Food and Drink

Don’t Puck with Seattle

Food and Drink, Good Clean Fun / By

We tried The KRACKEN ATTACKS FROM SEATTLE Limited Addition Rum for two reasons.  One, we like rum.  And two, the Seattle Kracken hockey team remains undefeated, given that they haven’t played yet.

We have to hand it to the folks at Kraken Rum.  Since there are a number of cities “under attack” by the Kracken, they’re urging us to collect all the various bottles which feature well-know landmarks from each city (e.g. Seattle Space Needle).  Good marketing.  We bought a few of those Starbucks coffee mugs from various cities until we realized we didn’t need a coffee mug from every city we visited.  So we probably won’t collect all the bottles but the spiced rum “with natural flavors” was pretty tasty.  We made cocktails without mixer or garnish.  Just shaken with ice and poured into a chilled martini glass.  Sweet but not too sweet.  Strong (94 Proof) but not too strong.  From what we remember anyway.

Kraken Rum.  Attacking a city near you!

– Jet Cannon

Buzzed Boomer Tailgate Superstar

Burgers, Food and Drink, Good Clean Fun / By

An embarrassing college football defeat could not dampen the fun of chatting with Billy, the proud owner of a magnificent tailgate vehicle.  Converted from a Walla Walla, Washington ambulance, the rig now features a TV and plenty of room for tailgate food and bbq essentials.  We asked about the condition of a rig that you’d assume was run hard and put away wet.

“In Walla Walla, it was 184,000 freeway miles.  And it’s a diesel,’ noted Billy.  Message… like us Buzzed Boomers, it’s still got some good miles left in it.  Like us Buzzed Boomers who reinvent ourselves, the ambulance was reinvented from saving lives to celebrating life, friendship, bbq, beer, and college football.

Like most tailgaters, Billy was warm and inviting, interrupting our questioning only to grab a beer.  He plans to hand off the Husky shrine to his son at some point so the tradition can continue.  Thank you for making our day because the football game sucked!

– Jet Cannon 

Gentleman’s Manhattan

Food and Drink, Recipes / By

Having a fondness for Nashville and therefore nearby Lynchburg, Gentleman Jack, introduced in 1988, is always on our radar and on our shelf.  Tennessee whiskey is mellowed by using charcoal filters.  Gentleman Jack is “double mellowed”.  

“Gentleman Jack undergoes a second charcoal mellowing to achieve exceptional smoothness. Its balanced flavor is perfect for celebrating life’s extraordinary occasions, plus all the moments along the way. “

We like the sound of a Gentleman’s Manhattan.  We’re looking forward to ordering one at a reputable watering hole and hoping no one asks where the gentleman is.  

To make one at home, Jack’s website calls out adding a couple dashes of bitters to 1/2 ounce of dry vermouth, a 1/2 ounce of sweet vermouth, and to 1 1/2 ounces of Gentleman Jack.  Dry and sweet vermouth. Interesting, and it works.

But don’t forget the “dark cherries”.  So another shout-out here to John Selby for turning us on to Luxardo Cherries via his “World’s Best Old Fashioned” recipe.  These cherries and their juice taste like you want your cough syrup to taste like but it never does.  Cough syrup starts out good but then goes off the tracks.  The cherries, on the other hand, are delicious!  An episode of the munchies and the whole jar could quickly disappear.  We’re still waiting for that case of complimentary cherries to arrive by FedEx but since they haven’t… take our un-influenced word for it.  Luxardo takes a Manhattan or an Old Fashioned up to 11. Gentlemen, start your Manhattans!

– Jet Cannon 

Caffeine, Food and Drink, Recipes, Travel / By

Roving Correspondent Mazerati Mike recently stopped by the Buena Vista Cafe in San Francisco for their famous Irish coffee.  Here is their story.

