FlaSoxxJim

QUOTE (G&T @ Feb 7, 2011 -> 08:36 PM) I wouldn't say that mine won out necessarily. both are good for different things. Problem is, I don't know what's more accurate to tradition. My guess is almonds are too expensive to make a cost effective commercial orgeat. That is probably an accurate assessment. You are probably using a pound or so of almonds in your homemade, and that would indeed be expensive for a commercial producer. As far as authenticity goes, the research I've done suggests that there lots of orgeats with of varying flavor intensity, sweetness, color, etc. way back when. Any of them would have likely been hands-down better than the artificial tasting stuff that most commercial producers sell now. The orgeat that Trader Vic originally used in his mai tai was a "French Garnier orgeat" that doesn't seem to exist anymore, so the mystery as to what current orgeats taste most authentic remains largely unsolved.

Looking for a good photoshop program? How about Photoshop?

QUOTE (G&T @ Feb 6, 2011 -> 02:07 PM) I ordered some Trader Tiki orgeat to try in comparison to my home made. $20 later I got it and tried a Mai tai. The trader tiki is good for sure but lacks in almond flavor. I would guess both orgeats have similar sugar levels as the sweetness is about the same. The trader tiki has little discernible almond but has a fruitier side. There isn't anything wrong with it, but I wouldn't waste it on a mai tai with Appleton 12 which has a fruit character that shines in the drink. This orgeat would pair well with VX. My orgeat lacks much fruit but truly captures the almond richness. Of course it's possible that mine is far too almondy, but from the recipes I've seen, I tend to doubt it. I'm not surprised the homemade orgeat gets the nod over commercial - even with a top quality brand like Trader Tiki. That is the beauty of homemade syrups. If you are willing to do some homework and put a bit of effort into it, you can almost always come up with something superior to anything you can get at the store.

QUOTE (G&T @ Feb 6, 2011 -> 01:59 PM) Braved a sleet storm last night for an awesome dinner at a place called Black Watch. The food was outstanding and they have a mixologist for real cocktails. I had a blood and sand followed by a sidecar. The sidecar was my favorite but the blood and sand would be great to just have for a night without food. Neither were as good as the pork belly, but that's a different story. Couple of solid drinks there. The blood and sand is probably my favorite scotch cocktail, beating out the Rob Roy by a fw lengths and leaving the rusty nail in the dirt. A tequila version of the blood and sand ala' the famous one served up at Tiki-Ti is also a nice change of pace. The sidecar has some great history. I spun up the very similar New Orleans brandy crusta - basically a sidecar with a sugar rimmed glass, a big lemon peel garnish and a dash of bitters.

You just can't beat a big cup of fresh-brewed good coffee. I think a lot of people who "hate coffee" but appreciate other bold flavors have maybe never had a cup of good coffee. I agree with most of the folks that think drip-brewed generic freeze-dried coffee is usually pretty wretched.

Feeling the need to continue celebrating almost feeling human again, I followed my mai tai up with a Vieux Carré, a New Orleans classic cocktail. Invented in 1938 by Walter Bergeron, the head bartender at the Monteleone Hotel in New Orleans (home of the famous revolving "Carousel Bar", the name of the drink comes from the French term for New Orleans' famous French Quarter, . . . le Vieux Carré ("the Old Square"). If you are a fan of real rye Manhattans, this is the drink for you. Benedictie amounts vary in different recipes from 1/8 tsp. to 1/4 oz. I recommend pouring heavy and going with the full 1/4 oz. Benedictine is an interesting herbal liqueur on it's own and it's a really great mixer that can add a lot of subtle complexity to a cocktail. Here's a recipe for a classic Vieux Carré: * 1 ounce rye whiskey (I used Jim Beam this evening) * 1 ounce Cognac * 1 ounce sweet vermouth (I used Noily Pratt) * 1/4 oz. Bénédictine D.O.M. * 2 dashes Peychaud's Bitters * 2 dashes Angostura Bitters Stir all ingredients over ice; strain over fresh ice into a rocks glass. Garnish with a simple lemon twist. Note that every ingredient in this one is alcoholic. Despite this frightening fact, the end result is an incredibly smooth, complex, and wonderfully balanced cocktail.

