Archives for the ‘Blog Entries.Local’ Category

Four Roses Small Batch, Oscar Valladares 2012 Sumatra, and Friday

Author: From http://www.musingsoverabarrel.com/ • Mar 23rd, 2024
   Category: Blog Entries.Local
Friday couldn't come soon enough. Sure, I had a quiet birthday celebration earlier in the week with a few friends, but the week was still long. Friday evening was cool, but not uncomfortable, which made for pleasant sipping and smoking on the screened porch.

For this long-awaited repast I selected the bottle of Four Roses Small Batch Select. As the smoking accompaniment I dug out an Oscar Valladares 2012 Sumatra in Toro that had been in the humidor for a couple of months. Requisite photo done, I grabbed the Kindle for some reading and headed outside.


Four Roses Small Batch Select is made of a blend of six of the ten mash bills used by Four Roses, in various combinations, for its bourbons. The bourbon is bottled at 104 proof. There is a touch of alcohol on the aroma, if you look for it. Mostly it consists of sweet, dark fruit and oak. When sipping, spice notes kick off the flavors. Dark fruit and a vanilla sweetness join in. The bourbon is flavorful and well-balanced. Spices and candied fruit notes linger in the creamy finish. 

Oscar Valladares 2012 is a line of cigars from the same Oscar Valladares the brings us the Leaf by Oscar cigars. The 2012 branding pays homage to the year Oscar Valladares started his cigar company, after decades of working for Rocky Patel and General Cigar. The cigars are made in Honduras.

The Oscar Valladares 2012 Sumatra Toro is a selection from the January Luxury Cigar Club mailing. It is a 6 x 52 box pressed cigar, wrapped in Ecuadorian Sumatra leaf, with Honduran tobaccos used for the binder and filler. The light brown wrapper felt dry in the hand. Cutting the cap revealed a wide open draw, a bit more open than I prefer but useable.

I got a mild spice in the opening puffs. This was soon joined by a sweet blend of honey and molasses, with a creamy butter impression coming in. Smoke production was copious. As the burn progressed and the cigar warmed up, some tobacco notes joined in. However the flavor notes were pretty consistent throughout the 70 minute smoke. I did relight the cigar twice, perhaps from my own inattention caused by intermittent reading and day dreaming.

When I first went out to the deck, I set the propane heater in place, but I did not have to use it. The temperature hovered around 60° and there was no breeze. The smoke was finished before the sun fully set, making for a rather pleasant kick-off to the weekend.

Cheers!


[ This content originated at Musings Over a Barrel ]

It’s Time for Irish Whiskey and a Lovely 162 Corona Gorda

Author: From http://www.musingsoverabarrel.com/ • Mar 20th, 2024
   Category: Blog Entries.Local
We began our "holy day" celebrations with some Irish Whiskey, and for me, a cigar. It was a cloudy but warm enough Friday evening to kick off a St. Patrick weekend of quiet celebration at home. I grabbed the bottle of Powers John's Lane Irish Whiskey to take out to the deck.

This bottle is somewhat special to me. I brought it back from our 2012 trip to Ireland. John's Lane was the first whiskey I had in Ireland, on the recommendation of the pub bartender. While waiting in the Dublin airport this is one of the bottles I grabbed in the Duty Free shop. I didn't actually open it until we had friends over for St. Patrick's Day in 2021.


The Powers John's Lane is a 12 year whiskey produced by the prominent Irish distillery Midleton, who also brings us Redbreast, Jameson, among others. It is a proper Single Pot Still whiskey and comes in at 46% proof. The glass gives off aromas of sweet fruit and caramel. Upon sipping I get a bit of cinnamon and nutmeg. I picked up a caramelize banana in the finish, while Colleen found Apricot. Of course plenty of sweet malt and honey was present. The finish allowed the same notes to linger pleasantly on the palate. 

Powers John's Lane is a very pleasant whiskey that makes a great afternoon sipper, as it was here, but also is a delightful dessert beverage.

I selected the Lovely Cigars 162 Churchill to pair with my Irish whiskey. The cigar was part of the December Luxury Cigar Club December mailing. That means it was resting in my humidor for three months. I didn't know what to expect from the Lovely 162, as I had never heard of the brand prior to the Luxury Cigar shipment. Which is of course, one of the things I like about the subscription. There are often new brands to discover.

