Glibertarians.com 2017 Archive

Category: Spot the Not

  • Belly Up To the Bar – Special Drinking Games Edition

    DOOM’s Drinking Game Guide
    By 1337n00bers – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link

    Sometimes, friends get together and make an evening consuming alcohol together. People they don’t know get invited as well, and people start looking to activities to help them drink. Some games we play are social and involve some planning. Games like beer pong or flip cup. Those games, while fun, are a bit too boring sometimes. So I thought today I would share a few of the games my friends and I play.

    First, the games we always play. 24/7, 365.

    Game Of Life

    This one is rather easy, but requires cans of beer. Although they do can wine at this point, so who knows. The rules are simple. The goal is to keep the tab at the top bent to a side. When you open your beer and take a sip, the beer becomes ‘in play’. You turn the tab off to one side, and keep drinking and socializing like normal. An opponent attempts to move the tab back to the 12 o’clock position without you noticing. If you take a sip with the tab at 12, and get called, you finish you beer. That’s it!

    Our house plays this every day. It also helps with ID’ing your beer (my tab always goes to the right, 2-3 o’clock)

    BUFFALO

    Serengeti Bueffel1.jpg
    By Ikiwaner – Own work, GFDL 1.2, Link

    Another game we play everyday all day. This game requires some knowledge of your peers, but is pretty easy.

    You can no longer drink with your dominant hand. All drinks must be held by your off hand, in my case left. If someone catches you holding your drink in your dominant hand, they say “Buffalo!” and you have to take a good swig. It was originally the whole drink, like Game Of Life, but we changed that after a half liter of vodka was being passed around. I suppose it’s mostly on an honor system in the house at this point. There’s a great twist! If someone calls buffalo on you and you were not using your dominant hand, they drink. If you have a drink in both hands, they must drink the beverage in your dominant hand. This leads to great trickery; you can hide your beer under the table and let people call you out.

    I have to note, I was introduced to this game back in Montana- I have no idea where it came from.

    Now some games that require some planning.

    Chandelier

    Warning! This game will get you drunk very fast.

    Players:3-as many as can fit.

    Needed items: pong balls, solo cups, beer.

    Table, preferably round.

    This game needs at least 3 people, I’ve found that 4-6 is pretty ideal. A version of this can be found online, but is far slower than I like. For the ease of explaining, I’ll pretend there are 5 people playing.

    To set up, we need 6 solo cups. Everyone gets one, and one is filled with water*.

    Place the water cup in the middle of the table, and spread the people around the table as evenly as possible.

    Everyone’s cups go in front of them, somewhere near the center cup. I prefer a few inches between center cup and the player cup, but you do you.

    For a game of 5 players, 3 pong balls are needed. This step is the most important when it comes to what pace you want.

    Everyone puts some beer in their cup, and we are ready to start.

    To begin, 3 players grab a pong ball each. They try to bounce the ball off the table into an opponents cup. If the ball goes in an opponents cup, they take the ball, drink, and then shoot at another opponent. They then refill their cup as quickly as possible.

    If a ball is thrown and it misses, it is free game. There are no turns. Whoever picks a pong ball up gets to throw. If the ball goes in the center cup, the whole game changes.

    At that point, everyone playing must play a modified flip cup. Everyone chugs, and places their cup at the edge of the table. They must flip the cup over, so it lands upside down on the table. The last person to accomplish this must drink an extra time.

    The game then resets. Everyone refills their cup, people grab pong balls, and its back to it.

    You should probably do this game in short periods. Maybe with a mandatory water break half-time or something.

    *this cup could be beer to drink after flip cup. I think it depends on what’s being consumed and desire to not share germs.

    Stump

    This game also needs some things.

    A stump or log- ideally 2-3 ft long, and from the base of the tree. A short barstool.

    A hammer- I like a lighter ball-peen

    Box of nails- no finishing nails, people.

    2-6ish people

    If you haven’t played Stump, you haven’t been to a summer party with me. Which is too bad, because I’m pretty good at it.

    The idea is to strike your opponents nail into the stump before yours goes.

    To start, someone puts all the players nails into the stump. The less the better, just enough to not fall out of the stump if there’s a poor hit.

    Players stand in front of their nail, and open a beer, and pick the direction of play (clockwise?)

    The player throws the hammer in the air, flipping it at least 360 degrees. The player can not touch the hammer until it has done this flip. They then catch the hammer, and in one motion, brings it down on an opponents nail.

