Voltron

Wow, NYC HC pulls up lame.

Toasting JP from the FiftyFifty Brewery where I am having an Eclipse Evan Williams cask on draft and taking out a Rye-PA growler for the weekend skiing (drinking).

It's tiring to move all those bodies around to find a few pieces of paper. Beauty of an HP there Mikey. I need to visit the garage again soon! Yikes, sorry about the bad to the Beaune, Greg. Le bummer.

At my first and only Beer Week event. Midnight Sun Oak Aged XXX Black IPA and then s nitro cask of Monk's Mistress Belgian dark ale. They are both great but the black IPA is awesome.

I made you some cupcakes and will fax them soon! Have a great day Colin. Cheers!

Nice selection of drams Mikey! Glad you are posting over here. Marc, did you make it to Heaven's Dog, and is that where you got bit? You're a goddamn regular at B&B now!

Awesome Carthusians, Jim, although the company made all of those cocktails better. Even though I think sharing sips of those work of art drinks may have been the reason for sharing colds on such a level. I sure hope that fate or just plain planning brings us all together again soon. Without an International HF meet in the late spring/early summer I figure we could come up with something before too long... *crosses fingers* That a boy, Mikey! That big bottle deserves a nice big dram! Marc and I tried to catch a little of that lightning in the bottle again today at Swig bar. I had meetings this evening and couldn't stay long, but we had two rounds of cocktails that we dictated to a new bartender there. She didn't know the bar or its contents well on her second day, but she had the skills from work elsewhere. Marc wanted a genever cocktail so I found the Barleyflower Cocktail recipe and the bartender made up a nice semblance of that one with 1.5 Bols, .5 St. Germain and 1 Lillet Blanc. Good stuff. I asked for a Last Word, from their cocktail menu, but she didn't have the ingredients or the proportions down so the iPhone worked its magic on that one too. This sounds lame, but it was kind of fun and she was a great good sport about the whole thing. She is an enthusiast but clearly does not have a huge repertoire. For the second round, Marc wanted to try an Aperol cocktail so I hit upon the Aperol Swizzle and our intrepid bartender made do without the necessary orgeat quite nicely by subbing in simple syrup. APEROL SWIZZLE 2 oz Aperol 1 oz Orange Juice .5 oz Gin 1 Barspoon Orgeat 1 Barpsoon Averna Amaro Build all ingredients with ice in a small collins glass and swizzle until thoroughly mixed and frost forms on outside of the glass. Garnish with a lemon wedge. She did a beautiful large lemon peel instead of a wedge, which is what I would have done myself. Very tasty and with orgeat would be even better. Since I got home, I have shared a bottle of St. Bernardus Christmas Ale that was fabulous. Considering cobbling together one more cocktail for the evening from the limited stock available.

The Free Agent drives have adapters for FW, USB 3.0 and eSATA for like $20 each

Here's a couple recipes I found recently that I really want to try out after some recent searching for things carthusian and chinato-esque: Carthusian Nail 1½ oz Johnnie Walker Scotch Whisky ¾ oz Drambuie ¼ oz Chartreuse Green liqueur Glass: Old-fashioned Garnish: Mint sprigs Method: STIR all ingredients with ice and strain into ice-filled glass. Comment (from diffordsguide.com): "Sweet and yet bone dry. Drambuie and Chartreuse monastic liqueurs battle to be the most righteous in this Humanist's cocktail."* *Note: I liked this idea of the struggle for supremacy of monastic liqueurs, but the problem is that Drambuie was made by Scottish clans instead of monks. They both wear some kind of dress or skirt, but that doesn't make them all monks. If Benedictine is substituted, then a true monastic battle can ensue. I'm still intrigued by the rusty nail with Chartreuse idea, so I want to give it a go. Darkside * Ice * 2 1/2 ounces gin, preferably Plymouth brand * 1 ounce Barolo Chinato * 3 dashes Peychaud bitters * Twist of lime peel * 1 whole star anise (optional) Directions: Fill a mixing glass two-thirds full with ice, then add the gin, Barolo Chinato and bitters. Stir vigorously for 30 seconds, then strain into a cocktail (martini) glass. Twist the lime peel over the drink, then drop it in, along with the star anise, if desired.

Dave Brubeck Quartet -- Concord on a Summer Night Recorded in Dave's and my home town, back when my brother ran the Concord Jazz Festival as the booking & promotions manager of the Concord Pavilion.

Thanks Dan! Nice! That wasn't Gene's was it?

And I am going to join Marc at that ambiguous time of day! If I didn't have meetings with contractors this evening I could try to crash some more parties with him too!

Excellent point! Maybe he should call his headphone speakers the Oxymorons.

No way. Gene loves NEX.

What he^ said!

Yeah, the Carthusian seems to be a Greenpoint with green Chartreuse instead of yellow. The bitters component seems to be up for grabs because some Greenpoints have none, some have a dash each of Angostura and orange, and the B&B version has just orange. These are all variations on the wonderful Brooklyn -- and aptly named for neighborhoods therein -- this blog entry is a nice rundown: Exploring the Burrough. Duggeh needs to focus on the Bensonhurst given his Cynar substituting ways, and don't miss the Park Slope in the comments. Good detective work Marc!

I hope you get to work some wood on this special day! And maybe even make it into the shop. Have a great one, Steve! Cheers! p.s. Alden says: Steven!! Have a great birthday!

Whist Cocktail 1/4 Bacardi rum (1oz Zacapa) 1/4 sweet vermouth (1oz Perucchi) 1/2 Calvados (2oz Pommeau de Mormandi) I had to improvise alternatives in the same family as the Bacardi and Calvados but this is very tasty. Kind of like a spiced apple cider of cocktails. I wish I had the Clement silver rum I have yet to open and a Calvados would give it more bite still.

Warning labels are for babies! You've got plenty of blood, so drink up Dinny!

Problem solved.

Get bigger cables.

In reality, that was the same thing I referred to.

Toss a little Eagle Rare on top and see how that does.

Lucky!