Lovely Cigars is a Green Bay, Wisconsin company that was founded in was founded in 2019. The name of the company pays tribute to the Ain’t They Lovely brand that produced cigars in Green Bay from the early 1900's until the about 1960. The corona vitola takes the name 162 from a progressive cigar roller union in the Green Bay area. The union offered high wages, sick benefits, and was one of the first to provide maternity benefits.

The Lovely 162 Corona Gorda is a 6 x 50 stick wrapped in an Ecuadorian Habano leaf, with a Sumatran binder and Nicuarguan filler. The milk chocolate colored wrapper has a nice oily sheen. The smoke bring a mild pepper spice along with a creamy chocolate note. The smoke remains smooth and creamy, with balanced flavors of chocolate, mild pepper spice, and a sweet caramel. Overall it was very enjoyable. The burn was even with plentiful smoke through out the hour and forty-five minute smoke.

I don't think I had opened the Powers John's Lane since last the St. Patrick Day. That's regrettable as it's quite pleasant.

Cheers!


[ This content originated at Musings Over a Barrel ]

La Mission de L’Atelier 1959 and Coffee

Author: From http://www.musingsoverabarrel.com/ • Mar 18th, 2024
   Category: Blog Entries.Local
Cigars and coffee. While my preferred pairing with a smoke is whiskey, often the situation calls for a non-alcoholic beverage. Many carbonated drinks work well, especially cream sodas in my opinion. I just prefer to limit my soda intake to very rare occasions. 

My preferred coffee flavor is "black." However I do find that often a flavored-style of a caffeine beverage does seem to work better with cigars. Cappuccino is an excellent choice. I also frequently turn to flavorings such as vanilla, caramel, or mocha. Mocha was the random pairing selection to go with the La Mission L'atelier 1959.

L'atelier Imports is a project of Pete Johnson of Tatuaje cigars. The Tatuaje influence is strong in this cigar. I've enjoyed other L'atelier cigars, and they are often referred to as "Tatuaje L'atelier." The La Mission line pays tribute to the Château La Mission Haut-Brion winery in Bordeaux, France. The 1959 represents one of the years the winery received a 100 point rating from wine critic Robert Parker.


La Mission de L’Atelier 1959 is a 4 3/4 x 52 Robusto. The tobaccos used are a Mexican San Andrés wrapper with Nicaraguan binder and fillers. The cap has a prominent pigtail twist. Interestingly, all L'Atelier cigars include a leaf of Sancti Spiritus tobacco. That tobacco is a hybrid of Criollo and Pelo de Oro seed that is grown by the Garcia family of My Father Cigars.

Smelling the cigar before lighting, I was struck by a musty barnyard and hay aroma. Once lit, the cigar kicks off with semi-sweet chocolate joined by prominent pepper. As the cigar progress, the profile gains an earth and leather aspect, but the chocolate and pepper remain. Towards the end, spicy pepper and cedar creep into the forefront. This is definitely a full-bodied cigar. 

The cigar was a little rough looking, with a slightly off center cap that included an extra tab of tobacco. The draw was open and the burn remained even. The cigar did go out once, a result of my own inattention. 

I enjoyed the La Mission de L’Atelier 1959 quite a bit. I did regret that I was not enjoying it with a spicy rye whiskey. Next time for sure.

Cheers!


[ This content originated at Musings Over a Barrel ]

Celebrating the Feast of Saint Patrick

Author: From http://www.musingsoverabarrel.com/ • Mar 17th, 2024
   Category: Blog Entries.Local
Lá fhéile Pádraig sona dhaoibh!

It's that time of the year when a Saint revered by many, especially in the Irish-Catholic community, is adopted by people of all descent. As a Catholic of Irish decent, I can find little fault with people bettering themselves. :-)

In 2024, the feast day falls on a Sunday. Therefore, throughout much of the Church the Saint's day loses out to the liturgy for the 5th Sunday in Lent. Since St. Patrick is our parish's patron saint, it's traditionally a "day off" from Lenten obligations, but this year Sunday already grants that option. 

