Nearest Pint

Nearest Pint UK

Via Detroit Steve

La Favorite Distillery

La Favorite Distillery Stationary Steam Engine
Fort de France, Martinique

La Favorite distillery was founded on a former sugar cane plantation. La Favorite has been producing Rhum Agricole near the village of Fort de France since 1905.

La Habitation

Martinique Tour has a bunch of photos as does Google Maps.

 

La Favorite Distillery Fort de France, Martinique

Martinique is only about 30 miles long.

Martinique is an island in the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies, in the eastern Caribbean Sea. A part of the French West Indies, Martinique is an overseas department and region and a single territorial collectivity of France.

The Translator by Harriet Crawley, Notes from first four chapters

The Translator by Harriet Crawley. I picked this book up at Broadway Books on Northeast Broadway. As I started reading it, I started making notes.

AgustaWestland AW109

Clive Franklin, the British translator, is picked up by a helicopter from a village in Scotland.

York Minster

They fly over York.

Rioja

He has a glass of Rioja at the airport.

Royal Air Force Voyager Vespina

They fly to Moscow.

The Caipirinha is Brazil's national drink, made with fresh lime juice, sugar, and cachaça, which is distilled from sugar cane juice p. 32

The Russian translator, Marina Volina has drinks with her son at a bar while watching the Russian Victory Parade.

Newton Running Shoes p. 32

Marina is a marathon runner.

Jaguar XJ Stretched Limousine p. 33

Clive catches a ride in Land Rover, the big shots ride in a limo.

Now we have a few places in Moscow:

Karl Marx Monument
Google - Workers of All Countries Unite
Wikipedia - Proletarians of All Countries, Unite!
Harriet - Workers of the world, unite!

British Ambassador Residence in Moscow p. 42

The Moscow Times reports:

The mansion at 14 Sofiiskaya naberezhnaya across the Moscow River from the Kremlin was built in 1893 for the “sugar king” Pavel Kharitonenko and his family.

After the 1917 Revolution, the People’s Commissariat of Foreign Affairs claimed the mansion — and saved the interiors. At first it housed the families of important Soviet diplomats and visitors such as H.G. Wells and Isadora Duncan.

In 1929 the mansion was transferred to the embassy of Great Britain, the first major country to establish diplomatic relations with the U.S.S.R.

They also has some fine photos of the interior of this place.

Zaryadye Concert Hall p. 44

Zaryadye Concert Hall Interior

At the Russian President's villa, the gang admires the paintings. These two get special mention.

Girl with Peaches by Valentin Serov (1887) p. 46

The Monarch of the Glen by Sir Edwin Landseer (1851) p. 47

Methanol Poisoning

Some alcoholic beverages are manufactured illegally in Kuwait at secret locations that lack safety standards. (AFP pic)

Kuwait arrests 67 over illegal alcohol after 23 deaths

Alcohol is produced by fermenting sugars. Pure sugar should give you pure ethanol, but if you are fermenting grain or fruit, you are going to get some methanol. There are ways to minimize the amount of methanol in the end product, but if you aren't careful, or don't know what you are doing, you can end up with a poisonous drink, and that seems to be what happened here.

You would think that in this day and age with ubiquitous access to all knowledge, things like this wouldn't happen, but some people just don't care about other people. Or they are just stupid. Could be either, or both. 

Hightown - Netflix Series

Hightown- TV Series Official Trailer
LionsgateTV

What a fine cross section of humanity we have here: alcoholics, drug addicts, drug dealers, prostitutes, all your favorites. We have two stars in this show: 

• Jackie, the cute, petite, butch lesbian, alcoholic, federal agent, who likes to party hard.
• Ray, the womanizing Massachusetts State Trooper assigned to the narcotics task force.

Then we have the villain: Frankie Cuevas, the mid-level drug dealer, who has no qualms about killing snitches. He is well dressed, polite, civilized even, until he starts to think that someone may be lying to him and then his killer persona comes to the fore, and he is one nasty SOB.

