Archives for the ‘Blog Entries.Local’ Category

Still Reliving Italy – Aperitivo, Drinks, and Cigars

Author: From http://www.musingsoverabarrel.com/ • Oct 13th, 2023
   Category: Blog Entries.Local
It's been about a month since we returned from Italy. As often happens after we travel, we try to relive the moments for a while afterwards. Espresso, antipasti, negronis, aperol spritz, they've all been repeated the last couple of weeks. 


On what will probably be one of the last Sunday afternoon outdoor cocktail sessions recently, Colleen prepared the antipasto platter while I put together a couple Aperol Spritz drinks. The temperature on the deck was cool, and after a bit we did move over to the screened porch and set out the heaters on low.

Of course, I lit a cigar. This time the Southern Draw Jacobs Ladder Brimstone in a Lonsdale vitola.


Southern Draw Jacob's Ladder Brimstone is a full bodied blend with a USA Broadleaf wrapper and binder. The strength is kicked up by a triple ligero filler blend of Nicaraguan and Dominican tobaccos. This Lonsdale vitola is a 6 x 44 stick. Lonsdales are close to Lanceros, but slightly shorter and thicker.

The smoke is a robust blend of dark chocolate, roasted coffee, dark fruit, along with a pepper spiciness. The burn was perfect throughout with copious smoke output. I've only had my cigars in the humidor a few weeks yet it was certainly ready to smoke.

The bitterness of the Aperol Spritz at first seems like it may not work with cigars, but I've been pleasantly surprised with the pairings I've tried. I found this one to be especially enjoyable. I look forward to smoking more of the Southern Draw Jacob's Ladder Brimstone soon. 

Cheers!


[ This content originated at Musings Over a Barrel ]

Season’s First Fire, With Wine and a Cigar

Author: From http://www.musingsoverabarrel.com/ • Oct 11th, 2023
   Category: Blog Entries.Local
The advent of cool weather is not something I look forward to. However it does provide the opportunity to sit around a nice fire in the backyard pit. The first fire of the season kicked off just before dusk this past weekend.

Mixing things up a bit, we took out a bottle of wine to enjoy around the fire. I grabbed a My Father El Centurion H-2K-CT to go along with that beverage. The box-pressed cigar has Cuban-seed Connecticut  tobacco as the wrapper, and Nicaraguan binder and filler leaves. The creamy smoke has notes of vanilla, nuts, caramel, roasted coffee, dark fruit note, with a very mild cedar spice.


The Australian Malbec was a good match for the El Centurion. A bit of tannin, combined with dark fruit notes paired well with the flavors of the cigar. 

The warm fire, the cigar, the wine, and the company all made for an extremely enjoyable evening. And some homemade chocolate cookies made an appearance as well. A fitting start to the fall.

Cheers!


[ This content originated at Musings Over a Barrel ]

Italy: Negronis and Cigars

Author: From http://www.musingsoverabarrel.com/ • Oct 10th, 2023
   Category: Blog Entries.Local
Bourbon was not a beverage we saw much during our stay in Italy, though in truth I was not expecting it either. Obviously we drank a lot of wine with our meals. When I went looking for a cocktail to enjoy with an evening cigar, the Negroni was a commonly available option. At our hotel in Assisi, the Negroni was the 7 Euro "special" available each evening, so an obvious choice. During the afternoons, the clerk on duty had mixology knowledge limited to Aperol Spritz, hence that beverage during a previous smoking break.

The Negroni is a classic Italian cocktail, that is very simple to make. It consists of equal parts gin, vermouth rosso, and Campari, stirred over ice and garnished with an orange slice typically.  As a side note, cocktails are about the only time one sees ice in drinks in Italy.


