Category Archives: Spirits

Ammunition online is cheap and available in bulk – Jul. 26, 2012

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Ammunition online is cheap and available in bulk – Jul. 26, 2012.

After skimming this article a thought struck me. Nobody will ever really see the light of day when it comes to competent gun control in the United States because the Second Amendment is always held up like an adamantium shield deflecting nearly all legislation to keep guns out of the wrong peoples hands, the people who would commit crimes.

There is a way around this, however. The Second Amendment states that citizens have the right to bear arms, not the right to purchase ammunition. Some states, like Michigan have very strict controls on liquor sales, barring any liquor sales company from shipping to Michigan. Liquor is controlled by the state. Why don’t we apply the same controls to ammunition vendors? Only federally-vetted ammunition companies are allowed to sell ammunition, allow ammunition to only be purchased at registered gun shops and bar common carriers from being able to ship ammunition!

Yes, you can have your gun, you can have any gun you want. You can fill your house with guns, right up to the rafters – but the ammunition will be controlled. There is precedent – just as liquor is controlled, so can ammunition.

This shouldn’t upset the gun maniacs because they will likely have the equipment required to fill their own ammunition all by themselves, but they won’t be able to swiftly create 6000 rounds, they’ll have to work at it. And while we’re at it, lets put gunpowder under the same strict controls. So, carry a gun willy nilly wherever you go. The ammunition will be taxed to fund this new regulatory body and your precious Second Amendment will not be infringed. You have your arms, just not supplies.

The law states arms, not ammo. You can fondle your gun, you can even use it as a metal stick to strike someone else, but you’ll have to think long and hard when it comes to firing it when a box of 22 rifle rounds cost $150, or more. There is no reason why we can’t tax ammunition right out of existence. All that will be left are the people who press-their-own ammunition. And from my experience at doing this, if you fire that ammunition you best have very good equipment or one of those rounds may explode without releasing it’s bullet.

Solving the gun control problem, easy peasy.

Answering War

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Many things occur to me out of the blue when I least expect them to strike. It’s as if a part of me has been working on a problem, chewing on it, and when it reached a solution it gathers up all its paperwork and knocks on the front of my brain and says “Here, we’ve done all we can do, frontal lobe, here’s this for your consideration.” And I stand there in the middle of something really mundane and I’m stuck. I stop moving and much like when you open your door and find a brightly colored box with a bow on top, you spend all that time forgetting about what you were doing and stand in shock at the box. So it was with me earlier this evening.

Apparently a part of me was working on military strategy. Turns out part of the paperwork also included a method to cause a cease of conflict and effectively short-circuit a war, going from conflict, skipping over death, and moving to resolution. How you ask? I  was myself shocked at the answer and it comes from mother nature herself.

If you grow a very large amount of Cannabis Sativa, dry it out thoroughly and then set it on fire, then blow the resultant smoke out onto the battlefield, saturating every square inch with a thick white fog in about 15 minutes time all combatants will spontaneously stop giving a damn about whatever it is that they were fighting about and put down their weapons and sit down on the ground, some may lay down, others will likely lean back on their elbows. The key here is that every combatant will stop caring about killing and just want to “hang out” and “take in the majesty of this place, maaaaan” some may fall asleep and the rest will be overcome with feelings of euphoria, laziness, and extreme hunger.

Then, once you’ve smoked both sides until they have stopped fighting, you roll in hot dog carts, pizza carts, falafel carts, whatever. They go ding-ding-ing onto the battlefield and since everything is free (it’s war, this is what you pay for…) everyone is calm, feeling just fine thank-you-very-much, and the idea of getting a gun and killing someone else is about as far from anyones mind as humanly possible. You’ve just eaten five pounds of whatever and really all you want to do is take a nap.

Those that might be wearing gas masks will see the beatific joy and happiness on their fellow combatants faces and perhaps they’ll be encouraged to take off their masks. If not, then you still have to contend with an angry army, however if you continuously smoke them eventually any gas mask will saturate and stop working and people have to breathe. Over time, those that hold out with masks will just stop caring and get hungry like all the others.

This method would work perfectly for a peacekeeping force between two belligerent sides, so, for example, Americans versus Iranians – the United Nations peacekeepers cultivate millions of tons of dried cannabis sativa and start working on a smoker-gun and then we drop them into the middle of the battlefield and they just sit back with a beer in their hands, on a folding chair, making sure the machine chuffs out smoke nice and evenly. It doesn’t matter what your religion is, what you are fighting about, or anything. Once exposed to this smoke, nature will take its course. The course is not war, killing, or death – but rather just relaxing, taking in the sights, and wondering where the nearest falafel cart is.

