I haven’t commented on this scandal for a reason. There is a better usage of the Council’s time. Lame duck session or not, the Council is a venue for issues concerning the city. And no one likes MTV’s programming. There are so many other things to be offended over, is anyone really surprised by MTV’s programming? Get over it, Sano.

Look good and feel great before you head out on New Years Eve!

Look sharp!

So get this; I purchased two tickets for the January Al Dimeola concert back in AUGUST thinking I would get the best seats possible if I acted early.  According to The Egg (the venue) the first 4 rows were “reserved” for Egg members exclusively and all other seats would be open to the public.  So, I purchased my seats and was able to get 5th row for the show, lucky me I thought.  As the months have passed I have checked the website periodically to see what seats were left, about a week ago it appeared the show was nearly sold out since the last row of seats was all that was available.

This morning I decided to check The Egg’s website and discovered that FRONT ROW seats are  now available!  This is the most lame policy I have ever seen; shame on The Egg for rewareding those who purchase their tickets last minute to get the best seats.  I’m pissed and now am slightly (an understatement for sure) bitter about going to this show.  I don’t hold Al DiMeola responsible, but I do hold The Egg for screwing his fans over.

I’m sure the show will be great and yes, my 5th row tickets are still very good, but they could be better. Screw you EGG!

Only 5 shopping days left until New Year’s Eve!  Sorry.  I know it’s probably the last thing you wanted to hear.

But that means that I have precious little time to weigh in on the heftiest of matters for the holiday – what to drink.

And the answer is Champagne, of course.  Or maybe it’s not.  There are people who insist that it is not a celebration unless Champagne corks are popping.  They would be wrong on two counts.

For me, the celebration comes from the bubbles.  And bubbles exist in sparkling wines found well out of the grasp of Epernay and Reims.  You see, to be Champagne a wine must come from that specific region of France.  Despite what people may tell you, there is no Champagne made in the United States.

This wine is one of many internationally protected regional products.  The U.S. didn’t exactly buy into this scheme.  But so many wineries are owned by international conglomerates that many American sparkling wines still observe this nomenclature.  Some, on the other hand, do not.

What we have here are méthode Champenoise sparkling wines, or in English, sparkling wines made as they are in Champagne.

In short this means that grapes are picked, turned into wine, and put in bottles.  Additional yeast is added to the bottles directly, and the wine goes through a secondary fermentation, which results in three peculiar things.
1)    Yeast poop (AKA bubbles)
2)    Unpleasantly dry wine, devoid of sugar
3)    Nasty dead yeast

Luckily there is one last process that takes care of everything except the yeast poop.  The dead yeast are coerced into the neck of the bottle.  When they are removed sugar water is added to the wine to make it palatable.  If it makes you feel better to call the sugar water a dosage, as they do in France, it’s fine by me.  The wine gets a cork, a cage, a foil capsule, and it’s done.

I do not put the process in these terms to denigrate it.  Rather, I think it’s best to strip it of its mystery and appreciate it for what it is.  And it is an ingenious way of making a festive sparkling wine.

There is a French company in California’s Anderson Valley that makes one of my favorite American sparkling wines.  It is Roederer, the house of the infamous Cristal.  The firm got into trouble years back when they were asked about all the hip-hop attention possibly hurting the brand.

That aside, their Roederer Estate Brut NV is dynamite.  And it’s a favorite go-to bottle for me on any festive occasion.  Generally the price hovers around $20 a bottle, although they regularly seem to have it at BJ’s in Albany for a few dollars less.

I break méthode Champenoise wine (both French and American) down into two major styles:
1) Tart and racy
2) Round and full

Each has its charms.  Veuve Clicquot is a perfect example of the former.  And my Roederer Estate is fully in the later.  Which style sounds more appealing to you at the end of December is as much about your personal taste as it is your geography.  Although what you are eating could certainly come into play too.

My relationship with Roederer Estate is a long one.  We bought several cases for our wedding many years ago.  And as I do with many things, I overbought.  It was a great problem to have, as we enjoyed the leftover wine regularly over the course of our first year of marriage.

This is a wine I know very well, and it’s always a pleasure.  It may not be Champagne, but it is certainly a bottle worthy of opening in celebration.

