Explain to me how you were antisocial? So untrue! You were working the room quite superbly. One thing we neglected to mention was your Obi Wan Kenobi move at Keen’s: “What’s that? Where did all that whisky come from? I have no idea what you’re talking about. Move along. Nothing to see here!”. Brilliant!

Of course ever since the event, I have been on Master of Malt on SEVERAL occasions to peruse their Japanese whisky selections. I noticed the prices on the two 25s. Madness! Made the Hibiki 21 look like a bargain. On the flip side, if I had the money, I would totally pick up a bottle of the Yamazaki 25 for the color alone. That stuff was just beautiful! If I had a man cave, I’d paint the walls that color.

And once again, thanks so much for the hospitality in NYC! Hope to get back up there very soon.

Cheers!

Definitely an amazing event! Well worth the time and effort of getting back and forth from NYC on the same day. And as far as the “inner circle” goes, no clue how this all came together. Maybe we’re having a Sally Field moment. Should probably keep the questioning to a minimum and just enjoy it while we can.

You might be onto something with your clear ice theory. I guess you could argue that ice is ice whether it’s crystal clear or cloudy as the Delaware River basin, i.e. it’s sole purpose is to get that drink cold. But I find the crystal clear ice to be utterly mesmerizing, so I must figure out how to do this at home!

And grazie for the complimenti! Teamwork occasionally pays off.

Kanpai!

No need to thank me for the invite, I’m just glad that you were able to make up for missing WhiskyLIVE. Hopefully more of this stuff will be coming our way. Next up, Philly Beer Week and Opening Tap!

While I certainly might have been the King Crooner, we were not graced with a Karaoke contest. And, I would not choose anything from the musical anthology of Soft Cell.

I am fairly certain that it is more likely that the clear ice is the result of purified water and an ice maker and not the labor intensive drills and pipe cleaner approach that you have described.

The knife skills of the East Coast Ambassador make Dexter look like he is playing with a child’s safety scissors.

Finally, I think you may need to get some medical clearance (Ancora, perhaps?) before the invites start rolling in.

OK – so the event itself looks like it was amazing. I suspected as much from the quality of the invitation. Perhaps I need to refine my web of tangential non-sequiturs in hopes of gaining acceptance into your circle of rarefied bloggers.

As for those spectacular ultra clear ice balls, I’m pretty sure they simply freeze regular tap water then use drills and extra fine pipe cleaners to scrub out the microscopic air bibbles and other impurities that contribute to the cloudy appearance. Kind of a labor intensive process but calming at the same time. I imagine they also do that work in specially prepared spaces to inhibit the the introduction of environmental artifacts tat would necessitate additional scrubbing. Dexter employs a similar technique when preparing his kill rooms. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a new plot line in the upcoming season where Dexter uses an ice pick to carve ice spleens and other second tier organs as a calming ritual.

With write-ups and boozetography like that you should be invited to every event on the I-95 Corridor. Great stuff!

Cheers!

Little Kennebec Bay Larry The Lobster Carcass Stout. BOOM!

2 Scenarios…..

#1: They were met a dark yet eclectic figure while setting lobstah traps at the crossroads of a rarely used dirt road. This guy made some sort of deal which promised them spectacular brewing skills in return for the bottoms of their shoes.

#2: They’ve got one of those pneumatic bank drive-up tube contraptions running deep underground between themselves and San Diego which delivers unlabeled bottles from Pizza Port, Green Flash, Stone, Ballast Point & Mission.

Or it could be that they’re small enough to actually care about what they’re doing. I guess that’s plausible but not as interesting.

Zoe is a really nice brew. Right up there with Stone Levitation as one of the few Ambers worth seeking out. Hopefully they don’t go all Calgione and start brewing with indigenous ingredients like drawn butter or mooses.

Cheers!

As for the cocktails themselves, I’ll expound upon the Ricola Three Ways a bit later today….

And, I take exception to my seasonal lag for two reasons. First, the beer fridge was hijacked with Sponge Bob Gogurts and second it is a single season lag. I would probably have buy the “Live” Spring seasonal now, lose it to some other superfluous child’s refrigerated dairy concoction and then drink it Midsummer.

From a purely seasonal beer perspective, I’ve always foung ST’s OMW a bit disappointing. Entirely too malty, quite thin and, in a word, insincere. It’s as though they took the second runnings of a scotch ale wort and tossed in a bunch of budget brand spices. Way too many great Winter brews out there to go back to this one.

Their current “Live” Spring seasonal, on the other hand, is really well done. I’d suggest you grab one of those but I assume you’d probably want to wait until next winter to taste it in keeping with the seasonal lag protocol.

And so goes another comment with no reference to scapulas, Flock of Seagulls tour posters, or outtakes from One Crazy Summer.

Cheers!

Flying Dog brews are so wildly inconsistent from one to another that I’ve never been able labe them (maybe not necessarily a bad thing – I know). My first FD was Double Pale and I really liked it but over the next few years I felt that virtually everything else I tried was either poorly executed or exceptionally boring. Then came Gonzo Imperial Stout soon followed by Raging Bitch – really nice – made me reconsider the brewery all over again. Two or three uninspiring varieties later and I was done with them once more.

Enter the Wildeman (to low expectations – not a simple style combination to tackle without leaning too far towards one or the other). Well, every now and then a D student turns in a well constructed essay. Flying Dog did it with this one. Now I’m back to square WTF with these guys and I don’t like it.

I guess I should be happy for pleasant surprises and leave it at that.

Which is where I’m leaving this…..

Cheers!

And speaking of The Hunt for Red October, I have our next cocktail project: The Crazy Ivan!

Indra Kunindra is one seriously weird and wonderful beer. Not something I would drink all the time, but definitely memorable and worth revisiting.

For this “mini” session the beverages are rated as follows:

1 – Great Lakes Alchemy Hour Double IPA
2 – Sierra Nevada Ruthless Rye
3 – The Margarita I made for Limp Ds better half
4 – The watermelon juice from the bottom of the kids fruit snack bowl
5 – Siamese Twin Ale

Yes it made the top five but that’s only because there weren’t 6 things to drink.

That beer (and its bacon-addled brother) is horrible. I was equally intrigued when I first saw it but found the flavors to be exceptionally muted. Despite tat, what flavors were present tasted as though they were thrown together in an amateur version of “Ready, Set…Brew”. Much like you, I agree that those flavors, when used in correct proportions, with high quality ingredients, and in established world-class craft brewing hands can produce a special, if not for everyone beer. Indra Kunindra is fantastic. I used to call Uncommon Siamese Twin “Indra Kunindra Light” but that does Ballast Point a disservice.

Cheers!

I hope the beers are better than just a novel attempt to cram a ton of flavors and additives/adjuncts into a brew.