I dare anyone to challenge this idea.

Throw It Back

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I used to fret and worry about my relationship with alcohol. What did it mean? Is the drinking itself bad or is it the reason behind the drinking the really bad part? Maybe it was a combination of both. Next month I’ll turn 37 years old and quickly plowing myself into my 40’s. So what preciousness is to save that I’m holding onto?

Americans have a really funny way of dealing with alcohol. We used to love it, then we hated it, then we prohibited it completely and all the while our relationship and use of the substance has not changed. I notice this a lot when I go to purchase alcohol from shops, especially here in Michigan. People are so, I suppose the emotion they must feel is embarrassment, because the shops all reflexively wrap bottles of alcohol in brown paper wrappers. Like it’s shameful or embarrassing to be seen in polite society with a bottle of Jack Daniels, Jamesons, or Captain Morgan. Wine never really got the sharp end of the stick, and neither really did beer. Both of those spirits are too weak to be of mention. You’ll go to the bathroom a lot before you’ll feel much in the way of an effect from those particular drinks. It’s the harder liquors that surprise me. First off, Michigan rigidly controls the price of spirits right down to what retailers are allowed to sell the spirits for. It doesn’t matter who sells what, they all get their prices out of this dog-eared pale-blue booklet that the state hands them. I sometimes wonder why the state of Michigan thinks it’s the sole arbiter of the price and availability of spirits in their state borders? As if they could control their citizenry with laws. Hah. But there it is, artificial price fixing for no good reason. A 750ml bottle of Jameson’s Whiskey is $25 in Michigan and $17 in Illinois. The only reason I’d buy liquor in Michigan is out of laziness.

And as it turns out, my favorite liquors are Jamesons, what a shocker, and as funny as it seems, the low-brow rums, Bacardi’s Oakheart and Newfoundland’s Screech. I don’t really care for the specialty long-aged rums and apparently I prefer just the english-speaking rums of the world, as the rest aren’t very much to my liking. But really where it’s at is my relationship to a bottle of Jamesons.

What is my relationship to alcohol? I drink liberally and I become intoxicated and I enjoy myself. I do not make a mess of myself by drinking beyond my personal limit, nor do I operate any machinery while under the influence. That last bit is a lie, of course, as machinery includes my iPhone and my computer, so a few bouts of drunk twittering won’t send me to jail. I’ve never operated a motor vehicle, and almost always I’m the designated driver because, well, lets face it, I have control and money issues. So back to drinking. It’s a joy. It brings warmth and happiness into my life. Not that my life was bereft of warmth and happiness before, but while intoxicated it makes many things feel better. Many things are easier to cope with. I wear my emotions on my sleeve and I share my feelings, some would say, too readily. There was a humorous picture of a boy stating what I often times find myself thinking, especially sober, and that is “We’re all thinking it, I just said it.” So we get down to the reasons why I drink.

I like to drink because it feels good. I like to drink because it tastes good. Wine is principally what I’m getting at, as there is a universe of delicious flavors in wine and more people should go exploring to see what they like. Beer? When I was a kid and very sensitive to bitters, beer was awful. As I age however, beer has become like water. It’s a drink with food, it makes you belch, and makes you have to see a man about a horse quite often. In many ways, beer and wine are somewhat okay ways to replace water, especially if you question the quality of water. I personally have never felt that the water where I live is good for me. Now, before people get really worked up, the gentle reader should be aware that I was raised on the worlds best water. The city supply of Syracuse, New York. That water is drawn from Skaneateles Lake and is some of the best tasting water on the planet. I am sorry that more people don’t understand just how wonderful it is to walk up to the tap in your house, turn it on and be able to drink what comes out without even a single iota of worry, and enjoying the taste, which is the way water should taste. It should not taste like a chlorinated fish bowl. So the water is a big reason for the more simpler spirits. But that doesn’t touch on the stronger ones. Here again I like the taste, or perhaps, in the case of Jamesons, I’m genetically predisposed to enjoy the taste, I do sometimes wonder about that. I also enjoy the feeling it gives me, and then, and what everyone really wants to know, is the social aspects to my alcoholism.

