FlaSoxxJim

QUOTE (bigruss22 @ Aug 14, 2010 -> 01:09 AM) First night out with the staff and this girl just gets absolutely hammered, gonna be a good year Extenze commercials can go f*** yourselves. And had a beer named Ranger, some Indian Pale Ale, decent but not great. Ranger IPA is from New Belgium, so I'm surprised you didn't think to much of it. I have yet to trt it but supposedly we're going to start seeing New Belgium's stuff come to Florida.

QUOTE (IceCreamPants @ Aug 14, 2010 -> 10:16 AM) Flaxx, just from seeing how much you enjoy Rum I get the feeling like you are an extremely laid back fun person to be around. Just from your passion for Rum alone. LOL That's a fair cop. Problem is, all that rum costs $$, and that means I have to work, and that gets in the way of being laid back and fun. One winning Lotto ticket away from being the richest bum on the planet.

G&T, have you had anything from New York's Southern Tier Brewery yet? We just started getting this in Florida and I just had their imperial IPA yesterday and it was very good. I wish we got all the Smuttynose stuff here. Their regular offerings are always good and some of the beers in the Big Beer Series look very appealing. How is the farmhouse ale that was released last month?

QUOTE (JPN366 @ Aug 12, 2010 -> 02:38 PM) 21st Century Schizoid Man. Very cool. Thanks.

QUOTE (MHizzle85 @ Aug 12, 2010 -> 02:32 AM) His newest single "Power" What Crimson is sampled?

QUOTE (JPN366 @ Aug 11, 2010 -> 11:55 PM) I never thought I'd hear a King Crimson sample in a Kanye West song. Really? What and where?

Needing to take break from tinkering with the Zaya recipes, I opted to have a mai tai this evening. I'm still in experimental mode apparently though and decided to get way out there on the rums, so Mai Tai Du jour looks like: • 1 oz Guyana El Dorado Demerara Dark rum • 1 oz Rhum Bologne from Guadeloupe • 0.75 oz homemade orgeat • 0.75 oz fresh lime juice • 0.5 oz Martinique Clement Creole Shrubb The rums in this one have extreme flavor profiles and neither of them can be considered to be any sort of stand-alone sipper. the ED dark is very rich but too acrid/burnt to be very versatile — usually I reserve it for use as an interesting float in a big faux tropical cocktail. The Rhum Bologne is a blanco rhum agricole, but is way more intense/earthy/vegetal/fusel than any Martinique white agricoles I've had. The shrubb was included as a substitute for the typical orange curacao of most classic mai tai formulations to make sure that the orange liqueur notes could break through that huge rum wall and gt some notice. Turns out hese two rums actually complement each other wonderfully. The floral top notes of the Bologne shine through but the throaty harshness of this artisinal rhum lay down for the rish demeraa. And the palate-numbing burned notes of the demerara are nicely softened by the rhum and the rest of the ingredients. Happy Accident, this one. Well, not entirely, since the rums were chosen because they represent extreme flavor profiles at opposing but hopefully complementary ends of the spectrum. But yeah, this one is a crazy keeper.

Finally, here's a technology to get excited about!! Vienna Beef Hot Dog Stand Locator

So, high marks for the Kaiser Penguin hurricane. Even at just a half-ounce, the pungent Cruzan Blackstrap punches through al the dark rum and fruit. The J Wray float also added a very nice nose and altered the end of the drink for the better as it lingered on the ice.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 10, 2010 -> 10:01 AM) One of those things that was just bound to happen that will wind up eventually costing taxpayers a fortune in cleanup costs: Yep, the Frankenplants have been an ecological catastrophe in the waiting since the beginning.

