A Drink and a Smoke

I have taken up a new hobby over the last few months.  Late in the week, most often on Fridays, I wrap up work at a reasonable hour to spend an hour or so relaxing quietly with a cigar and a coffee.

Technically speaking, this isn’t a new hobby – I have smoked cigars intermittently since a girlfriend brought me back a box of Cohiba Churchills from their factory in Havana.  I later married her, but it wasn’t only because of the cigars. Yet, I digress.

I consider this a new hobby because it has become regular, about weekly – although I wish it were more often.  In the ordinary course of events, my Friday diversion takes me to a tobacco shop tucked into the corner of one of the ubiquitous strip malls of northern Virginia’s suburbs. It’s not a large store, but what it lacks in size it makes up for with a fantastic selection and more importantly, a small lounge.

It is here, where amidst leather chairs, wood paneling, and the gently rising cloud of smoke that disappears in the quietly humming ventilator, that I lament the past work week and devise plans for the coming weekend.

The only problem with my newfound haven: it’s a tobacco store and not a bar; thus, a notable absence of adult beverages. In place of my usual Talisker I must make do with a medium decaf from a neighboring Starbucks. In the grand scheme of things coffee isn’t the worst substitute in the world.  A dark roast drip or espresso-based Americano pairs decently with a bolder robusto-style cigar.

As anti-smoking laws continue to decrease the number of smoking lounges, this trade-off – enjoying a cigar with a coffee rather than a real drink – will be all the more commonplace.  As it stands, there are only a handful of bars in the DC metro region that permit cigar smoking, making it all the more difficult to enjoy a cocktail and a smoke out on the town.

Thankfully it appears more smoke shops and tobacco lounges are popping up, not in large numbers, but enough to offer additional options to casual smokers who are flexible with their drink of choice.  Those shops also seem to be setting space aside for a sitting area and introducing weekend beer and wine tastings to enjoy while smoking.

More importantly to me, perhaps, are the warm weather and longer days, which encourage me to freely smoke on my new patio, and drink whatever I choose.

It’s About Time

That I got back to blogging.

Winter ended and surprisingly, we actually had spring this year. Not a long one, mind you, but one longer than the usual day or two. All the while, bit by bit, my family, work, and the house sapped my energy. Along with my time, the ideas and the motivation disappeared. And dormant sat The Hip Flask, month after month.

During that time, two posts have sadly sat in the queue since March, nearly complete. Yet writing and editing is less than enjoyable after a long day, and the prospect of sitting in front of another computer during the precious few hours between the kids’ bedtime and my own did not excite. I admittedly have not been up to much, aside from the occasional cigar after work – about which I’ll soon post. Drink has been mildly entertaining: particularly notable were the bottles of Rolle Bolle, one of New Beligum Brewery’s new summer seasonal ales, I enjoyed over the Memorial Day weekend. Along with a few Miller High Lifes, because this is America dammit!

I hope you all have been drinking well during my recent absence. To those making your own homemade brandy – peach or otherwise – keep sending the comments and questions! If you’ve had a comment in limbo, please accept my humblest apologies.

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In the meantime, for those information hounds that also enjoy a fine “craft brewed” beer, the New Yorker produced an excellent interactive graphic of American craft breweries – their Idea of the Week – which contains both state or brewery data and can be sorted according to eight tab selectors, including “total breweries,” “annual production” (state data) as well as “fifty largest breweries,” and “new breweries (opened in 2012).”

Needless to say, it’s a beautiful geographic depiction of the rise of American craft brewing, which I declare, is here to stay. As the New Yorker notes: “These beverages have become so popular that craft beer now represents thirty per cent of Costco’s beer sales…But such statistics and anecdotes fail to communicate a fascinating aspect of the craft-beer boom. The beverage is colonizing what one might call the craft-beer frontier: the parts of the country that are far from the major craft breweries of the West Coast and the Northeast.”

Grilling Out

There are few things better than cooking outdoors, over an open fire, with a drink in hand.  Whether it’s a nicely marbled New York Strip, burgers, chicken, or vegetables, most food tastes better flame kissed with a touch of char.  And lording over one’s culinary kingdom with a beverage makes the act all the more enjoyable.

Sadly, it took nearly six months for me to acquire a grill after moving last year, resulting in much wasted time; especially because my wife encouraged me to buy one the weekend we moved in (and kept on encouraging me pretty much every weekend that followed).  This summer’s extended daylight hours thus disappeared, lost to my indecision and trepidation bordering on intimidation.  How could I, a father of two in my early 30s not yet know how to grill?  Certainly this made me less of a man.

Thankfully, I eventually pulled the trigger and bought a grill.  Or rather, the trigger was pulled for me.  My wife, fed up with my perpetual procrastination and excuse-making, simply bought one herself.

“Do you like this grill?” she asked, handing me our laptop open to an Amazon.com page.

“Sure, it looks nice.”

“Good, because I bought it today.  I was tired of waiting around for you to do it.  It’ll be here in two days.  It’s probably a bit more than you would have spent, but I think we’ll use it a lot, and it got good reviews.  You’re welcome.”

“Ok.  I’ll look into getting a propane tank tomorrow.”

A few short days later, I learned I have quite the knack for grilling.  While standing there, watching the flames flickering, I began thinking: what determines what I drink while I grill, an activity mostly involving (a) standing around and (b) drinking.  I settled on three key factors: weather, or more specifically temperature; time, which is to say, amount of food to be cooked; and finally, and perhaps most importantly, mood.