As we typically do, we'll avoid the local pubs on the 17th. I don't drink green beer, and remain confident that neither did St. Patrick. But do as you wish. For my celebration I will stick with a dark Stout or an Irish Red Ale. And surely a wee pour or three of Irish Whiskey will be enjoyed. In our house there is always homemade Irish Soda Bread and Irish Stew served as well. 

While in the midst of your celebrations, try to give thought to the man behind the Feast Day. Whether you accept the traditions associated with St. Patrick's life or not, there can be no denying the good he did. (As much as some of these stories cannot be proven, they cannot be disproven either.) Kidnapped as a young boy and sold into slavery in Ireland, he grew to love the Irish people. Late in his life, he was around 60 at the time, Saint Patrick returned to the Ireland to teach and convert the people he had adopted as his own. Certainly that is worthy of our respect.

Our family has long had a devotion to St. Patrick. That admiration was made all the more tangible when we were blessed to make two pilgrimages to the Emerald Isle, in 2012 and again in 2019. During those visits I was reminded just how much the Irish love Patrick. He's more than just a marketing ploy there.

Odd as it may seem, we actually have to remind people, and pubs, that St. Patrick was a man, not a woman. His name is Patrick, which comes from the Irish, Pádraig. Shorten his name to Paddy if you must. However, we do not celebrate "St. Patty's Day." Patty is a shortened version of Patricia, a girl's name. Feast-related debauchery is one thing, but transgendering our Saint is unacceptable. As much as it pains me, I refuse each year to take advantage of any "holiday discount" from businesses who attempt to lure me with discount codes of "STPATTY" and the like. It's a feeling of satisfaction when I see a local establishment has corrected their marketing after being reminded of this error.

Let's all celebrate the memory of St. Patrick. Enjoy a drink or two and some good food, hopefully with friends. There's nothing wrong with bringing a little revelry into the world, we certainly need it. I like a good party as much as the next guy. And I certainly appreciate a good Irish drinking joke. Drink your green beer if you must. Dress up in silly clothes. (But, remember St. Patrick was a man, not a leprechaun.) Then remember the reason for this feast. Take a moment to honor the man and all the good he did. In our house we'll raise a drink of uisce beatha, "the water of life," and a prayer, to St. Patrick in honor of his deeds and his country.

All the children of Ireland cry out to thee:
Come, O Holy Patrick, and save us!

Sláinte!


[ This content originated at Musings Over a Barrel ]

A Tease of Spring

Author: From http://www.musingsoverabarrel.com/ • Mar 14th, 2024
   Category: Blog Entries.Local
There's a meme on social media that says, "It's like Winter leaves the room and then comes back to say, 'And one more thing. . ." Well, Winter left the room for a few days this week and we got a glimpse of the Spring to come. (Yes, Winter is coming back in a few days.)

I took advantage of the 70° temperatures to enjoy some deck therapy with a pour of Buffalo Trace Bourbon, paired with the El Güegüense Toro Huaco from Foundation Cigars.


The El Güegüense has been resting in my humidor for about a year. This Toro Huaco vitola is a hefty 6 x 56 stick. It felt especially large since I've been enjoying a lot of Robusto and Lancero cigars of late. 56 ring gauge is about the largest size cigar I enjoy. I've smoked many 6 x 60, or even 8 1/2 x 60 sticks. But for smoking time, balance in the hand, and comfort smoking, 56 is a good ring gauge. 

This Nicaraguan puro has a Corojo 99 wrapper and binder, and the binder is a blend of Corojo 99 and Criollo 98 tobaccos. The chocolate brown wrapper is somewhat bumpy with the rough inner leaves seemingly trying to escape. Despite a rough appearance, the oily wrapper held everything together and the cigar performed without issue. A blend of cocoa, espresso, sweet chocolate, nuts, accented by a mild pepper spice combined for a complex and flavorful smoke. 

The medium bodied cigar paired quite nicely with the Buffalo Trace Bourbon. I've been nursing my few bottles of Buffalo Trace as it's "allocated" in Virginia. This not truly rare bourbon can only be purchased when the VA ABC announces a random "drop event." And then you don't know where the bottles will show up until you arrive at the store. Adding to the State-generated hype, if one decides to purchase a bottle of Buffalo Trace, no other allocated bottles can be purchased that trip. It's an idiotic system devised by, well, you know. Fortunately, it often available in neighboring states, and online, at or near MSRP. 