Oh, and the other thing wrong about needing to pop Champagne corks is the popping part.  If you do it right, the sound is more akin to a whisper or a sigh.

But should you find that to be a bit anticlimactic and lacking in joie de vivre, there is one other acceptable way of opening a champagne bottle.  Without a doubt it’s more festive.  But it does require one piece of specialized equipment.

I found out this morning that my passport is at the Chinese consulate. I sent it to Mom to get my Visa, and after she dropped it off at the consulate she didn’t think to go back and retrieve it. Because today is Christmas and then it’s the weekend, I wouldn’t be able to get my passport until Monday; my flight is Sunday.

We’ve tried everything; there is no way for me to go. Aaron has decided that he won’t go either.

Instead of going to Israel, we will spend a few extra days in New York and then figure out what we will do with the remaining time we have of winter break. Suggestions? ♥

The Alchemist, May 13th, 2008, Vol.1, No. 20

Deep Fried Hillbilly, Vol. 1, No. 20, Page 3

Vol. 1, No. 20

Deep Fried Hillbilly

A Hillbilly for all Occasions
by Robin Canfield

Deep Fried Hillbilly is a local band that fits in almost anywhere. In the year that the group has been together they’ve played everywhere from graduation, birthday, camping and wedding parties to benefits, the Calapooia Brewing Company in Albany and The Fox & Firkin downtown. This Friday at 6 PM the band makes their second appearance on Locals Live, a KBVR production in Snell Hall at OSU.
“Someone forgot to press record,” drummer Danny Rawson explained about the band’s first Local’s Live appearance.
The band came away with no video recording last time, and an audio recording missing almost a minute of their first song. This second attempt should correct the problem and give fans a second chance to listen in or stop by the studio to watch.
The recordings should also get the band one step closer to a completed demo tape, an important step for a band that listens, and re-listens, to almost every show they play. Armed with a quality digital recorder, Deep Fried Hillbilly records themselves constantly.
A big chunk of the band’s twice-weekly practices goes to collectively listening to those recordings so each member, Billy Renz on lead guitar and vocals, Justin Richter on bass, Alex Cooper on keys, and Rawson, can listen to what they’ve done. The group discusses the music as they listen, passing suggestions and encouraging emphasis on the parts that sound good. The sessions also serve as a good chance for each member to critically appraise his own performance. The music, however, is not as serious as all this sounds.
“Mostly we play feel good, blue collar music that people like to dance to,” said Renz.
The blues and funk influenced jam band vibe of Deep Fried Hillbilly is certainly a product of refined natural ability, and it’s catching on. The band recently passed the one-year mark around the time they played at a local May Day celebration, the third straight May Day performance for Renz and Rawson, both of whom previously played May Day with the band Milk.
The pair can trace their collaborative roots to one drunken night with a guitar and a hand drum, much the same way that Cooper joined later. The happy, friendly tones of both how the members met, and how they still interact today, shows in their music.
“Our music has lots of emotion,” Renz said, “It carries through the highs and lows.”
You may recognize some of the bands chosen cover songs like The Grateful Dead’s “Behind the Mountain,” or Van Morrison’s “Moon Dance,” though if you tune in to Locals Live all you will hear are all originals, such as “Better Off in Space,” a funk-pop song with solid progression, and “Fish and Famine,” a mellow song with some dark undertones. Each song averages about seven minutes, though breaks may be hard to hear as the band often tries to blend one song into the next.
“We play vaguely political music,” explained Rawson.
“None of us are using the music as a soap box,” added Cooper.
You can check out the sound of Deep Fried Hillbilly on Myspace or on Locals Live. On Thursday, May 22, you can also catch Renz and Rawson playing an acoustic set on the rooftop of the Downtown American Dream Pizza.

As Mario of Nintendo fame would say,

“HERE WE GO!”

The Daily Gazette and The Albany Times Union Newspapers have filed a joint lawsuit against The Schenectady School District for withholding information regarding the investigation of former school facilities manager Steven Raucci and his alleged terrorist activities.  HT Daily Gazette.

When the school district released the report most of it was blacked out.  So now the papers are suing the district to get the full report.  Clearly the district and superintendent Eric Ely have something to hide.  They’re covering their own backsides and perhaps some others as well.