Then there are the villains who might actually be good people:

• Renee, the whore and stripper who becomes Frankie's girl and mother of his child. She eventually turns on him because she realizes that eventually Frankie is going to kill her.
• Osito, an enormously fat black man who eventually displaces Frankie. Osito has more self-control, he kills people, but he runs a tight operation and the people he works with are loyal, so he doesn't have as much trouble. He doesn't just off people on a whim, which seems to be Frankie's method.

By the time you get to the second season, you realize that both Jackie and Ray are making promises that they cannot keep. Jackie is forever promising to straighten up and fly right, and then she immediately goes off on a bender drinking and snorting anything she can get her hands on, usually with a new girl she has just picked up. Ray keeps trying to recruit CIs (Confidential Informers), telling them he can protect them, but Frankie keeps killing them. Squealing may forestall getting sent to jail, but with this crowd, squealing will get you kilt.

This is a great show. I suspect because the whole thing is entirely believable. Jackie in particular is amazing. How can anyone fuck up that much and keep coming back? Oh, right, she's young and indestructible. For a while anyway.

Drunk Driving

Curious story:

Drunk Driving

How the war on drunk driving was won by Nick Cowen

Deterrence alone might not stop crime. But, as the campaign against drunk driving shows, it could help create the norms that do.

Via Detroit Steve

 

Gin

The Gin Craze
J. Draper

18th century would be the 1700's. Things like this make me wonder about people.

Mimosa

A man pouring the last drop from his wine glass. Mezzotint, c. 1786.

We went out for lunch today and I ordered a Mimosa. It came in a large wine glass. When I got down to the very end I had to tip my head and the wine glass pretty far to get the last little bit to flow out of the glass. The girls did not approve of this technique so when I got home I looked for a way to get that last little bit out of a big wine glass - and found nothing except this engraving. I dunno, maybe you are supposed to leave the last couple of ounces in the glass.

San Juan de Pasajes

Bayou Renaissance Man has a good post up about 16th century Basque sailors. Seems their beverage of choice was hard apple cider. The advantage it had over rum, which is what the British used, was you didn't need to add Vitamin-C, apple cider already has Vitamin-C. The Brits, you will recall, used limes.

A diver inspects the San Juan wreck, connected to a hose supplying hot water to endure in the cold water of Red Bay.
I'd never heard of piping in hot water to keep a diver warm. Makes sense though.

Back in 1978, the wreck of the 16th century San Juan de Pasajes was found off the coast of Canada and they started an archaeological exploration of the site. The wreck was in such good shape it inspired some people in Pasaia, Spain to build a replica.

Laying out the template for an angle piece on a natural fork

Lower section of the hull

Pasaia and Irun, Spain

I'm looking at a map of this place, and I think 'wait a minute', we've been here before. Yes, with Captain Coignet and the Storks. Irun is Captain Coignet's town. Both Irun and Pasaia are on the north coast of Spain very near the border with France.

12 signs you might be suffering from PTSD

I've met a few people who had alcoholic parents and they have problems. This kind of explains them.

Arabs and Budweiser

QATAR vs OMAN || FIFA ARAB CUP 2021
(link goes to auto-start video)

I played a few games of soccer twenty odd years ago. Like most sports, it's great fun, especially if you are competing against players of comparable talent. But I don't watch soccer games, and the few times I have caught a bit of a game, there didn't seem to be much in the way of strategy. It was more like guys trying to finesse their way through a cloud of chaos.

Anyway, the reason we have this photo if because I Want A New Left noticed the ads for Budweiser in the stadium (red sign just left of center in the above photo). 

Another oddity was seeing Budweiser advertised in the stadium. Was that meant for the fans? Surely not, since most were Muslims, and Muslims generally don’t drink. I guess, then, that it was meant for the viewing audience, though it’s hard to know how many outsiders were watching.

P.S. According to Wikipedia, Tunisia (which is where this game was played) is 98% Muslim, but supposedly the government is secular. So maybe not all died-in-the-wool ragheads.