    If there is contact, and the nail goes in at all or is bent, the opponent who owns the nail must drink (proportional to the damage done).

    The hammer is then passed to the next player, around and around.

    If there is a glancing blow and sparks appear, someone yells “Sparks!” and everyone drinks.

    If you drop the hammer, you must drink and you lose your next turn.

    If the hammer is dropped but lands on the stump, the person the handle is pointing to must also drink with the person who dropped it.

    When the head of the nail is fully below the surface of the stump, that player is out.

    If it is your turn, you can use it to conduct “Home Improvement” and straighten your bent nail. You can take as long as you want but you will be mocked. You can not pull the nail further out. You do not get to throw the hammer if you use your turn for home improvement.

    Well, those are the games I enjoy the most. Next time, I may do one on different drinking games for movies.

    Junge Fichte auf Baumstumpf - young picea on stump - Saprobiont.jpg
    By Neptuul – Own work, CC BY 3.0, Link

     

    Derpetologist’s Spot the Not: Louis Farrakhan

    1. America is in trouble, and I say God is about to wipe this nation from the face of the Earth. I’m not crazy, I’m not drunk, how long do you think a nation can do evil and not face the wrath of god?

    2. You see everybody always talk about Hitler exterminating six million Jews. That’s right. But don’t nobody ever ask what did they do to Hitler.

    3. The Mother Wheel is a heavily armed spaceship the size of a city, which will rain destruction upon white America but save those who embrace the Nation of Islam.

    4. If somebody told me I only had one hour to live, I’d spend it choking a White man. I’d do it nice and slow.

    5. White people are potential humans – they haven’t evolved yet.

    6. Qaddafi is hated because he is the leader of a small country that is rich, but he uses his money to finance liberation struggles.

    “I never said any of those things!”

  • Belly Up To The Bar: Going Ape edition

    “Take your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!”

    Ah, Chuck Heston… If anyone needed a nice stiff drink more than Taylor, I’d hate to be that poor bastard.

    I first made this as a goof for a party, but we all decided it was so damn tasty it went into our regular rotation. And, yes, you will have to buy a bottle of Créme de Banana, but it is worth it.

    The Planet of the Apes

    2 oz dark rum
    1 oz pineapple juice
    1 oz orange juice
    1/2 oz lime juice
    3/4 oz créme de banana

    Shake together with ice and serve up in a martini glass or over large chunks of ice in a whiskey glass. Fresh juices are highly recommended.

    And avoid the temptation to go with Myers, the dark rum of many a frat boy’s nightmares. Appleton Estate VX Jamaican Rum is my go-to for any dark rum application.

     

    Derpetologist’s Spot the Not: Mitch McConnell

    Slightly less challenging version of Spot the Not

    1. Nobody is happy about losing lives but, remember, these are not draftees.
    These are full-time professional soldiers.

    2. We need to strengthen and save Social Security for today’s workers.
    If we don’t act now, this system, born out of the New Deal, will become a bad deal.

    3. The problem with the world today is people have put away their Bibles.
    They’re living by the law of the jungle and not the law of the land.

    4. We all know that Social Security is one of this country’s greatest success stories in the 20th century.

    5. The Patriot Act is one of the most important and overdue pieces of legislation in a generation.

    6. Under ordinary circumstances, I would have opposed such a measure.
    Government intervention in the marketplace cuts against all my ordinary impulses. But this was not an ordinary event.

  • Belly Up To the Bar

    Cocktail of the Week by Riven 

    Other varieties not pictured: lemon, cranberry, peach, sweet tea, orange, and unflavored.

    So, my prelimary internet research tells me that this cocktail goes by a few different names: Ruby Red Mule, Austin Mule, Grapefruit Mule, etc. They’re all fitting since it’s basically a Moscow Mule made with a flavored vodka instead of your standard, boring vodka that aspires to taste like nothing.

    This is the brand of flavored vodka I recently discovered at the liquor store (where they greet me by name almost every Saturday) and subsequently fell in love with. I’ve only tried two flavors–the lemon and the grapefruit–but they’re excellent. I’ve found they go well with the mixers I tend to have on hand–various bubbly flavored waters–but other folks reviewing them online say they’re also tasty just diluted with a bit of water over ice. I prefer my mixed drinks to sparkle, but that’s just my preference. The company is Austin-based, so you can buy them knowing you’re supporting the good, ol’ U.S. of A.