So now that the suit’s been filed, “Let the games begin!”

Albany. Just about any one you talk to always says, aww it rains there all the time. Well yes it does rain, we are on the South Coast, but it also has its fair share of sun shine, and because of the “rain” we have amazing beaches like this at our door step to our selves.

Whaling cove (AKA Nudie beach to the locals) is on the way to Frenchman’s Bay. Blue flat water. White sand. Great.

Shot this image this arvo, Christmas eve. We shut the shop at 12pm, lit the BBQ and had a beer. Then went  out with the Nikon. What better way to spend Christmas eve?

Merry Christmas.

David

Enough of the snidery of the last two posts: let’s get back to what this blog is famous for quite well known for around the world among a very small number of people: shining a torch on obscure bits of brewing history.

Regular readers may remember a post from last year about the “double drop” system of fermentation, during which, in passing, I mentioned another old method of “cleansing” fermenting beer of its excess yeast, the “ponto” system. This, according to the Encyclopaedia Britannica of 1911, “consists in discharging the beer into a series of vat-like vessels, fitted with a peculiarly shaped overflow lip. The yeast works its way out of the vessel over the lip, and then flows into a gutter and is collected.”

I remarked at the time that “ponto” was a curious word, not in the Oxford English Dictionary, and guessed that it might be derived from “pontoon”, because the “peculiarly shaped overflow lip” (you can see some here, pictured in the Porter Tun Room at Whitbread’s brewery in London) looked like the end of a pontoon or punt.

Aha! While digging around in Google Books a short while ago, I found an illustration of identical vessels being used in a brewery in Albany, New York in the middle of the 19th century, vessels that are referred to as “pontoons”. What’s more, it is clear that the brewery owner, John Taylor, had brought the “pontoon” concept back with him from London. Here’s a picture of Taylor’s pontoon room

– you can see the “pontoons” look identical to Whitbread’s pontos – and here’s a couple of quotes from a curious book called Ale in Prose and Verse‎ by Barry Gray and John Savage, published in 1866, from which the picture above comes, and which is mostly taken up with praising Taylor’s ales. The first is about Taylor’s trip back to England (he was born in either Durham or Chester, and came to the young United States with his parents around the start of the 19th century), when he had already been running a brewery in Albany for a couple of decades. While in the old country he decided to look at what was happening in the British brewing industry:

“A man gifted, as he was, with large perceptive faculties could not pass through the great breweries of Great Britain without adding to his store of information and learning many things which could be advantageously adapted to his business. Many of these breweries he examined with close attention, and whatever was novel, either in the machinery or manner of operation, was carefully studied and noted down. In some instances he made elaborate drawings of such portions of the works as he deemed it desirable to imitate, and often under circumstances unfavorable to such labor. After duly considering and comparing the various advantages accruing to the breweries from their mechanical or other improvement, he decided to select the Lion Brewery of London, with such additions and improvements as his own observation and judgment would enable him to graft upon it, as the model from which to erect, on his return to Albany, a brewery which would favorably compare with those of the old world, and far excel any which up to that period had been erected in this country.”

The Lion brewery he visited must have been Goding’s brewery on the South Bank, erected in 1836/7, which was one of the biggest of London’s ale breweries (that is, non-porter ones). Gray and Savage say Taylor made his trip across the Atlantic in 1860, but as he rebuilt his brewery in Albany in 1851 they must mean 1850, at which time the Lion brewery would have been barely a dozen years old, and probably pretty cutting-edge in terms of its equipment. (It ran until 1924, when it was brought by Hoare and Co, whose brewery stood just to the east of St Katharine’s Dock, on the outskirts of Wapping. The Lion brewery buildings were eventually demolished in 1949 to make way for the Royal Festival Hall, though the Coade Stone lion that was once mounted on top of the brewery still, as I’m sure I must have said here before, stands guard by Waterloo Westminster Bridge. Its fellow, which was over the brewery gate in Belvedere Road, can now be found, painted gold, at Twickenham Rugby ground.)

