It's in the Music...

One Summer night in 1990, I was offered Ecstasy at the Roof Gardens in London. I turned it down insisting Becks took care of me just fine. I watch this video with more than a little regret.

Jean Shepherd's, "Mabel, Black Label"

"I must admit...I've always had a thing for Mable.

I see her -- Some nights in crowds.

Untouchable....in the dark American streets."

Jean Shepherd

Stout for Summer

Dry Irish Stout

The Light Stout
 
A fanatic of Brooklyn's Black Chocolate Stout -- I was pretty skeptical about their Dry Irish Stout.  As good as Chocolate Stout is, and it's amazingly good,  the alcohol clocks in at 10% a bottle while adding 300 calories.  Fat and drunk is no way to go through life... or dinner.

Dry Irish is a very dry stout.  Bone-like, and if you like dry white Burgundy, Manzanilla Sherry or dry Scotch, you'll connect to this in a big way. I've never been a dry beer guy but this stout manages to deliver some decent mouth feel with each sip.  Granted, it's not Chocolate Stout, but at 117 calories, that's seven more than Natty Light, it's a great compromise. At 4.2% alcohol it's considered a "session" beer.  That's where you sit around with a bunch of guys, drink beer and tell lies for hours while staying sober enough to remember what you lied about.

I've mentioned my friend in Florida who only buys beer on sale. It usually works out to porter and stout in Summer -- Pilsner and weiss during Winter.   For the same reason, I'm hoping Dry Irish will go on sale this Summer.  It's light enough for a basket of steamed Old Bay shrimp or a nice piece of grilled Salmon.  Stout enough for pulled pork BBQ or marinated flank steak.

Here's where I usually tell you that, by being a contrarian, you can score this stuff for spit. Sorry.  It's $12 a six pack.  I can get a 30 pack of Natty Light in New Jersey for $15.  Maybe someone's trying to tell me to drink less but better.  Or, if you're coming over to my place...now you know what to bring.  Beer enthusiast details found here.

...Your Average Russian

"Not the brand of choice for your average Russian.  The problem with the Andover Shop is -- you have to have very good taste to appreciate how great their stuff is."  Michael M. Thomas

Cinco de Derby

Cinco


de Derby

Friday Belt: T & A with Lord Chet

173 Years of Tradition - $19 a case

I first sampled Lord Chesterfield Ale by Yuengling back in 1985. It was introduced to me by a fellow park ranger at Valley Forge and I became a fan before I knew what hops even were. It's hoppy but not like an IPA. Crisp. Drinkable as all get out. I'm having one with Herr's Old Bay Potato Chips right now. Masses of red Old Bay are seeping between the keys of my laptop. Who cares. 'Tis the season...

There was talk of Yuengling from the PA guys when I served time at Ft Bragg -- Home of the Airborne and the cultural arm pit of North Carolina. Beer in NC was about as Wonder Bread as it could get. Bud, Miller, Stroh's. I'm falling asleep just thinking about it. The PA guys had their own language. Most of 'em were from Southeastern PA. "Pottsville, you bet!" Maceko would yell. Mace went on to OCS and was commissioned in the Infantry. A solid guy, Mace.


Like most of the boys from PA, they were who they said they were. One guy came back from a friend's funeral in Lancaster with a '72 red Cadillac convertible that was left to to him by the deceased. He knew it was a piece of shit. Told me it was a piece of shit. But if you told him it was a piece of shit... he'd take your head off, then your arms and he wouldn't stop until he was chewing your heel.


Today, I'm happy to say many of my friends are from Pee A, and I'm even happier I can secure a case of Chet for $19. That's a steal. While the hip suck on PBR, compare their tatts and sigh with resignation that everyone is hopping on their wagon -- Try the hops from Cascade via the Lord -- I don't think the Hip'll make it here for another year or two.


Turnbull & Asser, 50 East 57th Street, NYC

The one place you will not find the Hip is Turnbull & Asser. While working in London 20 years ago, the 20-something fashion plates would turn up their nose at contrasting (white) collars and cuffs. "Old fogey, mate. What are you? 50?" Well, yes. 20 years later. This is home to serious sartorial savvy. No Red Wings here. This is serious ass dressing and unlike Lord Chet, it don't come cheap.