    Anyway, here it is. I mix this directly into a copper mug on a kitchen scale because I’m precise AF like that.

    2 ounces / 60 grams of Deep Eddy Ruby Red

    4 – 6 ounces / 120 – 180 grams of your favorite ginger beer

    All the juice from one quarter of a ripe lime, and I ain’t kidding about all the juice, neither.

    Give it just a short stir so you don’t lose all of the bubbles, and that’s pretty much it. You can’t tell if you serve it in a copper mug, but it is really quite pretty if you serve it in a glass mason jar like some kind of redneck or hipster. Of course, being self-respecting menfolk, I’m sure most of you would prefer not to showcase to the world that you’re drinking some kind of pink, girly drink, but this really is very tasty. I’m going to be drinking plenty of these on my deck this summer; well, these and other Deep Eddy concoctions, anyway!

     

    Spot the Not by Derpetologist – famous women on Clinton breaking the glass ceiling

    1. Now, it’s up to us to elect Hillary Clinton, perhaps the most experienced presidential candidate in history, to the White House where we need her to be.

    Faceless men and nasty women

    2. There’s so much more women need to accomplish to feel like we have arrived in American culture. Hillary Clinton’s nomination is hopefully the beginning.

    3. She’s strong, smart, bold, and kind. She’ll be an amazing president. It’s time for a Mrs. President, and I can’t think of anyone better than Hillary Clinton.

    4. I feel a tremendous rush of pride because this is a woman who is more than qualified to be president. Isn’t it interesting how a barrier seems insurmountable — until it comes down? I hope girls across the country are thinking, “That could be me.”

    5. I won’t say that I never thought I’d see the day when a woman would be nominated for president, because as a feminist, a mom and a leader of a national women’s organization, I knew this day would come. But I’m particularly proud that it is Hillary Clinton who is making history today.

    6. When Clinton graciously committed herself to campaigning for Obama and unifying the party, I was sad yet proud. When she made her 18-million-cracks-in-the-glass-ceiling speech, I wept. She will be a great president who will do her best to unite the country. I wish her the goddesses’ speed.

  • Belly Up To the Bar

    Cocktail of the Week by SugarFree – The South Side

    The sublime South Side is as easy drinkin’ as it gets and a crowd-pleaser; interesting enough for the fussy mixologist and tasty enough for the “but I don’t like gin” twits. I prefer Hayman’s Old Tom gin for this application, but any gin will do. Or vodka for the sorority girl in you.

    South Side

    2 oz gin
    .75 oz lemon juice
    .75 oz lime juice
    1 oz mint simple syrup
    1 oz club soda
    1 mint leaf

    Lightly bruise the mint with a muddler, mix everything together and serve over ice. Or omit the soda water and shake with ice and serve up.

    Mint Simple Syrup: 

    Small batch: combine 7 grams of mint leaves, 1/4 cup sugar, and 1/4 cup water, bring to a boil and then strain when cooled. Yields 3 oz of syrup.

    Large batch: combine 42 grams mint leaves, 1 1/2 cup sugar, 1 1/2 water, bring to a boil and then strain when cooled. Yields 18 oz syrup.

    I include the large batch of the syrup because the real magic of the South Side its ease of scalability. For large parties where you need to not be chained to the bar mixing drinks or small parties where you are looking to get everyone extra hammered, the South Side is well-suited for mason jar cocktails.

    South Side – Mason Jar

    One 1/5 of gin
    9 oz lemon juice
    9 oz lime juice
    12 oz mint simple syrup
    10 oz club soda
    10 mint leaves
    10 8oz Mason jars

    Mix and split between the mason jars, placing a mint leaf in each. Store in a cooler with clean ice and encourage guests to top off the jar they take with ice.

     

    Spot the Not by Derpetologist – Quirky Sci-Fi Writers

    1. He never brushed his teeth, and they were literally green. Deeply embarrassed by this, he developed the habit of holding his hand in front of his mouth when speaking.

    2. He was gaunt with dark eyes set in a very pale face (he rarely went out before nightfall). For five years after leaving school, he lived an isolated existence with his mother, writing primarily poetry without seeking employment or new social contacts.

    3. He wrote over 117 novels and over 2000 short stories, but his works were used only as filler material in pornographic magazines. He committed suicide by drinking Drano.