Buffalo Trace in the quintessential bourbon. It checks in at 90 proof, and has all the classic notes of caramel, vanilla, and toffee. It's has a sweet but balanced profile that offers an easy-to-sip drink. Buffalo Trace is often dismissed by the bourbon "snobs" but is generally well-received by folks who simply like a good bourbon. The $30 price tag is a bonus as well. (I refuse to pay secondary market prices for any whiskey.)

Now that we are in Daylight Saving Time, I was able to enjoy the after dinner smoke and drink before the sun had even set. That felt good to say the least.

Cheers!


[ This content originated at Musings Over a Barrel ]

Blue Moon NA

Author: From https://odonnellweb.com/pelican/ • Mar 13th, 2024
   Category: Blog Entries.Local

Last week I found Blue Moon NA at Food Lion. On first sip I thought it had a weird after taste. Then I decided maybe it was more carbonated than a traditional Blue Moon White Belgian Ale, and was coming off more "soda-like" than a NA beer. But all that faded and by the 2nd beer it tasted fine and when I drank the last two last night it just tasted like Blue Moon to me.

So I don't know what was going on with that first can, but I think this NA beer is good. Maybe I'll try another six pack to be sure.


13 Years of living with less Google

Author: From https://odonnellweb.com/pelican/ • Mar 13th, 2024
   Category: Blog Entries.Local

?I made my first attempt at a de-Googed life in 2011, and wrote this final update in 2013. Long time noted online citizen Tim Bray is writing about de-Googling in 2024, which caused me to think about my post, and that led to this update 13 years later.

I still use Duck Duck Go as my primary search engine, and also as my browser on an Android phone. I use Chrome with the DDG extension on my Linux desktop. I'd prefer to use Firefox, but it got very crashy and I got tired of dealing with it.

In 2018 I did a PHP cleanse and converted my web site to a flat file format. I have completed zero security patches on my website since 2018. When I did that I stopped using TT-RSS and experimented with a number of RSS solutions before settling on simply using Thunderbird as an RSS client and not worrying about having access to my feeds from any device. Today, I'm using a browser extension called FeedBro, which is a fine RSS reader, but a terrible name for software.

Also around 2018, my web host sold out to Go Daddy, so it was time to make a change there too. I ended up putting the website at NearlyFreeSpeech.net, and email is with PolarisMail out of Canada. I do still have my Gmail address from 2004, it simply forwards to my domain account. I still use it when providing an email address verbally because it is so much easier than insuring odonnellweb gets spelled correctly.

Calendar services are also provided by PolarisMail, as my $24/year email plan gets me CalDav services.

Photo sharing is one thing I still kind of struggle with. It doesn't make sense to pay for Flickr for my use case. I've tried NextCloud several times and something always turns me off that solution. The Photo sharing kind of sucks and it's very basic. I do let my phone sync to Google Photos, but that is mostly for backup. When I want to share a photo album I create it off line with a Perl script called FGallery and then upload to this website. I am thinking about going back to NextCloud though, as Dropbox is all-in on the AI bullshit.

File sync and general backup is via a paid Dropbox account. I also archive MP3 and photos on an AWS S3 account. Having typed that out I realize that I don't need to back up to Google Photos at all.

I have tried to move away from Google Maps but the reality is that on Android, none of the other options measure up. I've tried several OSM powered flavors and also HereWeGo. HereWeGo maps as well as Google, but does not have the POI and business database that Google does. I also tried Copilot, which is paid and includes RV routing, but didn't like it either.

Premium YouTube did not exist in 2011, and we watch a lot of YouTube videos these days. If we count that as "using Google" then I'm using more Google than I was in 2011. If we ignore YouTube, then it's about the same.

So I'm going with using Google about the same as I did 13 years ago.


Knuckle Sandwich Maduro With OGD 114

Author: From http://www.musingsoverabarrel.com/ • Mar 11th, 2024
   Category: Blog Entries.Local
I've been looking forward to trying this one for a while. Back in December I picked up the Espinosa Knuckle Sandwich Habano and Espinosa Knuckle Sandwich Maduro, both in the Robusto vitola.  The Knuckle Sandwhich line is the result a collaboration between chef Guy Fieri and Erik Espinosa. I'm an admitted fan of the boisterous celebrity chef, and hoped the cigars would be representative his personality. Not just another celebrity putting his brand on a product, Fieri is a longtime cigar enthusiast. 