I drink because Hell is other people. This is very general and expansive and it’s not really meant to hurt others feelings, but lets face it, unless I’m in love with you or we are exceptionally close, Sartre’s statement about Hell being other people eventually finds it’s mark. I can endure a lot of things from people, especially when I have no other choice. I can be whatever I need to be to endure the situation. That’s the blessing that comes with a monumentally strong sense of self-monitoring. In work meetings I can be calm and reserved and measured, that sort of thing. Generally however I can’t stand humanity. In all the ways we are unique and special and loving, that’s got nothing to do with it. It’s the baser things that bother me, the odd behaviors, the many varied ways we abuse each other and in many ways, so effortlessly and lets face it, callously. It can range from being a real prat to being incidentally and nebulously a horrible human being. So what comes of all these unpleasant feelings? Being exposed to people who chew too loudly, snort, wheeze, moan, whine, or in one way or another do whatever they can to be as awful to others as they can, where is there to go? Where can anyone go if they are trapped in that situation? I am forever thankful for alcohol. “Please pass the wine” is a far more pleasant thing to say than dragging out (or dragging up) the varied unpleasantnesses that surround some social situations. I find that it’s almost always more preferable to prepend potentially unpleasant social interactions with a precautionary buffer of alcohol in my system. If I am nursing a beer or a glass of wine, of throwing back shots of Jamesons, I can eventually reach a place where the things that upset me no longer really bother me, and in a way, alcohol makes everything better. So yes, I drink, at least as a partial reason, to cope with the people in my life. I am not going to point fingers at who makes me drink, that would just be courting disaster, but in a general sense, Hell is other people.

So to get back to the beginning, is it a problem? Should I be concerned? The answer is, I don’t give a damn. I’m not going to fret over what drinking means to me, I’m just going to enjoy my life and all the things in it and if I spend my time in a beer bottle or a bottle of Jamesons, then that’s where I want to be. For pleasure, for joy, for happiness, and to escape Hell, at least for a short while. Anything can be endured as long as there is a break to it, a stop, a discontinuity to horribleness. In many ways, alcohol is a blessing to endurance.

LJ – Bottoms Up!

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From 6/20/2003

I got this message forwarded on to me from the head MD at our local health clinic:

Dear employee:

Alcohol use among college students is a serious and growing public
health problem, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services. Their comprehensive report, entitled “Healthy People
2010,” demands a reduction in the prevalence of binge drinking on
campuses. Forty percent of college students have engaged in binge
drinking – defined as consuming five or more drinks in a row for men
and four or more drinks in a row for women – in the past two weeks.

I distinctly remember my freedom to drink myself silly back when I was in College to be one of the best fundamental lessons of my entire life. The freedom that came with College life, and the ability to intoxicate yourself willfully, even dangerously, was the perfect teacher of “Actions have Consequences”. I found the pleasure and pain of that entire part of my life helped me understand many things, including personal limits, unintentional weight gain, and a new appreciation of ultra-intense headache pain. A dry campus, or one for which this message later on urged, that concerned staffers mentor students not to drink, robs these students of the chance to learn from the most effective teacher possible – pain and agony – and the ability to drink until your obnoxious roommate becomes a permanent visual blur.

Drink Up Kids!

Rhum Barbancourt

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Rhum Barbancourt

So today we’re trying a new rum. This one is in the French style from Haiti. It’s Rhum Barbancourt, aged eight years. It definitely is different from the English style found in Trinidad that was obvious on the first sip. While the Trinidadian rum had a hot lead and then quickly mellowed to feature an extended flavor profile post-palate this Haitian rum, in comparison resembles most closely Cognac.

I quite enjoy Cognac so this will be perfectly acceptable. Now that I’ve tried two different rums, I can clearly say that the English style so far has my preference. Perhaps there will be some new notes I can pull out of this Haitian rum, but so far it’s pretty much wrapped in a kind of straightforward Cognac simplicity.

My selection of rums was pretty much a coin toss. It was either going to be this one or one from the Dominican Republic. It’s a learning process, so I’m not going to weep over a rum that isn’t exactly knocking my socks off.

After I perused the label a little bit longer, I discovered to my chagrin that this rum is 86 proof, while the Trinidadian one was a standard 80. That increase in alcohol is definitely a major factor in the taste of this liquor.

2011 Leelanau and Old Mission Peninsula Wine Explorations – Second List

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Here is a list of wines that we tried that were very good on their own as we explored the Leelanau and Old Mission Peninsulas near Traverse City Michigan. Please note that this list is not exhaustive, we tried wine in nearly every winery and this list, while not sock-knocking-off were quite good.

