Generally, when I get interested in a topic, I get really fucking interested in a topic. My wife would say pathologically obsessive. Being a geek this obsessiveness usually involves a lot of books, magazines, websites and old-fashioned experimentation.

So the targets of my obsessive focus lately have been drinks.

Wow. I had no idea.

For years I’ve been quietly sipping scotch (my older brothers had started me on this) and yet had never really had bourbon. I’d had the occasional screw-driver and had made my wife a few Cosmopolitans (I think she even bought me the cocktail shaker for just that purpose). And yet I had never tried a martini or a gimlet (or gin for that matter). Needless to say, I have now rectified this situation.

So following months of digging, playing (and, uh, drinking) a few beverages stand out from the crowd for me. These have become my defaults when nothing else comes to mind.

The New Deal

The latest of these (and apt for the times) is the New Deal. One thing the New Deal shares in common with the other drinks in my frequently drunk club is simplicity. My recipe for it is based on David Embury’s in his classic book “The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks” (available at Amazon).

• 2 oz. Bourbon
• 3/4 oz. Torani Amer
• splash of symple syrup
• ice
• twist of orange peel (dropped in)

The original calls for Amer Picon but this is nearly impossible to acquire in the USA so Torani Amer is my substitute (you can read more on the Amers at Robert Hess’ The Spirit World). You can get Torani Ameri at WineGlobe if they don’t have it near you. If you do happen to have Amer Picon, you can get away with using a bit less (1/2 oz maybe) as it has a stronger taste then the Torani.

New Deal ingredients

The New Deal is simple but full in flavor, the Amer brings a slight orange spice taste and aroma to the bourbon without being too citrus. You do have to be careful with the syrup though, there is a fine line between just enough to open up the sweetness of the other ingredients and way too much. I use just a small splash of it. Put it all in a rocks glass, stir, twist the orange peel over it and drink. Very comforting.

The Sazerac

The other staple that’s likely to be in my hand on a given evening is the Sazerac. Now there’s a lot of lore out there about this drink and a lot of hand-waving about the one true and proper way of making it. Of course it was originally made none of these ways in New Orleans (the original was made with brandy not rye). Searching online will bring up several histories of and recipes for this classic. One of the best is here. So my version is my version not because I claim it to be better, more authentic or any such snobbishness, it’s just the way I like it.

• 2 oz. Rye
• splash of absinthe
• splash of symple syrup
• a few of dashes of Peychaud’s bitters
• optionally a drop or two of Angostora (or better yet Fee Bros. Whiskey barrel aged bitters)
• ice
• twist of lemon peel (I like it dropped in, but others contend this is bad)

Now there is a method to this drink. Again lotsa hand-waving around this online. I keep it simple, mainly because I’m lazy. First pour the splash of absinthe in a decent heavy chilled glass. You want there to be enough to swirl around a bit to coat the sides. When swirled, pour out the excess (or drink it if it’s your glass). I tend to leave just a small amount still in the glass (not too much though). Next, pour in the splash of simple syrup and the bitters. Add a couple of cubes of ice, pour rye over it and then do the twist.

I am committing sacrilege with the ice by the way. Also apparently with the peel. So it goes. See Jeffrey Morgenthaler for more do’s and don’ts of Sazeracs. My favorite is this:

“Do not shake your Sazerac. Remember, shaking a clear drink is like shaking a baby: first there’s going to be a lot of foam, and then you’ll be staring death in the face.”

Alternately (and, yes, more correctly and authentically), stir the rye, bitters and syrup in a separate glass with ice until well-chilled, then strain into the chilled absinthe coated glass. This is a bit more work, more authentic and all, but I tend to go quick and easy on this one and do it all in one glass. Advantage to the two glass method is that the ice cubes don’t go into the final glass so no excessive dilution if it takes you awhile to drink it.

It’s important to use rye whiskey for this drink. It doesn’t work well with bourbon or other whiskeys. I prefer the Sazerac 6 year old rye from the Sazerac Company though I intend to try others (have some Rittenhouse on order). Unfortunately, the Sazerac (and any other rye but Jim Beam) can be hard to find around my parts.

