For some reason Yahoo wants to insist there is a weather alert in this area today but refuses to tell me what it is. There’s a yellow exclamation mark followed by a red alert and an arrow tab, but nothing happens when you click on it. It’s pretty much a sunny July day here in the hinter lands/wastelands/left ventricle lands/spleen lands, but, most decidedly, flat lands. They killed motherfucking Julius the Fuck Cesar so they could name a month after him. Ok, that’s not why, but it happened all the same. Augustus too, Augustus ‘Dog Day’ Cesar.
I think Bacchus should have gotten a month or pan, some red eyed god what drunk and rutted all the live long day (all day and all of the night leave me never, girl I want to be with you that’s forever --- The Kinks, I think). Just for the postal holiday drunk rutting day. I guess New year’s is sort of like that except for the remorse, drunk rutting day would come with a remorse pass, sort of like new year’s resolutions except that you write down all the misdeeds you plan on needing to be forgiven for and then you try to live up to your misdeeds. Oh, and the entire country celebrating has to hand over their car keys.
I’ve been trying to make it a routine to have a fine dram or two of whisky before bed. It’s a double edged, albeit, flaccid sword. If I already had the habit I’d be concerned. Part of why I’ve been trying is that it makes for a good digestif (I’m spelling that phonetically like aperitif). That’s really what Jaeger was for before college students decided the road to perdition could be paved with Jaeger and Red Bull empty’s. I assume the bush alongside that road is paved with puke.
Unlike an honorable Gin (if such a thing can be called honorable) all the herbs and botanicals added to jaeger are all post mortem. A classy gin is fermented with, at bare minimum, juniper berries. Some of the newer top shelf gins are experimenting with other botanicals as well. I’m still a tough sell on top shelf gins and vodkas; the best of the one’s main characteristic is that it doesn’t taste like anything and the other tastes like old lady perfume, I’m not sure how to judge the degree to which one tastes like nothing or whether the other can taste more like old lady perfume than another brand.
Another reason I have been trying to have a glass of whisky before bed, the more practical of impractical ideas, is because I have a whole lot of whisky around here. Irish, American, Canadian, Scotch and, well, there really aren’t other whiskies, though the things that make a whisky Irish, American, Canadian or Scotch don’t necessarily need to come from the country they are named after. The Japanese, for instance, who just figure they need to fuck with everything have gotten into the whisky business (it takes at least ten years pre-meditation to do that) and one of my favorite Canadian Whiskies is distilled by the Mt. Hood Distillery in, I want to say, Hood River. Bang for the buck Pendleton is by and far my favorite Canadian.
Bourbon like Champagne is specific to a region and there is a tendency to call all American whiskies bourbon, but, you know, what the fuck ever.
My new favorite Irish whisky is Red Breast. I’m not sure bang for the buck is a phrase you want to use with that. My new favorite Bourbon is Eagle Rare. There’s a bottle of Johnny Walker Black I’ve been working through since I alit here damn near two years ago now and it’s pal a bottle of old bushmills. Incidentally, when in doubt, I mean like if you are at a bar for an office party and you are trying to make a good impression on a boss or woman with how manly you are, you can’t go wrong with ordering Johnny Walker or Old Bushmills (unless the office is all in recovery, than I suggest Ice tea or filing for unemployment). Dewars too. The thing is don’t make a big deal out of it because then you will lose cool points. If you need my advice you need the cool points. Not saying I’m very cool, I’m saying the opposite; if you need my advice you can’t afford to lose any more cool points. Johnny Walker is sophisticated enough and a hair or two below snobby.
Knobb Creek is a good when-in-doubt-office-party kind of bourbon too, so is buffalo trace but it’s less likely to be stocked.
I’ve been drinking shit I hadn’t heard of before; Glen Moray, a ten year old that spent half its distilling life in old chardonnay casks. Also, The Singleton of Dufftown, a fifteen year old very smooth cask strength single malt. At a glass a night I should be done by 2016 unless you take into account company on the quicker end and that I will compulsively add to the collection on the slower end. I have some fancy sipping rums aged in white oak whisky casks coming and another bottle of the Glen Moray because it’s so damn tasty.
I tended bar a few hundred years ago, and I’d do it again if it were just a whisky bar. Hmmm, just a bar where folks drank singular spirits from rock crystal. I cringe a little when I see cheap whisky poured into sweet and sour mix from powder and tossed over ice, or fruity shit in a blender with ice and whatever. I mean that’s to kill the taste of a drug that you’re taking to excuse your, hopefully, promiscuous and regrettable near future behavior. A ruffie and a smoothie would do that and be easier on the tummy and less likely to ever involve jaeger or red bull.
As far as drugs go I’m not a real fan of alcohol. Once you’ve acquired a taste though you have opinions and … well, shit, humans don’t have very sophisticated taste buds so the nuances are tied into our sense of smell and you can savor a good whisky or, in theory, good wine, good vodka or a good ruffie doesn’t really fall into the savor category. I know, I know, ruffies have that whole rapey stigma, I’m just using the example and not all ruffies are taken without foreknowledge or consent. Without getting into too deep, I’ve had professional cause to know a lot of rapists, rarely did they use ruffies --- sex isn’t the driving force of rape, but it is sort of the driving force of having sex with a passed out body. For the victim a lack of consent is a lack of consent, for the perp they tend to want some fear and screaming or crying, it’s about power.
Whisky is about flavor. I really dislike being drunk. I really like a good whisky. It’s a lot easier to have one by yourself at bedtime than just one in a social situation where the first one just lubricates the social wheels. I think if a local bar had some of the stuff I like to drink as call liquor that it would be ridiculously expensive. Most bars don’t cater to the ridiculously expensive crowd. Not here at any rate. One of the things I miss about the west coast is that when it’s unapologetic for decadence or novelty, it’s good and god damned unapologetic.
It’s a stereotype, but I could walk down the streets in Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, L.A. and several points in between and point out the places that have real top shelf top shelves and what sort of kitsch they have so that they are quirky instead of elitist. The stereotype here is to be all salt of the earth. Your top shelf for whisky is going to be Jameson, Dewars, Johnny Walker, Knob Creek and Glen something or other, likely Levit or Fiddich, assuming they have shelves and aren’t damn near Mennonite humble.
Here, this here is a college town. They serve hot shots and Jell-O shooters and other shit designed for teenagers and undergrads. I’m I am all kinds of happy that the whole microbrewery thing caught on here, they make some damn fine beer here these days, and, I’m told some good wine (I don’t drink the stuff) and why not, produce is excellent around here. But local beer and wine is not your best bang for the buck for the following mornings walk of shame, and neither one mixes well with red bull, which, let’s face it, as a mixer it’s for people who don’t like the taste of alcohol but want to get fucked up. Hell, I’d rather drink maddog than red bull. It gives you wings, the kind of wings where your taste buds want to fly out your asshole to cleanse the palate.
Ok, that should be enough aimless ranting for now.
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