Angel's Kiss

Strap in boys, it's going to be girlie shots for a while. If it's any consolation, this one didn't come out quite as pretty. Everything was going well until I got to the cream...maybe you should put the brandy on top, since it's going to want to be on top anyway. Probably.

Angel's Kiss:

• 1/4 oz. Creme de Cacao
• 1/4 oz. Creme Yvette
• 1/4 oz. Brandy
• 1/4 oz. cream

Layer into Pousse Cafe (Shot) glass in the order given.

I went back-to-back with this one, because there's so little alcohol in either of these shots, so I figured it couldn't do much harm. There's definitely more of a kick to this one, with 3/4 oz. of liquor instead of 1/2 oz. in the previous shot. Still and all, not quite as delightful as the previous shot. Maybe it's the added alcohol, maybe it's my general distaste for the Creme de Cacao that I have (and, perhaps, all Creme de Cacao everywhere...), but I didn't enjoy it quite as much. But brandy and chocolate flavors traditionally pair well together. I'm a little puzzled by the Creme Yvette, but it's not unpleasant, just doesn't go so well with chocolate as it does with the fruity flavors in the Angel's Delight.

Angel's Delight

I'm not exactly one for shots, but this was delicious. Plus, it gave me the chance to do some layering, which isn't something I often do....because I'm not exactly one for shots...

Anyway...

Angel's Delight:

• 1/4 oz. Grenadine
• 1/4 oz. triple sec
• 1/4 oz. Creme Yvette
• 1/4 oz. cream

Pour carefully in order given into Pousse Cafe (shot) glass, so that each ingredient floats on the proceeding one.

Speaking of floating ingredients, let's see what Jamie Boudreau has to say on the subject.

In a word, delicious. Quick word of warning: I don't actually own any Creme Yvette, but it's long been said that you can sub Creme de Violette for Creme Yvette. Both are flowery liqueurs that are purple in color, though Creme Yvette has more of a vanilla and citrus taste to it. Still, quite delicious. The flowery taste is really something that is foreign to the American palate; we don't eat flowers, by and large. I'm not sure if it's more appropriate in other countries, or if it's a hold-over from a time gone by, but the orange, pomegranate and violet flavors all meld together interestingly in this drink. Also, it's really, really girly (read, sweet).

American Grog, take II

  

That's better.

American Grog:

• 1 lump (cube) of sugar
• juice of 1/4 of a lemon
• 1 1/2 oz. rum (The Kracken!)

(Put ingredients in a hot whiskey glass and) fill with hot water. Stir.

It might just be the lighting, but there's a very interesting color to this drink. Part of it is almost certainly the rum I used; in keeping with the pirate/sailor theme, I chose a hearty, nautical-themed rum: The Kracken. It's a black spiced rum that is delightful. Of course, spiced rum is very different from non-spiced rum, but when it comes to rum, there's such a vast difference from one to the next that picking the "right" rum for this drink is probably more art than science. If I wanted to be completely correct, Pusser's Navy Rum is probably the closest we could get, but I chose something overproof with a lot of flavor, because that's how pirates roll in my mind. Plus, there's a freaking kracken doing battle with a pirate ship on the bottle. Come on.

Again, an interesting drink. Not one I'd turn to, but then Grog was never meant to be the height of drinking culture. The rum is definitely more suited than whiskey to this kind of drink, and the dilution makes this very easy to get down. The heat was nice on a(nother) cold day. If you're a pirate, give it a try.

American Grog

Sorry about the vaguely fuzzy picture. I guess I was feeling...vaguely fuzzy...

American Grog:

• 1 lump (cube) of sugar
• juice of 1/4 lemon
• 1 1/2 oz rum

(Put ingredients in a hot whiskey glass, and) fill with hot water and stir.

Okay, so again going with the "vaguely fuzzy" feeling, for some reason I read "rum" and heard "whiskey". So pictured above is some sort of grog made with whiskey. I guess I was tired last night. Not 100% period-incorrect though, as both rum and whiskey (or, at least, the whiskey I used) are quintessentially American spirits. Oops. I'll try it again.