“The historic venture started on the night of November the 10th in 1952. Jack Koeppler, then-owner of the Buena Vista, challenged international travel writer Stanton Delaplane to help re-create a highly touted “Irish Coffee” served at Shannon Airport in Ireland. Intrigued, Stan Accepted Jack’s invitation, and the pair began to experiment immediately.

Throughout the night the two of them stirred and sipped judiciously and eventually acknowledged two recurring problems. The taste was “not quite right,” and the cream would not float. Stan’s hopes sank like the cream, but Jack was undaunted. The restaurateur pursued the elusive elixir with religious fervor, even making a pilgrimage overseas to Shannon Airport.

Upon Jack’s return, the experimentation continued. Finally, the perfect-tasting Irish whiskey was selected. Then the problem of the bottom-bent cream was taken to San Francisco’s mayor, a prominent dairy owner. It was discovered that when the cream was aged for 48 hours and frothed to a precise consistency, it would float as delicately as a swan on the surface of Jack’s and Stan’s special nectar.

Success was theirs! With the recipe now mastered, a sparkling clear, six-ounce, heat-treated goblet was chosen as a suitable chalice.

Soon the fame of the Buena Vista’s Irish Coffee spread throughout the land. Today, it’s still the same delicious mixture, and it’s still the same clamorous, cosmopolitan Buena Vista. Both…delightful experiences.”

Website onbetterliving.com notes that since 1952, The Buena Vista has sold millions of glasses of their delicious original Irish Coffees over the years. On a busy day, they can sell over 2000 glasses and they report that they sell more Irish whiskey than anywhere else in the world.

Not making a trip to San Fran but want to up your Irish Coffee game?

  • Warm a 6-oz. heatproof glass with hot water then pour it out
  • Fill  a glass three-quarters full (about ⅔ cup) with coffee.  Buena Vista uses Peerless available on Amazon. Add two sugar cubes; stir until they dissolve
  • Stir in an 1 1/2 oz (or maybe two) of Tullamore D.E.W whiskey; top with whipped heavy cream by gently pouring over a spoon

For more, see their website http://www.thebuenavista.com/home/irishcoffee.html

– Jet Cannon for Maserati Mike

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Disneyland Bar Crawl

Food and Drink, Good Clean Fun, Travel / By

Disney World just turned 50.  Not old enough for Baby Boomer status.  But Disneyland was “born” in 1955 and qualifies.  

Want to catch a Buzz at Disneyland?  Disneytouristblog.com has created a lovely guide to all the watering holes and their special drinks.  If you thought admission was expensive, wait until the credit card bill comes for your Buzz excursion through the park.  Be worth it though!

– Jet Cannon

 

Sour Power!

Food and Drink / By

Thanks to National Calendar Day, we now know that each year on August 25th, people across the United States observe National Whiskey Sour Day.

Traditionally garnished with half an orange slice and a maraschino cherry, a whiskey sour is a mixed drink containing whiskey (often bourbon), lemon juice and sugar. Whiskey sours are shaken then either served straight or over ice.

Per previous posts, we suggest insisting on Luxardo “The Original Maraschino Cherries”. BTW, Buzzed Boomer receives no promotional consideration for recommending Luxardo cherries. Yet.

Let’s leave you with this quote and, again, our thanks to National Calendar Day.

“Too much of anything is bad, but too much good whiskey is barely enough.” – Mark Twain

  • Jet Cannon

Gin to win

Food and Drink / By

Captain Tony just dropped off a bottle of Hendrick’s Gin.  Out of the blue.  But that’s Captain Tony!

So that prompted us to do a comparison with Bombay, our go-to house gin in the Buzzed Boomer Research Center.  Should we pick a winner?  Or why not just enjoy them both and everybody gets a trophy?

Hendrick’s is interesting for a number of reasons.  First, it’s made in Scotland where you normally find Scotch.   Also interesting is their technique of blending gin from two different stills; one being a Carter Head.  Only the still master knows the ratio.  (Still Master.  Curious as to what it pays, hours, benefit package, perks, etc.)  They claim that their small batches make for a better product.  Plus, they infuse cucumber and also recommend cucumber as a garnish.

