Lofty Praise

Congrats to King Randall, who as of today finished a textbook lost weekend. Most notably, pulling off what we in the know refer to as The British Isles.

A bottle of Scotch on Friday, gin all day Saturday, and a modest sum of Irish whisky to spell the beers on Sunday. Nice variation of a Hat Trick.

In which I speak briefly of Mardi Gras

So folks, here we are in February with that crippling romantic cack behind us and the rest of the drinking year ahead. Thus, a good number of you are celebrating Mardi Gras and therefore probably can't read this very well. We understand.

In fact, I'm going to totally mail this on in. Let's be honest, very few celebrants of MG that I've known care in the least about the traditions of this iconic party. Some make the pilgrimmage to New Orleans to do it proper, the rest of us fake it and get trashed locally. Meh. Beads are offered, boobs are shown, urination is public etc.

Allow me to compensate with a couple of esoteric MG favorites in case you are frigging sick of Hurricanes or Zombies:

Hand Grenade
1 1/2 oz gin
1/2 oz PGA
1/2 oz melon liquer(nasty)
1/2 oz rum
1/2 oz vodka

Collins class works well here. Shake it together. Some folks like to garnish. Personally I add my own touch by garnishing with double the recommended booze. Mackey would triple it because he's living in Glugtown USA.

Also an obscure seasonal recipe is the Creole:
2 oz. light rum
1 oz. lemon juice
1 dash Tabasco sauce
1 dash Worcestershire sauce
1/2 oz. Beef Bouillon
dash of salt
dash of black pepper
lemon slice

The usual order of pouring Bloody Mary-like drinks applies so I won't bother with the details here. Shake the mixture, then add the lemon slice. This is really just another supercharged Bloody Bull, but I suppose every region has them.

If you are going to New Orleans, then please tell the Saint's fans to sober up and get back to work.

Panda FAIL

This place near Callahan/Clinton HWY doesn’t serve beer, wine or booze but they do cook a pretty mean bourbon chicken.

Am I missing something here?

My Kind of Town

The folks at Modern Drunkard Magazine have provided insightful and humorous entertainment going on 15 years now and they're still bringing it strong. Credit LVL for bringing them to my attention years ago and I've been a reader ever since. They go on hiatus from time to time (hey, they're drunkards) but currently seem to be active and have updated their website with some new stuff. Here is a link to an article that features a man's dream of the perfect place - Boozetown. I admire Mel's enthusiasm and passion for alcohol but I'm unsure if even our group of lushes could handle a town with so much focus on drinking. Who am I kidding, of course this is the place I'd want to live.

Loose Ends

Wooo, boy. Yeah. Whoa, um, yeah. That was a pretty good weekend - good meaning not doing a damn thing, nothing constructive anyway.

We managed to do some heavy drinking on Saturday before the town froze over, leaving Sunday open for R &R including sipping bourbon. I’ve been covered up with work lately and haven’t had time to go on a proper bender or make a fool of myself (ok, once) so I’ve not posted in a while and thought I’d wrap up a couple of small tidbits.

2009 Prick of the Year is Atlas. Those of you who know us personally already suffer him enough and realize this accomplishment is nothing new since he is a previous winner. For the rest of you, imagine a big, stout, gruff SOB quick to accuse you of fault regardless of the situation. Whether you’ve spoken on a particular matter or not, it makes no difference. Strategic, deceptive, ornery – usually all at once, yet compelling in irrational ways that confound the senses, you’ll find yourself on the losing end of a conversation you didn’t start. Those are the good days. Major offenses that carried him to the 2009 prize were his multiple, lame excuses to avoid interaction with the group. Some examples:

· No money
· Work (when unemployed)
· No insurance (he sells insurance)
· License expired
· Tags expired
· No health insurance
· The cats
· The in-laws
· The wife
· Illness
· Hockey
· Too cold

Yeah whatever, LVL has heard them all.

