Random Notes from a Crank

The anti-vaccine stupidity will be infectious. Literally.  

And it's appropriate that Florida is leading in stupidity by ending vaccine mandates: "Florida Says It Plans to End All Vaccine Mandates." 

This political cartoon by Clay Jones sums up what's happening at the CDC. 

I'm with Lucy. 

I bought some plums from my local Aldi. 

I know Dr. Pepper does not contain plum juice, but its plum-like flavor has made it the second most popular pop in the U.S. 

It's surprising that plums aren't that popular. They're tasty,

As a bourbon drinker, I'm intrigued by the offerings by Holladay. I remember when I used to live near that area in Missouri, and I traveled to Weston back when it was the McCormick distillery.  

But I have a hard time buying a bourbon over forty bucks. It's just booze, man. 

My hope is that there are fewer bourbon enthusiasts in the future and supply leaps ahead of demand. 

Musing of the Moment: Bourbon in the Movies

I was watching Bull Durham before a March Madness game began today, and I noticed that in the pool room scene Crash Davis is drinking Jim Beam standard offering. That's not a good choice in my opinion, but the scene got me thinking. 

What other films feature bourbon drinking? 

I know the "Fast Eddy" Felson character (played by Paul Newman) drinks one of my favorite bargain borbons, J.T.S. Brown in The Hustler. 

And I vaguely remember John Wick drinking Blanton's. 

Other than those I couldn't think of others except maybe the Al Pacino character in Heat drinking Jack Daniel's Old No. 7. 

Uproxx has done the work for me though with this article: "The Most Iconic Bourbons Drinkers in Film History." 

Cheers to Four Roses, Wild Turkey, and Old Forester. 

Random Notes from a Crank

President Adolf and his goons and charlatans are planning even more tariffs to happen on April 2 according to The Washington Post: "Trump Aides Prep More Tariffs for April 2 on Imports Worth Billions."

He's wanting to do something similar to the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, which helped deepen the Great Depression. History often rhymes. 

Here's a political cartoon from Nick Anderson that shows what's going to happen. 

As expected, Putin is playing Moscow Don like a fiddle: "Trump-Putin Call Seen as a Victory in Russia." 

The only positive I can see from a trade war is that the Liquor Control Board of Ontario, among other such entities in Canada, have pulled US products from their shelves. I wonder if these moves could reduce the price of bourbon here in the US. 

The prices of bourbon are ridiculous. I used to be able to get all kinds of different bourbons at decent prices, but the flippin' hipsters have latched on to the liquor, which has driven up prices across the board. There are some YouTube bourbon guys who consider "budget" bourbons to be a bottle under $50. 

WTF?

There are some bourbons I used to be able to get on a regular basis, such Very Old Barton 100, Early Times Bonded, and Eagle Rare, that I can't find anymore. 

So if there's an excess of bourbon (supply), perhaps the demand will start getting met more effectively. Hopefully by me. 

Regardless, the hipsters need to become more interested in a different spirit, such as rum or gin. 

At the nudging of Mrs. Nasty, I've joined Tik Tok. I'm using my same pseudonym. 

Stay Positive: Wild Turkey 101

I like bourbon. And I watch a couple of YouTubers who drink bourbon to see what's good and what's not, often in blind tastings. 

The one guy I watch regularly goes on bourbon hunts and buys more expensive  bourbon than I would buy unless I somehow start harvesting money off my imaginary money tree in my back yard. 

If I had to pick a bourbon that is the best, price per ounce, and really a low-cost bourbon (I'm talking under $30 MSRP), it would be Wild Turkey 101. 

Of course, Wild Turkey hits my flavor profile. It's strong, is spicy, and has strong oak char on the finish. 

It's an old-school bourbon. 

And Wild Turkey, if you willing to sponsor my blog, I'll take payment in booze. 

Random Notes from a Crank

If Twitter declines dramatically in use and influence because of Musk's negative influence, I wonder which online platform/s will fill the vacuum for quickly sharing information in a non-cesspool like setting? 

Well, Twitter has been a cesspool for quite a while, but at least they seemed to be taking steps to quash lies and misinformation during the previous organizational regime. 

Based on some cursory research done via the InterWebs, some of options look like Mastodon and Counter Social. 