Bombay is owned by Bacardi.  We wish distilleries would not get gobbled up by giant corporations.  That’s depressing and that’s one of the reasons why we drink.  But apparently the gin is still made in England and not in the Caribbean somewhere.  Bombay also uses a Carter Head still but they don’t blend.

While our Buzzed Boomer tasting methods are imprecise they are also very subjective.  Mostly, we wing it.

We didn’t want there to be a winner.  We wanted to sing the praises of two of our favorite gins.  But there was a favorite.  Hendrick’s was just more pleasant.  No big flavor differences jumped out to our unsophisticated palettes but the Hendrick’s was smoother and more enjoyable.  The winner was given an ultra-dry Martini sampling in a proper glass after a proper shaking.  No cucumber garnish or any other distractions.  Clean and smooth.  Yum.  

We love this job.  Now where do we get KISS Gin?

– Jet Cannon

Quest for the world’s Best

Food and Drink / By

Buzzed Boomer researchers are on a constant quest to find the world’s best because, whatever it is, it’s likely to be great.  We live in a big world so to be at the very top of the heap, well, we want some of that!  

John Selby shared his recipe for the world’s best Old Fashioned in a recent post and so far no one has challenged him.  And we thought it was a great Old Fashioned.  So when we read that Avion Silver tequila is self-proclaimed as World’s Best Tasting Tequila, and has a 2019 Double Gold SIP Award as evidence, we wanted to do our own sipping.  Our current favorite is the honey-smooth Clasa Azul.  Tough competition.

“The Avion story begins in the small town of Jesus Maria, Mexico — a town and culture the Lopez family has cherished for generations. Here, single origin, rare blue agave is grown at the highest elevations and takes 7 to 10 years to reach maturity.  After harvesting by hand, our agave is slow roasted in brick ovens from three days to perfectly caramelize and really the natural sweetness and rich flavors.  Avion uses up to 30% more agave in each bottle, making us proudly inefficient as a tequila producer.  This is the meticulous process that goes into creating the World’s Best Tasking  Tequila.”

On to the tasting.  We started with a chilled Avion in a chilled glass.  It’s very good.  We’re not able to distinguish “citrus-forward” and all that.  We just noted that it was tasty.  So we tried some on the rocks.  Then another one on the rocks.  Just to be sure, one more on the rocks.  Yeah, it’s really good!

The Consejo Regulator del Tequila counted 1377 registered domestic bottled brands from 150 producers.  And that count was awhile back.  There may be more now.  And that doesn’t count some 285 brands bottled internationally.  To further validate the World’s Best Tasting Tequila claim we should probably sample the top 50 brands or so.  As they say, back to the salt mines.

– Jet Cannon

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Elmers

Burgers, Food and Drink, Good Clean Fun, Music, Travel / By

Those of us at Buzzed Boomer love dive bars.  We love live classic rock.  We appreciate a properly prepared Martini (thanks Lindy)! We love pool tables.  We crave a great burger.  We love having our favorite IPA’s on tap.  How about a place offering breakfast and great specials?  And we’re grateful for a bar powering through the Covid disaster that closed so many restaurants.

Elmers in Burien, Washington is all of that except…. it’s really too nice to be called a dive bar.  It WAS once a dive bar but owner Rachel has been steadily upgrading Elmers.  And it looks great and it feels great.  Our kind of place!

Not from Seattle?  Elmers is a short ride from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport and not far from a light-rail station if you’re visiting downtown Seattle.

We hadn’t been to Elmers in years but we’ll be back! 

– Jet Cannon

Elmersbarandgrill.com 

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Pinot Noir

Food and Drink / By

August 18 is National Pinot Noir Day.  Celebrating a red wine in the middle of summer may seem a bit counter-intuitive but maybe National Days in winter were taken. That said, the Pinot Noir is lighter than most reds.  In addition, it can be served slightly chilled.  

