Scotch-A-P​alooza 2011

About this time last year, I wrote about my inaugural experience at the Single Malt Scotch and Whisky Extravaganza, an annual event held here in DC each autumn.  Last year was quite a hit: I discovered a number of new expressions, smoked two fine cigars, and nursed the mother of all hangovers while suffering through work the following day.  So this year, I was determined to have as much fun while not paying for it afterwards – immediately after purchasing my ticket, I made plans to take leave the day following the extravaganza.

Although the bar was set high, the 2011 extravaganza did not disappoint.  Perhaps it’s because I’m no longer a novice whiskey drinker.  I’m seasoned now, but by no means an expert.  I know what I like, what I don’t like, and – just as importantly – can articulate my reasons for each.  Regardless, this year’s extravaganza led me to several new expressions from a number of distilleries.

I was neither able nor inclined to take extensive tasting notes throughout the evening, instead preferring to casually wander from table to table, sampling and chatting with each distillery’s Brand Ambassador.  There were many, many choices to taste (and re-taste), so it’s not surprising I liked some and disliked others.  Some were so delicious I immediately noted the name so as to locate a bottle as soon as possible.  Specifically:

– Ardmore 30 year old
– Auchentoshan Three Wood
– Oban Distiller’s Edition
– Talisker Distiller’s Edition
– Glenmorangie Signet
– The Glenrothes Vintage 1994
– Highland Park 18 year old
– Laphroaig 18 year old
– The Macallan Fine Oak 15 year old

At the extravaganza’s conclusion, cigars didn’t feel right, not this time.  No, a tall, cold, cleansing glass of dark autumn beer sounded absolutely delicious.  So rather than depart for the neighborhood cigar lounge – as in the prior year – we instead walked a few blocks to a new pizza restaurant and enjoyed a few pints of seasonal microbrews.  For me, it was Schafly Oktoberfest.

The evening ended quietly, at the end of a long bar covered in numbers.  I arrived home with a few new trinkets for my bar: another tasting glass; a glass eyedropper for adding water to scotch; a few pens; and numerous advertisement cards and pamphlets, helpful reminders to be sure.

When I awoke the next morning – after sleeping in late and meeting my wife for a three course lunch – I had the memory of a second evening filled with drinking expensive liquor with a great friend.  Mucho gusto, First Sea Lord Roberto.  I look forward to next year.

Fall Beer Round-Up

A few things are certain every October: the leaves change colors; Christmas decorations appear on store shelves earlier and earlier; and there’s a greater variety of autumn-inspired beers. 
 
In past years, standard märzen-style and Oktoberfest varieties have been standard, as well as a couple of different pumpkin-flavored brews.  I’ve been a big fan of pumpkin beer for a long while now after discovering Capitol City Brewing Company’s Pumpkinator several years back.

But this year seems different; I’ve been overwhelmed by numerous varieties of pumpkin brews this year.  Apparently every medium to large craft brewery jumped on the pumpkin bandwagon this year.  And others are exploring other fall flavors, such as smoke, apples, and even maple syrup.

With so many breweries creating fall brews, it’s difficult to determine what’s worth trying and what’s worth not.  Thankfully, a few different publications – most notably, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, and Travel + Leisure – have helped to narrow the field.  So here’s a short summary of those lists, including a few of my personal seasonal favorites as well as a few exotic brews I have yet to hunt down. 

– The Bruery’s Autumn Maple.  An intriguing blend of yams, nutmeg, and of course, maple syrup.

– Dogfish Head Brewery’s Punkin Ale.  A regional favorite from an adventurous brewery known for experimenting with unique flavors and recipes.

– Captain Lawrence Brewing Company’s Golden Delicious.  Holding beer in apple-brandy barrels creates a sweet and tart cider-like brew.

– Sam Adam’s Bonfire Rauchbier.  A dark, full beer with a unique combination of smoke and malt; a hearty addition to any autumn meal.

– Flying Dog Brewery’s The Fear.  At 9% ABV – strong stuff to be sure – the dark brown brew is bold and substantial, with flavors of caramel and toasted graham cracker.

I was able to enjoy a few of the aforementioned brews at Rustico’s annual autumnal brew bash, an annual block party thrown at the restaurant’s Alexandria location.  Although it was a bit too crowded for my taste – as the below pictures attest – I did enjoy a few cold beers in absolutely perfect weather.  The restaurant had on hand “more than 50 amazing beers from all over the world including a slew of Pumpkin Ales, German Rarities and some of the most sought after Oktoberfests” and promised that “all…[would] be served up under an idyllic 68 degree afternoon sky… warm enough for a cold beer, cool enough for Brats.”

Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises

Earlier this year, I wrote a few words about George Orwell’s novel, Down and Out in Paris and London, where I noted the prominent role booze played in the lives of the working underclass in Post-World War I-era Paris.  I turn now to discuss another book – set in Paris at about the same time – that highlights the role of drink in the lives of those at the opposite end of the social spectrum.

The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway’s novel that first brought him to national prominence as an American fiction writer is, if nothing else, a meditation on perpetual boozing and rambunctious behavior, an ode to drunken arguments and the hurt feelings they cause.

Drinking is imbued throughout Hemingway’s novel with such ferocity and intensity that one may think the novel is a treatise on the subject.  Instead of the frequency, however, I’d like to focus more on the purpose – why the characters are perpetually drinking – especially considering the fact that while in Pamplona Jake and his cohort are nearly always drunk or in the process of becoming so.

Perhaps I focused more on “purpose” because I read this book shortly after finishing Orwell’s.  The bold contrast between the books’ characters – Orwell’s working man living hand to mouth and Hemingway’s group gluttonously misbehaving, carousing, and bickering – stood prominently in my mind.

Early in the novel, Hemingway’s protagonist, Jake Barnes, begins chatting with a Georgette, a “working lady,” while drinking at a Parisian café, shortly before meeting several friends.

“Well, what will you drink?” I asked.
“Pernod.”
“That’s not good for little girls.”
“Little girl yourself.  Dites garçon, un pernod.”
“A Pernod for me too.”
Pernod is a greenish imitation absinthe. When you add water it turns milky.  It tastes like licorice and has a good uplift, but it drops you just as far.  We sat and drank it, and the girl looked sullen.

Rather than scraping by on meager amounts of food for sustenance and drinking to dull the pain of such a Spartan existence, Jake, Brett, and Robert freely and carelessly spend on food and drink (and women).  This happens so often as to become commonplace and therefore, quite easy to miss.  A brief discussion over where to lunch quickly results in a full table: “How about Wetzel’s?  They’ve got good hor d’œuvres.”  In the restaurant we ordered hor d’œuvres and beer.  The sommelier brought the beer, tall, beaded on the outside of the steins, and cold.  There were a dozen different dishes of hor d’œuvres.

While the amount booze enjoyed by Jake and company in Paris is impressive, it’s nothing compared to the constant state of drunkenness endured while fishing outside Burguete and during the fiesta in Pamplona.  In this latter half of the story, it’s a challenge to find some activity that doesn’t center upon eating or drinking to excess.  The group, now joined by Bill and Mike, continually derides and argues with each other – occasionally coming to blows – all while imbibing endless amounts of beer and wine.  During one particular evening, Jake describes his condition following an evening early during the week of fiesta: “The country became very clear and the feeling of pressure in my head seemed to loosen.  I was very drunk and I did not want to shut my eyes because the room would go round and round.  If I kept on reading that feeling would pass.”

Jake, Brett, Richard, Bill, and Mike all seem to be out for a good time, and nothing else.  My earlier question of purpose seemed to have a simple answer: they drank for fun, because they could; nothing more, nothing less.

Interestingly, Hemingway provides some insight into the drinking philosophy of that day, perhaps tipping his own hand on his thoughts concerning the 18th Amendment’s prohibition of alcohol, in a short conversation between characters during their trip between Paris and Bayonne.

“You know how the ladies are.  If there’s a jug goes along, or a case of beer, they think it’s hell and damnation.”
“That’s the way men are,” his wife said to us.  She smoothed her comfortable lap.  “I voted against prohibition to please him, and because I like a little beer in the house, and then he talks that way.  It’s a wonder they ever find any one to marry them.”

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In related news, Maria Popova – Atlantic contributor and creator of Brain Pickings –  recently wrote an excellent summary of The Letters of Ernest Hemingway: Volume 1, 1907-1922, “a fascinating new volume that peels away at a young Hemingway different, richer, more tender than the machismo-encrusted persona we’ve come to know through his published works.”

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Please visit The Hip Flask’s Recommended Reading page for other books on drinking culture I’ve enjoyed.

Dinner with la Fée Verte

Following a wonderfully delicious meal of French cuisine, my wife decided on a second Kir Royale for dessert.  The restaurant – a relative new-comer to Capitol Hill tucked into a row house along Massachusetts Avenue – was slowly emptying out.  Old salon music quietly mingled with the few remaining conversations.

