Tales from Tales

The photographer who took these pictures said something about blackmail and I said "You are assuming I have a sense of shame"

This is a story about how I tried to show that you can't outdo anyone from Tales,we are professionals, and we have a reputation to live up (down) to.
We went on the walking tour of New Orleans Bars Sunday afternoon (after the Hemingway Memorial Bar Crawl) and were in the oldest Gay Bar in the United States - Cafe Lafite in Exile it goes down hill from here....read on if you must...
Before we went in the the place the guide warned us "Guys, be ready they love to play games with the tourists and try to freak them out - it keeps them amused, so be ready."
I replied "If anyone hits on me I take it as a compliment" so this Drag Queen is Vamping in the doorway taunting us to come in (See Drag Queen in Doorway)
we come in and she comes up to me and (see Kissing Drag Queen)... They didn't get the actual contact but trust me Cheryl will tell you....I may have given her mental scars for life...Then they gave me this drink (see P7220320.JPG photo) and this is what I did with it (see During photo) again they missed the wink to the crowd, but the crowd saw it and loved it after that I asked the Bartender



The photographer who took these pictures said something about blackmail and I said "You are assuming I have a sense of shame"

This is a story about how I tried to show that you can't outdo anyone from Tales,we are professionals, and we have a reputation to live up (down) to.
We went on the walking tour of New Orleans Bars Sunday afternoon (after the Hemingway Memorial Bar Crawl) and were in the oldest Gay Bar in the United States - Cafe Lafite in Exile it goes down hill from here....read on if you must...
Before we went in the the place the guide warned us "Guys, be ready they love to play games with the tourists and try to freak them out - it keeps them amused, so be ready."
I replied "If anyone hits on me I take it as a compliment" so this Drag Queen is Vamping in the doorway taunting us to come in (See Drag Queen in Doorway)
we come in and she comes up to me and (see Kissing Drag Queen)... They didn't get the actual contact but trust me Cheryl will tell you....I may have given her mental scars for life...Then they gave me this drink (see P7220320.JPG photo) and this is what I did with it (see During photo) again they missed the wink to the crowd, but the crowd saw it and loved it after that I asked the bartender (about the size of Martin from Forbidden Tiki ) for a blowjob (which he handed me) for some reason I started getting these free drinks... anyway I then I proceeded to carry this drink around with me for the rest of the tour (see after) including stopping to chat with Laurence Fishburn (who to his credit only raised one eyebrow slightly at the sight of me - Hurricane (from Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop of course) in one hand and that in the other .
Anyway I think I helped establish that anyone from Tales can hold their own at Cafe Lafitte in Exile and more importantly can probably get at least one round free.

Ernest Hemingway Memorial Bar Crawl in NOLA Saturday July 21st

Well it all started innocently enough as we always say.....
We were at Tales of the Cocktail in New Orleans last week both as a Journalist and for the Ministry of Rum Rum Competition When we heard Absolut was going to hold a Ernest Hemingway's birthday party at the Old Absinthe House from 7-9 PM on Saturday - some of us felt that was - well, just wrong - 7-9 PM ?, 2 hours? We started at 9 AM,(after about 4 hours sleep-maybe) drank through the conference workshops (where plenty of drinks were served) and started what we now call "The Ernest Hemingway Memorial Bar Crawl" through the French Quarter after the workshops and the last two standing from the entire Tales conference left the Alibi Bar at 8 AM on Sunday to get ready for workshops at 10 AM.
It was a motley group of Public Relations people,Maitre D's ,Bartenders,Investment Brokers, Journalists,Importers, and other assorted motley individuals who gathered in memory of Pappa and to celebrate his birthday in a barcrawl dedicated to his memory and was to have the distinction of being the last people standing from the entire contingent of all the crew from Tales of the Cocktail on the Saturday night of the conference.
It started up Bourbon Street stopping at numerous bars,Pat O'Brien's for Hurricanes, further on for Hand Grenades.Somehow we ended up on Decatur St,at Pravda where the Absinthe flowed and young nubile Goth girls slithered into each others laps and spanked each other (these were customers, not professionals so they were quite enthusiastic).The party staggered on to the Apple Barrel at the end of Bourbon and Decatur St., with only one casualty who was escorted back by another person to see them safely back.
It continued back through the streets finally coming to rest at the Alibi Bar a Service after hours bar that is the haunt of bar and restaurant workers after shifts.The last saw the backs of the others around 6:30 AM and decided it was not yet full enough daylight to call an end to the quest.They finally left the bar a little after 8 AM knowing that at least some had honored Papa in a way he would have been proud of.

Wine Section Expanding

Again in response to popular demand, we will be starting or should say expanding, our wine review section.while our focus is on distilled spirits for the most part, we do enjoy and will review wine and beer on the site.
The reason we have not done much with wine or beer on this site, is there are so many other ones out there that cover wine and beer extensively.so in order to specialize. We pretty much stuck with distilled spirits. However, we have now decided to take them on, at least in a limited way, with our main focus still being on distilled spirits.