The pinot noir grape originates from France but some of the best regarded grapes are grown in Oregon’s Willamette Valley.  Pinot Noir wine received a boost in popularity starting in 2004 from the movie Sideways.  Miles Raymond, played by Paul Giamatti, speaks fondly of Pinots while disparaging Merlots.  That proves that Pinots are good.

So summer is not just for white wines or a bottle of Rose.  Not convinced? Then you’ll get nothing and like it!

Cheers!

– Jet Cannon  

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LEO (July 23 to August 22): Watermelon Margarita

Food and Drink / By

We’re very thankful for astrology.  It’s so helpful to have guidance you can trust.  Because today is the big day!   I checked with thekitchn.com to find out what my birth drink is.

“For a drink that’s as popular and spirited as you, Leo, serve watermelon margaritas. The key? Premium tequila and lots of pretty (dare we say over-the-top) garnishes.”  

So there it is. Luckily, I like watermelon margaritas.  I was afraid I was going to have to change my birthday.

Cheers!

– Aging Prop-Jet Cannon

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Barreled Gin from tennessee

Food and Drink, Travel / By

 

We recently sampled some Barreled Gin from Nashville’s Corsair Distillery.  The gin spent some time in used spiced rum barrels where it does this, per Corsair’s web site, “Classic gin forward nose evolves into a spice medley of cinnamon, clove and coriander. Anise, black licorice, clove hit the pallet initially but give way to vanilla and rum notes before a clean dry finish.”  Now we didn’t quite detect all that and we generally don’t like craft distilleries taking too many liberties with good old gin but we enjoyed this Barreled Gin in a dry Martini.  It definitely has a little something extra without betraying its “gin forward nose.”

Corsair says this barrel-aged style of gin is becoming increasingly popular.  You may not be able to find Corsair in your neck of the woods but there are a number of other distilleries giving barrel-aged gin a go.

– Jet Cannon

Hiding from the feds in nashville

1 Comment / Food and Drink, Good Clean Fun, Travel / By

There are a lot of bars in Nashville.  The Broadway District has over 30.  And there are many, many more throughout the city.  On Broadway, there’s Kid Rock’s, Blake Shelton’s Old Red and many more.  You have to see it to believe the loud country chaos.  Lots of fun.

My favorite bar this trip was located I-don’t-know-where (you can look it up online).  I wasn’t driving.  There’s no sign.  It’s a speakeasy in the Prohibition tradition.  Old Glory is hiding in what used to be the towering boiler room for White Way Cleaners, formerly one of the largest steam cleaning facilities in Nashville. The space features the original electrical boxes, coal hopper, and smoke stack that were in use in the 1920s. Today it’s dark with lots of candles.  The Feds will never find us here.

The craft cocktail bartenders are something special in their own right.  Give them a hint on what you like and they will rise to the challenge and provide you with a visually-pleasing, palate-pleasing taste treat.  They use ingredients that might as well be French to me.  Turns out some of them are French.  And I don’t have them on the shelf at home which is why I need to spend more time in speakeasies.  I tried a Last Word which is gin, green chartreuse, maraschino liqueur, and lime juice,  Excellent.  I also asked for a “surprise me” gin martini.  It came with Ford’s Gin and a vermouth-like ingredient plus some orange blossom and bitters.  Also excellent.

Here’s to Prohibition and Old Glory!

– “Vito” Jet Cannon

Nashville Caffeine Buzz

Caffeine, Food and Drink, Good Clean Fun, Music, Travel / By

Nashville is on the steroid juice when it comes to drinking, live country music, party buses, cut-off jeans, cowboy boots and hats, and roof-top bars.  I just wasn’t expecting art in my coffee.  Yet, plenty of caffeine is a requirement for this Baby Boomer to keep on rockin’ in this town.  Whoa!!  It’s fun.  It’s overload.  It’s draining.  But it’s a hoot!

– “Johnny” Jet Cannon