I joined Mastodon to check it out. If you are on the platform, my handle is Quintilianw@masto.nu.

My daughter, who is home from college, asked me the other day if I went to Woodstock. My immediate answer was, "How old do you think I am?" 

I was confused obviously because she was asking about the one in 1999 because she watched the documentary Trainwreck: Woodstock '99. Mrs. Nasty and I got married during the summer of 1999, and that was the summer before my second year in my Ph.D. program. No concert-going was happening. 

I was at my local CVS, and they had a manner of bourbon called Jethro T. Boots for sale for $7.99. Hell, at that price, a fifth of that bourbon is cheaper than a six pack of craft beer. 

Random Notes from a Crank

I was in the liquor aisle the other day, and on a whim I decided to buy some single malt Scotch, in particular Glenlivet. 

That was a mistake. It's not that's it's bad, but I just prefer bourbon. I should have spent that kind of money on Eagle Rare, Evan Williams Single Barrel, Four Roses Single Barrel, or some other kind of high-dollar, excellent bourbon like 1792. 

With the cursory research I've done on single malt Scotches, if I'm going to shell out some money for that kind of juice, from the description of them, I should invest my booze dollars on Scotches from the Isle of Isley, specifically Lagavulin and Laphroaig. I like whiskey with a lot of character ~ lots of oak or lots of peat. Isley whiskies sound like the type of Scotch that I might prefer. That and Johnnie Walker Black. The smokier the better. 

Which gets me to the idea that I should get a smoker. But now I'm on to food. 

A few days ago I patched together a soup/stew from some ingredients I need to use before they got too far along. I had a half head of cabbage and some cauliflower, so I cut up the cabbage and cauliflower, dumped in some chicken and beef stock, and added a pound of smoked kielbasa. Add in freshly cracked black pepper, granulated garlic, and some bouquet garni, and it's a decent dinner for this here crank. 

Moscow Don's impeachment is an exercise for the GOP putting party over country. What a murder of clowns. 

Random Notes from a Crank

I have a hypothesis that coffee tastes better out of certain mugs than others. For example, I have a small coffee mug with a dish underneath that I've been using lately, and the coffee seems to taste better than other larger mugs. I wonder if there's any scientific evidence to back up my hypothesis? 

When you think about it, certain brewers recommend certain types of glassware for their beers. Sam Adams Boston Lager and Stella Artois come to mind with their specially made glasses. 

Then, of course, there's the Glencairn glass that serious whiskey drinkers use. 

But getting back to coffee, I need to get back to grinding my own each morning. It just tastes better. 

Random Notes from a Crank

Any American citizen needs to pick up the June issue of Harper's because one of the articles is a forum done at West Point. The title in the magazine is "Combat High: America's Addiction to War." The panel was made up of former soldiers, most of whom saw combat in Afghanistan and/or Iraq. 

Here are some snippets that should get your attention: 

• Dempsey: "Americans are beset by an attitude of respectful indifference."
• Kreps: "The United States has its tentacles everywhere."
• Dempsey: "It is utterly absurd. It ties in with the idea that the military can do no wrong."
• Dempsey: "Sadly, being played for suckers in other people's wars might just be the purest expression of American exceptionalism." 
• Bacevich: "To acknowledge that is to commit what, in the context of our civil religion, is a mortal sin."
• Daddis: "We have moved from having respect for the military to being unable to criticize it." 
• Daddis: "It's not a job ~ it's a drug. We've addicted our soldiers to war, and to the cycle of war. The costs of being addicted ~ damaging soldiers' psyches, tearing families apart, creating an unhealthy relationship between soldiers and the adrenaline rush of combat ~ are hidden until later." 
• Dempsey: "He's [Moscow Don] almost irrelevant to the argument. He was probably faced with, 'Do you want to be seen as a loser, or do you want to just keep bombing for a couple of years? And keep bragging about how great you are?" 

In addition, the issue has an essay that Seymour Hersh adapted from his memoir. It's about his dogged pursuit of his first and subsequent articles about the My Lai massacre, for which he won the Pulitzer Prize. It's titled "Looking for Calley: How a Young Journalist Untangled the Riddle of My Lai." 