We can be pretty certain, I think, that Taylor saw pontos being used at the Lion brewery and brought the idea home to Albany, though whether the name changed mid-Atlantic to pontoon, or whether pontoon was what the Lion brewery called them seems impossible to say. Here’s Gray and Savage’s description of Taylor’s pontoon room:

“Perhaps the most remarkable feature of Taylor’s Brewery is to be found in the pontoon room. Standing on an elevated platform at one end of the vast apartment, the eye of the spectator passes over three hundred and sixty five white cedar vessels or pontoons, capable of holding twenty six hundred barrels, placed in regular order and divided into five sets. Between them wooden troughs are arranged which carry off the yeast as it purges from the new-made ale contained in them undergoing the process of cleansing. From each pontoon the creamy yeast, crowned with foam reminding one of white-capped billows, slowly pours itself into the receiving troughs. Heretofore this refining process was effected solely by hand, a slovenly and dirty process which, until this pontoon apparatus was introduced by Mr Taylor in his present brewery, was the only one employed in this country. Even now the expense necessary for making the change deters many breweries from adopting the new and more perfect and cleaner process.”

“Pontoon” is certainly not a mistake of Gray and Savage’s for ponto, since a later book, A History of American Manufactures from 1608 to 1860, published in 1868, also calls the vessels pontoons. By now, five years after John Taylor’s death, and with the brewery being run by his sons, it was the largest in the United States, producing 200,000 (presumably US) barrels a year. This was only about half the output of the biggest London brewers, but still a substantial operation. The History of American Manufactures said of John Taylor’s Sons brewery:

“Previous to its erection in 1850 the senior of this firm visited Europe and made drawings of the most important improvements which he saw in the London Breweries. The pontoon apparatus for cleansing and refining the ale, consisting of three hundred and sixty five large cedar vessels, with floats so arranged as to open and shut the valves, the liquor being always at the same height, independent of the flow of yeast in the receiving troughs, is as yet a novelty in American breweries.

Taylor’s operation was an ale brewery, like Goding’s in London, and he does not appear to have made either porter or the new-fangled lager. In 1850 he was advertising in a New York directory: “John Taylor and Sons Albany Imperial Pale and Amber Ale constantly on hand and for sale in hogsheads, barrels and half barrels, either for city use or shipping.” Here’s another Taylor ad, from 1857. Don’t tell Ron Pattinson about that “Imperial Pale” and “Imperial XX” – in fact “Imperial” seems to have been a Taylor trademark, rather than any attempt to suggest his beer was extra strong, since the word was used with several of his beers: when Gray and Savage eulogised his brews in verse, they declared:

“Among the ales most famed in story
From Adam’s down – or old or new –
There’s none possessing half the glory,
Or half the life of Taylor’s brew.
Their “amber” brand is light and cheery,
Their “XX” is strong though pale,
But give to me, when dull and weary,
Their cream, imperial “Astor” ale.”

and a picture of one of their depots shows a board advertising “Imperial Pale and Cream Ales”. What’s the bet, incidentally, that Taylor’s XX strong pale was a London-style pale mild ale?

The Taylors are sometimes said to have sold the brewery in the 1870s, though the rather sad cutting below from the New York Times in 1880 suggests otherwise, and the 1891 census of Albany recorded Edward L. Taylor as vice-president of the brewing company and Nicholas B. Taylor as its president. The brewery seems to have closed its doors in 1905. Did any other American brewing concern take up the idea of pontoons, or pontos? I doubt it, but I’d love to be proved wrong.

Last night, Aaron and I got into New York City and saw “In The Heights” with 90% of the original cast. It was fantastic; if you get the chance, it’s a must-see (for no other reason than Javier Muñoz; that man can RAP).

Today, we ate breakfast with Aaron’s parents in Great Neck and then drove up to Albany. At this point, Aaron and me are getting a little tired from all the activities we’ve planned. What happens when you get stir crazy?

(One of these didn’t flip; my bad!!)

We also took a few pictures! Not much to see though:

Road and Snow

Snow and Road

http://www.photoshelter.com/c/eliasweddings/gallery/Groomsmen-get-a-straight-razor-shave-at-vintage-barbershop/G0000.Dlw9pFzGcg/

I think it’s safe to say that Charl and I have never been all that conventional and we love stuff that stands out from the average, hence the name of this blog.

One such place is Patsy’s Executive Cutters in downtown Albany, NY. Run by long time Albany scenester and “host with the most”;  William “Tragedy” Yager.

