Ah, the promise of the new year. Ah, the promise of Gregg Easterbrook’s first column of the year. Ah, the promise of the playoffs.
After the jump, this week’s TMQ…
Archive for the ‘Mixology’ Category
TMQ Watch: January 7, 2014.
Wednesday, January 8th, 2014TMQ watch: December 31, 2013.
Friday, January 3rd, 2014More “we’re just not feeling the clever this week”. Might as well just open the box. After the jump, this week’s TMQ…
TMQ Watch: December 17, 2013.
Thursday, December 19th, 2013You know that comment we made yesterday, about “Start writing or stop talking about it” being pretty good writing advice?
TMQ Watch: October 22, 2013.
Tuesday, October 22nd, 2013We were vaguely hoping TMQ would address the Grambling State situation this week. We know that sounds weird, but we were hoping he might have an original or interesting take on it. Or, failing that, something we could mock.
We also thought maybe he’d have something to say about Bum Phillips. Or Bud Adams. He’s usually pretty good about doing tributes to significant NFL figures who have passed away.
Nope.
So what does TMQ write about this week? After the jump…
TMQ Watch: October 15, 2013.
Tuesday, October 15th, 2013Let us start off with one of TMQ Watch’s patented musical interludes. This one even has a small amount of relevance to this week’s TMQ:
You’ve got to love YouTube comments:
stephen scazzafavo 2 weeks ago
thumbs up for REAL COUNTRY none of this new age shiit
Yeah. About that, Steve.
Anyway, with that diversion out of the way, let’s get into this week’s TMQ, after the jump…
Random notes: July 30, 2013.
Tuesday, July 30th, 2013Latest update on the “Rebecca” case (previously):
Memo from the Department of “Here’s a Shocker”:
More:
Some bars in West Hollywood and other cities are boycotting Stolichnaya vodka over Putin’s “anti-gay” regulations, “banning ‘propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations,’ including gay pride events and providing children with information about homosexuality.” Fair enough; a boycott seems like a reasonable response, though I don’t know how much good it will do. (I’m not convinced boycotts work against the batshit crazy.) But:
Wouldn’t this be a more effective protest if they actually dumped the vodka? If they are worried about the environmental impact of dumping vodka into the gutter, couldn’t they pour it down the sink instead, like they do with unfinished drinks? Is the environmental impact of dumping vodka that great, especially since I suspect much of the alcohol will evaporate in the storm sewers?
And what are they going to do with the vodka that was in the bottles? Or have they been saving empties for this protest?
I heartily endorse this event or product. (#9 in a series)
Sunday, July 21st, 2013These folks are interesting for a couple of reasons:
- They are making saké in Texas.
- They use Texas rice to make their saké.
- If it matters to you, the rice they use and the saké they produce are both organic.
Mike the Musicologist and I went down to their tasting room yesterday and had a flight of the four varieties of saké they currently produce. Their Tumbleweed Saké is a very dry, kind of light tasting saké; it really doesn’t have any kind of assertive flavor, just a kind of dry mouth feel. I believe Mike liked this one the best out of the four. As for me, I think this is an excellent drinking saké, but not a sipping one.
I slightly prefer the Whooping Crane for a clear saké. This has some nice floral notes, and is closer to what I’d consider a sipping saké.
The Rising Star is an unfiltered saké with a very assertive taste. I think this would match very well with food; I’d like to try it with some barbecue, perhaps.
The fourth saké we had was a “double nigori” unfiltered saké. If I remember correctly, not only is that one unfiltered, but they add additional rice sediment in the brewing process. Again, this is another one that I think would pair well with food; the taste is even more assertive than that of the single nigori.
Don’t get me wrong: all four of the sakés we had were very good, and I commend them to your attention. Mike, who is more of a saké connoisseur than I am, commented that they tasted different than what he was used to. Not “bad”, just “different”. I suspect that there are several factors involved; brewing style, perhaps, or a taste difference between Texas and Japanese rice. If you’re not a fan of Japanese saké, the Texas saké may still be worth a try for that reason. In Austin, you can find at least some of them at Whole Foods and Central Market.
And I’d also like to note that the folks at the tasting room – Toji, the head brewer, and the young lady who was helping him – were very nice to us. The tasting room isn’t a big place, and there were quite a few people there, and we didn’t have reservations, but they still went out of their way to make us feel welcome.
Unfortunately, the tasting room is closing down for the summer: it also doubles as the brewery, and apparently it is just too hot to make saké during the summer in Texas. But Texas Saké is having their second anniversary party on September 28th, so you might clear your calendar if you live in the Austin area.