The owner of the Kaiser Penguin cocktail blog posted a recipe for a revamped hurricane during last week's Thursday Drink Night session that I only noticed this morning. Probably not wise to mix up a drink with nearly 5 oz of rum in it before heading off to a morning faculty meeting. A shame because I really want to mix this one up. Rick's Category 5 • 3 1/2oz Coruba • 1/2oz Cruzan Blackstrap • 2oz lemon • 2oz passion fruit syrup. Blend, then top with • 3/4oz J. Wray Overproof Now that's the drink to have when you're only having one! (or at least one at a time) This week's TDN focus ingredient is Zaya Gran Reserva Trinidad Rum. I started playing around yesterday with two different Zaya drinks to toss into the mix. One s a daiquiri-type cocktail served up that will use lime and ginger to complement the rich dark rum. I used a homemade ginger syrup yesterday and it turned out a very nice drink, but I'm wondering if using Domaine de Canton ginger liqueur might not work even better. The other drink goes in a completely different route and plays off of the big vanilla notes of the Zaya by pairing with unsweetened coconut milk and a splash of Licor 43. Really a variation off of my wife's favorite home cocktail called a Great White that I usually do with aged Demerara rum and vanilla syrup in addition to the coconut milk. About a zillion calories in that one, but they sure are tasty. Hoping to get some good feedback from the TDN participants this week because Beachbum Barry will actually be honoring the gang with is attendance. I'd be ecstatic if I could actually have Jeff give a thumbs-up to one of my drinks.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Aug 9, 2010 -> 02:27 PM) What is everyone doing tonight on 08/09/10 @ 11:12 PM? Trying to convince my wife that fun with calendar time is something worthy of note probably. But this is the person that doesn't even take time out to celebrat Pi day every March 14th so I'm sure it will be a losing battle.

QUOTE (knightni @ Aug 9, 2010 -> 01:50 AM) Both cities were specifically chosen because of their high importance in war weapon production for the Japanese. Hiroshima was a wartime communications center and ancillary command center, and Nagasaki was an active wartime seaport, yes. That said, the selection of targets having the greatest military effect is unambiguously documented as being secondary to the need to have multiple secondary targets for each mission. If weather conditions did not allow bombing the primary target we would have multiple backup targets. We almost literally stuck a wet thumb up in the air on the mornings of the bombings to feel the wind decide who we were going to unleash atomic bombs on.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 9, 2010 -> 12:51 AM) Except there is no proof of that. Everything in their history indicates otherwise. Even when they were utterly defeated on the islands, people held out for long periods of time against impossible odds, and that is on places that meant nothing. I can't imagine the motherland getting any less of a standard than the random Pacific islands got. There is no proof of that, of course, because history played out one way and not another. Historic evaluations benefiting greatly from hindsight invariably conclude that Japan was literally incapable of continuing any meaningful war effort. The war in the Pacific had already been won before the first bomb was dropped, though I'll concede that couldn't possibly ave been known at the time. What remains thoroughly striking to me is how detached America was to the reality of what we were unleashing on fellow human beings. Much is made about the fliers dropped over Hiroshima and Nagasaki prior to the bombings warning the citizenry about what was to come. Far less is made of the fact that we dropped the same fliers over several other cities that didn't get bombed — because we didn't know what the wind and weather conditions would be over any of the potential targets on the days the bombs were to be dropped. We were also amazingle meticulous in selecting target cities that had largely been spared from the routine conventional bombing raids that many other Japanese cities were subject to. This was not because Truman had some relative living in Hiroshima or Nagasaki as the Japanese rumors of the day would have suggested. It was, however, the best way to get a cold and calculated before/after picture of what Fat Man and Little Boy were really capable of. We can demonize the Pearl Harbor attack, but at the very least we can accept that it was a legitimate military target. That cannot be even remotely said about Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Playing with gin cocktails a bit tonight. Shook up a nice Pegu Club Cocktail with Tanqueray, Cointreau, lime juice, Ango and evil egg white. Got to thinking that orange curacao might give the drink a more rustic note that seems to be lacking, and then noted that cocktailian Robert Hess seems to agree. Decided to stay with the gin and curacao but get into more familiar tiki territory with Ray Buhen's Hula Hula cocktail from the 1930s back when he tended bar for Don the Beachcomber. Equal parts Plymouth gin, orange curacao, and orange juice. This is a light, crisp, low-octane cocktail that would be perfect to serve at a brunch. Plymouth gin is really a nice all-around gin. Maybe a tad less dry than most London style gins but not as sweet as an Old Tom, but with a lot of nice botanical depth in taste and nose. Plymouth might end up replacing Boodles as my go to mixing gin. Boodles still makes a better martini though. Now winding down with a Pink Lady, recipe courtesy of Cocktail Virgin Slut, which is always a great source for inspiration when you want to mix up something different. 1 1/2 oz Gin 1/2 oz Applejack 1/2 oz Lemon Juice 1/2 oz Homemade Grenadine 1 Egg White Frederic at Cocktail Virgin specifies Laird's Bonded (100 proof) which I can't get here, so I have to make due with the standard 80 proof variety. As much as I think Ted Haigh's book Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails is a classic cocktail bible, I think the above version of the Pink Lady is more balanced than Ted's. I did swirl a pretty dash of bitters across the top of the beautiful white frothy top of this cocktail, which I think improved the taste as well as the appearance of this already very pretty drink. Two years ago, I would have been herd pressed to have many positive things to say about gin in general. Obviously, that was total ignorance on my part. I'm just scratching the surface of this classic spirit, and definitely enjoying the exploration.

