Former Vanderbilt Chancellor is one of two Ohio university presidents to sign on to the Amethyst Initiative, a movement among administrators to lower the drinking age from its current ridiculous high of 21. Gee’s actually predictably soft on the issue, but it’s good to his name on there just the same.
The complete list if signatories is here. New Vandy Chancellor Zeppos doesn’t appear. Get on it, Nick!
[Via Agitator co-blogger Ryan Grim.]
Brian Wesbury on inflationary dangers
Jerry Taylor and John White debate energy policy
Dick Heller gets his gun permit
Aussie mayor in trouble for inviting “ugly duckling” women to mining town
Jason Kuznicki finds a cool retro pipe
Dog cloning case gets even weirder
From The Agitator:
December 5 of this year will mark the 75th anniversary of the 21st Amendment’s ratification and the end of national Prohibition. To celebrate, Old Forester is crafting a limited edition Repeal Bourbon for release this winter:
“Repeal Bourbon is bottled from a special selection of Old Forester barrels that exhibited a more robust character that is similar to the Old Forester that was bottled during Prohibition,” added Chris Morris, Master Distiller for Old Forester. “The flavor, presented at Prohibition’s required 100 proof, is a full, deep, charred oak character that will appeal to bourbon-lovers everywhere.”
Bureaucrash celebrated last year with a party in Arlington, across the river from DC in protest of the city’s smoking ban. Inside the city things got a little rough…
[Via Jeff Morgenthaler.]
Fed struggling with credibility
“I love ticks. They are highly evolved and utterly fascinating arachnids.”
British government urges butt clenches at bus stops
While Americans just buy butt pads
Starbucks not good enough for Aussies
Chinese Democracy nearing release? There could be a Dr Pepper in your future
I wasn’t completely honest when I said that I had to leave my entire home bar behind in Virginia. I actually did tuck one bottle of liquor into my car, a sample of Sobieski Vodka that arrived just as I was packing up to leave. Now that I’m relaxing in Michigan I’ve finally had a chance to crack it open.
“Spicy aromas of star anise, cream, minerals and powdered sugar follow through to a round, silky entry and a smooth off-dry medium-to-full body with a long, lingering whipped cream, spice, rye dough, and sweet citrus fade with virtually no heat,” writes the Beverage Tasting Institute. Um, ok. I’m not getting all that. But I am getting a very smooth, very drinkable vodka that’s good both neat and on the rocks. It’s distilled in Poland from Mazowse rye, and that lends a pleasant but not overpowering spice to the glass.
I’d heard a few comments that this vodka was very good for the price, but I still had a bit of sticker shock when I opened up the included materials and saw what it sells for. Not because it’s high, but because it’s surprisingly low: just $11.99 for a 750 ml bottle. Sobieski’s running a clever sort of anti-marketing marketing campaign, mocking the over-priced brands that emphasize everything except quality. They’ve come through with a vodka that tastes good without breaking the bank. Given the price, I could definitely see using this a lot in my next home bar.
These are almost morning links in the way that Upper Peninsula island internet access is almost reliable. I’m catching up after 18 hours of downtime.
Spirits writer Paul Clarke tells you what you need to know about vermouth
Latte art makes the WSJ front page
Michael Siegel debunks Los Angeles’ proposed outdoor smoking ban
NYC may ban texting while driving
Banning beer pong. And why not water pong, while we’re at it?
Seattle police say that patrolling world’s largest pro-pot rally not stressful. Well, duh.
Virginia Postrel and Kate Coe launch Deep Glamour blog
Guest Agitator posts:
OK, this isn’t really why I love Michigan, but how could I not stop at this place? They make all their own jerky, available in barrels throughout the store. Walk around and the owners are will snip off samples while you browse. They do beef, pork, turkey, and wild game like alligator, elk, and antelope (which was pretty good). Shelves of hot sauces line the wall. If you’re passing through Dundee, MI, it’s right off the highway. They also sell online.