Despite being considered an apéritif, we usually enjoyed the negronis after dinner. (Especially at the hotel in Assisi where there was no one with the knowledge to prepare the drink until after 7:00PM.) One evening pairing was with a Rocky Patel The Edge 20th Anniversary Robusto. The cigar features a 10 year aged Ecuador Sumatra wrapper, a Honduran Broadleaf binder, with filler tobaccos from Honduras and Panama. The 5 1/2 x 50 Robusto is is a medium bodied smoke with rich notes of espresso, dark chocolate, and nuts.


Later in the trip, another evening and another Negroni, this time with the Plasencia Reserva Original Toro. The richly flavored 6 x 50 Toro has notes of espresso, cedar, pepper, and dark cherry, with some sweet bread in the background.


Did I mention I enjoyed a lot of Negronis in Ireland? Here's another pairing, this time properly consumed before dinner. This one was served in a water glass, with both an orange slice and a lemon peel. It was paired with the last of my cigars brought from home, a Crowned Heads Le Carême in the Canonazo (5 7/8 x 52) vitola. The Le Carême is one of my favorite smokes. This 5 7/8 x 52 box pressed stick has a Connecticut Broadleaf wrapper, a Sumatra binder, and Nicaraguan fillers. Though is has a creamy, sweet chocolate and nutty flavor profile it made another enjoyable pairing. (From this point on, smoking would be be limited to Italian Toscanos.

The Negroni is a more bitter cocktail than the sweeter profile of my usual straight bourbon, or Old Fashioned cocktail choices. However, all the cigar pairings were enjoyable. It was Italy after all.

And then...
When a friend who was also on the Italy trip came by for dinner recently, we decided to recreate the memory with more Negroni and cigars!


Cheers!


[ This content originated at Musings Over a Barrel ]

The State of Social Media 2023

Author: From https://odonnellweb.com/pelican/ • Oct 9th, 2023
   Category: Blog Entries.Local

From jwz.org, which is a blog I've been keeping up with since 1996ish.

  • Twitter: owned by Musk, a fascist
  • Blue Sky: funded by Dorsey, a fascist
  • Facebook: owned by Zuckerberg, a fascist
  • Instagram: owned by Zuckerberg, a fascist
  • Threads: owned by Zuckerberg, a fascist
  • Post News: funded by Andreessen, a fascist
  • TikTok: owned by the Chinese Government I guess?
  • Mastodon: owned by nobody and/or everybody! Seize the memes of production!

He's not wrong. Twitter is basically a Russian Intelligence asset at this point. I quit in January. My account still exists because Musk fixed it so I have to subscribe to Twitter Blue for a month to get access to delete my account.

Fuck that.

Blue Sky and Threads I'm staying away from because no matter how pleasant they are today, they eventually need to show massive profits, which means enshittification is a given, it's just a question of when.

Facebook is Facebook. It's getting quieter and quieter on Facebook, but it is fun for keeping up with a few dozen friends that post regularly. It's basically a GenX chat room now. I need to accept that FB will never show my blog posts to anybody and just stop posting them there. My blog has been at the same address since 1998. If people can't be bothered to visit or subscribe I need to stop worrying about them as readers.

Instagram appears to be close to dead. Half my feed is ads or professional content creators. Posts from people I know and care about are few and far between. My once a month selfie when out with Michelle gets about a dozen likes from the same 12 people every time, which I guess are the only friends I have still using the site. I'm very close to killing it off.

I actually thought Post News had already gone under. Andreessen took the Mosaic web browser code from U of Illinois and created Netscape. He has done nothing of note since 1996. But all it takes is being in the right place at the right time, with venture capital, once.

Tik Tok may or may not be owned by the Chinese Government, but I'm pretty sure everything you put there is available to the Chinese Government.

Mastodon is thriving. It's like Twitter circa 2007. I enjoy the community I've fell into there, a mix of RVers, RVA folks, and assorted nerds that all feel like I do about corporate social media.

Of course, this site is still here, too. I put a log analyzer on it for a couple of months over the summer and was surprised to see a consistent 125-150 unique visitors a day. I have no idea who they are or how they get here, but welcome!

