2023 in Selfies
Author: Chris ODonnell From https://odonnellweb.com/pelican/ • Jan 6th, 2024Category: Blog Entries.Local
2023 in selfies
Archives for the ‘Blog Entries.Local’ Category
Category: Blog Entries.Local
Five O’Clock Friday: Weekend Weather Forecast
Author: David From http://www.musingsoverabarrel.com/ • Jan 5th, 2024Category: Blog Entries.Local
I have bourbon, cigars, and fire. I'm ready.
Just to be safe, the snow blower and generator are ready as well.
Cheers!
Cranberry Citrus Cocktail
Author: David From http://www.musingsoverabarrel.com/ • Jan 5th, 2024Category: Blog Entries.Local
Despite having a fairly respectable whiskey selection on hand, I don't have an extensive selection of the liqueurs and other ingredients used for cocktails. That's slowly changing but when we went looking for simple cocktail ideas for the holidays, the search was based on what was on hand. I came across this Cranberry Citrus Cocktail on the Bourbon Review website. The listing for Amaro Montenegro caught my eye since I happen to have a bottle of that in the pantry. Four Roses Single Barrel also happens to be one of my favorite cocktail bourbons. Since Colleen was already buying fresh cranberries for some holiday cooking projects, the recipe fit the bill perfectly. We even had fresh rosemary on hand. It was destined to be!
Colleen prepared a cranberry simple syrup and we were all set. Did I mention we use Four Roses Single Barrel frequently? Yeah, and I had used it all up recently, and had not yet replenished. No problem, I grabbed the bottle of John J. Bowman Single Barrel instead.
The drink was refreshing and flavorful. The bourbon flavor was somewhat muted by the citrus juice but was quite enjoyable. This one I added to my file of cocktails to make again.
Cheers!
Cheers!
Gingerbread Stout, A Veritas Cigar, and The Sun
Author: David From http://www.musingsoverabarrel.com/ • Jan 3rd, 2024Category: Blog Entries.Local
While completing some morning chores on a cloudy day, I would occasionally see the sun breaking through the clouds. Those sightings would give me hope for a later smoke on the porch. When the time came for that anticipated break, the temperature was in the mid-60°, and what I'll optimistically call partly sunny. That'll do.
I've had a Veritas Torch San Andrés in my humidor for a couple of months and decided it might make a good pairing with the beer I was planning to enjoy.
Around this time each year, Hardywood Park Brewing releases its Gingerbread Stout, along with several variations of the beer with different additions. We recently picked up a variety pack contain four of the many variations on the theme the brewery produces at different times. For this outing I was sipping the classic Gingerbread Stout.
The Imperial Milk Stout comes in at winter-perfect ABV of 9.2%. The beer is rich with flavors of milk chocolate, vanilla, cinnamon and ginger. The initial sweetness and spice flavors give way to a roasted bitterness in the finish. The mouthfeel is creamy and the flavors lingers on the palate.
The Veritas Torch San Andrés smoked is a 6 x 50 Toro. The cap is finished with a tight pigtail twist. The cigar features a San Andrés (obviously) wrapper with Nicaraguan binder and fillers. The smoke is creamy and copious, with notes of chocolate and nuts.
I've smoked several cigars in the Vertias portfolio and have always found them to be flavorful, well-made, enjoyable smokes. And each time I smoke one I think I really should seek out more. So many cigars, so little time.
The Gingerbread Stout and Veritas Torch was an exceptional pairing. The flavors complimented each other quite successfully. I'm looking forward to more winter cigar and stout pairings in the coming months.
Cheers!
Bourbon, Eggnog, and Rocky Patel to End 2023
Author: David From http://www.musingsoverabarrel.com/ • Jan 1st, 2024Category: Blog Entries.Local
I've never been a big fan of eggnog, but spice it up with a little bourbon, and it becomes a fit winter drink. Getting ready to head out for a smoke in the last sunshine of 2023, I mixed a drink a glass of eggnog with hefty dose of Maker's Mark 46 Cask Strength. Lighting a Rocky Patel 15th Anniversary Toro I was ready to wind down the year, and start my New Year's celebration.
The Batch 23-02, 110.1 proof bottling gives a pleasing brown sugar, caramel, and cinnamon boost to the sweet drink.
The Rocky Patel 15th Anniversary is a 6 1/2 x 52 Toro. The box-pressed stick is clothed in shiny Ecuadorian Habano wrapper. The binder and filler tobaccos are Nicaraguan. It has creamy, sweet profile with dark fruit and chocolate notes joining the mix as the cigar heats up.
Many maduro colored cigars have a wrapper reminiscent of chocolate. Siting in the sun, the wrapper of the 15th Anniversary distinctly reminded me of the classic Hershey's Chocolate bar. All in all, a pleasant way to begin winding down the year.
? Happy New Year! ?
2023 in Selfies
Author: Chris ODonnell From https://odonnellweb.com/pelican/ • Jan 1st, 2024Category: Blog Entries.Local
28 years of words
Author: Chris ODonnell From https://odonnellweb.com/pelican/ • Dec 31st, 2023Category: Blog Entries.Local
I published my first web page on 12/31/1995. And here I am on 12/31/23 still doing it. Back then it was just a simple HTML page. It's the same today, although the tools are better.
Note - today is 123123. I just noticed that as I typed out the date above.
I calculated earlier this year that I have spewed out 4 or 5 novels worth of words on this site. There are probably 25 novels worth of typos though.