Lily The Pink

Buster Keaton & The Bride
Possibly from The Cameraman

Looking for something to watch on YouTube and this image catches my eye. The tune isn't bad, but I've only heard it once, we shall see if it gets played again. It's the image that captured my interest. Screen shot, crop & Google Image Search doesn't get me any answers, but it does lead me to this story: A Mysterious Woman in Buster Keaton’s “The Cameraman” wherein I find this bit:

Who the heck is Lydia Pinkham?

You know, in The Cameraman (1928) when Buster goes to the MGM newsreel building, looking for Marceline Day and shows the doorman the tintype of her and asks about her. The doorman says:

["Maybe it's Lydia Pinkham"]

This usually gets a smattering of chuckles, just because of the incongruity of the answer. He could just have easily said, “Maybe it’s Greta Garbo”. But Keaton, or Ralph Spence or whoever wrote the titles for The Cameraman put that reference in because it was hilarious in 1928 and it would have been taken out or changed during previews if it wasn’t.

Why was a reference to Lydia Pinkham so darned funny? 

Lydia E. Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound

If Wikipedia and a few other websites are to be trusted, Lydia Pinkham was known for an herbal tonic, touted as a cure for menstrual cramps and other ladies’ ailments. A popular patent medicine in the late 19th century, and Lydia E. Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound became doubly popular in the 1920s. Because it was 18% alcohol. Remember how I mentioned reminding the audience about prohibition? The alcohol content of Pinkham’s is about mid-way between beer and gin.

There was even a folk song written about Pinkham’s elixir, a drinking song, called “The Ballad of Lydia Pinkham” also known as “Lily The Pink”, that was around during WWI.

And here we are:

The Scaffold - Lily The Pink
WiggyVideos

Lyrics, courtesy of Musixmatch:

We'll drink a drink, a drink

To Lily the Pink, the Pink, the Pink

The savior of the human race

For she invented medicinal compound

Most efficacious in every case

Mr. Freers had sticky out ears

And it made him awful shy

And so they gave him medicinal compound

And now he's learning how to fly

Robert Tony was known to be bony

He would never eat his meal

And so they gave him medicinal compound

Now they move him round on wheels

We'll drink a drink, a drink

To Lily the Pink, the Pink, the pink

The savior of the human race

For she invented medicinal compound

Most efficacious in every case

Old Ebenezer thought he was Julius Caesar

And so they put him in a home

Where they gave him medicinal compound

And now he's emperor of Rome

Johnny Hammer had a terrible st-st-st-st-stammer

He could hardly s-s-say a word

And so they gave him medicinal compound

Now's he's seen, but never heard

We'll drink a drink, a drink

To Lily the Pink, the Pink, the Pink

The savior of the human race

For she invented medicinal compound

Most efficacious in every case

Aunty Milly ran willy-nilly

When her legs they did recede

And so they rubbed on medicinal compound

Now they call her Milly Pede

Jennifer Eccles had terrible freckles

And the boys all called her names

But she changed medicinal compound

Now he joins in all the games

We'll drink a drink, a drink

To Lily the Pink, the Pink, the Pink

The savior of the human race

For she invented medicinal compound

Most efficacious in every case

Lily the Pink, she turned to drink

She filled up with paraffin inside

And despite her medicinal compound

Sadly pickled Lily died

Up to heaven her soul ascended

All the church bells they did ring

She took with her medicinal compound

Hark the herald angels sing

We'll drink a drink, a drink

To Lily the Pink, the Pink, the Pink

The savior of the human race

For she invented medicinal compound

Most efficacious in every case

Wikipedia links:

• Buster Keaton
• The Cameraman
• Lily The Pink
• Lydia E. Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound
• Lydia E. Pinkham

Quote of the Day

Darth Vadar with a fifth of Jack

May the fifth be with you. - Me on realizing 

I had put up two Quote of the Day posts earlier today, so I thought I could plead drunkenness on account of having drunk a fifth of whiskey, which would make me exceedingly drunk. I wasn't that drunk, just a little overwhelmed by all I am trying to get done, so the reference to the fifth was just a dog whistle for having an alcoholic drink. Tweet tweet! Plus we just had May the fourth be with you yesterday, so May the fifth be with you. i.e. may you have a fifth of whiskey by your side. I prefer whiskey over other spirits, mostly because it's American. Most all other spirits originated in other places, but in America we make whiskey.