I saw several articles recently that state that the kids have all ditched social media for group chats and group texts. That is probably for the best. I had a Listserv with about a dozen friends on it that ran about 1998 to 2008. I was way ahead of the game. I probably should have just stayed there.

It feels like social media is ready for the next big thing. But that next big thing may be a big step back.

I'm launching Geocities2023. Who wants in?


Tailgate Cigars

Author: From http://www.musingsoverabarrel.com/ • Oct 9th, 2023
   Category: Blog Entries.Local
It was a beautiful fall Saturday, perfect for tailgating before a college football game. While the games are generally exciting, I look forward to the tailgate beforehand, mostly because it means time spent enjoying a cigar. While at home, I generally prefer bourbon as the accompanying beverage, but beer is always suitable for the pre-football festivities. For this occasion I had the Fightin' Hokies Lager from Hardywood Park Craft Brewing in the cooler. For my smoke I selected the Tobacco Tactical Dead Conqueror Alexander the Great Corojo. This was a selection in the June My Cigar Pack shipment, and a cigar I was unfamiliar with. The 6 x 54 Toro features a very dark chocolate Corojo wrapper with Dominican binder and fillers. I reviewed the Maduro version previously.


Like many large ring gauge cigars, the draw was open and airy. It took a while to get the cigar really going  before I started getting a good smoke production going. After 15 or 20 minutes, I was still double and triple puffing to get a good amount of smoke on the draw. Despite the moderately increased smoke production, I was getting more disappointed with each passing minute. I found the cigar to be quite devoid of flavor. "Sucking on a wooden toothpick" was the descriptor that came to mind. Reviewing my comments regarding the Maduro version, I noted muted but present flavors with that version, and it was an enjoyable smoke. Dominican tobaccos are generally mild, though still flavorful but this one I found exceptionally uninteresting. I took a break and I decided to eat my sandwich and set the cigar down with about one half smoked.

After the main eating was done, though snacking was ongoing, I decided to abandon the Dead Conqueror and light up a cigar I knew to be very flavorful.


The Olmec is a newer release from Foundation Cigars that I've smoked previously. This is a 5 x 50 Robusto with a dark San Andrés maduro wrapper covering binder and aged fillers from Nicaragua. Now we were getting somewhere - espresso, charred meat, molasses, and dark chocolate notes are all detected. This one I enjoyed thoroughly and smoked it down until there was nothing left to hold on to. 

Despite the slow start, the afternoon of enjoying good food, drink, and smoke was a blast. The day only got better as our team went on to victory in the late night game.

Cheers!


[ This content originated at Musings Over a Barrel ]

Saturday Cigar and Cappuccino

Author: From http://www.musingsoverabarrel.com/ • Oct 8th, 2023
   Category: Blog Entries.Local
It's been a while since I found time on a Saturday afternoon to sit and well, sit. That's not really a complaint as most of our Saturdays of late have been taken up by travel and other fun activities. But that doesn't mean I don't miss the "down times" as well. I've been giving our little espresso maker quite the workout since we returned from our Italy trip. (Still, nothing beats an espresso in its native land.) This time I got a little more decadent and prepared a cappuccino to enjoy.


The selected smoke for the afternoon repast was the Crowned Heads Four Kicks Capa Especial Lancero LE 2022. (That's a mouthful.) The 7 1/4 x 38 stick sports an Ecuadorian Sumatra wrapper, with binder and fillers of Nicaraguan tobaccos. There's a tiny pigtail twist on the cap. It was part of a lancero collection recently purchased from Luxury Cigar Club.

The flavors start out with a pleasant sweet note with a smattering of black pepper. As the smoke progresses, the spiciness builds and bitter chocolate and cedar enters the picture. Throughout much of the smoke, the flavor profile was in the medium range, held in check by the creamy cappuccino. Towards the end of the stick, a strong bitterness entered the picture, as well as copious amounts of oily tar around the cap. Perhaps I had been smoking it too hard, but I put it down with about two inches left. Up until that point the Four Kicks Lancero was a very enjoyable smoke.