On a dumb lark the other day, I bought a tiny bottle of Old Camp Peach Pecan whiskey at my local liquor store. I poured it into a highball glass, took a drink, and hated it immediately. I dumped it out in the sink. 

Why do all these bourbon companies have to corrupt perfectly good whiskey with flavorings? Honey, blackberry, cinnamon, and whatnot are adulterating perfectly fine bourbon. What a shame. The fact of the matter is though that probably most of concoctions use some bourbon and then use grain neutral spirits to make it cheaper and thus not true bourbon. Atrocious.  

Random Notes from a Crank

Because I "like" Vice News on Facebook, the article "What Happens to Your Brain When You Stop Believing in God" came across my feed this morning for whatever reason. It's an interesting article that incorporates personal experience with neurological research. Here are some snippets that seem noteworthy: 

• Over time, religious ideas become rewarding in and of themselves. This is a powerful, unconscious motivation to keep believing.
• "Religion works exactly like a drug—like cocaine, or methamphetamine—or like music, or like romantic love," says Jeffrey Anderson, a radiology professor at the University of Utah who studies religion in the brain. "
• New beliefs join the same neurological framework as old ones. It's even possible that an existing belief network paves the way for additional beliefs. 
• This scientific descent from religion is common. Pew's 2016 survey on why now-unaffiliated Americans lost faith yielded explanations such as, "Rational thought makes religion go out the window," "Lack of any sort of scientific or specific evidence of a creator," and "I'm a scientist now, and I don't believe in miracles."
• Eventually, non-religious people who once had religious epiphanies get those same feelings from being in nature, or from seeing profound scientific ideas expressed, Anderson says. "The context changes but the experience doesn't." Most non-religious people are "passionately committed to some ideology or other," explains Patrick McNamara, a neurology professor at Boston University School of Medicine. These passions function neurologically as "faux religions."

I stopped by my local CVS the other and discovered a fifth of Jack Daniel's Rye Whiskey on the shelf. I had read years ago that Jack Daniel's was intent on producing a rye whiskey, but I didn't know it had come out yet. 

I have an on-again off-again relationship with rye whiskey. I like that a great deal of the whiskey made during the early days of the Republic was strongly rye. I also enjoy rye whiskey when it's spicy. At one time Wild Turkey provided an outstanding rye whiskey at 101 proof, but nowadays they reduced the proof probably because of the penny-pinchers. Jim Beam rye is not good at all. Old Overholt is terrible. Templeton Rye is a marketing scam of the highest proportions. Bulleit Rye is way overpriced. Whistlepig is out of my price range. Sazerac is respectable. And Rittenhouse is a solid, consistent offering. So it is with some trepidation that I bought a bottle of Jack Daniel's rye because there are so few rye whiskeys I'm willing to pay for. 

I can't say I'm spurred to give it a ton of praise, but it's a solid offering with a 70% rye mash bill. My complaint is that it's only 80 proof. I like my bourbons at a high proof for more flavor, but I will say JD Rye is a tasty offering from the massive conglomerate Brown-Forman. It's the best thing to come out of Tennessee since Bessie Smith. 

Random Notes from a Crank

CVS enjoys giving me coupons, but what's the point if I can't use them on booze and milk? 

Speaking of booze, I watched the initial episodes of Brockmire, and that character really enjoys his Sazerac Rye. 

Can't say that I blame him. 

Great show so far by the way. 

I finally got around to reading Alan Moore and David Lloyd's V for Vendetta, a dystopian graphic novel about Britain under fascist rule. Page 2 of the first issue features radio news/propaganda playing, and one panel says this: "Mr. Karel went on to say that it is the duty of every man in this country to seize the initiative and make Britain great again." 

Let that sink in. 

If I were at this dude's college, I'd take his class for sure: "Professor Caveman." 

Another interesting article from The Atlantic is "Welcome to Pleistocene Park." Scientists in Siberia are combating climate change by bringing back grasslands. The really sexy part of the whole project is that they want to genetically resurrect wooly mammoths. 

Random Notes from a Crank

As many of you might know or have gathered if you've read this blog for a while, I tend to have pessimistic attitudes about politics, the "democratic" process, voters, the 24-hour cable news networks, FoxNews, and the intelligence of the average American. "The Dumbed Down Democracy" by Timothy Egan represents my feelings to a degree. 