Vintage T&A from the 1940s

But you do get what you pay for. Impeccable tradition, value and quality. Are you paying $150 for an alpha (S,M,L,XL) shirt with unmatched stripes yoke to sleeve and made in some place you can't pronounce? Yes? Then you need to have your head examined. Turnbull & Asser offer custom belts...with one hole. I love that idea. One. Hole. Very understated.


The, "How Much Beer Are You Drinking Belt."

I fell for this belt during my last visit at the new store in New York. I wish this was around when I was 25 with a 30" waist. Not that I could afford it then...or now. I'll tell you this...if I keep drinking Lord Chesterfield I'm never wearing this belt.

Holiday Hooch: The Redline

One quart of strawberries...



Roasted on smoking hot cast iron.



Remember to turn off the fire alarm.



Puree in blender



Slowly pour over - I'm not a dollop kinda guy.



Lack of agave syrup & substitution of Prosecco - Not a good idea.


Works wonders with beer



Clean and crisp for the



-- perfect nightcap.

"Innovation that happens from the bottom up tends to be chaotic
but smart. Innovation that happens from the top down
tends to be orderly but dumb."
Curtis Carlson, CEO SRI International

The Redline cocktail was swiped from the Williams-Sonoma blog. Corporate to be sure, the blog features professional and amateur writers contributing useful content that's far from self serving and "free shipping."

The Redline itself seemed a good idea and I gave it a shot Thanksgiving night. A roasted strawberry puree added to a Spanish Cava with a suggestion of agave syrup. I didn't have any agave syrup. Instead, I substituted Prosecco thinking an Italian sparkler would make up for the sweetness I was losing from the missing agave.

Not so much. A tad bitter and boring. What the roasted puree did work well with was beer. Use something simple and clean like Budweiser or Becks. I poured the beer slowly over three fingers of puree in a pilsner glass. It works. A perfect end to Thanksgiving -- Especially since it was 60 degrees outside.

A National Bohliday

In the gigantic, everything's available, shopping mall that is America -- it's refreshing to find something limited to a specific region. How odd that it's usually beer? I haven't had a Natty Boh since college but was surprised how good (and cheap) it still is. It's enough to drive a man to Baltimore.

And if today's crowds and traffic get you down -- consider this. In Cuba they celebrate their labor day (May 1st) by working. ¡Coño!

Hot! Hot! Hot! Hot! Hot!

Ranger Log - Castillo de San Marcos, St Augustine, FL - 4 August 1984

Night 1964 by John Koch

My Fridge - 22 July 2011

It seems extreme heat has been a companion most of my life. Born in a record breaking August, the early wonder years were spent in the Southwest and Southeast. Basic, Infantry and Jump School were poorly timed and placed over a single cruel Summer at Ft Jackson and Ft Benning.

I saw heat index temps north of 107 as a Summer seasonal park ranger in Florida. Thermal inversions were commonplace with days of 100% humidity and no breeze. Adding to the misery was a paper mill north of town that cranked out a smell so ripe you could walk on it.

Still, truth be told, I'd rather deal with Summer than Winter. It's hard to lose an ear or finger because of the heat. Yesterday, I saw a young couple in their late teens French kissing on the sidewalk at the corner of 56th St and 8th Avenue. I was thinking it's too damned hot until I saw they were wearing jeans and black tee shirts -- Then they were just too damned stupid.

I'm old enough to remember sleeping without A/C and I can feel that John Koch painting like a trickle of sweat sliding down the crack of my ass. Rumors of a black out in NYC this weekend give me serious pause as I wonder if I have enough ice and talc. I'm pretty sure I have enough beer. I hope it ain't warm beer.

The Bachelor Party

(L to R) Wild East, Foosko & Sgt Nick Penis - Deer Path Inn 30 June 1988

23 years ago tonight some old friends, relatives and in-laws gathered at the Lantern in Lake Forest for my low key bachelor party. The image above is of the 'After Party' complete with Pabst Blue Ribbon. Amazing how hip we were and didn't even know it.