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Pond at Umstead

Yes, it has been a long time. Lot of reasons for that but mostly just had other stuff to do. This coming year is going to be another busy one. 2008, though successful, was in many ways dismal to me. Too much of work was documents, contracts and selling. Now that most of that is done, 2009 I hope to be the year of much coding (and much photography to keep me sane)…

So besides the two large projects I need to get coded and released in the next 8 months, the other goal (in the spirit of New Year’s resolutions) is to get some more photographs out there. Don’t know how or what yet but it’s time.

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Video via Jon Taplin

I’m not voting tomorrow, November 4th, because I, like millions of others in my home state of North Carolina, have already turned in my ballot. Instead I will be out doing what I can to bring others to the poll to cast their votes for Barack Obama. We may not win in NC but it will be close and I am hopeful that we will win across enough of the rest of the country to make a difference.

Several months ago, I wrote before the Democratic primary in NC of the things that I had never done before but now have done for Obama. I’d never made a donation to a campaign, put a candidate’s bumper sticker on my car or put a sign in my yard. Today, I did another thing that I never thought my quiet introverted self would be doing – knocking on doors for a candidate. I loved it. What I’ve done today and will do tomorrow is nothing compared to what other committed volunteers out there have accomplished, but this is what Obama’s campaign has been built on. Obama has brought in people who have never been part of the process before, not just the disenfranchised but also the previously ambivalent. People have been giving him a day or two or just a few hours and these have been people who have never in their lives felt the need to do this for anyone or anything. These are not Democratic party stalwarts, these are people like me, spending a day or few hours off doing what they think is right. This is what I hope makes the difference tomorrow.

And that is one other thing Barack Obama has made me do that I had not done in a very long time… Hope.

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Thanks to Andrew Sullivan

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This gives me some hope in our country:

Via The Huffington Post and the Amercan News Project

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In a support page posted on Apple’s website, Apple confirmed yesterday that the NVidia graphics chipset defect impacted the Macbook Pro’s. More from AppleInsider.

After repeated trips to the Apple Store to convince them of the problem, I got mine replaced a couple of months ago and so far the new one is working like a charm. Glad they finally confirmed what many of us already knew from ugly experience…

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WTF? Seriously, what the fuck are they thinking? Is the McCain campaign that cynical? That desperate? Or that stupid? All three? Cancel the debate and run to Washington to try and get in on the bailout negotiations and look like he was in command of the issue? Even the Wall Street Journal is dismissive of this latest grand dramatic Hail Mary move:

“So count us as mystified by Senator John McCain’s decision yesterday to suspend his campaign and call for a postponement in Friday’s first Presidential debate so that he and Barack Obama can work out a consensus bill to stabilize the financial system. This is supposed to be evidence of leadership?”

In all fairness the WSJ criticizes Obama in the same editorial, but this is no surprise, their editorial board has been spewing vitriol about him for months. Does their criticism have merit? Sometimes. In this case, uh no. It’s pretty clear that there is one candidate grandstanding this and it’s pretty clear that this is McCain’s modus operandi for any situation where he is clearly at a disadvantage.

Again, WTF?

Like a lot of others, I had a lot of respect for John McCain. Back six months ago I even proclaimed my willingness to vote for him over Clinton should she succeed in winning the primary. But “had a lot of respect” is the operative phrase. Past tense. Now, I have none. I’d even hold my nose and vote for Hillary over him.

What happened to the man? Does he realize that what people liked about him was that he seemed to be smart and independent. Now he just looks like a figurehead for the bunch of cynical fools he calls his “advisors”. First, they led him down the Palin path and now this. Conservative commentator Andrew Sullivan has basically called the Palin pick the ultimate Hail Mary. His reaction to Katie Couric’s interview yesterday with Palin:

“America is in a profound crisis economically and in two grueling wars. And John McCain thinks that if anything were to happen to him, this person is qualified to run the world. One word: terrifying…”

First Palin, then this “suspending” of the campaign and trying to run from the debate. This so obviously a desperate and cynical move. And it’s not a suspension of the campaign, it’s a calculated campaign ploy. David Letterman hit the nail on the head last night:

“Are we suspending it because there’s an economic crisis or because the poll numbers are sliding?”