    4. He hated flying and only flew twice in his life. He rarely traveled long distances.

    5. His mother was warm but changeable of character and had an identical twin who visited them often and who disliked him. He was unable to tell them apart and was frequently coldly rebuffed by the person he took to be his mother.

    6. He has a reputation for being abrasive and argumentative. He has generally agreed with this assessment, and a dust jacket from one of his books described him as “possibly the most contentious person on Earth”. He has filed grievances and attempted lawsuits; as part of a dispute about fulfillment of a contract, he once sent 213 bricks to a publisher postage due, followed by a dead gopher via fourth-class mail.

  • Belly Up to the Bar

    Cocktail of the Week – The G & T and a Guilty Pleasure by RC Dean

    I have noticed a number of gin and tonic fans in the glibertariat, to the point where some of you actually make your own tonic from scratch (quelle artisanale, non?). I thought I was being hardcore by not using store-bought tonic and going with syrup-n-soda water tonic, but dayum, it honestly never crossed my mind to make it from scratch. I know some homebrew tonic recipes have been bandied about already; I would appreciate it if you could repost in the comments here.

    Gin and Tonic

    3 oz. gin (I’ve been using The Botanist, but its probably overkill and I could get away with something a little less expensive/refined).

    6 oz. tonic water (my preference for store-bought is Fevertree Indian, but its been at least a year since I didn’t do the home-mixed version).

    Splash of lime, lime garnish optional.

    For store-bought tonic, pour everything over ice in a highball glass. The proportions aren’t critical here.

    For home-mixed, grab a handy measuring glass, add gin, tonic syrup, lime, top off with soda water from your trusty siphon (or add seltzer or soda water from a can or bottle), pour over ice in a highball glass.

    I like the Liber Spiced Tonic Syrup, but there’s a bunch of them out there I haven’t tried. Now that we are getting into the summer season (when RC likes him some G & T), I’ll probably order some other brands and do a little experimenting. The Liber is strong – for the recipe above I use around ¾ ounce, and I suspect ½ ounce would be fine. If you’ve never had anything but Schweppes, this will be almost unrecognizable – pronounced bitter flavor, some body (of all things in a mixer), and a lot of flavors going on.

    I live in Arizona, where our summer drink season is long. I find that I lose my taste for Scotch in hot weather and even for rye or bourbon to some extent, and I drink mainly gin, rum, and tequila cocktails. We’ve already covered some of my favorite rum and tequila cocktails, but there is one more Casa Dean regular I have to put out there: the Jack and Coke. We use Mexican Coke made with cane sugar, which delivers a better drink. Mexican Coke is not hard to find in Arizona – I actually get mine at the local hardware store.

    But seriously, RC (you’re undoubtedly thinking), Jack and Coke? Frankly, it’s a nostalgia thing. Mrs. Dean and I both remember these from our high school and college days, and nothing takes you back like the tastes and smells of your youth. Cocktailing is about enjoying a drink, about whatever works for you. Gearing up, adding some showmanship, all that is fine if you have fun with it; if you just like to keep it simple and cheap, well, de gustibus, my friends. You can call my Jack and Coke a guilty pleasure, but when it comes to cocktails in my book, there’s no such thing as a guilty pleasure.

    Calvados update: I snagged a bottle of the Berneroy XO. Not as refined as the Busnel Vielle Reserve VSOP, with more of a kind of pronounced winter apple flavor. For something like this, though, a little more rustic isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

    Spot the Not: Lyrics from National Anthems by Derpetologist

    1. What the alien power has seized from us, we shall recapture with a sabre

    2. So we have taken the drum of gunpowder as our rhythm and the sound of machine guns as our melody

    3. He who is a true man is not frightened, but dies a martyr to the cause

    4. Oh God, bless our bullets, bayonets, and grenades

    5. The path to glory is built by the bodies of our foes

    6. How can this fiery faith ever be extinguished by that battered, single-fanged monster you call “civilization”

    7. Let us all fight, every one of us, for our black country

    8. And if we have to die, what does it really matter?

    9. Countless fighters died for our beloved people

    10. Facing the enemy’s gunfire, march on!

    11. There sat in former times, the armour-suited warriors, rested from conflict

    12. Do not fear a glorious death, because to die for the motherland is to live

  • Belly Up to the Bar

     Cocktail of the Week – Polar Vortex

    Another ginger beer treat this week (last one – I promise). The funny thing is, I practically never used ginger beer until a few years ago, when I got into some authentical Dark and Stormies, decided to make them at home, and discovered the superiority of small batch ginger beer (Maine Root) and “home-made” (Pickett’s and soda water). When I saw how good ginger beer could be, well, I just couldn’t keep my hands off of it. Can’t recall where I originally ran across this, but its a regular at Casa Dean.

