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Last night I made the best Martinez I've ever managed...

1.5 oz Dolin Rouge
1 oz Ransom Old Tom Gin
.5 oz St. George Dry Rye Gin
.5 oz Luxardo Maraschino
1 dropper of Bittercube Orange Bitters

Stirred over cracked ice, strained and garnished with Luxardo Maraschino cherries.

From the wine cellars of the cheap ass chick that is muah: Inglenook Sunset Blush wine. It's ok, but I like the Livingston a little more. Last week it was Naked Grape moscato which was actually quite tasty.

Haven't had many cocktails lately otehr than smirnoff grape vodka mized with pepsi for pretty good drink. I need to go through my vintage drink books again and see what I can conjure up.

Lagunitas Wilco Tango Foxtrot Ale . . . really enjoying the maltiness.

=R=

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I just wanna live until I gotta die. I know I ain't perfect but God knows I try. --Todd Snider

Twitter: ronniesuburban

Hopslam! My community received it's 10-case allotment this past Friday afternoon. Seven cases to the liquor stores - three cases to the bars. Liquor store stock sold by Saturday 11am.

Davooda

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Life is a garden, Dude - DIG IT!
-- anonymous Colorado snowboarder whizzing past me March 2010

Picked up a six of Lagunita's red ale. I think I'm going to see if I can get a case of it next time. Very good beer like much of Lagunita's line. Had a couple of those and a couple Founder's porters last night.

Still have just over 3 six-packs of Hopslam chilling in the basement fridge. Trying to stretch those out and make them last a little bit.

George Dickel Barrel Select, a really terrific and moderately priced American whiskey that Maria's Community Bar got in today. Smoothe.

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"Baseball is like church. Many attend. Few understand." Leo Durocher

hopslam by Mel Hill Photography, on Flickr
bottled on 2-2-12

super fresh!
2 down 22 to go

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my food shots

Revolution Brewing has some of their Eugene Porter mixed with coffee on the handpull right now. Fantastic stuff. Beautiful coffee flavor blended with one of the best porters around. I would love to see it on a normal draft but beggars can't be choosers. I think this keg was tapped on Monday or Tuesday so there should be a good amount left -- if you love coffee beers, you owe it to yourself to try it. Coup D'etat was just tapped, too, if you want a super-fresh, full-bodied farmhouse saison. I still I think I prefer Rabid Rabbit from Three Floyds, but I'll take the one that is easier to find any day.

Fans of barrel-aged beers should head over, too, for the Gravedigger -- a 'wee heavy' aged in bourbon barrels -- I got a lot of great bourbon flavors but not too much of the underlying Willie Wee Heavy Scotch Ale. Might be a pro for some, a con for others. Coming up on the 29th is their barrel-aged Mad Cow (a milk stout). I haven't seen that in a while but I remember it being a home run.

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best,
dan

Tonight we're drinking some of the Abner, Mimosa, and Damon that we picked up at the Hill Farmstead release on Saturday in celebration of my birthday! Halfway through the Abner growler and I think it's on par with Double Sunshine and Heady Topper. Unfortunately Hill Farmstead, Lawson's, and the Alchemist are unavailable in Chicago and Hill Farmstead kegs only occasionally pop up in NYC. I think we're due for another trip to Vermont very soon...





ETA: Pics!

could be worse...

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my food shots

Birthday tasting this weekend


'08-'11 La Folie vertical - The Cork & Cage version is so much better than the flash pasteurized versions


Batch 3 Juliet (L) and Batch 1 Juliet (R)

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I got a real good mind.

Before Cotton was King: http://www.grubseeker.blogspot.com

Lined outside if Half Acre brewery this morning for the release of their Double Daisy Cutter DIPA

Double Daisy Cutter, Half Acre beer by Mel Hill Photography, on Flickr

8% and super hoppy but oh so good if you like this style of beer.

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my food shots

Nice bling glass! Great shot too!

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my food shots

2004 Domaine Weinbach Cuvee Ste. Catherine Riesling, from Alsace, my favorite wine region.

Tonight it was grasshoppers and toreadors.

Recently got a chance to try Zombie Dust on tap. Wow, so good!

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Just finished a Lindeman's raspberry lambic - nice balance of sweet and tart.
About to open a Kasteel triple belgain ale.

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The cake is a lie

Last night the cocktail I had at the Macaroni grill in Hoffman Estates was called a Blood Orange Cosmo. Quite good. I could have been drinking load of these but was already feel buzzed after two so I had to stop. Wish I had had my camaera to snap a picture but alas I did not.

