#bitter drinker

<sigh> drank all the dry unfiltered ciders from Michigan and not being a quitter naturally I started in on the westies from El Segundo.

The Art of Dyeing

Lol driving away from Darling's, a gin join on Bardstown Rd, we saw the inspired sign for a hair parlour of the same name. I was driving so no pic but you can look it up.

What a fun night! We've been not going out much this year. It began with the annual diet and was extended for various reasons but when I saw Mile Wide Brewing had a Foeder-aged Wild Ale with Passionfruit & Hibiscus I said I'm going - do you want to?

She did and we had a blast. After the brewery and pizza I wanted that drink @thoughtfulbirdpolice was drinking at The Perseverance recently, a Campari gin and tonic. I love gin and tonic and a Negroni so...what better place than a gin joint? Darling's was just up the street.

I considered asking for a standard English gin like Bombay or Tanqueray even specifying it be served "up" in a stemmed glass like Lisa's gorgeous pic showed, but then my instincts are usually to trust an experienced bartender and the vibes I was getting from Alex said, trust her.

Hmmm so good I may never order just a gin and tonic again. I followed it up with a shot of Smith and Cross Navy Strength rum - so funky and...if it weren't Wednesday I would have kept things going. As it were I agreed to hang at Kaiju on Saturday to drink saké as Alex said she would be pouring.

Agony and ecstasy warred in my mind sitting at the bar in this masterpiece of a pub.  The ecstasy was a pub as perfect as I could imagine or had ever experienced outside of England, while the agony was so many years wasted, it was opened in 1990 by an Englishman and this was my first visit.  I could have been coming here for decades.  Damnit! 

D surprised me on Friday by saying she wanted to go to Indianapolis.  There was something at Ikea she wanted and...”they don’t ship?” I asked.  But I readily agreed.

I love Indy, it’s chock full of unique bars, restaurants, and breweries that make up most of my middle-age adventuring but, at two hours distant, I’ve had to settle for experiencing them only a few at a time.  At most, I visit twice a year and at that rate, I can’t even keep up with new places always opening and I’ve a list of well-known Indy establishments, favorites I’m drawn to return to like Black Acre and Chatham Tap and too many I’ve still never visited such as 20 Tap, Metro Diner, and Chatterbox.

Broad Ripple Brew Pub (BRBP) had been on my radar for years but somehow I’d never focused on it.  I’d come close, one of the first places I’d visited after moving back to Indiana, was Brugge Brasserie in Broad Ripple.  I remember walking along the street from several blocks away and passing so many interesting places calling me in, if there were only time.  BRBP was only a five minute walk from there and though I knew it, I never knew what I was missing.

Every project seems an unfathomable number of steps. It was still early and dark when I woke up thinking - do I need to go get a router to take the edges off those steps? I read several articles online and even watched a few videos. No I decided, I didn’t need a full bull nose on the treads, I’d just use my orbital sander and sanding blocks to knock down any sharp edges.

Then - can I use some of the dozens of gallons of paint we already have? D suggested I could. She’s in California probably eating Doritos at the beach. I read and watched more videos. No I decided, I’d have to go get paint. With that decided I got up and even before my fist cup of coffee was filled I began.

- turn on Springsteen

- drag the shop vac out of the garage

- sweep the stairs

- pound raised nail heads down ( think about that stupid scene in “The Quiet Place” where a loose thread from bag somehow pulls a the point of a nail up from a stair tread. Fucking hell!

- sand the stairs

- sweep the stairs

- wipe the stairs

- go get paint, wood filler (mine was old and hardened)

- fill nail holes

Fucking hell!

- heat up lunch and have a beer

Post this.

In about twenty minutes, I’ll sweep the stairs, sand the stairs, sweep the stairs, wipe the stairs with damp cloth. Tape the stairs. Fucking hell!

There’s an old clip of Nancy Kerrigan crying “WhyyyWhyyy” after Tonya Harding’s minion (a brute named Shane) smashed her knee to sabotage her Olympic figure skating aspirations.

This La Petite Princess drinking Shane often hears that cry in his head when he’s neck deep in a project.

out gallivanting I stumbled upon a rare beast I've been coveting from afar.

Okay, "stumbled upon" is mischaracterization. I dropped D at the outlets and drove as fast as I could, a half hour north, to one of the best bottle shops in the state. Big Red Liquors - Cask Strength is well, a store in the Big Red Liquor chain but it's Cask Strength so, you know, way better.

It's is actually better for my tastes. They are close enough to Taxman Brewing to carry all their small release beers I don't get distributed to the southeastern part of the state and they carry beer from Tennessee, I crave, and holy frijoles, beer from the now defunct Trappist brewery in Massachusetts, I've always wanted to try but have never found, despite quite alot of gallivanting.

Score!

There were more but, the real surprise, even more surprising than peach saison from Spencer, was this odd bird from Todd Leopold and Dickel.

I first read about this "new" old kind of whiskey more than a year ago. Leopold, considered a bit of a mad genius in the distilling world, posted a video where he proclaimed he'd discovered the long lost holy grail...of American whiskey.

He said, he was looking through some old... nevermind here's the video if your interested

So he had Vendome in Louisville make him a new old kind of (3 chamber) still and used a heritage variety rye. Because he's small fry, in the whiskey world, he partnered with Dickel who had some rye just lying around and they put out this new-old style whiskey. Exciting!

I looked all over but couldn't find it. I checked the plethora of "whiskey by the glass bars" in the Louisville area but nobody had it. After months of looking, I finally found a bottle!.. in the glass case at Total wine. No, I wasn't so enamored by the hoopla, I'd buy the bottle without tasting it first. That bottle was soon gone and - squirrel- I got distracted by other things.

When I saw it yesterday, I checked the price. $115 and my memory, honed by years of price checking, recognized it as the same price in Total Wine. So retail price. I've only paid so much for a bottle of whiskey a handful of times. I've established a firm policy of try before you buy at that price point.

So I asked if there was any bar nearby who might sell this whiskey by the glass. No, they said, so I paid for my beer and walked out. Then I walked back in. I'd noticed they advertised some of their whiskey as being available to taste. I asked if this one was, knowing it wasn't. I said, if I tasted it, and liked it, I'd buy it.

They said, let me check. A phone call later, they were opening a bottle - for me.

This was equal parts exciting and pressure.

I would finally get to taste this whiskey that promised to be...different. If it was, I'd gladly buy it. If it wasn't, I'd sadly buy it.

So, how was it?

Well it was different. In that it was rye whiskey that tasted like bourbon...to me. It reminded me of Knob Creek 120 proof, candy in a glass.

Keeping in mind, I'd just come from a brewery selling candied fruit beer in a glass, I was disappointed and relieved. At worst, it was whiskey I liked...but twice the price. Maybe it'll be different on a clean palate.

As I write this, my palate is unclean. I've been drinking

all day. This beer features bitter hops and no candy I can discern. No matter.