    As with the Dark and Stormy, there are a couple of ways to go at this – ginger beer out of the bottle, and make-your-own ginger beer.

    This beverage as seen from space (Thanks NASA!)

    3 oz. rye whiskey (can’t go wrong with Bulleit or Rittenhouse )
    1 teaspoon Amaretto, maybe a little less (honestly, I don’t have a brand preference here)
    1/3 oz lemon juice
    6 oz. ginger beer (see the Dark and Stormy linked above for your options)

    I use rye for just about any whiskey-based cocktail, even if the recipe calls for bourbon or similar. I just like the way it mixes, it seems a little smoother and a better neighbor for the other ingredients. The short teaspoon of Amaretto doesn’t seem like enough to make a difference, but it adds a nutty sweetness that is right at home with the ginger beer. The lemon juice kind of opens and brightens up the drink (yes, I have unintentionally made this without lemon juice or Amaretto, so I know whereof I speak). I’ve tried it with lime juice, and it just doesn’t work as well – for some reason, lime juice works with tequila or rum based ginger beer cocktails, but not this one.

    Anyhoo, this is a highball, so grab a big enough glass, pour the ingredients over ice, and you’re done.

    Pictured: the only calvado image that this site could afford

    During our discussion of sippin’ likker, KSuellington recommended Calvados (apple brandy from Normandy) in the comments. Holy crap, is that good stuff. I grabbed a bottle of Busnel Vieille Reserve VSOP and have been working it ever since. Good cognac is very nice, but its not on my short rotation (partly, admittedly, due to cost), but I find cognac to be a little thin and “hot” unless you spend truly impressive amounts on an XO. This Calvados stuff, though – nice body, just the right alcohol heat, and a deep complicated apple/pear thing going on. If I lived in Normandy, my liver probably would have exploded by now.

    Which raises another issue: glassware.

    Generally, I am fairly indifferent to the glass used for a particular drink. As long as its pretty much the right size, I’m good. I do have Scotch glasses (umm, actually, three different kinds, but two were gifts, OK?), and I do think Scotch is better out of purpose-built glasses than a plain rocks glass. I actually use a Scotch glass for most anything I drink neat. But brandy (and this proved to be true with Calvados) is notably better out of a proper snifter. Can’t explain it – when I tried the Calvados the first time, I used one of my Scotch glasses – very nice. Next time, I used the brandy snifter, and it just opened up and became a very close friend. Plus, for the true plutocrat fashion statement, nothing pairs with a tophat and monocle better than a brandy snifter.

    Spot the Not: Sonia Sotomayor

    President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden escort Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the East Room of the White House where the President will introduce her as his nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court to replace retiring Justice David, May 26, 2009. Vice President Joe Biden looks on at left. (Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy)<br /> This official White House photograph is being made available for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use printing by the subject(s) of the photograph. The photograph may not be manipulated in any way or used in materials, advertisements, products, or promotions that in any way suggest approval or endorsement of the President, the First Family, or the White House.
    The Honorable Sonia Sotomayor

    1. Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging

    2. The Latina in me is an ember that blazes forever.

    3. I have a very close relationship with my sister. My sister is a precious jewel.

    4. I had no need to apologize that the look-wider, search-more affirmative action that Princeton and Yale practiced had opened doors for me.

    5. My diabetes is such a central part of my life… it did teach me discipline… it also taught me about moderation.

    6. I am a product of affirmative action. I am the perfect affirmative action baby. I am Puerto Rican, born and raised in the south Bronx. My test scores were not comparable to my colleagues at Princeton and Yale.

  • Belly Up To The Bar

    Summer Wines Make Me Feel Fine by OMWC

    As the days get longer, the green shoots peep through the layer of accumulated dogshit left when the snow melts, and my grill beckons for rust removal, my fancy turns from big, heavy red wines to wines which are a bit lighter, more agile, more suited for warm breezes and sunshine. Riven recommended a rhubarb wine she gets locally. Don’t be like Riven. Let’s consider a few nice bottles that might not be on your radar screen. There’s many, many more possibilities, but these are what’s for dinner chez OMWC/SP.