Fall weather has come upon us, and although the thermometer claimed a temperature around 70°, the cloud cover and breeze made it a little chilly. I broke out the propane heater and set it on low the take the edge off. Sadly, I suspect cooler smoking time is soon to be the norm.

Some good jazz playing from the speaker added to the pleasant afternoon break. It was as they say, a good time.

Cheers!


[ This content originated at Musings Over a Barrel ]

Five O’Clock Friday: Reasons to Drink

Author: From http://www.musingsoverabarrel.com/ • Oct 6th, 2023
   Category: Blog Entries.Local
As seen on a building in Rome


The Italians get it.

Cheers!


[ This content originated at Musings Over a Barrel ]

Sixteen Years of Blogging

Author: From http://www.musingsoverabarrel.com/ • Oct 6th, 2023
   Category: Blog Entries.Local
Today marks 16 years of writing this blog. The collection of ramblings began as "Musings Over a Pint" on October 6, 2007. As I sorted out the "identity" of the Musings, the title eventually changed to "Musings Over a Barrel." I stated in that first post, "I have no idea what this will turn in to" and still today the topics continue morph with my interests and the times.

Heck, I'm not even sure anyone reads this stuff, except me. And I re-read it frequently. As with looking through a photo album, it's fun to reminisce. Writing the blog gives me an excuse to seek out new cigars and bourbons to try. (Yeah, that's it.) I also find writing the posts to be relaxing, most are written with my morning coffee. Which might explain the typos.

To those of you who may check in here on occasion, thanks for stopping by. Tell your friends. ;-) 

I might as well plug my related Instagram posts as well.

Cheers!


[ This content originated at Musings Over a Barrel ]

Bulleit Bourbon Single Barrel and a Smoke

Author: From http://www.musingsoverabarrel.com/ • Oct 4th, 2023
   Category: Blog Entries.Local
Bulleit Bourbon is one of those staples that has a mostly permanent space on my shelves. The standard 90 proof bottle is great for sipping neat or in cocktails, and it can be easily found, in Virginia at least, for around $35. A while back, VA ABC had a limited release drop on a Saturday morning of single barrel bourbons and ryes from various distilleries. I found this Bulleit Bourbon Single Barrel on the store shelf the day after the drop. In talking to the store clerk I learned that Virginia received several hundred bottles to distribute, rather than the typical a few dozen bottles for the entire state.


The bourbon checks in at 104 proof. The release was promoted as being picked for, not by, VA ABC. The plentiful stock would indicate the release was not all bottled from the same single barrel, however there are no batch or barrel numbers listed on the label. The aroma is much like the standard expression, giving off classic bourbon notes of caramel and oak. The flavor presents vanilla, maple, caramel, all with hints of cinnamon and nutmeg. The long lingering finish of spice and sweetness was quite agreeable. I was immediately impressed with the richness of the flavors. It reminded me of the standard Bulleit bourbon but brighter and with a ramped up flavor profile.

To confirm my thoughts, I poured tasters of the regular Bulleit and also of the 10 year version. These are all bourbons I find very enjoyable. In side by side tastings, they all share very similar flavor profiles, with small, but noticeable, differences. The 91.2 proof 10 year old exhibited the most muted flavors of the three. There was a bit more oak aspect, but overall the bourbon seemed milder and lingered on the palate for less time. The standard and single barrel expressions were remarkably similar in flavors present, but the single barrel is much brighter and enhanced. The finish also remained around longer. Twice the flavor at (nearly) twice the price, and worth it in my opinion. None of this lessened my opinion of the other Bulleit bourbons. 


I chose a cigar with which I was wholly unfamiliar to smoke with the Bulleit Single Barrel. The Tobacco Tactical Dead Conqueror Alexander the Great Maduro was a selection in the June My Cigar Pack shipment. The cigar is a collaboration between Tobacco Tactical and My Cigar Pack, and may have been a one time release. Information on the cigar is limited. The 6 x 52 Toro features a very dark chocolate San Andrés wrapper and Domican binder and fillers. There is also a Corojo wrapper version.