Here, an example or two might be helpful.  Let’s say I’m cooking hot dogs for lunch on an autumn weekend afternoon.  Temperatures are seasonal – sweatshirt weather – and cook time is short, about 10 minutes, including time for the grill to preheat.  A beer is a reasonable (and obvious) choice.  However, since it’s only lunchtime, what about a mug of coffee with a touch of whisky to better keep brisk fall breezes at bay?

Or, let’s say I’m grilling steaks for dinner.  Would I rather pour a dram of scotch while cooking or leave that to be enjoyed during or after the meal?  How about an apéritif instead?  Can they legitimately be enjoyed while grilling?  I can’t find a rule or opinion against it, but it just feels off; Campari or Fernet Branca, members of the bitters family, seem to be the only appropriate choices.

This is my conundrum: a light-hearted knot to untie while passing time away in front of the fire, if watching your food cook isn’t distraction enough.

961 Beer

When one finds themselves running for safety from incoming rocket explosions and mortar attacks, your first thought is not usually “I should start a brewery.”  Yet this seems to be precisely the experience of Mazen Hajjar, founder of Lebanon’s 961 Brewery, during the July 2006 Lebanon War.

Hajjar, who was recently interviewed by the Washington Post’s Greg Kitsock, describes the scene: “The electricity was off; I was sitting on my balcony reading the first chapter of Beer School by Steve Hindy and Tom Potter.  That’s when I thought, ‘Eureka!’”  Now several years later, this eureka moment has been transformed into a fledgling brewery that has exported its beer to 14 countries, including 12 U.S. states.

I was curious about Hajjar’s brews as my own experience with Middle-Eastern beer – Almaza (Lebanese pilsner) and Efes (Turkish pilsner) – was not impressive.*  Yet 961’s five brews (Lebanese pale ale, golden lager, red ale, witbier, and porter) appeared to be a departure from the standard Mid-East pilsners which had so disappointed.

So off I went to track the five down, which was much easier than expected; a quick stop at Total Wine and I was set.  I enjoyed all five over the course of this past weekend, jotting down a few notes after my first or second sip.  Here, in the order I drank them, are my thoughts on each:

- Lebanese Pale Ale: earthy and bitter, slightly hoppy, with a dry and malty finish; 961’s flagship beer and the most interesting of their varieties.

- Red Ale: medium bodied, lightly sweet and mellow; an excellent ale.

- Lager: dry and light-medium bodied; crisp, but not overly so.

- Witbier: light and sweet, champagne colored; lighter than other wits, but lacking complexity as well.

- Porter: evenly bitter and medium bodied and goes down easily; a good representation of the porter style of beer.  If you’ve never had a porter, this would be a great introduction.

In terms of variety alone, 961 is ahead of other regional brewers by leaps and bounds.  In terms of quality too, they have several wonderful brews that should find success in the crowded international market of beer.  Their Red Ale and Lager are both fine tasting beers and their Lebanese Pale Ale, while an acquired taste, will likely begin appearing on the menus of kabob houses and Mid-East cuisine restaurants alike.

I was surprised by the quality, but also somewhat disappointed. The witbier lacked body and complexity as compared to others I’ve tried.  Yet here I’ll give 961 a pass on this point, as I was most excited about the wit as that style is one of my favorites and likely set my expectations too high.

961 is a welcome addition to the otherwise ordinary choices from that region. One can hope they are the first of many to come.

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* Admittedly, I do have fond memories of drinking Efes while smoking hookah during my time in Iraq, however strictly speaking, it is fairly unremarkable brew.  That said, it was perfectly fine at the time – pickings were slim and any beer was better than none.

Brenne Single Malt Whisky

Whisky is a delightful, multifaceted creature.  It comes in many variations, and those that drink it are indeed a breed unto themselves.  During my time writing on this blog – nearly three years now – I’ve had the pleasure to trade comments and wits with several other bloggers who share my hobby of enjoying a fine drink.

One such blogger, Allison Patel, founder of The Whisky Woman and frequent commenter on this site, decided to take her words a step further and create her own single malt whisky. Her efforts were brought to market last fall, in the form of a turquoise-labeled bottle named Brenne.

Through our correspondence, Allison was kind of enough to send me a sample of Brenne Estate Cask.  Allison describes it as a “French single malt whisky finished in Cognac barrels…smooth, approachable with lots of fruit.”  It sounded unique based on the description – whisky aged in cognac barrels – so I was eager to open my small gift.

I consider “fruit forward” to be truth-in-labeling.  After pouring the contents into my glass, I smelled the aroma of cognac, not whisky.  Not one bit.  Yet upon tasting, it was most certainly a whisky, albeit on the sweet end of the spectrum (a bit sweeter than The Glenrothes Select Reserve).

As I savored my ounce, I scribbled down the following words on my yellow notepad:

Sample from barrel #261. Sweet, almost like brandy (influence from casks). Flowery, fruity (peaches), light, buttery.  Ends slightly smoky, floral, touch of heat at finish.

After a few confirming sips, ones I tried to prolong for as long as possible, my glass was empty.  It was a pleasant taste of a lovely new, easy-to-drink whisky, one to be enjoyed by both neophytes and seasoned old lags alike.

At the moment, Brenne is only available in New York City, and while the bottle is reasonably priced, getting it shipped out of state is a touch costly (assuming of course, your state even allows liquor delivery by mail). I attempted to work through a friend and local liquor store owner to procure a bottle, but when that didn’t pan out I bit the bullet and paid the cost.

I’ll soon have my full bottle of the lightly sweet and floral single malt – a perfect dram with which to welcome spring’s arrival.

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Picture courtesy of Allison Patel