I'll just say this: it's not often that I get a hot drink. It was very...welcome? given the time of year and the blustery cold outside. Grog was originally invented to keep sailors from getting ridiculous in an era where sailors were issued half of a pint (umm, 8 oz.....) of rum a day because, apparently, umm, sailing just ain't the same when you're not tanked. Grog added a lot of water in an effort to get the sailors to drink the water that they so desperately needed, and to make sure that their daily rum-ration was spread out a bit. This drink isn't nearly so watered down as traditional grog would be (depending on the size of the glass, though that's something that needs a bit more research. A quick googling indicates that a whiskey glass is around 7 oz. full, so the one I used above is under-sized. Tonight, I'll rectify both those mistakes. Call it a do-over.

Ever have a dream you were so sure was real?

(Caveat: I just watched Carlos' talk on disturbing and disrupting the local church. It's long, but it's good, and let's just say it might be on target. That may have been one of the wells that my subconscious was drawing from here. Or maybe it was God trying to tell me something profound. Or maybe I'm pompous and presumptuous, and have a huge head. It's sometimes really hard to tell with this kind of thing...)

Just woke up from a dream. I was leading worship at the biggest Catholic youth conference I've ever been to, and which I'm sure I've talked about on here before, Steubenville (Mid-America, in this case). We had Mass, followed by Adoration, which for my non-Catholic people is a lot to get into, but it's basically a time of worship where, because of our beliefs about the Eucharist, we believe that Christ is physically present for us to look at, be with, touch (in some cases), and worship. The God of the Universe comes down, sits on the altar, and deigns to let us worship him.

Anyway, point of the story. Instead of leading from here:



I was leading from here:



and it made all the difference in the world. I was literally sitting in a stadium seat with my Adam Bitter hat on, my guitar strapped around me with a mic in front of me, my bass player to my left and a drummer somewhere behind. Presumably also in the stadium seats. A little impractical, maybe, but it was a dream. It was also the most incredible feeling: I could lead, but completely be myself because no one except for the people sitting around me had any idea who was leading. I was completely free to worship when I'd lead everyone to the point where the didn't need me anymore. We got to the Adoration portion of the evening, and I could worship just like I have been at every Steubenville I'd ever been to, sitting amongst the crowd, except that I was in charge of where the evening went. I don't remember everything I sang, but I ended with "How Great is Our God" and it brought tears to my eyes to hear all of these people surrounding me, worshiping along with me, with a song that I barely use anymore because "it's so old man! like from 2004!", but that was almost surely huge in my formative years when I was coming to know (Conocer) God after so many years of knowing about God (Saber) (when I, in actuality, had no idea what I was doing).

Then, in my usual way, to bring home the fact that this was, in fact, me doing all of this, Adoration ended, the host speaker took back over, and the youth minister I've worked with the most, the one who's been with me as I've been learning how to be a music minister, Jen, tapped me on the shoulder and told me that I did a good job, to which I replied, "Kind of. Could have been better. I don't know." Which is probably what I've said at the end of pretty much every Mass, Adoration, time of worship, whatever, that I've ever led. I'm really bad at taking compliments. But then one of my teens, who I was also sitting next to, said "I liked the way that you put your guitar down and prayed."

Interesting.

American Beauty Cocktail

...I'm just way behind on my drinking. No matter, time to hit it, and hit it hard. One drink here, one drink there, and I'll be out of the "A"s.

American Beauty Cocktail:

• 1/2 oz. Orange juice
• 1/2 oz. French (dry) Vermouth
• 1/2 oz. brandy
• 1/2 oz. Grenadine
• 1/4 tsp. Creme de Menthe

Shake well and strain into 3 oz. Cocktail glass. Float port.

There's, to use the parlance of our times, a pant-load going on in this cocktail. Two different wines (very prominent on the nose), brandy (which is distilled from wine), then some orangey-grenadine notes, with just a hint of mint at the finish. Quite sweet, but not unpleasantly so. Everything plays well together, with the mint definitely featuring itself quite prominently, which just goes to show you how potent creme de menthe is. 1/4 tsp. is barely more than a dash, and especially in 3 oz. of other stuff, you'd expect a milder ingredient to get lost.