The Dead Conqueror is medium bodied with notes of espresso, dark chocolate, and nuts. There is some spiciness to the smoke but the whole flavor profile is quite balanced, although somewhat muted. I guess this one goes to further disprove the false adage that the darker a cigar the more bitter and full flavored it will be. The same misconception is also frequently repeated regarding beer. I had expected the cigar to be more intensely flavored, and was somewhat surprised that it turned out to be more reserved. 

I was extremely pleased with the Bulleit Single Barrel purchase. In fact, while writing these notes I saw that my local ABC still has stock. Though tempted to pick up another, I think I'll now seek out other Bulleit single barrel picks during my travels. I had lower expectations for the Dead Conqueror smoke, but was pleasantly surprised to enjoy it so much. I do have one other, along with a couple in the Corojo version. Whether they will become available in the future is in question.

Cheers!


[ This content originated at Musings Over a Barrel ]

Italy: Tuscano Cigars

Author: From http://www.musingsoverabarrel.com/ • Oct 2nd, 2023
   Category: Blog Entries.Local
During our two week visit to southern Italy, I kept a casual eye out for cigar shops. I had brought along a few cigars to smoke, but not enough to last the trip. I also hoped to find a few Cuban cigars I was interested in trying. Although tobacco stores were ubiquitous wherever we went, actual retailers of fine cigars were rare. 


Throughout the country, the Tabaccheria, or “tabacchi," were ubiquitous and found every few blocks at a minumum. In these typically stall-like stores, a variety of tobacco products are sold. Rolling and pipe tobacco, "e-cigarettes," and standard cigarettes are very popular. There are selections of Italian cigars, most of which I am unfamiliar with. The most common were the ones from Tuscano, a name I had heard in the past at least. I frequently saw men walking through the towns with these rustic sticks in hand.

Toscanos are "charoot" type cigars made in Tuscany. Think Clint Eastwood in the old "spaghetti westerns" and you'll know the cigar. They are rough rolled, consisting of a wrapper, that doubles as the binder, and filler leaves. The tobaccos used are fermented Kentucky tobaccos grown in Italy. The slender cigars are wider in the middle and taper toward the ends. Traditionally they are cut in half and smoked, although after my first one, I skipped that step and smoked them "whole." The cigars are dry and do not require humidification. They are packaged 5 to a box.


The first one I tried was Toscano Classico. The approximately 6 x 38 stick has the strong aroma of a smokey campfire. I expected a harsh experience, but it was more of a medium bodied smoke and easy to smoke. The flavor was reminiscent of smoky BBQ and semi-sweet chocolate. My initial Toscano pairing was with an Aperal Spritz, a classic Italian afternoon aperitif, and some Amaretti di Loreto almond cookies. The combo made for an enjoyable afternoon after a morning of sightseeing. The cigar left behind a persistent smoked wood flavor in the mouth.


I also picked up a box of Tuscano Antico when I had some time to kill one afternoon in Rome. I smoked it in the plaza just outside of the Vatican while waiting for our group to assemble. (Smoking is prohibited within the Vatican City State.) These were described as having stronger pepper notes. The one I smoked was less sweet than the Classico and I found it somewhat bitter. 


Having smoked the cigar supply I had packed, and failing to find a place to restock by the end of our trip, I stuck with Tuscanos the last few days of the trip. I had a fun "Italian" pairing on one of the last evenings, consisting of a Tuscano Classica and Birra Moretti Italian-brewed beer. The cool beer was very refreshing on a hot and humid Rome evening. 

During our last day in Italy I found the Fincato La Casa del Habano in Rome selling both Cuban and other cigars, although with an extremely sparse inventory. Alas being the end of the trip I had no time to pick any up to smoke.

Cheers!


[ This content originated at Musings Over a Barrel ]

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