Product Review: Death's Door Gin

I'll admit, early on I had my questions about this gin. Would the relative youth of the company be evident in some crass manner? Overpowering or too little juniper? If it is tasty does that still make this some sort of gin nouveau riche?

Calm the fuck down there LVL. Turns out this is a very fine and suitable clear liquor that easily bridges the middle ground between the current heavy hitter gins: (my beloved) Hendricks, Tanq, and Bombay.

Gin is usually distinct and stark, and DD is no exception. It has a slight citrus twinge that I find difficult to explain. These days many gins have a slight infusion of flavor, but this begs you to drink more to investigate. Insidious.

The bottle is probably its coolest feature. It shows the pride of the Wisconsin community that it calls home. Ingredients are purported to be local and organic, and the general opinion is this is a 'greener' hooch if you find that a feature rather than a bug. You will find something new with each new pour...dates, maps, local lore. It's pretty cool in a day when most bottle labels are either askew or sport a torn paper label.

Suffice to say, that picture was taken pretty early-and I have since prosecuted the bottle with relentless gusto. I heartily recommend you check it out the next time you aren't in the mood for brown booze or vodka.

Tuesday

Yeah, so I've managed to acquire a bar globe. Nothing fancy, I didn't buy it airdrunk from Skymall or the Westerfield estate but it will serve in the beginning. Numerous early ideas about painting it like Unicron or the Death Star were bounced around. Like so much else, we just cut through the shit and accepted the status quo so as to get drinking "right damn now."



Not a particularly expensive or complex model, nonetheless the damn thing was lying in the motherfucking weeds and jumped up to wage hateful war against the group this last weekend! Much like Atlas and Mackey's dual kegerators that came before it the bourbon and vodka contained therein prosecuted our livers effectively. I am not confident of victory.

Choices

What's the difference?

What's the difference between us and them?

Because we drink here!

UPDATE: SKM, you mean this guy?

And then this:

Damn what a pour. Shit went south shortly afterward.

Monday Hangover – H2O

Good weekend, very good weekend. Lots of drinking of course, and lots of time on the water. Some of the authors spent Saturday afternoon helping our married friends Atlas and MC break in their pool and work on the deck. By “break in their pool” I mean we drank a bunch of beer in the water, and by “work on the deck” I mean we drank a bunch of beer in the water. Not to mention the Maker’s Mark and frozen drinks that followed. I went expecting to stay only a few hours and hit the bars later that night, but after becoming intoxicated and over-stuffed at dinner I never made it past my bed. Oh well.

Sunday was a glorious return to the lake for the first time this year. I awoke in plenty of time to watch Roger Federer win the French Open final and cement his place amongst the legends of the game and perhaps the GOAT title.

A curious early call from Lord von Lord initially pissed me off because it was right in the middle of the friggin match, but I was glad to be reminded of the late night text message we’d received inviting us to the lake for our friend’s birthday. Barely out of my foggy, hung over morning I prepared my gear and hit the road. There must have been 15-20 drunks on the party barge and we had plenty of party liquor to consume: Jagermeister, Rumplemintz, 151 and Maker’s Mark to name only a few. Beer was abundant, and someone brought a lake-ready pong table like the one Scarlett mentioned last year:

I wanted to play but was denied due to a marathon 2.5 hour game that found me too drunk to care at that point. Luckily there was more booze to sate my thirst and it was almost time to leave anyway. I thought I’d be up for some late night buffoonery but once again I never made it past my bed. Maybe I’m getting too old for this shit.

If this a consular ship, where is the ambassador?

Or something like that. Anyway, tonight at the Downtown Grill & Brewery...affectionately truncated simply as "The Brewery" the good folks at Maker's Mark will be holding a small event for their aficionados-known as Ambassadors, of which yours truly and other close friends of this blog are proud (and card-carrying) members. This is the third such event we have attended at DGB in recent years...acquiring the inside knowledge of Maker's Mark products, lore, and their fine staff and family. It runs tonight from 5PM to 7PM in the official sense, although any reasonable drunkard will conclude their boozing business much, much later. Drop on by if you are in the area, or you can fuck off to another watering hole where you get two for one Bud Lights or similar lightweight faggotry that is usually reserved for dipshits.