    First and foremost, SP and I have an unnatural love for Bugey Cerdon, the greatest summer wine in existence. Bugey Cerdon is lightly carbonated, pink, slightly sweet, and more than slightly earthy. It’s made from Gamay (the grape used for Beaujolais) and Ploussard (you never heard of it) grapes grown in the Ain region of France, which is tucked between Lyon and Geneva, and within a radioactive whiff of the Large Hadron Collider. The alcohol levels tend to be low (8% is typical), and there’s a crispness and snap which elevates it above most other off-dry pink wines. The method used is an old one – the wine is partially fermented, then bottled to finish fermentation. Unlike Champagne, there’s no added sugar, so the bubbliness is more subtle and muted. This is my safest recommendation – EVERYONE loves this shit, and it goes great with food or can be a warm-up before doing serious drinking. Our favorites are Renardat-Fache and (easier to find) Bottex “La Cueille.”

    Next up, Beaujolais. Yeah, yeah, you think you know about that one. You don’t. The market is dominated by Georges duBoeuf, and his industrial product defines “mediocre.” And they tend to smell like bananas because of the particular cultured yeast strain used. Fuck that, take a walk on the wild side. What you want is a single-producer wine, one made by a guy with big, rough, hands and who doesn’t own a suit. There are a bunch of these (Michel Tete, Alain Coudert, Jean Foillard, Louis Desvignes, to name some that we love), but the primus inter pares is Jean-Paul Brun’s fabulous Terres Dorees. The reds are, as required, made exclusively from Gamay grapes, wild yeasts, and minimal processing. It’s the opposite of an industrial product. If we see any of the l’Ancien or Cote de Brouilly, we max out our credit cards. But you can’t go wrong with any of the names I mentioned. Keep your eyes open for the rarely seen but eminently wonderful Beaujolais Blanc from one of the farmers – this is what Chardonnay would be like if only it were more interesting. Racy acidity, stony minerality, none of that heavy, oaky crap that California spews.

    And lest I run on too long, I’ll tout what reputedly is the best seafood raw bar wine on the planet: Muscadet. And of all Muscadet, Domaine de la Pépière is what I’d want to be drinking tonight, at least if I were out of Luneau-Papin. Domaine de la Pépière makes an array of them at prices ranging from friendly to oh my, but you can’t go wrong here. Stony, steely, a hint of almost saltiness, and an acidity that just begs you to put some deep fried food into your whore mouth. This is serious wine, but so delightfully refreshing as the sun gets low in the sky and the food on the grill crackles and crusts.

    Too long, so I won’t mention Gruener Veltliner Federspiel except to mention it. You know what to do.

    Derpetologist’s Spot the Not: Maine Governor Paul LePage

    1. What I think we ought to do is bring the guillotine back. We could have public executions.

    2. The traffickers … these are guys by the name D-Money, Smoothie, Shifty. These type of guys that come from Connecticut, New York. They come up here, they sell their heroin, then they go back home.

    3. They never admit it, but most women like it when a strong man takes control and slaps them when they get out of line.

    4. Sen. Jackson claims to be for the people, but he’s the first one to give it to the people without providing Vaseline.

    5. If you take a plastic bottle and put it in the microwave and you heat it up, it gives off a chemical similar to estrogen. And so the worst case is some women might have little beards.

    6. Everybody looks at the negative effects of global warming, but with the ice melting, the Northern Passage has opened up.

    Bonus: Bill O’Reilly

    1. It’s discipline that begets love.

    2. You don’t have free will when you have lung cancer.

    3. Americans will respect your beliefs if you just keep them private.

  • Belly Up to the Bar

    Gearing Up for Cocktails 

    By RC Dean

    Last week’s post on the Dark and Stormy dabbled in the equipment and supplies that can be put to good use by the home bartender. This week we will survey the Casa Dean’s loadout for cocktailing, which by its nature invites a plethora of tools and ingredients.

    Casa Dean Gear

    In addition to the cocktail measuring glass and soda syphon mentioned last week for the Dark and Stormy (ginger beer syrup edition), and the eyedropper the week before (to dose Pernod properly for a Monkey Gland), there’s also a few other items that we use:

    • Shaker. There are some variations on this, and a lot of [real] bartenders use a Boston shaker (two stainless steel containers, the top of one fitting inside the top of the other) or a variation with a pint glass and a stainless container. These are tricky to pour out of and prone to accidents, so I use a pretty standard shaker, the kind with a cap that has a strainer.