Officer charged in taser death
Hoosier prairie voles’ swinging sex lives
Trick vegetarians with meat spaghetti
Square Mile Coffee roasters now selling online
Italy may legalize homemade grappa
Three-tier distribution leads to anti-consumer consolidation
I’ve been invited to guest write for a couple of weeks on Radley Balko’s excellent site, The Agitator, while he’s on vacation in Alaska. Radley’s a good friend and writes one of the best blogs around, so of course I accepted. I’ll post here too, but most of my updates will probably be over there. My intro post is here and I posted an entry about tobacco control just a few minutes ago. And if you don’t like me, head over anyway for the rest of the talented guest blogging crew.
Balko and Koppl on fixing our forensics
Unabomber objects to cabin exhibit
Airlines may allow cell phones, Congress feels need to get involved
The death of planned obsolescence
It’s still far from the level of the infamous GMail application, but I’m amused that my year-old post on camel crickets has become a support forum for the women they terrorize.
Persuaded by this Slate article calling it the “Lazy Man’s Guide to Web 2.0,” I’ve imported my blog, Twitter, and Flickr RSS feeds into FriendFinder. So if you’d rather get them all in one place, here you go.
The food you’re missing in Beijing
McArdle’s ridiculous run-in with Penn DOT
Dog walking a sin in Saudi Arabia
The NYT visits a Michigan county fair
Controversy as miracle fruit sellers can’t keep up with demand
One of the casualties of my move west was my fairly extensive home bar. There’s only so much that can fit into my car and all those bottles, alas, didn’t make the cut. They’re all either given to friends who helped me move or put into storage. So if you can find my storage locker in Virginia and break the lock, you can have a hell of a party on me.
Because of this I was a little worried about the upcoming Mixology Monday. I have almost nothing on me and the only nearby liquor store in my present location of Upper Peninsula Michigan doesn’t offer much besides bad gin, Canadian whiskey, and a tiny selection of other basic spirits. Luckily, this month’s MxMo happens to be perfectly tailored to my situation. Kevin at Save the Drinkers chose the theme of “local flavor” to guide our mixing:
Option 1: Gather ingredients that are representative of the culture/geography/tackiness of your respective cities and make a drink with a truly place-based style. For example, huckleberries are native to the geographical area where I live, as are elderflowers, potatoes, and extremely conservative, closet-case politicians. (I’m just saying!)
Option 2: Dig up an old drink that came from your city and revive it! If you can find the original bar, that would be even more interesting.
I don’t know of any cocktails created in Cederville or Hessel, so option 1 it is. The first step was to find the starting spirit, and this is one case in which the local liquor store came through for me: True North vodka from the new Grand Traverse Distillery. It’s not quite Upper Peninsula, but Traverse City is close enough, and with each batch pot distilled from locally-grown rye I couldn’t say no. While I’m not a vodka enthusiast, this one retains enough of its character that I’d happily drink it straight on the rocks. A good find.
This being cherry country, True North also makes a vodka flavored with “cherry essence and a hint of chocolate,” so I picked up a bottle of that too. It tastes a bit too medicinal for me on its own, but the flavors are well-balanced.
So now we’re up to two Northern Michigan ingredients, but I wanted to make this even more local. The next step was to wander around our cottage plucking leaves off of trees, taking in their aromas, and figuring out what would go best in a cocktail. Spruce narrowly beat out balsam for the strongest and most enticing scent, so I cut off a few of sprigs and brought them inside for an infusion. I trimmed the needles into a bowl, poured in a sample amount of vodka, and let it sit over night.