This also gave me a chance to try out my new grenadine. I made it using a pretty simple process, one I would think would be a "standard" of sorts; basically, I boiled the seeds from a pomegranate for about half an hour, strained them out, took the left over stuff and added twice as much sugar (I think there was about two cups of liquid, so I added four cups of sugar, also at a bit of a boil to get things to dissolve) and bottled it. In all honestly, I should have put in a bit of neutral alcohol (vodka), but the simple act of boiling everything, as well as that proportion of sugar or greater, act as a good enough preservative to keep things shelf-stable. I've got a Rose's bottle filled with stuff out, then another huge bottle in the fridge to refill from.

I'd done the same thing before, but I think this one turned out a bit better; the pomegranate I found was huge, so there's a lot of flavor going on. I didn't even need to add any food coloring to this one, which I did to my previous batch, because there was just a great color right out of the pot.

Anyway, back to the cocktail. It's good. I'm not sure it will make the rotation, but there's a lot of very interesting stuff going on here, and it stays interesting the entire drink through. It's surprising how well everything plays together, given the completely even proportions (which I find rarely works) and the plethora of ingredients, but yeah. Good drink.

New Gear: JHS Little Black Buffer

It's been quite a while, but if you are at all like me, you know that the Christmas season makes things busier, rather than more relaxing. Something about working for the Church seems to transform me into Bizarro-Superman, where I only work weekends and holidays mean I'm at work (church) for five Masses in 48 hours. Such is life.

Between Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, my normal Sunday that followed, and a week-long trip to Chicago for New Years (well deserved and well received), I've been much too busy to string two words together on the internet, but I assure you that the time spent in real life (hereafter referred to as RL) was well worth it. Time to refuel and relax, and spend time with the people I love. That is, after all, what the holidays are all about!

First, a bit of bad news. Yesterday, Sunday, directly following my noon Mass, I slipped on my awesome gold String Dog Cable. I love this cable. It sounds boss, and I've yet to hear guitar tone as nice as simply going guitar -> String Dog Cable -> amp, mostly because I think that the tone faeries that they've somehow managed to enslave and bind within the insulation of said cable are at their happiest when there are none of those tricksy pedals getting in their way. But beware if you get this cable, on a tile or otherwise smooth, hard surface, it is very slippery. Low coefficient of friction. I've almost bit it a couple of times in the past, but this Sunday I couldn't catch myself, and I landed on my guitar. Kind of.

Luckily for me, I was using my now-relegated-to-backup-status Breedlove. Lucky because the Breedlove is built really solidly, whereas my Taylor probably would have had some serious damage. There appears to be almost minimal damage to the guitar itself (though appearances can definitely be deceiving), but the electronics aren't quite unscathed. The guitar has developed an interesting grounding issue, to the point where I get a very off-putting hum that randomly flares up during moments of quiet contemplation, and which render the onboard tuner sometimes useless. When plugged in. Unplugged, it's just fine. But in my position, mostly useless. So my options, as I see them, are to either get it fixed, which probably won't be too bad, or use it as an excuse to catapult myself towards an premium guitar. I love excuses. To be continued...

I did get a bit of an early Christmas present to myself, in enough time to wire up my electric board and play for two Christmas Masses. Normally it makes me really nervous to go out and play some untested gear for the first time, but let's just say that I was completely in love with my tone. I give you, the JHS Little Black Buffer.


Since my latest incarnation of my electric board, where I have my old-school, tone-sucking Volume Pedal first in my guitar chain, I'd noticed, well, a lot of tone-sucking. Particularly when I'd engage a loop that had a pedal with a buffer in it (mostly my delays) and I'd get an extremely noticeable increase in highs simply because of the presence of a buffer, any buffer. The true-bypass strip was doing it's job, but it was doing it a bit too well. The problem being, I thought that all of my buffered pedals buffers sucked too much to move to an always-on position.