Too often people think being a teacher is easy. Wrong. Read "7 Thing I Wish People Understood about Being a Teacher" for a reality check. 

The short interview with Garry Trudeau could be worth your time: "Doonesbury Cartooonist Garry Trudeau: 'If Trump wins, I'll miss civilization as we know it.'"

Check out this article from Slate from 2012: "Chaos Theory: A Unified Theory of Muppets." I'm an Order Muppet. And I think Oscar, my favorite Sesame Street character, is one too. 

In the "Ask Umbra" feature of Grist, a reader asks about the eco-responsbility of certain kinds of liquor: "What Kind of Liquor Is Best for the Environment?" I had no idea Four Roses used non-GMO grains, and my favorite, bourbon, looks like an eco-winner relatively speaking. 

Random Notes from a Crank

As someone who works at a university, I'm often astounded and frustrated how some people with PhDs and impressive credentials can be really @#$%ing stupid.

I would like to watch a sporting event on television without having to listen to commercials about boner medicine. Please stop the incessant marketing of pecker pills. 

I need to start a campaign. 

Because I've become a fan of the TV series Manhattan, which is about the making of the atomic bomb, I recently purchased and have started reading the 25th anniversary edition of The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes. When I got it in the mail I was a bit surprised. I didn't realize it was 747 pages long. I'll be reading about this history for a good while. 

Another TV series I've been watching is Jessica Jones on Netflix. I was not familiar with that character until I started doing some online sleuthing. I remember her being teamed up with Luke Cage toward the end of Matt Fraction's Iron Fist series, but she's quite the character. I've had experience with the villain of the series, Killgrave, in a Daredevil comic recently. So it seems like the TV series is piecing together parts of old story lines to create a clean narrative. Though a major discrepancy is that Killgrave, aka The Purple Man, looks normal in the Jessica Jones series. 

Regardless, I've enjoyed the series so far (I'm about six or seven episodes in). In fact, I think I like it better than the Daredevil Netflix series because I have little prior knowledge about Jessica Jones. With Daredevil, I've been reading those comic books since I was a kid. 

Like Wolverine was, Jessica Jones is a drinker, in particular bourbon. As a bourbon aficionado, I've noticed the brands of bourbon she drinks. So far it's been Jim Beam White, Wild Turkey 101, Four Rose Yellow Label, and Heaven Hill Bottled-in-Bond, which she wouldn't be able to get in New York City because it's only sold in Kentucky and Indiana. 

Bourbon Subterfuge

As I wrote about a while back, I've become a bit of bourbon dork/connoisseur, so I'm reading up on the history of the spirit and the current boom of America's spirit. 

Some bourbons and ryes out there craft interesting narratives for their products. Some of them are relatively true, but many of the stories behind the brands should be considered very creative non-fiction, and others stories are outright bullshit inventive marketing lies like the nonsense surrounding Templeton Rye. 

If you're interested in learning about some of those lies, check out Eric Felton's "Your 'Craft' Rye Whiskey Is Probably From a Factory Distillery in Indiana." 

In the article, you discover the shenanigans of Diageo and smaller producers. One of hyperlinks in the article via Sku's Recent Eats provides a comprehensive list of who is really producing what. 

It's good to see both Cedar Ridge in Swisher and Mississippi River Distilling Co. in Leclaire, Iowa are making their own stuff. I doubt the juice they make is as solid and consistent as many of the products from Heaven Hill, Buffalo Trace, and Four Roses, but it's good to see smaller companies out there hustling to make bourbon on their own. 

Stay Positive: Three Books about Bourbon

From time to time, I get into a reading habit about a certain topic or in a certain genre. A while back, I read three different biographies in a row about Woody Guthrie, Thomas Jefferson, and American Emperor, which is part biography-part history about Aaron Burr and what his plans might have been. 

Recently, I've gone through a trivium of books about whiskey, specifically bourbon. 

As hard liquor goes, bourbon has always been my favorite with gin a solid second behind it. As some of my readers might recall, I worked in my dad's liquor store during the summers when I came home from college and during holiday breaks. When it was a slow night at Independence Avenue Liquors, I sometimes did research about liquor. My dad had a bartending book in the store, and I learned a lot about the libations we sold. 