Many Thanks(woo! Hell yeah!)

I would like to express my appreciation and gratitude to Patrick Sullivan's right here in Knoxville's Old City 'district' for their upstairs digs. The de facto concert or band area for this establishment has served the authors well on several occasions. Strictly speaking, this is not a bar review, although it plays one on this blog.

Many of you have been to Patrick Sullivan's no doubt...decent beer selection, good(if standard) food, and an above average atmosphere. These qualities are to be expected at one of the few remaining veteran Old City establishments, and now the saloon can boast about the great addition of the adjoining BBQ joint as well. Cool, or tits, as they say.

Now that shit is out of the way, lets talk about the 3rd floor as concert venue. First thing the drunkard will notice is the split railing on the stairwell allowing both simultaneous ingress and egress. This is some proactive shit for around here, as most joints would just have a confused mass of morons milling around like a communist country's bread line. While the band area is against the far wall and is otherwise unremarkable, it does have the benefit of being some distance away from the bar...allowing the hot bartender to hear what you are saying. Furthermore my primary bar peeve of idiot shitheads standing around in the queue is also mitigated.


(Unknown Hinson says don't loiter near the sumbitchin' bar)

Anyhoo, we all bought rounds at a time which adds a robust sense of peer pressure and gamesmenship to the affair. The restrooms are also located upstairs, which is a huge plus for the music lover who might otherwise have to haul ass down two floors to utilize the primary facilities. This is manifestly awesome when you are at the Unknown show, which lends itself to extreme beer swilling and party liquor comsumption by nature.

The biggest thing PS can boast about up top is the ease of movement during a crowded show. That's fucking huge for the drunkard's overall comfort...which is the key point that many clubs and venues here in K-town often overlook. The goddamn bar down the street could take some fucking lessons, but that's another post for another day.(Oh and there will be a day of reckoning and a totalling of sums on that score, you trendy and apathetic hipster assholes)

One curious note that was briefly mentioned during some recent comments: the beer pricing made zero fucking sense, causing me to think that perhaps we were being undercharged. It's nice to be on the right side of a billing discrepancy let me tell you, and the general consensus is that even the beers we paid full price for were in fact quite reasonably priced.

In other words, Patrick Sullivan's has the hook in. They will reel us back in again and again until they fuck it up somehow.

Could it be? Party liquor rain?

Tonight, at Patrick Sullivans down in the Old City, we'll be watching the chart-toppin' master troubadour belt out his shit. I suggest that anyone with some free time and a powerful need to drink get "they ass" down there. Sumbitch puts on a show, I'll give him that.

More info can be found at http://www.unknownhinson.com/

Technically he's magnificent. I just hope this time the damn drunk who puked all over the damn bathroom at the last show makes it to a stall this time.

$38.27

That is the dollar amount of booze I intend to purchase. Or maybe the amount of a bar tab I’m going to run up later tonight. Either way I guarantee that it will be spent on booze of some sort - this I can assure you!

Have you ever found money when you weren’t expecting it? A crumpled $20 bill found in an old pair of jeans can totally make your day. It’s like the money faerie slipped you a little something extra for no damn reason at all. I just received a check in the mail for exactly $38.27, and like any unexpected “free” money I plan to blow it on whatever the hell I feel like. Right now I feel like booze. Fuck any “responsible or smart” spending, what fun would that be? I’m looking forward to possibly buying a high-end bourbon to ring in the new season. A bottle of Hendricks’s gin or even a couple bottles of wine could do the trick, we’ll see.

I had no idea why I received a check for that amount, and was hesitant about depositing it into my checking account fearing it may be one of those bank scams you hear about so often. But after clearing it with the bank teller who safely identified the source I went ahead and cashed that sucker. Turns out it was payment from a class action lawsuit I was part of several years ago. Hell, I’d forgotten about that many, many brain cells ago. So naturally this comes as a surprise, the good kind of surprise. The only down side of my good fortune is that by self-reporting this news I have alerted a few cadging, drunk friends that will be more than happy to assist me with my endeavors. I may have to hole up at a tavern in deep east Knox County. I may hide in my urban bunker with the phone turned off and refuse to answer the door - a la this. Actually, this is a farce of shit. A huge lie. There was no free money-check. Prank call, Prank call!!