Boozer

I did not make it to the distillery today. I did, however, make it to the liquor store, and picked up a bottle of the Mackenzie Rye, and a bottle of the Seneca Drums Gin.

I sampled both.

Damn.

The rye starts out with a nearly overpowering aroma of honey. It smells like someone jammed a honeycomb in there. Smooth and clean rye flavor, sharp and crisp ... it's definitely a young whiskey, but not in-your-face harsh. Sippin' whiskey, or it'd make a damn fine top-shelf cocktail (Manhattan, Sazerac). $40/750mL, highly recommended.

The gin ... I'm not a gin snob. I don't have tons of experience with gin. I prefer my martinis made with Bombay Sapphire, and in true Hawkeye fashion, it's best to simply contemplate the vermouth bottle from afar while drinking. (I ordered a martini "extra dry" in a restaurant once. Apparently down south, that means "more vermouth". I sent it back.)

Anyways, this is VERY different from Sapphire. It's ... more complex. More subtle flavors, but the fact that it's distilled from grapes may have something to do with it. (What is the traditional source for gin? I don't know! ... Wikipedia says "neutral spirits". Okay then!)

In any case, I think it'd make a pretty good martini, especially one served with a twist instead of an olive, would be okay in a dirty martini, and honestly, is very good for well-chilled and sipping. And at $25/750mL, it's really pretty inexpensive.

Oh those tricksy phishers...

A cautionary tale, for you denizens of the cyberworld.

I used to be a WoW player. I suspended my account last month because I realized I hadn't logged in for more than 20 or 30 minutes total in the preceding two months, and not much more prior to that. (All my characters and items remain, waiting for me to pick them up again - probably around the next expansion.)

Today, I got an email, ostensibly from Blizzard Support (@blizzard.sales.com - red flag), regarding a faction change for one of my characters. Oh really, says I? Perhaps my account got hacked after I suspended it - it's possible, if not necessarily likely.

I read further.

There's a link to a "transaction status" page... that goes to a domain outside blizzard.com (red flag). (I saw that before clicking, thanks.) One of the items they list is, "If you did not make this transaction, you should immediately check your account to prevent character lost." Character lost (red flag)?? There's another link, supposedly to worldofwarcraft.com, but hovering on it reveals it pointing to that same outside domain (red flag).

I pulled headers... "Mailed-by: hotmail.com" (red flag). Last I checked, Blizzard had their own mail servers. ;-)

Out of curiousity, I ran a WHOIS on the outside domain. Sure enough, comes back to "shun li, zhengzhou, CHINA" (red flag).

The first thing that really made me wonder, though: this was sent to an email address that was never associated with my WoW account (red flag).

Spammers, scammers, and phishers are getting MUCH more sophisticated, folks. This email had ONE error in grammar or spelling - one that could be easily chalked up to someone typing quickly without proofing. The links were masked, there is also a link to a legitimate Blizzard site, and someone who was not paying VERY close attention could easily have clicked through and given their password to ... someone in China.

Blogshoot Booze Offer

It occurred to me that I live in the heart of one of the country's best wine regions. 'Tis true. Fingerlakes (NY) wines win national competitions on a regular basis. Don't ask me why, or what the tasting descriptions mean (initial scents of vanilla and grapefruit tingle the palate with a light fruity... wtf?), but we do have some good wines. And now, some good liquors...

I'm planning to hit Finger Lakes Distilling today or tomorrow for a quick tasting, and probably to supplement my own shelf. Specifically, I'm interested in their Rye - as noted, whiskey is my vice - but I intend to sample their vodka and gin as well.

The other excellent option is Six Mile Creek's Spirits by Battistella - a local vineyard that expanded into vodka, gin, etc. I haven't tried their vodka or gin yet, but speaking from experience, their Limoncella is *fantastic*. There's a bottle in our freezer right now, as a matter of fact.

If anyone attending the shoot would like me to bring them a bottle of something from our region, email me - zercool at gmail - and let me know.

Decent wines* can be had in the $10-15 range, the Six Mile spirits run about $25, and the FLD stuff seems to be about $30 for vodka or gin, and $45-50 for rye.

I'm not made of money, of course, but I can float anyone who's interested in one or two bottles until the shoot.

* - decent wine is a matter of taste, as we all know. Finger Lakes reds can be rather hit or miss (although "Tug Boat Red" is a consistently great easy-drinking red table wine), but our whites tend to be excellent. If you know a type you like and a price range, I can probably find something appropriate.

Cook. Eat.

Before anyone starts calling me names and accusing me of being a Dirty Hippy, let me throw this out there: I'll eat (almost) anything. I don't believe subsistence farming is The One True Way, but I do support small-scale commercial farming. I buy some meat from the grocery store, and I don't ask questions about how the Poor Widdle Chickens were raised. (Most of our meat is that which I hunt, kill, and butcher myself. I am in touch with my inner carnivore.)

We bought a share in our local Community Supported Agriculture two years ago and again this year. It's not cheap - a share runs about $500 annually - but it is usually a good value. Yes, it's a gamble. If the growing season goes T-U, the share won't produce much. A good (bad!) hailstorm could destroy half a season worth of crops; last year the area was hit with Tomato Blight and the harvest was minimal. On the plus side, we're supporting a local business, we get to pick what we want from the share each week, and there are several you-pick items that go to "take as much as you can" as the season wears on.