The McCain camp was clearly having a bad day. The latest polls look grim, and the NY Times revealed yesterday morning that his campaign manager was getting paid as a lobbyist for one of the recent failed mortgage companies up until last month. Rather than stay on message, the McCain campaign panicked and tossed it up.

So how many times in a football game is a Hail Mary in the last 20 seconds of the game anything but a desperate and failed play? Sure, if you’re John Elway the play works. But if you’re Elway, it’s not a Hail Mary, it’s a good play. He can pull it off. McCain can’t. He thinks he’s making a good move but he’s just throwing it up and praying.

If this is what McCain does just because his poll numbers are sliding or to distract from the corruption of his advisors, what kind of plays could we expect if the American people actually bought his drama queen antics and voted him President?

You don’t throw plays like this as President – it ends up real bad. And everyone loses that game…

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Ok, I know it’s pretty much past time for summer drinks, but damn this is good: The Richmond Gimlet (recipe) from Jeffrey Morgenthaler.

“…the Richmond Gimlet, one of the best summer drinks ever.. Its soft flavors imbued with fresh mint mingling with the herbaceousness of gin and the tartness of lime have made this drink a Eugene classic for many years now.”

Shake vigorously with the mint leaves in the shaker along with the other ingredients (I used Junipero gin, not No. 10 out of personal and admittedly questionable taste). What goes in the glass in the end has small ice-pulverized particles of mint… very, very tasty.

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From U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders online petition to Secretary Paulson:

“Any plan to clean up the mess on Wall Street must:

1. Ensure that middle income and working families are not the ones who are paying for this bailout by
   • Imposing a five-year, 10 percent surtax on income over $1 million a year for couples and over $500,000 for single taxpayers. That would raise more than $300 billion in revenue over five years;
   • Ensuring that assets purchased from banks are realistically discounted so companies are not rewarded for their risky behavior and taxpayers can recover the amount they paid for them; and
   • Requiring that taxpayers receive equity stakes in the bailed-out companies so that the taxpayers’ assumption of risk is rewarded when companies’ stock goes up.

   Taken together these three provisions will substantially reduce the likelihood that this bailout will end up on the backs of average American taxpayers.

2. Include a major economic recovery package which puts Americans to work at decent wages. Among many other areas, we can create millions of jobs rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure and moving our country from fossil fuels to energy efficiency and sustainable energy. Further, we must protect our must vulnerable families from the very difficult times they are experiencing.
3. Repeal the disastrous de-regulatory legislation that facilitated this crisis.
4. End the danger posed by companies that are ‘too big too fail,’ that is, companies whose failure would cause systemic harm to the U.S. economy. If a company is too big to fail, it is too big to exist. We need to determine which companies fall in this category and then break them up.”

Go forth and sign the petition.

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Sam Harris on Sarah Palin at Newsweek.com:

“You can learn something about a person by the company she keeps. In the churches where Palin has worshiped for decades, parishioners enjoy ‘baptism in the Holy Spirit,’ ‘miraculous healings’ and ‘the gift of tongues.’ Invariably, they offer astonishingly irrational accounts of this behavior and of its significance for the entire cosmos. Palin’s spiritual colleagues describe themselves as part of ‘the final generation,’ engaged in ’spiritual warfare’ to purge the earth of ‘demonic strongholds.’ Palin has spent her entire adult life immersed in this apocalyptic hysteria. Ask yourself: Is it a good idea to place the most powerful military on earth at her disposal? Do we actually want our leaders thinking about the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy when it comes time to say to the Iranians, or to the North Koreans, or to the Pakistanis, or to the Russians or to the Chinese: ‘All options remain on the table’?”

(Via Andrew Sullivan at The Atlantic and NewsJunk.)

I seriously have to wonder about a country where people can seriously think this woman is a good candidate for small town mayor let alone Vice President of the US. Any remaining goodwill and respect I had for John McCain went out the window with this decision. What a complete joke…

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