I looked around and pondered whether I wanted an after dinner drink.  Candlelight shadows danced on the dark and patterned wallpaper, gently illuminating neatly framed pictures of dancing Parisians dressed in tuxedos and tight red dresses.  I had already enjoyed two glasses of lightly sweet Côtes du Rhône Domaine Ferraton 2007; perhaps I should say no to dessert.

However, my wife is a persuasive woman; when she encourages another round, I’d be a fool to say no.  “Why not try some absinthe, you’ve always wanted to.”  She was right; on our most recent trip to Europe – Prague in early 2009 – I discovered the locals drink becherovka rather than absinthe.  On trips prior – to Paris, Berlin, Warsaw, Amsterdam, even Moscow – I focused more on local beer selections rather than the mysterious green spirit.

So an order for Vieux Carré absinthe (made by Philadelphia Distilling Company, which also produces the fantastic Blue Coat Gin) was placed.  And another Kir Royale, of course.  In short order the waiter returned with hands full.  With complete pomp and circumstance, he carefully lit the sugar cubes atop the thin, slotted spoon, which itself was perched above the translucent yellowish-green liquid.  Tiny drops of water emerged from the slow drip fountain, slowly melting the sugar and turning the drink a milky, cloudy color – the louche.  Per the waiter’s recommendation, I allowed the fountain to fill the glass until there were roughly equal parts water and absinthe, though I may have erred on the side of slightly less water.

Now at this point I could regale you with my hallucinogenic visions, of feelings of flowers growing from my legs, as wrote Oscar Wilde.  Or I could describe the tiny green fairy I saw as I sipped the drink.  But alas, I felt nothing other than the sweet, fragrant taste of the ice cold drink.  Interested, my wife took a minuscule sip and immediately claimed she saw Mr. Hankey floating above my head, which elicited a good chuckle.  The spirit’s psychotropic qualities have a long history of references in both art and literature, much of which was created by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (one of my favorite artists) amidst Parisian bohemian culture during the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth centuries.  Unfortunately the thujone – a component of grande wormwood, one of the ingredients of absinthe – produced no such affects.

No, I was only left with a pleasant, calming, even refreshing drink as my dessert.  I very much enjoyed the preparation experience as well as absinthe’s taste. It was not something to be enjoyed every day; no, like its cousin, pastis (which is enjoyed before the meal), it was a treat to be appreciated only occasionally, when slowly and carefully appreciating fine cuisine, apart from life’s daily responsibilities and repetition.  Absinthe was a unique experience, whether or not I actually dined with the Green Fairy herself.

How to Drink in Public

I love drinking outside.  Regardless of where I am – whether it’s in a beer garden, on a restaurant patio, or in a park at a pig roast.  I’ve made this point several times, but with the end of warm weather in sight, it’s been on my mind more than usual.

Unfortunately this is where the fun ends.  Drinking in public is, without question, severely frowned upon in this country.  Whatever the reason for this anti-outdoor boozing stance – be it the stuffiness of our puritanical founding colonists or just the Fun Police on a power trip – public partaking is emphatically discouraged by most police officers.  What party poopers.

However, the smart folks over at New York Magazine’s Grub Street Blog decided that information is power and put together a nice graphic instructing us How to Drink in Public, The Right Way.  Although the graphic itself is self-explanatory, perfecting the art of public consumption is not.  For that we have the wise words of the post’s author, Matthew Latkiewicz:

On Drinking Outdoors Legally: “Butte, Montana, for instance, is the one town in the country that (awesomely) allows people to drink anything they want, anywhere they want. Of course, New Orleans is probably the most well-known example of this kind of free-drinkin’ mentality, though even the Big Easy has some stipulations about what and where you can drink.”

On Drinking Outdoors Illegally: “A flask just showcases that you are hiding alcohol; it’s like trying sneak bullets somewhere by hiding them inside a gun.  The water bottle filled with clear liquor is much, much sneakier.  Any high schooler will tell you that vodka works well; gin isn’t bad if you can mix it with something. But there is a happy medium to be found between this method and the flask: all that white whiskey that’s been popping up. It still looks like water, but it doesn’t taste like drinking warm rubbing alcohol.”

And On Drinking Everywhere Else: “The beer-in-a-brown-paper-bag best symbolizes this compromise between the law (no open containers) and the reality (a lot of public drinking isn’t worth busting)…Of course, the compromise hinges on the integrity of the public drinker not to do anything that would require police work.”

Picture courtesy of Grub Street NY