This also bears to say that this is MY OPINION and in no way do I mean to demean the wines listed here. They were okay, not as good as the ones on my winning list previously. As always, my palate is unique and I really don’t want to hurt any of the vintners feelings with these next two lists.

  • L Mawby Sparkling Pinot Grigio – Too dry for me.
  • L Mawby Sandpiper – Pineapple city.
  • Peninsula Cellars 2008 Pinot Blanc – Rather plain.
  • Longview 2010 Chardonnay – Granny Smith apples and acid.
  • Longview 2009 Dry Reisling – Too acidic
  • Longview 2010 Rustic Red – Gentle and uninvolved.
  • Longview 2008 Cabernet Franc Barrel Reserve – Gunny sack, musty, pickles in the palate.
  • Chateau Grand Traverse 2009 Ship Of Fools – Nice, but didn’t get 4/5 marks, only 3.
  • Left Foot Charlie 2009 Stumble – Fruit bomb with acidic chaser
  • Shady Lane Cellars 2008 Dry Reisling – Pickles and vinegar on the palate. Sad.
  • Chateau Chantal Pinot Noir – Nose had asphalt sealer and burning electronics. I couldn’t escape the scent of dying technology.
  • Black Star Farms 2008 Arcturos Pinot Noir – Monotonous.
  • Shady Lanes Cellar 2007 Cabernet Franc – Flatfooted.
  • Bowers Harbor Vineyards Blanc de Noir – Way too hot.

  • Brys Estate 2008 Merlot – Lazy tannins.

    • *

2011 Leelanau and Old Mission Peninsula Wine Explorations

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This past season my friends and I visited Traverse City Michigan and explored the wine regions known as Old Mission Peninsula and the Leelanau Peninsula. These two land formations jut out into Lake Michigan and offer a marvelous vista and environment, especially one to winemakers.

The land itself is carved up, and since it resembles upstate New York so very much I can only assume it’s glacial carving that gave the land such compelling contours. Along with this, there are lots of hillsides and the land is good for growing grapes. There is also a very neat geographical component and that is that the 45th Parrallel runs right through these two peninsulas. There is at least one winery that uses that geographical fact as their namesake, and there even is a special place where you can learn all about the 45th Parrallel.

So what are the great wines of the region? I will list the ones that got special notes in my wine journal below. If you are reading this and your winery is on this list, I visited you and enjoyed what you had to offer. I can only hope that my recommendations help other people discover you as well.

  • Longview 2008 Riesling, noted honey, starfruit and pineapple.
  • Longview 2008 Pinot Noir, cherries and strawberries on the nose, plums, red fruit and chocolate on the palate.
  • Longview 2008 Cabernet Franc, nose has pickles, palate was of black cherries, cocoa and vanilla
  • Chateau Chantal Chardonnay, nose of pool water and meunster cheese, palate of grapefruits and pears with a fair acid kick in the teeth.
  • Left Foot Charlies Longcove Reisling, honey and sweet, very refreshing.
  • Black Star Farms 2009 Chardonnay, nose had vanilla, roses, apricots and peaches. Palate was acidic, oaky, loaded with vanilla. This wine surprised me with it’s mid-palate development.
  • Chateau Leelanau Semi-Dry Reisling, nose had pineapple and apple, palate had warm honey, apples and spice. This was one of my top picks during the tasting.
  • Bel Lago 2009 Auxerrois, nose was lightly floral, palate was buttery and creamy. I give this wine a score of 97. Every time I visit Bel Lago I buy a bottle, it’s that good. Was one of the most magnificent wines I tasted in the entire region. Bel Lago wins a Bravo for their wines.
  • 2 Lads 2009 Pinot Noir, nose of plums, cheese, meat. A very well rounded red and this one surprised me because it unfolded as I was tasting it, changing over time. Wines that do that almost always start at 90 and usually go up.
  • 2 Lads 2009 Cabernet Franc / Merlot, nose of plums, cassis, pine sol cleanser, antifreeze. Palate of pickles, rye, nicely acidic and wrenchingly tannic. This wines note indicates that this wine would be a perfect pair to a corned beef dinner with a beautifully sharp mustard.
  • Chateau Grand Traverse 2009 Gamay Noir, nose of bread crusts and peanut butter. Palate of red, plum, and tomato. This wine won high marks because it unfolds mid-palate.
  • Left Foot Charlie 2009 Uncle, nose of strawberries and raspberries and blueberries. Palate was very tannic and chewy. This wine won high marks because it continued to linger after it was consumed, the post-palate play was very shocking and welcome.
  • Chateau Leelanau Hawkins Red, nose of strawberry, red fruit, raspberries. Palate of spice, chewy, tannic.
  • Good Neighbor Organics Chardonnay, nose of road, pavement, plums. Palate of butter, apples, pears. The wine was excellent, the hosts were absolutely charming. Great salesmen.
  • Bowers Harbor Vineyards 2009 Cabernet Franc Rose, nose of strawberry and peaches. Palate of spice, caramel, dulce de leche. This wine won a note of “Delicious!!!”
  • Ciccone 2009 Pinot Grigio, nose of natural gas and sulphur. Palate of bright lemons, apple, tart blueberries.
  • Ciccone 2008 Cabernet Franc, nose of pickles, cheese, asphalt, and clay. Palate was very tannic and had quite a lot of acidity.
  • Ciccone 2009 Tre Rossi, nose of cheese, cream, vanilla and oak. Palate of cake, chocolate, smoke and tannins. I bought three bottles and this wine I reflexively buy in two bottles when tempted. It is magnificent.
  • 45 North Pear Cider, not really a wine, but if you like pears, you’ll love this.