One of my friends asked my father that night what his experience in Vietnam was like. Dad shrugged and said there wasn't much to tell. Everyone nodded and the conversation moved
quickly to the Cubs and the merits of Old Style. The night winds down as in-laws leave but old friends wanna go all night.

Wild East and Foosko. decide to reenact Lobby East dorm life with a purchase of the cheapest beer available. Army buddy and Chicago local, SgtNick Penis comes along for the ride. Sadly, Red, White and Blue is not available so two sick packs of PBR go from the Lantern to the Deer Path Inn only four blocks and a low crawl away.

A month or so later the old man is visting D.C. and offers dinner at his favorite French restaurant in Old Town Alexandria. My bride asks Dad, in a break after escargot en croute but before steak au poivre, what it was exactly he did in Vietnam. Dad sips his Beefeater martini and tells my wife it was just like the mafia. "They'd come down to the village. Kill some locals. We'd go up the mountain and kill some of them."

While the rules of time, place and occasion are invaluable for apparel -- there is some wisdom in applying the rule to story telling. You don't wear a white dinner jacket to a bachelor party nor should fatigues be worn in French restaurants.

Erin go... Bud Lite?

"The best part is we a have a local reveler who's a [little person] dressed as leprechaun running around all day giving out free shots of Jameson," says Rathbone's owner Chris Deboir, 38. He expects to sell around 150 cases of Bud Light and 64 gallons of Guinness."

The New York Post

Next Week- Corrections, Patents, Correspondence & Champers

It's Friday. Time for a beer and a peek at next week

and a laugh. From John Kenney's spoof , "Bloomberg Diaries" in the 1/17/2011 New Yorker.

"Who knew there were four other boroughs? Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, and the other one."

"The only thing I found harder than moving all that snow is making 'Business Week' an interesting magazine."

"More stories. More criticism. Tension. Stress. Can't sleep more than eight hours at a stretch."

We visit Dempsey & Carroll where the passion for ephemera comes alive in an employee's bespoke designs and where envelope linings become...pants?

What's all that legal stuff on your bow tie?

Free champagne - Who gets undressed?

Looking for the new trend - Correctional Chic. See you next week.

Beer & Lilly P: "Time - Place - Occasion"

The old man told me to always drink the local beer. I fell in love with Sand's Light. The Kalik Gold was popular with the Brits but they're easily swayed by the marketing of high alcohol (7.5%). In anything.

Sand's Light was easy to drink although it hasn't been easy to find the calorie and carb count. Not on the bottle or their web site. It has a slight lime flavor while being much fuller than US lime beers. Perfect on the beach. Whether it'll it be as great in NYC -- and in November -- is another story. It's all about what the Japanese call, "Time-Place-Occasion." Just like those pants.

In Boston

Lots more to come...

Friday Belt: A Sucker for Color

Sure it's busy but so am I hence the MTM gingham (part 3)

The pattern matching is off on that belt loop

A 6 pack that belongs in MOMA

In Jungle Expert School we tried to lure spider monkeys from the trees with shiny c- ration can tops in the hope of fresh meat. If I were a spider monkey in Panama I would have been dead a long time ago. I like bright and shiny.

Friday's belt is a tartan from Leather Man. They're a surcingle belt and cheap as all get out. Less than 30 bucks and you're still getting something very original. You pick out the ribbon and the backing from plenty of options. That's a Dress Stewart ribbon on red cotton webbing.

We went into Colon and I was introduced to legalized prostitution and nasty Panamanian hooch. One outta two ain't bad. There was a local whiskey that tasted like tea and their beer was horrible. You could say the same for Schmidt but is that can a work of art or what?

It has a sour/tart after taste but it's crisp and drinks well when it's really cold. Take one out of the fridge and pop it into the freezer for five minutes. I would imagine pee tastes good that cold but I'd prefer to imagine. $14 a case. I hear you can find it for $11 a case in some places. And sitting among today's most boring packaging, beer bottles and cans, it really stands out with a nostalgia I like.

Cheap beer and cheap belts. You couldn't ask for more. Except maybe cheap prostitution which takes us back to Panama.