I don't think there is much difference in the spirits you buy at the liquor store. I never noticed any particular flavor, well, except for gin. Gin has a distinctive taste, bayberries my mother said. Whatever bayberries are. I suppose if you put several different liquors in front of me I could tell you they taste, no, smell, different. Scotch is different as well. Supposedly it has a smokey taste (smell?), but I don't remember the last time I had a Scotch. Now I avoid it because it's expensive and it offends me miserly sensibilities to pay more than $20 for a bottle of hooch. Maybe in another five years my taste will improve and I will be able to appreciate $35 liquors, but I doubt it. In five years my sense of taste / smell will likely have deteriorated to the point that I could save money by buying the stuff off the bottom shelf and saving a bundle of money. Yeah, right, $10 a month.

Now that I have been thinking about this for a bit, I realize that Tequila also has a distinct smell / taste. Rum is pretty innocuous, and vodka is pert near invisible.

 Liquors get their essential character from the materials they are made from. Whiskey comes from corn or grain, Vodka comes from potatoes, Rum comes from Sugar. Gin, I think also comes from potatoes, but the potatoes were rotten, so they threw in some of them bayberry leaves to cover the smell. Potatoes have improved since then, but tradition hangs on. And who knows? with all the doom and disaster being forecast, there's a chance that rotten potatoes will make a comeback and we may all hope we have enough bayberries to cover the smell.

State Line Liquor

Some people are serious alcoholics, drinking a fifth of liquor a day. I wonder what percentage of the sales at liquor stores go to alcoholics. One alcoholic drinking a fifth a day would equal 30 people drinking a fifth a month, so maybe half? Huh. Now those liquor stores on the border with Nevada start to make sense.

Nevada Liquor Stores

Asking Google Maps for liquor stores turned up a grocery store on the Oregon border and not much else. Regular Google turned up several others and the above map. Since most of these places don't have websites, I surmise that Google looked for references that mentioned the address and then compiled that into a list to display using Google Maps. Okay, I just tried to reproduce my original search for liquor stores using Google Maps and failed. The two are talking to each other and now Google Maps understands more about liquor stores. So I resorted to searching for the grocery store that turned up earlier and that's what you get with the link.

Now that I've gone looking for a picture [top] I realize the phrase might not be original with me. That's okay, it was new to me and that's what counts.

Beer Can Labels

Buoy Beer Can

The boys brought some Buoy Beer over the other day. The label is a separate piece wrapped around the can and stuck on with adhesive. I have never seen this before. All beer cans I am familiar with, the labels are printed directly on the can. The beer is lager, not one of those wretched ales.

Father's Day?

Buffalo herd wows South Dakota crowd
According to Stu and Hermann, today is Father's Day in Germany, which is celebrated with mass consumption of beer. Stu put up a barrage of beer quotes. This is my favorite:

Well, you see, Norm, it’s like this. A herd of buffalo can only move as fast as the slowest buffalo. And when the herd is hunted, it’s the slowest and weakest ones at the back that are killed first. This natural selection is good for the herd as a whole, because the general speed and health of the whole group keeps improving by the regular killing of the weakest members. In much the same way, the human brain can only operate as fast as the slowest brain cells. Now, as we know, excessive intake of alcohol kills brain cells. But naturally, it attacks the slowest and weakest brain cells first. In this way, regular consumption of beer eliminates the weaker brain cells, making the brain a faster and more efficient machine.
And that, Norm, is why you always feel smarter after a few beers. - Cliff Clavin

Bourbon

Results from evaporating three drops of Bourbon whiskey with different concentrations of alcohol

Three guys from the University of Kentucky started playing around with bourbon whiskey and made some curious observations. Scotch whiskey doesn't do this.