Finally starting to feel somewhat close to normal after a week-long family-wide bout of flu. Celebrating with a mai tai made with a Martinique rhum agricole that is new to me — La Mauny 1749. La Mauny is the single largest Caribbean rhum agricole distillery, but the 1749 is a new offering first bottled for US consumption in 2010. Aged a minimum 1-year in used French oak vats, it's a gorgeous dark amber rhum, and the bargain price point of $24 enticed me to take a stab and buy this one instead of the standby Rhum St. James I went to the store for. Wow, this rhum produces an exceptional mai tai. Paired with Appleton V/X, curacao, lime, homemade orgeat and a little simple syrup, I think this mai tai is possibly even better than a St. James Ambre, and also better than one made with Rhum Clement. I finally located a store about 40 minutes south of where I work that stocks the St. James Hors D'age which has been sort of the elusive holy grail of adventurous mai tai rhum vieux (dark) agricoles. Next time I'm down that way I'll have to finally pick up a bottle, but at about $20 more than the La Mauny it had better be something really special. My hope is to one day have all four of the above-mentioned rhum vieux agricoles on hand along with a couple of rhum blanc agricoles, a couple of aged demeraras, and also Smith and Cross Jamaican pot still as well as Appleton Extra (12 year) and V/X to have an ultimate mai tai throwdown. I think Smith and Cross along with this 1749 could end up being a mai tai for the ages, but there are probably several outstanding combinations that a lineup like that could produce.

X 4!

"It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail." --Abraham Maslow

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Jan 31, 2011 -> 12:01 PM) Yeah but he's still just human. Ferris Bueller had a better chance of doing all of that stuff in one day off of school than Bruce Wayne has of doing 1/10th of what we are asked to believe he's done. But, yes, the humanity/mortality/lack of actually superpower continues to be a difference-maker for Batman, and one of the things that has allowed the character to succeed for 70 years.

QUOTE (Brian @ Jan 31, 2011 -> 12:00 PM) I feel like I am watching The Big Bang Theory Seriously though, If Superman got in a fight with Mighty Mouse, who would win?

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Jan 31, 2011 -> 11:53 AM) Superman's list of powers includes but is not limited to... Strength Invulnerability (which always somehow becomes affected during sh*tty movies to make us care) Flight Speed (he can run faster than Flash!) X-Ray vision Heat Vision Breath (he can inhale and exhale insane amounts, putting out fires, sucking up poisonous gas, his lungs are crazy!) Ice Breath (see above, but with freeze ability!) Super Hearing Super Vision Super Smelling Total recall Teleportation through walls (vs just busting through) Sure, but stuck him under a red Kryptonian sun and he's nothing. On this planet though, it's not a bad skill set. I'd hire him to protect Metropolis if it was my call.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Jan 31, 2011 -> 11:47 AM) Are you serious? Batman doesn't have an "superpowers". His powers are limited by technology and self-control. If you can suspend disbelief enough to believe that a person of Batman's relative young age has found the time to train himself to peak physical perfection, master every known form of martial arts, become the world's greatest detective mind, become a master of disguise (love that Matches Malone), build an entire subterranean super crime lab, design and execute the covert construction of Batcars, Batcycles, Batcopters, Batboats, Batplanes, and the 2,000 items he manages to fit into his utility belt, all while running Wayne Industries and it's assorted charities. . . and finding time to gain a reputation as Gotham's greatest millionaire playboy, then you should be able to buy into any superhero mythology they throw at you.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Jan 31, 2011 -> 11:45 AM) I think there's a huge difference between the two. Elaborate?

QUOTE (bmags @ Jan 31, 2011 -> 11:33 AM) Naw, the throwing stuff into space is way worse. Also how they just sort of make up powers for superman. Ohhh and there's a lazer coming out of his chest. I'm going to try to break it to you gently, but they just sort of make up powers for Batman too because he's just sort of made up.