Patsy’s has been running continuously as a barbershop since just after World War One; everything in the place in vintage from the barber chairs to the rare African mahogany wood work.

Tragedy prides Patsy’s on being the kind of shop where every customer feels like a king, thus many of his clients are high priced lawyers and big time politicians while there are just as many plain folks who sit down in the chair.

You can still get a real straight razor shave with the hot towel and dash of Tragedy’s own home made bay rum which simply can’t be beat.

Each barber at Patsy’s is the real deal from the thick mustached Joe C. to the stunning Peruvian beauty of Marylin; the experience is worth it alone no less the great haircut and shave!

I try to get any grooms who have the time to bring their guys down to Patsy’s for a relaxing hot shave before the big event.

There is plenty of room to get dressed and plenty of mirrors so you know you are going to leave Patsy’s looking sharp.

Tragedy makes sure the groom and his party are shaved just right and is sure to take care of even the most minor trims to keep their hair looking perfect for the big moment.

Check out my gallery of one wedding party’s visit at http://www.photoshelter.com/c/eliasweddings/gallery/Groomsmen-get-a-straight-razor-shave-at-vintage-barbershop/G0000.Dlw9pFzGcg/ .

I skipped the photos of some of the non-wedding highlights like the guys meeting Ms. NY State in the shop or two dozen of NYC’s most famous hardcore punks from the likes of Murphy’s Law and Scarhead showing up, but you never know who you are going to meet when you go to Patsy’s!

Want more info and photos on Tragedy and Patsy’s Executive Cutters?

Try Tragedy’s blog – Razors and Bay Rum at http://www.tragedyny.wordpress.com .

Want even more photos of Patsy’s and the Patsy’s team? Check out my barbershop gallery at www.daelias.com.

There is no better way to get ready for the big day! Your chair is waiting!

Groom gets shaved before the wedding.

The Albany County Rail Trail: A New Use of Albany’s Railroad Past

http://blog.timesunion.com/tablehopping/12215/anybody-ordered-online-from-mealeo/

Picked up a few last-minute gifts at the farmer’s market and craft fair on Saturday, and ran into my old friend from high school, Alix! Also recieved an overdose of praise for my hair. Thanks, slightly creepy craft vendor who likes my hair.

I’ve been too busy recently to catch up on my procrastination. So while the end result is the same (novel remains unedited), I feel slightly more virtuous.

Like today. Woke up early, made bourbon balls, took the dog to the beach, went shopping at Goodwill, Target, jewelry store, and Comic Relief, wielded hot-glue gun to finish a birthday present, delivered said present at b-day party for a wonderful almost-cougar, came home to celebrate christmas with sisters, then capped off the day working on an almost-due report to a foundation for work. All done without losing a drop of holiday cheer.

All that has no bearing on what I wanted to share. I just wanted to brag.

At the beach this morning, Boonie and I decided to make the Big Loop, and circle around the lagoon at the end of the Bulb. Halfway there, while I was slipping on barnacled half-submerged rocks, she took off like a shot after a pair of these:

They let out a shrill scream the likes of which I’ve never heard, and, thankfully, Boonie listened to me when I told her to leave it. I’d never seen these guys before, and on my way out, I stopped at the bird watching station where a pair of finely aged women were peeking through cameras with gigantic lenses. They were delighted to help, and showed me the page in their well-worn guidebook that identified Boonie’s prey as Black Oyster Catchers.

Those birds aren’t endangered, but they’re not exactly thick on the ground either, and the little old ladies were super excited for me, that I got to see them. They were just disappointed they couldn’t make the hike out to the lagoon themselves, but they felt sure that their next stop for the day, a pier a little further down the shoreline, would also the the next stop of the Oyster Catchers. These ladies must have been 82 if if they were a day, and they had a full day of accessible bird-viewing planned out.

I kinda loved them. Even though I was interrupting their viewing with a silly, “Hey, you like birds? I just saw a bird!” question, they had huge grins on their faces the whole time we were talking, and seemed absolutely thrilled to be able to help me pinpoint the answer. I’m not sure why I felt comfortable walking up to them with my stupid question. Sometimes you can just tell kindred spirits, I guess.

It feels like forever ago, but it was only back in June when I first wrote about the problems of ordering wine by the glass.