These are swell folks, and they make an excellent product. I’d very much like to see them succeed to the point where they can’t sleep at night because there are too many $100 bills stuffed in the mattress.
I went back to Ohio, but my city was gone.
Monday, July 15th, 2013Well, not really “gone”. I hadn’t been back to Ohio for nine years, and it amazed me somewhat both how much and how little has changed.
For example, there’s an entire grocery chain that I don’t remember from my last trip…that takes the Discover card and cash. No Visa/AmEx/MasterCard/Diner’s Club, not even debt cards with a PIN, just cash and Discover. Who came up with this idea?
On the other hand, the tractor tire store that was a landmark on the way to Grandma’s place is still there, after 40 something years. And Grandma’s place still feels remote from everything, even though there’s major strip centers at the end of her road, and even though much of the land was sold off over the past few years (and now has houses sitting on it).
And the old NASA hanger is still visible from the airport. That was another landmark for us kids. (My dad worked there, back when it was still the Lewis Research Center, before it was renamed “NASA John H. Glenn Research Center at Lewis Field“. Which is a mouthful. Not that I’m bitter or anything over the renaming; by gosh, if anyone deserved to have a NASA facility named after him, it was John Glenn.)
This is shaping up to be a long post, and sort of “stream of consciousness”, so I’m going to put the rest of it behind a jump. Before I do, here’s Grandma’s obituary, just for the record.
Random notes: June 18, 2013.
Tuesday, June 18th, 2013I was all set to snark on this NYT headline:
For Its Latest Beer, a Craft Brewer Chooses an Unlikely Pairing: Archaeology
After all, craft brewers going back and doing beer anthropology isn’t exactly a new thing.
However, the paper of record gets a pass from me, because the brewer in question is Great Lakes Brewing Company, a personal favorite of mine.
Sam Kellner believed his son had been sexually abused by a Hasidic cantor. Mr. Kellner lobbied the Brooklyn DA to prosecute the cantor. As a result, he was shunned by his synagogue and other members of the Hasidic community.
The conviction of Mr. Lebovits was reversed:
On the other hand:
The NYT spin on this is that Charles J. Hynes, the Brooklyn DA, gets a lot of political support from the Hasidic community, and is therefore very deferential to their wishes. But if he is so deferential, why did his office bring the case in the first place? It seems like he could easily have ducked the prosecution by claiming the evidence was insufficient or some other issue. The NYT‘s timeline is a little fuzzy, but I’m picking up at least an implication that Hynes’s office had the tape in their possession at the time of the Lebovits trial.
(Also, if you go back to the NYT article on the reversal of the Lebovits conviction, the extortion plot is mentioned in passing by Dershowitz. But the actual reason given by the appeals court for overturning the conviction is not the alleged extortion plot, but a failure by the prosecution to turn over evidence to the defense in a timely fashion.)
Obit watch: February 18, 2013.
Monday, February 18th, 2013Conrad wrote two books that I liked very much: The Martini: An Illustrated History of an American Classic
I have very little to say about Mindy McCready except this: the number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255.
Who would have thought it?
Thursday, February 7th, 2013You can get botulism from prison wine, aka “pruno“, aka “that stuff that’s frequently fermented in a cell block toilet or other places just as disgusting”.
(You know where else you can get alcohol from, with less risk of botulism? Sourdough starter. No, really; the liquid that separates out and rises to the top if you leave it sit is somewhere between 12% and 14% alcohol. I haven’t tried drinking any of it, but I suspect it tastes a little better than pruno.)
The last dive bar.
Friday, December 14th, 2012There’s an interesting article in today’s LAT about the King Eddy Saloon. The King Eddy opened in 1933 and was a favorite bar for folks like John Fante, James M. Cain, and Charles Bukowski. When it first opened, it was in a commercial district that has since evolved into Skid Row.
($4 beer and burritos? On a busy night, this place must smell like a mustard gas attack.)
The property that the King Eddy sits on has changed ownership. The new owners (the “Acme Bar Group”) plan to remodel the bar. The current “regulars” are convinced that the remodel is going to push them out – no more $4 beer and burritos – in favor of a more “yuppie” crowd.
Which may very well be true. I don’t live in LA, so I’m not sure I can comment with authority. It’s worth noting that the King Eddy is located in a residential hotel, that there are more residential hotels in the area, and that “a moratorium prohibits the conversion of residential hotels in the area to upscale housing until 2063”. So it isn’t like this area is going to become gentrified any time in the near future. It does seem to me that a “yuppie” bar on Skid Row is going to be a hard sell.