So I did what I always do when faced with a gear-related decision: I checked what some trusted sources had done to combat the problem, then copied them completely. For this one in particular, I noticed that James Duke had recently gotten a buffer from JHS and loved it. Some quick perusing of some sound clips of theirs and I was hooked. I also want a lot of their drives, but that's neither here nor there. $95 later, (free shipping, no less) and my order was on it's way to the factory.

(I should note a dissenting (kind of) opinion. Karl likes the Fryette Valvulator buffer, which has an honest-to-goodness tube in it, and can also serve as a regulated power supply for a few effects, which is really handy. As it is also like $240 + shipping, and the sound-clips on JHS' website were sufficiently impressive, I saved a little money. Still, tubes.)

Got it on the Monday before Christmas, and installed it thusly:


It's all secret, strapped to the bottom of the board. It's almost like it's not even there, just hanging out, making my tone insanely better without garnering any attention of it's own, just like a buffer should. The chain is guitar -> Pedalboard bypass -> buffer -> everything else, so that the first thing the guitar sees is, effectively, about an extra foot of cable and jacks, then the buffer.

Let me just say, wow. I've taken to plugging straight in lately because I really like tone, and this buffer gives it all back. Only I still get to play with my pedals and I get complete control over my volume/distortion level with my volume pedal. All the life, all the snap, all the feel, all the vibe, all the everything is there. Buffers are cool. Get one.

And it makes me laugh that every guitarist I talk to who has put a buffer on to his board says the same thing, that they can't believe what a difference a buffer makes. And yet most guitarists don't have one. Particularly for me (my style is very much rhythmic, as opposed to lead, which makes sense since I grew up leading worship from an acoustic and am not a "good" guitar player by any stretch), where clean tone is really important, having an actual clean tone that is, well, clean, is huge. Get one.

Christmastime means Eggnog time.

So I'll be taking a brief break from the Old Mr. Boston to bring you an holiday favorite: Eggnog. If you are anything like my lovely girlfriend, you're probably recoiling in fear at the very mention. I can only imagine the horrors to which you have been subjected; stuff from a carton, warmed on a radiator, curdled whatever...I'm here to tell you, real Eggnog, like any real cocktail, is delicious and delightful. And very much Christmas to me.

I think this drink has been subjected to the same indignities of a lot of classic cocktails. Like the Daiquiri, the Margarita, the Martini, the Mai Tai, when something is delicious and perfect, it will be popular, which means that enterprising bars or, umm, milk companies, will take it upon themselves to profit. The easiest way to profit? Shortcuts.

Lime juice? Simple Syrup? Smash those two together and make Margarita mix. But instead of lime juice, let's use lime flavoring and acerbic acid, because limes (and, by extension, lime juice) are expensive and go bad. Oh, and cram some preservatives in there to make sure it will keep for six months on the shelf. It's not sweet enough. Americans like sweet things. More sugar. Just add some Tequila, and presto, the finest drink ever created! Thanks a lot, Mr. Cuervo.

I think Eggnog has suffered the same fate. You want to put this drink into a carton, pasteurize it so it will keep for a month, and then sell it everywhere. Only one problem, and it's the one that the food industry seems to never realize: fresh tastes better. Preservatives taste bad, and aren't particularly good for you, either. But as a result, because it's there and it's easy, most Americans haven't ever had good Eggnog. Just the stuff that comes in the carton. Just add your favorite liquor!

I'll admit that, coming into the Eggnog experience about two years ago, I was an Eggnog virgin. I'd never tasted any of it, anywhere, and had no psychological links between Eggnog and Christmas. Then I tried this recipe, from the great Jeffrey Morgenthaler, and I really, really enjoyed the drink. Not as some festive, nostalgic thing that comes around this time of year, but as a really genuinely delicious, balanced drink. Truly, delicious. If you have preconceptions about Eggnog, you're probably not going to like it no matter what I say, but I'd urge you to give it a try, fresh, to see if it can be salvaged. But as with anything that's survived for this long, there are a lot of variations. A quick page through Old Mr. Boston gives about 8 recipes for different Eggnogs. The one I'll be using until I find something more delicious is below, and it's easy enough to make using only a household blender, or a shaker and a lot of time and strength. Whichever you'd prefer.