Since then, I had a reasonably and unexpectedly positive experience with ordering a glass of wine at a family-style Italian restaurant in Albany. Actually it was my mother who ordered the glass of wine, despite my protestations.  But that one decent glass gave me the hope to carry on.

Although I am afraid that hope was misplaced.

Recently I was at a fancier local restaurant with a significant wine program and thought I’d try a glass of their Sonoma County pinot noir.  It did not work out very well.  But it was not an entire loss.  I left that evening with a few additional strategies for how to get a good glass of wine when dining out.

First let me tell you a bit about the sad story of the pinot noir.

I swirled the wine around in the glass and took a deep whiff, only to find a big nose full of nothing.  Then I took a sip, to taste that signature California fruit, and came up empty.

With my trusty iPhone, I went and looked up tasting notes for this wine.  Could it be that I just ordered some stinker that the restaurant put on its list to make a buck?  Nope.  All reports said that this was actually a delightful wine.  That it exhibited tons of alluring character and charm, none of which were present in this glass.

I usually do not complain.  Generally I do not send things back.

But each passing sip of this wine just made me grumpier and grumpier.  And I realized that this was ridiculous.  The wine should be a pleasure, not a punishment.  So I called to the bartender, and I asked him:

F: Has this bottle been open for a long time?
B: No.  I just opened it in the last two hours.

Hmm.  I’m inclined to give people the benefit of the doubt.  But that wine was so vanquished of fruit and character it seemed like it must have been open for significantly longer.  Still, if that wasn’t the problem, I thought I would try again.  So I asked the bartender:

F: Could you taste this wine?  It seems off to me.
B: Sure.  [Tastes the wine.]  It tastes fine to me, but if you’d like a glass of something different, I’d be happy to get you one.

Really?  Fine to you?  In my mind, that is a much larger problem.  But I was satisfied with the result.  I returned my glass of wine, and was about to get another.  This time, I went for a warming zinfandel.

And this time, the bartender did something clever.  He poured me a taste, before pouring me the glass.

Because you know what?  This wine also tasted like it had been open for far too long.  But because it was a heartier wine, it still had some of its character remaining.  So, I told him it was better, and enjoyed that glass as best as I could.

Perhaps the bartender snickered to himself, thinking me foolish for accepting one long-opened bottle after rejecting another.  But we already know a thing or two about that fellow.

The thing that kills me is that not everyone is as self-assured in their wine knowledge as I am.  And I have to wonder, how many people are drinking that long-opened pinot noir and thinking that this is what the wine tastes like?  How many people are opening themselves up to the adventure of wine for the first time, only to come away thinking they don’t know what all the fuss is about?

I find it very frustrating.

But the golden lining is that I came away reminded of two more helpful tips for ordering wine by the glass.
1)    Ask for a taste of the wine.  The worst that will happen is they’ll say no.
2)    Go for sturdier wines that can withstand the rigors of being open for a while.

I think my mother’s earlier success had to do with getting a glass of cheap zinfandel at the Italian restaurant.  Those big red wines can take a lot of abuse.  Shiraz and cabernet sauvignon would be my other go-to varietals if I were unsure of the care taken by a restaurant with its wines by the glass.

But I’d still try to ask for a taste first.

Recently in the Albany NY area there was a mansion overlooking the Mohawk River that had been on the market for several years.  The asking price was just under 13 million.  Last week it was finally sold for about 2 million dollars! (HT CS9)

Yes, it really is a buyer’s market out there when you can get a place for only 15% of the asking price.  But what’s really sad about this is the back story surrounding the place.

The Llenroc Mansion was once owned by insurance magnate Albert Lawrence of “The Lawrence Group.” In 1999 Mr. Lawrence went to jail after he got caught dipping into his employee’s pension fund among other things.  He was released just before his death in 2001.

It’s bad enough that whoever owns this place took a big loss in the sale, but Lawrence’s family won’t see a dime of it since they had already filed for bankruptcy.

Now the mansion still sits on a hill overlooking the Mohawk.  It will forever stand as a monument to all would be embezzlers trolling up and down the river in their yachts.

“Don’t let this happen to you!  Deal honestly with your employees, OR ELSE!!”