There is Woo in Rocky Top – Or at least there was, and No, I'm not talking about the song. That’s Frank McWoo, DK’s one and only Utahn who makes the annual pilgrimage to Knoxville during the coldest time of year. Woo made his unannounced appearance last week with none other than Catfish in town too. Sorry, P was unavailable but we retold at least a dozen old time stories and even some great new ones I was unaware of. We had a few pints at the brewery and went to Nama for sushi, only to return to the brewery for more beer afterwards. Good times, and the stories get better year after year.

Guess that’s about all for now. I’ve got to find a way to drink my way through 2 new bottles of whiskey I acquired over the weekend – a fifth each of Maker’s Mark and Woodford Reserve*. It may be another couple of weeks before I’m back around these parts.

Edit - Woodford Reserve provided by 2009 POY Winner Atlas. It makes no sense.

Cling to your pathetic fable of "Red" marketing

I'm not talking about Ivan here, although the upcoming stupidity seems right out of the dipshit commie playbook. Little Red Book indeed, Chairman Mao. This farce of shit is so puzzling, that I'm going to forgo my usual method of distracting you with pictures/shiny objects for a straight-up bitch session.

Jim Fucking Beam. Once I venerated you as have many college students. You were my constant companion in Neyland Stadium and a cheap gift for friends at Christmas time, and that frothy mess on a mixture of Beam and Coke was a panacea for young and inexperienced taste buds. Even if you are pissed off because my palate has evolved to better whisky that's no reason to vex mankind with your latest abortion: Red Stag.

Oh where to begin. The marketing campaign on the website screams hipster assholes with no taste dancing and frolicking about...oh, but they are hipster assholes that like to be outdoors in the snow and they listen to Kid Rock. How very edgy? How very damn trite if you ask me. Every booze cliche in existance is peddled over there. Winter landscape? Check. People who look cool, but are paid models? Check. Washed-up smelly pitchman? Fucking check, in the aforementioned Rock. Who from the early 2000's culture can we recycle next? Please, please say Limp Bizkit so someone can stake this poorly concieved vampire booze to eternal death. Meh.

Beam tells us that this vile drink is four year old JB(four whole years you say?) that has been 'reimagined' with a black cherry finish. Jesus tap-dancing Christ, that sounds terrible. The last thing I think of when I crack open my Makers or Knob Creek is wondering how it would taste with some Cherry Coke. Get the fuck out of here.

Yes, I know it's not in our creed here at DK to shit on something without trying it. Then again, I don't need to drink turpentine to know it's going to suck.

Finally, does anyone remember (circa 93 or 94) the dreadful beers named Red Wolf and Red Dog? Yeah, that's what I thought. Make room on the shelf for another ill-conceived product with a shitty name, because it's only a matter of time.

Shit from elsewhere

Some interesting news and notes across the Atlantic and Pacific:

Looks like Belgium is running out of beer(how did that move to InBev treat you Anheuser Busch?) due to, what else-strikes and protesters.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20100121/wl_time/08599195467500

I don't drink Headbusters any longer, but don't fuck with my Stella you douchebags. That article states that beer consumption is down across Europe which this author finds remarkable. It's almost enough to make one pine away for the days when Europe was a fine hotbed of religious persecution, dysfunctional alliances, and machine gun manufacturers.

The other bit of news comes to us from Japan, home to weird shit even before Sekigahara. Did you know that one of the world's most popular brands of Scotch whisky hails from Yoichi? You may see this mean bastard on package store shelves very soon.

Import laws have been very hard on this distiller. That's not surprising though, given that even Seagrams had to settle disputes before being allowed to sell a Kentucky Bourbon(Four Roses) in large amounts here in the states. Strange. Even though I don't drink from the malt whisky tree/style I still welcome any beverage that is cleared to move here in the States. The founder of this distillery traveled to Scotland in the early 20th century to learn their secrets, and so the first manufacturing facility for this stuff was established in 1934, at a time when Japan's primary exports were a Sino occupation force and torpedo bombers.

Nikka is owned these days by Asahi, whom most of us will recognize as a fairly popular Japanese beer. Looks like they used their stroke to break down the prohibition against their Scotch being sold in the US. I doubt very seriously that I'll ever drink a drop of it, but hey this shit's not about me and my bullshit opinion. At the very least I can appreciate the challenge of making malt whisky in a climate that differs significantly from Scotland. Cheers!