QUOTE (bmags @ Jan 31, 2011 -> 11:14 AM) But, if a woman dies in batman, she dies, with superman he can turn back time with his flying! That and all problems are solved by him throwing whatever into space. Obviously all that is needed to shake things up in the next movie is some RED KRYPTONITE, because you never know how that stuff will effect Superman. And Superman throwing stuff into space to save the planet doesn't come close to the predictable and over-done broody-moody-scowly-growly Batman thing. In the end, Batman's mortality does tend to make those films at least seem like there is an element of suspense and maybe he won't win the day. Comic heroes just aren't particularly deep characters. I still end up seeing most of the films anyway eventually.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 31, 2011 -> 10:45 AM) Yeah, so tell us more about that 1938 world The dames back then were a tall drink of water, I'll tell you that.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Jan 31, 2011 -> 10:16 AM) I really don't think the world needs more Superman movies. It's so hard to care about Superman in a movie, because he's so indestructible. Each one needs to come up with some way to sap his powers for a period so he can get the s*** beat out of him, and that's just not Superman 99% of the time. If they find a way to tell the Doomsday story, with all the JLA characters, and oh, what the hell, include the cool rebirth storyline, then I might, MIGHT be hooked. That would be cool, but also take like 10 movies. Just let the Superman franchise die and tell us some new stories. I have sort of the same feeling and I don't think it's about the indestructibility. I think you could basically say the same thing about almost any superhero film. Regardless of whether the character is indestructible or not, you know going into a hero click that the marquee characters are going to survive and triumph regardless what stumbling blocks are encountered during the film. Fans of the hero genre accept that and others see something else. For me the problem is sticking with a believable portrayal of a character that is so cut-and-dried "Truth, Justice, and the American Way" in an era that is very far removed from the 4-color one-dimensional world Siegel and Shuster created in 1938.

QUOTE (G&T @ Jan 30, 2011 -> 11:00 PM) Your wife puts up with some s***! We don't have Trader Joe's either. This is still part of my Christmas beer haul. When I went there for beer, I didn't know what I was targeting, I was just kinda curious. I almost walked out without this beer but I saw the Unibroue name on the cases while I was standing at checkout. I grabbed two bottles for like $6 per 750ml. Probably the best bargain in the beer universe. Yeah, I'm not typically quite that cheap. This was a work-related trip for me, so my airfare and all lodging were on the company dime, so we were hoping for a cheap flight out for the wife and squeezing a bit of shoestring vacation in. I put in for the travel moths ahead of time so my wife should have been able to lock into a cheap plane ticket, but due to end of the year budget crud they didn't approve the travel until the week before so the ticket cost my wife almost $600 instead of the $250 it would have originally cost. That was the difference that trip that turned us into LA public transit pros.

Wish we had Trader Joe's here, some of their store-branded beers and wines are crazy good for crazy cheap. It was funny when I was in LA with my wife last May, we made a hard-target search of Trader Joe's in striking distance that didn't require a car rental and we came up empty. Mind you, we were public transit hardcores on that trip too — took the Metra all the way to Long beach to catch the ferry to Catalina, made by wife take a friggin' public bus to Disneyland ($1.75 beats $30 any day), took the subway to Hollywood Blvd., Paramount Studios, and the Tiki Ti. And in all that time we did not come close to a single stinking Trader Joe's.

I am now the least sick of the four sick people that make up my household, so I am Daddy Nurse.

QUOTE (Rex Kicka** @ Jan 30, 2011 -> 01:40 AM) Brussels is boring. Vienna was fun, I don't remember a lot. It involved a girl though. She was an au pair. There's some interesting architecture. The girl had a nice pair and it made for some interesting architecture?? Wow, now that's how to spin a euphemism!

QUOTE (knightni @ Jan 29, 2011 -> 06:46 PM) The bird is the word. QUOTE (DBAHO @ Jan 29, 2011 -> 07:33 PM) Message Bird? Funniest post of the year contender right there. QUOTE (knightni @ Jan 29, 2011 -> 07:36 PM) Yeah. Everyone on a Message Bird has to type in Pigeon English. Goddam you, iPhone Autocorrect! Goddamn you Straight to Hell!!

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 29, 2011 -> 06:31 PM) Dude, it's a message board. Why on Earth would there be drama? Balta. . . SS25k is your . . . FATHER! See, even a message bird can be spiced up with some drama.