Morgenthaler's Eggnog:

• 2 large eggs
• 3 oz. granulated sugar
• 1/2 tsp. fresh grated nutmeg
• 4 oz. heavy whipping cream
• 6 oz. whole milk
• 2 oz. brandy
• 2 oz. spiced rum

Blend the eggs on medium for one minute. Continue to blend for another minute, adding the sugar. Add the rest of the ingredients and blend until combined. Refrigerate until chilled to allow the flavors to gel. Serve in a chilled wine glass and garnish with more grated nutmeg.

The recipe above yields a lot. I triple it, and it fills a 2-quart container. Mr. Morgenthaler suggests that this will give you two healthy servings. I'd say, emphasis on "healthy." It's good though. I'm pretty sure that if you keep it refrigerated, it should last for quite a while, given the alcohol and, well, the pasteurized nature of most of the ingredients. At least a week. So make up a pitcher and enjoy by the fire as the snow begins to fall, and repeat as necessary!

Allen Cocktail

Allen Cocktail:

• 1/4 oz. Lemon juice
• 3/4 oz. Maraschino liqueur
• 1 1/2 oz. gin

Shake and strain into 3 oz. Cocktail glass

In a word, terrific.

This is really similar to another classic cocktail, the Aviation. Similar ingredients, but in different proportions. Here, the Maraschino liqueur (Luxardo is my brand) really forms a huge component of the drink, bring a sweetness and an interesting, partly cherry, partly floral component to the drink. The slight bit of lemon juice cuts through the sweetness and adds just that little bit of tart. The overall impression, at least to my palate (and it's weird, so maybe my palate is a bit weird) is of grapefruit. Don't ask me why. If you were to garnish it with a genuine Maraschino cherry, I probably wouldn't argue.

This probably will also make the cut as an overall "winner". I'd definitely recommend this one, particularly if you like the Maraschino liqueur, which admittedly does take a bit of getting used to. But I'm a fan.

Alexander's Sister Cocktail

Gin? With Cream? Again? Well, at least I've got no end of pictures of cocktails that look all white and smooth in a cocktail glass...

Alexander's Sister Cocktail:

• 1 oz. Gin
• 1 oz. Creme de Menthe
• 1 oz. Cream

Shake and strain into 4 oz. Cocktail glass.

The Creme de Menthe is a bit of a curveball, admittedly. I actually had a good feeling about mixing something juniper-y (like the gin) and something minty. Maybe that's because I've got previous good experience with cocktails that combine gin and mint, though admittedly, (and seemingly the same as with the Creme de Cacao) I much prefer a fresh sprig of mint to something from a bottle. Again, this is a Marie Brizard product that I'm using (White Mint Liqueur, in this case), and again I'm less than impressed, moreso because of how unrelenting the flavor is than the overall product, which is nice and sweet and smooth. Which will be good in a drink that uses very small proportions or just a dash to add something interesting in the background, but when the liqueur is a base spirit, it's just a bit overwhelming.

I think this brings up an important point: every product is different, so the great bartender is the one who knows everything behind the bar and can make adjustments on the fly to still produce a fantastic cocktail. Now, the very best bartender also knows his or her clients, knows their tastes, knows what they are expecting when they order a particular drink, and is also willing to make adjustments based around that. For instance, in my limited experience with gin as realized in the Martini, I can usually find a variation or version of the cocktail that works well with any given brand of gin, which is really handy when you're out at the bar and want something good. It's also damn infuriating (probably for the bartender, too) to ask for a Martini and feel this compulsion within yourself to be super exact on the details: what ratio, what bitters (if any), what garnish, up or on the rocks. (Trick question: the answer to that last one is always "up". Savages.) But it's equally infuriating to ask for a Martini and receive a cold, frothy glass of vodka and ice. Maybe ignorance really is bliss...

For some brands of spirits, this time-tested ratio will unleash the absolute perfect drink; for others, the result can be just okay. Bartending is certainly more involved than just putting a few things into a glass and shaking it around until something cold comes out. Art. And science. And I'm a nerd.