Diluted samples from (a) Four Roses (b) Heaven Hill (c) Maker’s Mark (d) Jack Daniel’s (e) Pappy Van Winkle’s (f) Woodford Reserve

The mechanism by which these patterns are generated is so far unknown. It might be useful for identifying counterfits, if that ever becomes a problem.

Poster with more images here.

Via Detroit Steve.

Alcohol

Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats - S.O.B. (Official Music Video)
I am generally opposed to using foul language and especially in public, but sometimes you just gotta let it fly. (Where have I heard that before?) Alcohol is a curious drug. I remember missing a question on the drivers license exam (when I moved to Oregon, not when I first took the test 50 years ago). The question was about alcohol and it asked 'what is the first thing alcohol affects?' There were several choices like speed or distance or color or something but the correct answer was judgement. Could be, but then I came across this video, wherein Jordan B Peterson claims that alcohol doesn't affect your ability to judge things accurately, it's just that you don't care about the consequences so much.

Then YouTube served up this video. Man, I swear I've seen every one of these scenes. Or maybe I've just seen numerous similar scenes. I mean drinking is like a required element in every drama.


If You Don't Start Drinkin' (I'm Gonna Leave) - George Thorogood
I'm not as enamored of this tune as the first one, but the video is terrific.

Whiskey

I bought a bottle of bourbon at the shopping mall a couple of months ago. I didn't think too much about the price ($36) when I bought it, but I was exploring not shopping. When I thought about it later, I thought 'that's a heck of a lot of money for a 5th of bourbon'. It was very smooth, though, so maybe it was worth it.

Four Roses Bourbon

Went to the liquor store a couple of weeks ago and picked up a bottle of Four Roses ($25)and a bottle of Jack Daniels ($20). I used to drink Jim Beam because it was cheaper, but it had a bit of a bite to it. When I thought I could afford it (after the kids were all through with school), I decided I could splurge a little and moved up to Jack Daniels. Much smoother. I drank the bottle of Four Roses first and it was very good. And then I turned to the Jack Daniels and it wasn't quite as smooth. It has just a hint of a bite to it. So I'm thinking there is a pretty definite relationship between price and smoothness, or lack of bite if you prefer. So generally, you're going to drink the cheapest whiskey you can tolerate.

But alcohol is a chemical and if you are buying your alcohol from Archer Daniels Midland, I'm thinking it wouldn't have any bite at all. So could it be that distillers who are selling cheap whiskey are making it themselves because it's cheaper than buying it from ADM? Or maybe stills come with performance / quality controls, where you can turn up the speed but you get more fusel oils in your product. which means more bite, or you can turn down the speed and turn up the quality and get smoother whiskey.

Drinking & Singing

Jordan B Peterson's DRINKING SONG 🍺 ( ＪＢＰＷＡＶＥ )
Entertaining and enlightening. Sometimes you have to venture out into the fringes to get a clear picture of a situation.

Via The Shekel

Shopping Center Liquor

Burnside Bourbon

Eastside Distilling Tasting Room at Washington Square

Stopped by Washington Square the other day. My wife had business at Nordstrom so I'm wandering around killing time and I notice this liquor store. Never seen a liquor store in a shopping mall before so I pay a visit. It's not a regular liquor store, they only carry liquor from Eastside Distilling. They had a dozen different flavors, mostly rum and bourbon. I like bourbon, and I'm all in favor of small, craft distilleries, so I bought a bottle ($37). I don't know if it's great, but it's pretty good, it doesn't have any of that bite that you get with cheap liquor. I don't know if they are really distilling their own stuff. It looks more like a marketing outfit that is buying whiskey from one place and having it bottled someplace else, but it's good enough.