Zaya Rum

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I’ve recently been exploring different tastes in various liquors and recently I’ve been concentrating on rums. This is to compliment what I’d like to think is a developing palate for wines, and while I’m no super-taster, I do take pride in knowing what I like and being able to identify good wines from bad. I’d like to see what serious artisans do with their distilled spirits.

To that end I’ve decided to leave certain spirits by the wayside. They may have their charms but to me a lot of them are just sophomoric vehicles to deliver ethanol to underage kids looking to explore intoxication. I’ve “enjoyed” Vodkas and Tequilas. They are for the most part blunt instruments. Before anyone gets worked up over what I write about these spirits, please know that just like the type that I have chosen, Rum, there are examples of both Vodka and Tequila that are upstanding and respectable members that have things to bring to a discerning palate, but please be aware that my exposure to these types is biased by my early college experiences which lead me to the ‘blunt instrument’ summation of those spirits. I may revisit those sometime in the future but don’t hold your breath.

As for rum itself, I’ve elected to trim away the obvious filler that surrounds this spirit and only concentrate on the serious ones that remain. So the squeaky clean silver and clear rums are out. They, along with the spiced rums are really ingredients in mixed drinks, not really meant to be explored all on their own. They just have either nothing to contribute or a carefully constructed and factory-same quality that doesn’t interest me. What I’m after is the same as I am with wines. The vintner for wine has only a few things he or she can really take a solid grip on and similar themes run for people who distill spirits.

The rum I’ve started with is called Zaya. It’s from Trinidad and comes in a really distinctive bottle with a huge heel in the bottom. The rum itself has been aged 12 years and is a nice deep caramel color. Much like the wines that I really love, I’m selecting rums based on their age and their maturation in oak barrels. It’s the oak that attracts me. I really love oaky red wines, oaky chardonnays and now oaky rums. I did a little research on rum and discovered that different language-speaking islands in the equatorial belt approach their rums in distinctive ways. The english-speaking islands feature very molasses-forward flavors in their rums while the spanish-speaking rums seem to depress this molasses flavor in their rums.

Zaya is Trinidadian and while shopping I discovered that Trinidad is an English speaking island, so I was expecting a rum dominated by molasses flavors and that’s exactly what I got. A bottle of very soft, very delicious and approachable rum. I found a nice glass and I’ve been sipping it as an evening cordial for a few weeks now. The bottle is very distinctive and the rum inside is aged 12 years and as I’ve said before has a delightful deep caramel color. Nothing is quite like shopping all on your own and taking a shot on something different.

Since this is the first bottle of serious rum that I’ve enjoyed I am going to reserve judgement as I don’t have the palate developed to start forming opinions on each bottle. What I can say is that this rum has what I was after. It’s clearly a definite molasses-forward spirit. The next rum I am going to get is from a Spanish-speaking island so I can compare the strength of the Zaya against the next rum and see which one I prefer. A well-done rum is a delight no matter where it comes from, it’s only until you get to the finer points of aging and in some limited ways the fermentation and distillation where you spend your time establishing one spirit over another.

I’m looking forward to enjoying many more rums and then we’ll see what next is on my list for exploration. Only time will tell. 🙂