For this outing I selected the Knuckle Sandwich Maduro version. The chocolate hued Ecuadorian Sumatra Maduro wrapper holds Nicaraguan binder and filler. The 5 x 52 cigar is box-pressed.


The cigar blasts out of the gate with a flavorful blend of dark coffee, cocoa, and a bit of white pepper. A dark fruit aspect comes in the finish. The draw was on the looser side, with lots of smoke production. The first third of the cigar seemed to burn really fast. I was seriously enjoying the flavors, and started lamenting the predicted short smoking time. To my delight the burn seemed to slow, especially past the midpoint, and I ended up enjoying a surprising 90 minute smoke from the small cigar.

The ash on the cigar did seem to drop easily in short blocks. On several occasions I ended up with the ash section in my lab. There was also as fair amount of loose ash flakes dropping on a consistent basis. As I became aware of the mess I was much more attentive to keeping the stick over the ashtray on the side table. Other than than, I had no burn issues. Even down to the tiny nub, the smoke remained cool, even when I could no longer hold the cigar between my fingers.


I paired the Knuckle Sandwich with Old Grand-Dad 114. This bourbon seemed to be hard to find in Virginia for a while. When we visited Florida last fall I picked up a bottle. Of course, soon after that I started seeing it again on shelves locally.

Upon pouring, the 114 proof point, along with the high rye mash bill, is immediately evident in the aroma wafting from the glass. The spicy heat is apparent, in the nose, backed by a brown sugar sweetness. The flavor profile follows the pattern with brown sugar and caramel sweetness. A rye and cinnamon spice coats the palate, as well as the warming proof. The finish is long, with the flavorful heat lingering.

Despite the many mentions of spice and heat in the paragraph above, Old Grand-Dad 114 is extremely drinkable. There's no harshness, just a full palate sensation. At an approximately $30 price point, it's a value that should not be passed by,

The Knuckle Sandwich Maduro and Old Grand-Dad pairing made for a delightful combination. Two full bodied flavor sensations together were even better than the parts. Both the bourbon and the cigars are ones I'd gladly keep on hand. I am looking forward to trying out the Knuckle Sandwich Habano counterpart very soon.

Cheers!


[ This content originated at Musings Over a Barrel ]

Loudermilk

Author: From https://odonnellweb.com/pelican/ • Mar 9th, 2024
   Category: Blog Entries.Local

Loudermilk centers on Sam Loudermilk, an alcoholic who runs a support group at a Catholic Church in Seattle managed by a foul-mouthed priest. Sam is a cranky misanthrope who still isn't over his ex-wife, he's an ex-Rolling Stone music journalist with several published books that can't write sober, and he's played wonderfully by Ron Livingston.

This is a comedy, and although it gets silly at times, the addiction of the support group participants are almost always central to the stories, making it a dark, and sometimes very dark comedy about how managing your addiction is sometimes the easy part of life as an addict.

It only had a 3-year run on Netflix, meaning you can binge all 30 episodes fairly quickly. We finished this week, after starting maybe 3 weeks ago.


The Last Tourist

Author: From https://odonnellweb.com/pelican/ • Mar 9th, 2024
   Category: Blog Entries.Local

We watched The Last Tourist, which is a documentary on Hulu about how unsustainable the modern tourism industry is. I was expecting 2 hours of ignorant western tourists and their selfie sticks, and there was some of that before it went in a much darker direction, diving into animal abuse in SE Asia and orphanage tourism in Kenya, and how demand from the developed world makes these problems worse. It got pretty damn dark and depressing before focusing on some success stories and how tourism can be a force for good. The overriding message of the documentary is that tourism inevitably changes the places people are going, so it's incumbent on us to work to make sure those changes are positive. As it stands today, only about 15% of the tourism dollars stay in the underdeveloped places westerners are visiting.

I hate the idea of cruise ships and all-inclusive resorts, two things that were criticized in the movie. I don't understand why anyone would go someplace interesting like Jamaica and then spend the entire trip on a resort with other well off tourists. That sounds more like hell than a vacation to me.

I'd rather be out in the woods or at the beach in my camper, preferably with limited people around, but that is hard to accomplish sometimes.


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