American Drink

On or around October 16th, 65 cases of Pappy Van Winkle, one of the best, hard to get bourbons, just vanished. >Sheriff Melton said the culprit stole 195 bottles in three-bottle cases of Pappy Van Winkle 20 Year, which has a suggested retail price of $130 a bottle, and nine cases of 13-year-old Van Winkle Family Reserve Rye, with a suggested price of $69. – [NYTimes.com](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/19/us/kentuckys-case-of-the-missing-bourbon.html?_r=0) Since then, [a high school principal](http://www.state-journal.com/latest%20headlines/2013/10/28/bardstown-high-school-principal-denies-pappy-theft) and celebrity chef, [Anthony Bourdain](http://www.esquire.com/blogs/food-for-men/pappy-van-winkle-theft-bourdain-1013) have been identified separately as a persons of interest. If you or someone you know has [information](https://amzn.to/2lsmJ9a) on the whereabouts of 65 cases of Pappy Van Winkle 20 Year Old Reserve or 13 year-old Reserve Rye, hook a brother up.

Long Island Iced Tea | INVENTORS | PBS Digital Studios by David Friedman aka [@ironicsans](twitter.com/ironicsans) >Bob “Rosebud” Butt is credited with inventing the Long Island Iced Tea while he was a bartender at the Oak Beach Inn on Long Island in the 1970s. Bob may not be the first bartender to have made a mixed drink resembling iced tea — some stories say that a similar drink was mixed during prohibition — but Bob says he’s pretty sure he’s the first person to come up with this particular recipe. Bob in included in the “Inventors” series because he serves as a reminder that not every invention has to be serious, or for profit, or part of a larger plan. We all have Long Island Ice Tea stories and here's why. Check it out in the latest installment in David Friedman's *fantastic* [INVENTORS series](http://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8y_P0KZUfSI4Cdvbq5ZqlQ).

This one may be worth your time. And if you've never had homemade eggnog, do yourself a favor and change that.

Ran my first half-marathon today. My uh, friends made me a sign.

The Courting Rachel (Smoked Old Fashioned) - Saveur.com >[…]the Courting Rachel, a cocktail made by mixologist Andrew Bohrer of Seattle's Mistral Kitchen, in which a classic Old Fashioned is dramatically doused in the sweet, fresh smoke of hickory chips. > >Thanks to the wood, Bohrer knew that he had to name this drink for U.S. President Andrew Jackson, who was nicknamed "Old Hickory" for his tough demeanor. One problem, though: "I hate Andrew Jackson," Bohrer told me. "But one of the cool things he did was fight 13 duels for his wife's honor. In one of the duels he took a bullet in the chest and just stood there, and then he killed the guy." For a historical figure whose legacy primarily centers around his genocide of Native Americans, Bohrer found Jackson's dedication to his wife's honor a fitting aspect for paying tribute, so the Courting Rachel was born. Seattle's Andrew Bohrer shares the recipe for this old fashioned variation.

>Because Poe was found on the day of an election, it was suggested as early as 1872 that he was the victim of cooping. This was a ballot-box-stuffing scam in which victims were shanghaied, drugged, and used as a pawn to vote for a political party at multiple locations. Cooping had become the standard explanation for Poe's death in most of his biographies for several decades, though his status in Baltimore may have made him too recognizable for this scam to have worked. More recently, analysis suggesting that Poe's death resulted from rabies has been presented. Edgar Allen Poe was found in the streets, babbling incoherently and wearing clothes that weren't his. Several times before he died, he cried out the name "Reynolds" though nobody knows to whom he was calling. It's no surprise that the cause of Poe's mysterious death is attributed to politics or rabies.

Did you know that Kentucky and South Carolina ban the sale of alcohol on election day? They are the last two states with such a ban, since the repeal of Prohibition. Delaware, Idaho, Indiana, Utah and West Virginia have only eased similar laws within the last few years. Better stock up today! Go vote! (via Yahoo! News)

The Old Fashioned.

>I can hardly tell one bourbon from another, unless the other is very bad. Some bad bourbons are more memorable than good ones. For example, I can recall being broke with some friends in Tennessee and deciding to have a party and being able to afford only two-fifths of a $1.75 bourbon called Two Natural, whose label showed dice coming up 5 and 2. Its taste was memorable. The psychological effect was also notable. After knocking back two or three shots over a period of half an hour, the three male drinkers looked at each other and said in a single voice: "Where are the women?" > >I have not been able to locate this remarkable bourbon since. Drinking is more than just the buzz. Fantastic read by Walker Percy via [Ryan Bateman](http://everythinginthesky.com).

It seems that Sweden is having something of a potato boom complete with a burgeoning "potato culture" and, naturally, vodka. Except they're trying to do it right. >“Absolut was basically a Madison Avenue creation,” Ekelund explained one evening on a drive near his farm. “The design on the bottle was everything. It was supposed to taste like nothing, so that it could be mixed with anything.” […] > >The first batch of Karlsson’s Gold Vodka, named after Borje Karlsson, the master blender behind both the new spirit and the original Absolut recipe, hit the market four years ago, to rave reviews. Some 50 of Cape Bjare’s farmers supply the distillery, near Stockholm, with seven kinds of potatoes. Karlsson’s is served in restaurants across the peninsula, often over ice with a bit of cracked pepper. It’s slowly taking hold in New York and in California’s wine country, Ekelund said. “Brandy was not made in a day.”