo with closer to $250 in spirits, soda, and beer that should last us a bit longer than usual.

I’m really looking forward now to getting the podcast portion of this site up and running so I can try some of these with my friends for you all, describe them, and have a good time overall.