Just yesterday there was a conversation happening over at On The Edge about cocktails that made me realize the need for today’s post.

A commenter named Jaci eschewed the use of ice in her peppermint cocktail, lest it water down the drink.  Instead, she chilled the cocktail shaker.  And while I’m sure that is a reasonably effective method of chilling down a drink, it misses a broader point.

Ice is an important ingredient in cocktails.

Like it or not, cocktails are all about dilution.  You dilute a base spirit with liqueurs and other flavorings.  And the small amount of water that is thrown off by your ice is a critical component to a balanced drink.

Certainly the dilution from water needs to be managed.  Nobody wants a waterlogged cocktail.  The size of the cubes, the manner of mixing, and the amount of time the drink spends in the mixing glass all play a role.

Here are some maxims to remember:
1) The larger the cubes, the less water they will shed.
2) Stirring aids the cooling process, and keeps the cubes intact.
3) Shaking will get a drink colder, but will throw off more water, and break up the ice.
4) And of course the longer the drink sits on ice, the wetter it gets.

Modern cocktail recipes tend to be very specific about these things.  And if you muck about with them, it could affect the balance of the drink

Some bars use shamelessly small ice and shake every drink as a matter of course.  They produce watered-down drinks.  Not because they are trying to defraud their customers, but apparently because they don’t know how to do it any other way.

Jaci’s Peppermint Martini (obviously her words, not mine) is a drink that shouldn’t be shaken anyway.  Rather, given its build of spirits and liqueurs, and the absence of just-squeezed juices or eggs, it should be stirred.  Ideally her mixing glass would be filled with large ice cubes, and she would stir for about 15 seconds.

I hope that the recipe provided was for two cocktails.  At 7.5 ounces, without the benefit of a fraction of an ounce of water, it is a monster.  Let’s assume that a cocktail will hold its chill for 30 minutes, which is generous.  The bearer of this drink will need to have more than three shots of vodka in half an hour, or else be left with a warming minty cocktail.  Ick.

But on the positive side, Kristi was looking for holiday-themed cocktails.  I’ve been mulling this one over, and I think I finally came up with something.  Although it needs to be tested to make sure the proportions are right.

My favorite part of Christmas is the aromatics of the event.  It’s the smell of the tree that always gets me.  Which led me to think of the piney-ness of a classically made gin with prominent juniper notes.  The other great smell of the holiday that pairs with the tree are pomanders.  You know, those oranges studded with cloves that can be used as ornaments.

So here is my entry:
The Pomander Cocktail

2 oz. Tanqueray gin or other gin with pronounced juniper notes
½ oz. just-squeezed orange juice
¼ oz. Cointreau
¼ oz. spiced clove syrup*
Dash of Fee’s orange bitters
Orange peel for garnish

Shake over ice and strain into a cocktail glass.  Squeeze any oil from the orange peel over the drink, and rub around rim.

If there were some kind of prize, I’d probably spend some time tinkering around with this drink to perfect it.  I think it has promise.  But instead, I’m going to start getting ready for the last night of Chanukah, and eat my last guilt-free fried foods.

So as they say, adjust to taste.

* For the spiced clove syrup, take a tablespoon of whole cloves, one cinnamon stick, a few allspice berries and a few black peppercorns in a pot with a cup of sugar and a cup of water.  Heat on medium low until the sugar fully dissolves.  Strain and chill.

Every time I feel I can never be surprised by an Albany politician, that it can get no worse, Times Union’s Local Politics blog reminds me how naive, how idealistic I truly am.

It appears Councilman James Sano, 9th Ward, has a serious issue with MTV’s “Jersey Shore” enough to propose a Councl condemnation of the show and demanding MTV cancel it. Yes, Jersey Shore, a show about individuals like these individuals. Does he perhaps have a point? Yes, but I still feel, in Albany would be better served having its Common Council handle issues of serious concern.

You know, issues you can’t just change the channel on.

Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings. – Dali

I almost forgot to post this, too much has been happening lately. When I was poking around Albany the other morning I climbed to the roof of the parking garage behind the Capital Repertory Theater, and perched on a guardrail was this Cooper’s Hawk. I was hoping to get close enough to just take some photos of it sitting there, but I scared it off and managed to get a couple of it in flight.

I think we were both surprised to see each other.