My life seems to have settled into a pattern, which I guess is a good thing at my age? 2023 was much like 2022, 2021, and 2020. I'd add with less COVID, but I had my second case of COVID this summer, almost 1 year to the day of my first case. The big change for this year is that we are 10 days from being home owners again. Renting in RVA was supposed to be an 18 month thing to figure out our next move. 6 years later we finally decided to accept the obvious (that we are staying in RVA) and buy a place near the airport. We bought a newly constructed townhouse. Can't have home maintenance keeping me away from the camper on the weekends!
Last year I foreshadowed our planned camping trips on the Natchez Trace and out west. Neither happened. Mississippi was canceled due to me starting a new job in February. The western trip was canned because Death Valley is still mostly inaccessible due to flood damage, and the government shutdown was scheduled for the day before we flew to Vegas to pickup a campervan. We were booked in National Park campgrounds the entire week, campgrounds that would have been closed if the shutdown happened. Instead we stayed closer to home with two fall camping trips, early October in WV and Thanksgiving on the GA coast. I've got a week booked on Cape Cod in early September next year, and our 2nd week-long trip for next year is TBD. I've also got our weekend camping trips in May, June, and July already booked.
2023 by the numbers.
- 62 blog posts (counting this one)
- 35 nights camping
- 44 books logged. A few were logged as not completed.
- 10 albums purchased
- 116 bird species observed and 62 checklists submitted to e-bird.
So that is a wrap on 2023. We will be ringing in the new year from the comfort of our couch. We went out last night to beat the rush.
Happy New year, and I hope 2024 exceeds your wildest expectations.
Afternoons Are For Coffee & Cigars
Author: David From http://www.musingsoverabarrel.com/ • Dec 30th, 2023Category: Blog Entries.Local
At least the ones during vacation. Friday afternoon, during the midst of a week of eating and drinking celebrations, it was time to relax for a creamy coffee with my cigar. Whipping up a quick cappuccino, I grabbed a Caldwell Lost and Found Paradise Lost and headed to the deck while the family continued to binge on the College Bowl games.
Cheers!
The Paradise Lost Robusto was part of the October Luxury Cigar Club package. As with many of the monthly selections, it was an unfamiliar stick, and I needed to do some research. The Lost and Found line stems from a collaboration between Robert Caldwell, of Caldwell Cigars, and Tony Bellatto from La Barba Cigars. The pair searches cigar warehouses for forgotten blends from various manufacturers and brings them back in limited releases. As a result, the cigars already have some age on them, although the original blenders and exact components may be unstated or unknown. The Paradise Lost seems to be a rerelease of an older find. Of course that may all be speculation on my part, put together from a few quick internet searches. The important point is the smoking experience.
The Lost and Found Paradise is a 5 1/4 x 52 Mexican San Andrés wrapped robusto. The binder is Dominican, with Nicaraguan and Dominican tobaccos making up the filler. It's a smooth chocolate brown stick. The band graphic, at first hard to make out, is said to be the a silhouette of the partners walking on a beach.
Initially the flavor profile was on the mild side. Sweet, nutty, and charred butter notes come to mind. The flavor profile slowly built to include toasted bread and grains. The burn was even, excepting one point where a "woodpecker hole" burned open about 3/8" down from the burn line. However the burn progressed past that point easily with no further issues.
As I got down to the last quarter of the cigar, the flavor profile changed significantly. Black pepper and tobacco notes came in. The bitterness also built. I found the experience less enjoyable and ended the smoke at about 65 minutes.
On the whole, the Lost and Found Paradise Lost provided an enjoyable smoke and, while the coffee lasted, made for a pleasant pairing. And now I was refreshed and ready to take on the rest of the weekend.
Cheers!
Five O’Clock Friday: Exercise Is Important
Author: David From http://www.musingsoverabarrel.com/ • Dec 29th, 2023Category: Blog Entries.Local
Keep moving this weekend.
I have it on good authority that using the opposite hand to add bourbon to your coffee doubles the benefit.
Cheers!
Cheers!
Nacho Cheese Flavored Booze – No Thanks
Author: David From http://www.musingsoverabarrel.com/ • Dec 29th, 2023Category: Blog Entries.Local
I've run across some odd food-flavored spirits. Peanut butter flavored whiskey, and banana whiskey are two frequently seen in the stores. These variations don't interest me, but I can see some natural flavor relation there. But the flavored booze phenomena has ventured into the absurd. Now someone has created a Doritos® Nacho Cheese flavored spirit.
Cheers!
Doritos partnered with Empirical, a high-end innovative spirits company, to create Empirical x Doritos® Nacho Cheese Spirit. It’s a clear, savory nacho-cheese alcohol that actually tastes like Doritios, even down to the feeling like you’ve been munching on some chips.
Empirical was founded in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 2017 by Lars Williams and Mark Emil Hermansen. In the early days, Williams, a former chef at Noma, was moving from working on a prototype still to a larger one, and wanted to see what kind of things he could use to make different spirits.“I was doing a ton of testing with every single botanical I could think of like parsley, oysters, chicken skin — just running as many different things through it [the still] as I could to get a sense of the different maturation levels, but also what kind of flavors we could extract and harness through this bespoke kit that we built,” Lars said.
Don't get me wrong, I love Doritos®, in all its many flavor variations. But this concoction gives me pause, and a small gag reflex. Reading that the creator also tried flavoring with oysters and chicken skin doesn't add to the attraction. For there adventurous, the Emipiral website also provides cocktail recipes using their creation.
See Doritos Partners With Empirical To Create Chip-Flavored Spirit for the full story.
Cheers!