New Glarus Raspberry Tart with warm chocolate brownies for dessert....yummmmmmmmmmmm.

Davooda

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Life is a garden, Dude - DIG IT!
-- anonymous Colorado snowboarder whizzing past me March 2010

That's funny - I gave my daughter a small glass of the rapberry lambic I posted about above and her first comment was that it would go really good with chocolate cake.

Unfortunately the Casteel triple was not a success for us. There was little flavor other than a bit of citrus up front but perhaps because of the higher alchohol it finished with a faint taste of gasoline or turpentine. Not my cup of tea.

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The cake is a lie

I think blood orange is a good secret cocktail weapon. It can serve as both sweet and sour, and the color is a nice vibrant touch to certain drinks. I like to make a delicious (if sweet) summer drink involving bourbon, blood orange, lemon, ginger simple syrup and ginger beer.

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Had a Tröegs Nuggect Nectar, Hill Farmstead Mimosa, and Southampton Imperial Russian Stout tonight! First time for us having the IRS and is one of the best stouts I'ver ever had, if you're into trading I highly recommend trying to land this one!


PS Also had a Cantillon Mamouche drainpour, got a super peppery bottle .

I like their Cherry Tart a lot. The Raspberry was good but out of the 2 I usually go for the Cherry first.

Went to Three Floyd's last Saturday with a few friends. One of them got me a case of Hopslam from his local liquor store. Then I picked up 2 cases of Zombie Dust at FFF. Two of my favorite beers right now. It's hard to resist grabbing a Zombie Dust or 3 after work when I'm BBQing out in this nice weather.

What's FFF?

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The cake is a lie

FFF = Three Floyds

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Chicago Craft Beer Week!

Well, after the experience in Phu Quoc, it was only a matter of time before I started mixing fish sauce in my cocktails. I've struck out on finding Red Boat (a superior quality fish sauce from Phu Quoc) around town, but tonight I finally got my shipment of the new Blis barrel-aged version. There's one particular drink that sticks out when I think about the power of salt, and that's the Campari "Martini". So, I came up with this:

Campari "Martini" 2.0 (aka Martini Wharf)

1 3/4 oz Campari
1/4 oz Fish Sauce
Stirred over cracked ice and strained into a coupe.
Garnished with heavy orange oil (3 swaths of orange peel expressed over the glass, one dropped in).

Flavor wise this was pretty great. The orange oil was a must to mask the funky fish nose.

I was shut out of this year's StoutFest at Goose Island so I decided to have my own. The evening was split into a couple of phases -- Dark Lord '08-'11 and then a blind tasting of some random bottles I had. The Bramble Rye was served with a chocolate stout cake at the end of the evening.


With the Dark Lord, the '09 and '10 were the clear favorites. The '11 had a really pronounced coffee flavor that I wasn't expecting (it was a nice surprise). Either the '08 was a bad bottle or maybe I aged it improperly - or maybe it just turned bad due to age - but it was a drainpour for me. Sour, acidic and just really unpleasant.

With the blind tasting, the Eclipse came out on top, though one rater radically changed her judging criteria halfway through the tasting, possibly skewing scores. With the Eclipse (Elijah Craig 12yr, fyi), no single flavor really jumped out at us but it just had an overall enjoyable aroma, flavor and body. A case where the sum was greater than its individual parts, you could say. The 2010 Night Stalker came up next - a little oxidization that faded quickly enough, leaving a really nicely structured, big stout. No longer a huge hop presence. The Peruvian Morning really suffered when next to all of these others -- I had a couple of bottles before and enjoyed it well enough, but when stacked up with these others, it's thin body and weak finish no doubt contributed to its last place ranking. The End Of Days was really interesting - a chili beer where the spiciness was really, really noticeable. I'll be curious to try their next batch, which I believe is due to come in at a slightly higher ABV (8% vs. the 6.5% in this release).

The Bramble Rye was divisive. I didn't get that traditional aroma I associated with Bourbon County and the taste was all fruit. It tasted like liquid raspberry jam. I didn't get any rye flavor on the palate, either -- I think the fruit really overwhelmed everything else. Again, it paired nicely with the dense chocolate cake but I would be hard-pressed to enjoy a glass of it by itself (and the ~4oz. I had with the cake was plenty).

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best,
dan

Hello! I'm a forum newbie, good to meet you!:)
My favorite beverage is mostly draught beer but sometimes I prefer some good long drink cocktails like Pina Colada or Mojito. I also prefer to shake them myself adding some extra elements to improve the flavor, like for example adding some banana juice to Pina Colada makes it taste a bit softer and milder.

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Picture edit