Mrs. Nasty bought me a book about whiskey a long time ago, but that one covered all manner of whiskies. 

In my recent academic tour de bourbon, I started with Clay Risen's American Whiskey, Bourbon, and Rye: A Guide to the Nation's Favorite Spirit. Risen does a solid job of relating the history of bourbon at the start of the book. 

However, the bulk of the tome features histories of brands and his descriptions and ratings of them. He turned his love of bourbon into a helpful guide to what whiskey a person should buy and why. Risen provides descriptions of each whiskey's "nose," "color," "body," and "palate" along with a general description. 

For example, here's how he describes Four Roses Small Batch, one of my favorites. It's a "medium" bodied spirit that is "russet/tawny" with nose of "hibiscus, grape jam, eucalyptus, honey, roasted nuts, and Now and Later candy." It garners three stars out of four possible and is described as a " truly great session bourbon; not too heavy and full of captivating notes." 

Some of the descriptions are hilarious. And it's also surprising how many NR (not recommended) ratings many whiskies get that are high-dollar investments. Caveat emptor.

In the section for recommended books in Risen's book, I learned about Chuck Cowdery's Bourbon, Straight: The Uncet and Unfiltered Story of American Whiskey. Cowdery, I found out later, worked in the bourbon industry for quite some time, and his book shows it. He drops all kinds of knowledge. 

Many of the chapters take readers through the specific histories of bourbon-making families, but others exemplify the "straight" used in the title. He's a no nonsense kind of writer. He's willing to call people on their lies, bullshit, subterfuge, especially the marketing side of the bourbon game. Lots of good stories out there, folks. His chapter on George Washington's distillery at Mount Vernon and Abe Lincoln's booze-selling occupation is interesting stuff, and the "Why Ratings are Bull" chapter gives you an idea of his direct approach to the subject. 

Cowdery also has an informative blog that you should check out if all this bourbon talk interests you.

I finished up my book tour about bourbon this week by finishing Dane Huckelbridge's Bourbon: A History of the American Spirit. The author has fun writing style. He uses an informative tone with sprinkles of humorous diction in the chapters. 

Also, he likes a good footnote, and many of them are quite interesting. Who knew that dentist-turned-gunfighter Doc Holliday enjoyed Old Overholt rye, a whiskey that you can still get nowadays? And I believe that's the same distillery Andrew Mellon acquired during Prohibition that was briefly played with on Boardwalk Empire. 

Regardless of all those interesting asides, Huckelbridge supports his thesis effectively. He presents bourbon as the true American spirit backed by lots of historical evidence, and he's right. You get to learn about Captain George Thorpe in Jamestown and the details, as much as one can piece together, about Washington's distillery. Then it's on to the influence of the Scots-Irish, the effect of the Gilded Age on bourbon, the dangerous experiment of Prohibition that is also tied to xenophobic tendencies in the republic, and so on and so forth. And there are some pretty fun pictures along the way. 

So if you like bourbon, you can feel good about a true American product via these three books. 

Buy American and all that. 

Random Notes from a Crank

Here's the full interview with Jason Isbell from his Austin City Limits performance if you're interested. I had hoped his episode would be solo or with his wife Amanda Shires. However, it's with Neko Case, which is a good pairing also.

If you're a fan of bourbon, "The New Science of Old Whiskey" by Wane Curtis is worth a read. There's interesting info about the craft and chemistry of whiskey making. 

Here's some gleanings from November's Harper's Index:

• Percentage of public-school teachers who spent their own money on school supplies during the past academic year: 99.5
• Average amount they spent: $485
• Estimated factor by which the amount of "Stuf" in a DoubleStuf Oreo exceeds the amount in a regular Oreo: 1.86
• Percentage by which the average NFL fan's saturated-fat consumption goes up the day after a loss by the local team: 16

That last factoid reminds me of a tee-shirt The Onion had years ago. It was a simple white shirt that said "Local Sports Team." I'd like one of those shirts, but they don't have it anymore.

The Nasty family supported our local sports team (high school basketball) on Friday night. The Trojans of Charleston got their ass kicked by the Mattoon Green Wave.