    Shaking your drink does a couple of things, in addition to mixing the ingredients: it chills the drink, and it dilutes the drink a little (remember: a proper shake is 10 – 15 seconds). Both of these are Good Things – water is one of the unacknowledged ingredients of many cocktails, which just taste better a little diluted. Hell, it’s acceptable, even expected, to add a splash of water to even the finest single malts.

    • Spherical ice makers. This is a recent addition to our setup, and we’ve started using them almost exclusively for “rocks” drinks. Highballs still get the usual cubes from our icemaker. The spheres have a couple of advantages; they just look cool, and they melt more slowly, so your drink doesn’t get as watery. The 1 ½ inch size seems pretty standard. It does take them a little longer to cool the drink, if it started at room temperature.

    I’ve been using this SVERES Jumbo Ice Ball Tray, which makes six at a time. A little more labor intensive than just pushing the lever on the front of the fridge, but worth it, IMO. I’ve also got a pair of these Tovolo Sphere Clear makers, but they’re kind of a pain in the ass to use. I think they make somewhat better spheres than the tray.

    • Glasses. For highballs, we just use whatever. For rocks drinks, I’ve been using these Bodum double wall glasses. They slow the melting of the ice balls even more and look pretty cool. These used to be pretty fragile, but they’ve been beefed up enough we haven’t had any problems.

    Casa Dean Supplies

    Confession time: I don’t fresh squeeze my citrus juices; I get good lime, lemon, and orange juice in bottles and just use that. I also don’t generally garnish. When I’m thirsty, I get lazy, OK?

    For liqueurs, we have the following:

    • Pernod, for Monkey Glands. I haven’t found another use for it that I liked, so that’s about it. Its basically licorice concentrate, to my palate.

    • Amaretto, mostly for Polar Vortexes (to be written up one of these weeks). It’s a sweetener, mainly, but even in small amounts it changes up the drink.

    • Salerno, for margaritas, sangria, anything that calls for orange liqueur. I’ve got some Grand Marnier, but just don’t really use it much since I found Salerno, which isn’t as sweet and “heavy” as most orange liqueurs.

    • Luxardo Maraschino Liqueur. I pretty much just use this to make my own maraschino cherries, which are completely different than the dyed candied cherries passed off as such in the grocery store. Real maraschino cherries on chocolate ice cream is just divine, BTW, and justifies making your own all by itself.

    • Drambuie. For the occasional Rusty Nail. Mrs. Dean also likes it sometimes just over ice.

    • We also have Rivata sweet and dry vermouth. I mostly use the sweet to make Rob Roys and Manhattans. I’ve tried olde schoole martinis, but just don’t come back to them.

    For bitters and mixers, there’s a few standards and a lot of interesting stuff to try. As mentioned last week, Pickett’s Ginger Beer Syrup is excellent. The Jack Rudy Classic Tonic syrup gets a real workout in hot weather, as well – it produces a vastly more flavorful gin and tonic than what you get in the store. You need a soda syphon to use these, or you can just crack open a soda water or club soda and pour in. But the soda syphon’s more fun.

    I like the Bittermilk lineup, and use several of their mixers off and on (the Charred Grapefruit with light rum is way too easy to drink in hot weather). Others make their way in and out of the pantry from time to time as experiments (I have this Maple-Bacon Syrup going through testing right now), and it is remarkable how many smaller companies are putting out good stuff. These will get called out as needed in future recipes.

     

    Derpetologist’s Spot the Not: Leonard Peikoff (a famous Randroid)

    1. [Regarding the so-called Ground Zero Mosque] Any way possible permission should be refused and if they go ahead and build it, the government should bomb it out of existence, evacuating it first, with no compensation to any of the property owners involved in this monstrosity.

    2. Responsible parenthood involves decades devoted to the child’s proper nurture. To sentence a woman to bear a child against her will is an unspeakable violation of her rights: her right to liberty (to the functions of her body), her right to the pursuit of happiness, and, sometimes, her right to life itself, even as a serf.

    3. Every argument for God and every attribute ascribed to Him rests on a false metaphysical premise. None can survive for a moment on a correct metaphysics.

    4. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon facts.

    5. Statism and the advocacy of reason are philosophical opposites. They cannot coexist—neither in a philosophic system nor in a nation.

    6. What is is. Perceive It. Integrate it. Act on it. Idealize it.