The result? Very strong, true spruce flavor and aroma. Enough so that I repeated the process and sacrificed half the bottle of True North to another batch and after several experiments landed on the following Yoopertini. (As much as I hate the trend of tacking “-tini” onto whatever foul concoction pops into a bartender’s head, since this drink is actually derived from a classic martini I’m making an exception.) Here’s how it goes:
1.5 oz True North spruce-infused vodka
3/4 oz True North cherry vodka
3/4 oz dry vermouth
2 dashes orange bitters
Stir over ice and strain into a martini glass. No, the Cedarville liquor store doesn’t carry orange bitters. Those were one of the few things I packed. Vermouth and orange bitters aren’t locally made, but with the vodkas and the spruce we have three purely local ingredients. It’s not, perhaps, the best drink I could make with spruce vodka and a full bar to work with, but it’s still pretty good and it aptly captures the taste of Northern Michigan in the summer.
Added bonus: After drinking several variations on this, I realized it would probably be a good idea to make sure that there’s nothing toxic about spruce trees. Turns out that the shoots of many spruces are a source of vitamin C and that Captain Cook used spruce beer to protect his crew against scurvy. So between this drink and homemade tonic water, I’m warding off all kinds of diseases that I have virtually no chance of catching anyway. To health!
The rising libertarian threat!
A pledge should mean something
France considering fatty food tax
America’s Big 3 brewers now surprisingly crafty
Should DC restaurants post letter grades?
In a rare win for good sense, the TTB has reversed its earlier decision and is now allowing Mt. Shasta Brewing Co., based in Weed, CA, to use its slogan “Try Legal Weed” on its bottle caps. Regulators decided that, given the rest of the packaging, consumers would not be misled by the motto.
[Via Slashfood.]
Richard Posner makes an interesting point about a court’s refusal to honor Leona Helmsley’s bequest of a full $12 million* to her dog, Trouble:
As I said, a bequest for a specified animal that greatly exceeds any conceivable estimate of what the animal needs to be as happy as it can be cannot be rationally altruistic, so perhaps the authority that the Uniform Trust Act confers on trustees to cut back such bequests to reasonable limits is justifiable–and for the additional reason that excessive wealth actually endangers an animal, since once it dies the money will go to residuary legatees; and killing an animal is not considered murder (though it can be a lesser crime) and is easier to arrange and conceal than killing a human being. Expensive security precautions have in fact been taken for the protection of Mrs. Helmsley’s dog. These concerns do not attend a bequest for a large class of animals.
On that note, here’s a few photos for Sunday dog blogging, an event I rarely get to participate in. The first two were taken by my sister, Casey, of our tennis ball-loving dog, Peekay, both of whom left Michigan just before I got here:
The approach…
… and the leap!
And here’s Chance the golden retriever entreating for less blogging, more playtime.
* $12 million. Not $12. Thanks, Ben!
Brian Wesbury on inflationary dangers
Jerry Taylor and John White debate energy policy
Dick Heller gets his gun permit
Aussie mayor in trouble for inviting "ugly duckling" women to mining town
Jason Kuznicki finds a cool retro pipe
Dog cloning case gets even weirder
From The Agitator:
Fed struggling with credibility
“I love ticks. They are highly evolved and utterly fascinating arachnids.”
British government urges butt clenches at bus stops
While Americans just buy butt pads
Starbucks not good enough for Aussies
Chinese Democracy nearing release? There could be a Dr Pepper in your future
These are almost morning links in the way that Upper Peninsula island internet access is almost reliable. I’m catching up after 18 hours of downtime.
Spirits writer Paul Clarke tells you what you need to know about vermouth
Latte art makes the WSJ front page
Michael Siegel debunks Los Angeles’ proposed outdoor smoking ban
NYC may ban texting while driving
Banning beer pong. And why not water pong, while we’re at it?
Seattle police say that patrolling world’s largest pro-pot rally not stressful. Well, duh.
Virginia Postrel and Kate Coe launch Deep Glamour blog
Guest Agitator posts:
Officer charged in taser death
Hoosier prairie voles' swinging sex lives
Trick vegetarians with meat spaghetti
Square Mile Coffee roasters now selling online
Italy may legalize homemade grappa
Three-tier distribution leads to anti-consumer consolidation