I got to play bartender last night at a friend's shindig which I always enjoy. Potluck and since we made a New Orleans crawfish dish I decided to go the NOLA route on the drink menu, featuring fresh juice hurricanes and brandy milk punches. Tossed in caipirhiñas and margaritas to make everybody happy, and a fun night was had by all. The Missus is moving a littl slow today however. On the downside, I brought out the just recently located bottle of elusive Nepal Khukri rum to let a friend and fellow rum head taste and she and I ended up putting quite a dent in it. Time to start hoarding that bottle before it disappears.

QUOTE (knightni @ Aug 7, 2010 -> 08:20 AM) You sure it wasn't me? SS2k5. . . Back in 2008?? That date has to be wrong, because I remember this totally teh ghey blue juans thread from not too far back.

QUOTE (knightni @ Aug 6, 2010 -> 11:58 PM) Ha! I used that awhile back. Good Times. http://www.google.com/search?q=site:www.so...en&filter=0 And SS2k5 had used it a couple weeks earlier and it cracked me up. I'm hoping it has some legs and becomes a SoxTalk putdown mainstay.

My inability to resist the involuntary urge to sing along to Bee Gees songs (typically the girly high part) has absolutely contributed to my exclusion from various social circles.

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Aug 6, 2010 -> 11:03 PM) The fact that this guy never developed superpowers makes me believe nobody ever will. Maybe it's like soap opera amnesia, and the super powers he developed from the first bomb were nullified by the second bomb?

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 6, 2010 -> 04:56 PM) I believe that's an edited quote though...or at least he has another version of it. The version of it I've heard is that under the same circustances I would do it again, but if I knew then what I know now, I would not have. Yes, I believe that paraphrasing is much closer to what Truman was trying to convey. The poor guy didn't even know about the Manhattan Project until he was sworn in less than four months earlier. Talk about having a lot to take in and very little time in which to do it. It's not my intent to get this thread 'bustered — and I thank SS2k5 for observing the anniversary with his post. But, I firmly believe that deploying an atomic bomb on human targets was a foregone conclusion the minute the US committed to their development. You don't spend ca. $2.5 billion (more than $20 billion by today's standards) to create a weapon you're not going to use.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Aug 6, 2010 -> 04:52 PM) I'm always completely nude when I post here so it's very easy for friends and family to know when I'm visiting the site. And on your left you can see the world's smallest sundial. . .

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Aug 6, 2010 -> 04:46 PM) With all due respect to the people who suffered (and continue to suffer) due to the bombings, I still say it was the right decision. That was certainly the majority opinion for many decades and now that is changing as more becomes known about Japan's capacity (or lack thereof) to continue its war efforts. That said, I respect this opinion, especially as held by WWII vets like my grandfather who believed whole-heartedly that Japan would not have surrendered otherwise. In any case, let us hope to never again see nuclear weapons used against fellow human beings.

QUOTE (IceCreamPants @ Aug 6, 2010 -> 01:55 PM) So if you are reading this ,Adrianne. Please leave. Yeah, that'll work.