The season runs for 26 weeks; or about $20/week. The share varies, but as an example, today I picked up:
- two zucchini
- one cucumber
- a bunch of carrots
- a large handful of basil
- a head of cabbage
- three tomatoes
- a squash
- a large handful of kale
- an onion

The basil will turn into pesto, the cabbage and carrots will become cole slaw, the kale went into soup, the rest will become salads and sides. From the grocery store, that'd be a hefty bill for veggies, and I passed on the beets, head lettuce, swiss chard, and escarole that were also available. Neither did I pick any extra basil, or green beans, which are both you-pick. (Two years ago we put up about 15 quarts of canned beans and another 15-20 quart bags of frozen beans.)

On the way home from work, I picked up the rest of the ingredients I needed for a soup I was fed last year at Marko's place. (Mrs. Marko is a phenomenal cook, by the by. One of those people that says, "Oh, let me just whip up something," and then sets a gourmet meal in front of you.) This soup has been stuck in my head for a year, and I finally went looking for a recipe.

Sausage and Potato Soup (this is the base recipe I used, then modified)

Ingredients:
1lb sweet italian sausage (links)
2 medium onions, chopped
4 slices bacon, diced
2 T. minced garlic
3 chicken bouillon cubes
2 quarts water
3 large potatoes, cubed
bunch kale, stem removed, julienned
1 c. heavy cream
1 can beer (light beers work best)

Place the sausage in a baking pan in a 300F oven for twenty minutes while doing the chopping/dicing/cubing/mincing.

Cook the bacon and onion in a large skillet over medium heat for about 10 minutes, until the onion is translucent. Add the garlic and cook for 1-2 minutes more. (Add a splash of olive oil if necessary to keep onion from sticking.)

Put the water and bouillon cubes in a large stockpot, add potatoes, and bring to a simmer. Add the bacon/onion/garlic mix and keep at a simmer.

Pour the beer into the skillet the bacon and onion was cooked in, add the sausage links, and bring to a fast simmer over medium-high heat. Turn the sausage occasionally to cook through (~15 minutes). Remove from the beer and slice into bite-size pieces.

Add the sausage, cream, and kale to the broth mixture, stir well, and simmer for 5-10 minutes or until kale is just tender.

Salt and pepper to taste.

Zone

My reloading setup is simple. A small table, tucked into a corner of a cluttered room; the catch-all of "where should this go?" items. Bookshelves and cabinets line the far wall, an eloquently mute commentary on who lives here. The top shelf holds the drinks; remnants of college days dusty in the back row - testament to consumption on a budget - standing sentry over the more refined liquors in the front.

On the far end lies the whiskey, my one luxury vice. A dozen or more different bottles, labeled with distilleries and ages. Some were acquired on a whim, others for a reason. The oldest up there were secreted away in oak before I was born; others in the short time since I walked away from the brick and ivy world of education to seek my fortunes. Some hold memories good and bad; a shared drink with a close friend to celebrate or commiserate life's joys and tribulations.

Below the liquors lie the books, row on row, hardcover and dog-eared paperbacks. Roughly grouped by author but with little semblance of order, there are titles to appeal to most folks. Shakespeare. Grimm. Heinlein. Clancy. Tolkien. Jordan. Supica/Nahas. Rand. Orwell. Textbooks and manuals, references and resources. A slightly tattered copy of Webster's Collegiate pairs with Roget's Thesaurus - a high school graduation gift in the finest tradition. Hornady and Nosler have their place as well, side-by-side with a few photography books. In a corner lies a slightly battered copy of the Holy Bible.

A row of cabinets lie beneath the shelves. The shelves within sagged when we arrived, and only sag more with the load they now support. Carefully sorted into separate cabinets are boxes of barely contained fury. A thin shell of brass around a bit of powder and a lump of lead. Each one is a flash, a bit of noise, and a moment in time. Each one is a hole; a hole in the air, a hole in paper, a hole in dinner. A few grams to an ounce or two, but each one is sound and fury and focus, concentrated in my palm.

The last cabinet holds the reloading supplies. A few plastic jars of powder, boxes and bags of bullets, trays of primers. I can lose myself in what that cabinet holds.

The window open next to me, the radio soft in the background, the time I spend at my reloading table is my own. Adjusting powder weights, a quarter-turn at a time until the scale shows me the number I expect. Pouring a handful of cast lead into my hand, always surprisingly heavy for the small pieces I hold.

I lose myself in the rhythm of reloading; the steady and repeated motions.

Brass from the bag to the press.
*kachunk* and the primer pops out.
A quick flick to dispense a primer.
A steady press and the primer is seated.
Pull the brass and set it aside.
Over and over, a hundred at a time.

Primed brass into the press.
Swing the lever and bell the mouth.
Flip the powder measure.
Pour the powder into the case.
Swing the lever down, with that extra thump to shake out any bridged powder.
Pull the brass and set it in the tray.
Fifty at a time.

Pour out a handful of bullets and set them on the cases, one by one.
Put the topped case into the press.
Swing the lever, down then up.
Pull the cartridge and check the seating, check the length.
Toss in a bin.
A pile at a time ... fifty, a hundred, three hundred...

Put the seated cartridge in the press.
Run the ram up and back down.
Nice tight roll crimp.
Pull the cartridge and toss it in an ammo can, or set it in a box.

Thinly held fury, from the zen of the press...