Absinthe Section Now On Spirits Review

Due to popular demand we have launched a new section in our reviews on Absinthe
We not only do reviews of absinthe itself, but also the many fountains, spoons,and other assorted barware related to Absinthe.
Much of our research was done out of the country to the legal restrictions on absinthe in the United States at the time. Due to the rapidly changing legal landscape we will still provide links for people to order absinthe overseas if they wish to do so until Absinthe is more available in the U.S.

Spirits Review is Adopting Flickr for Adventures

In an attempt to get more of our trips and adventures online more quickly, we've decided to start using Flickr to post all of our photos as soon as we get them off the camera along with a least some narrative to let people know what we're up to. Over the next few weeks we will be posting roughly 2500 photos chronicling a number of trips to distilleries and a few gatherings and later I will be posting them more formally on the website under our adventures section.We haven't figured out exactly where to put the link for Flickr, but be assured it will be easy to find.

Cachaca

Cachaca (Ka-shaa-suh) is a colorless unaged spirit from South America made from sugar cane juice. There are of course some exceptions-some are aged and have color,some are made from molasses.The bulk of them come from Brazil (which has over 5000 brands plus probably an equal if not greater number of bootleg,homemade brands/producers).
It could be considered a type of rum as the ingredients are the same but most rum producers are happy that the Cachaca producers keep making the distinction.
Cachaca has been becoming more popular of late (read commercially viable beyond a very narrow ethnic/specialty market)by dint of aggressive marketing in Europe and North America. This is in no small part because it is one of the last frontiers of exploitable drinks.
Vodka has been done to death,gin is complicated to make,Rum is crowded (and good luck against Bacardi White and its marketing muscle),whiskey takes too long to make and there are limited distilleries,whereas Cachaca has a huge number of distilleries who produce it if for virtually nothing,are close to their markets (in terms of shipping-compared to China or Korea - other possible future producers of the next "New" spirits) and are willing to but your label on their product for very little.
Problem is, most of the stuff tastes like (and is used for) fuel. All it is is plain old ethanol (read drinking or drinkable alcohol) and most of the producers use a criteria of quantity and cheapness over quality.It was and is a drink of the poor in South America much as Moonshine or Samagon is in other countries-cheap, fiery alcohol sold for pennies per drink. (liter of Cachaca in a slum is about 25 cents).
There are of course exceptions to this rule,much like the fact that there are very good or excellent bootleg whiskey or vodka producers,there are distillers of Cachaca that take pride in their products- and produce them legally.
Most cachaca (legal) is produced in column stills- a high volume/low cost way of producing massive quantities of alcohol (same way ethanol plants for fuel do- with much the same results).
Higher end artisanal Cachaca is made in Alembic type pot stills in batches and carefully distilled in smalll batches with an eye towards quality.
Almost all of this Cachaca is drunk as Mojitos- a mix of Cacahca,mint and sugar with or without some lime juice thrown in.Basically a Mint Julep using a unaged white spirits instead of a whiskey.Most of the cheap and/or illegal stuff is drunk striaght out of the plastic bottle or jug it came in - usually a recycled drinks or sometimes a pesticide bottle.

Status Report

Well the computer crashed in late December and it took about 3 weeks to establish it was lost forever and another 2 weeks to decide what to do and rebuild.
We have scrapped the idea of running XP in a virtual environment (within Ubuntu Linux) as the VM ware kept crashing and losing our files. We now have rebuilt the computer and are trying to catch up ASAP on our reviews. Things are going much faster on the rebuilt system and we should be caught up soon.
Thanks for everyones patience as we regroup!
Cheers,
Chris

Test of Remote Blogging Tool HBlogger from Palm

TEST of Hblogger

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Atlanta - Nibbled to Death by Rats

I just got back from visiting Atlanta,Georgia.
I had gone there years ago on a trip and hadn't been there in years.
The guide books said there was a lot to see and do in Atlanta and its environs.
They did not mention the absolute sterility and de facto segregation of downtown- the downtown is a huge, deep, concrete and highrise labyrinth with nothing but expense account restaurants,hotels and office buildings.It is separated from the rest of Atlanta by a large buffer zone of development that effectively cuts off the rest of the city and its inhabitants . Anyone not wearing a uniform (be it suit, coveralls or tourist wear) and on foot is immediately identified as a intruder.There are more police downtown then in Las Vegas - or occupied France for that matter.Downtown is a very sterile environment enforced by a heavy police presence and very defined borders where tourists are politely but heavily discouraged to cross and locals much less politely.This did not prevent some of the numerous scams run by the locals such as the American Taxi Company - who allowed their driver to bilk me out of $10 to drive 2 blocks (off the meter by the way) and refused to return phone calls when I tried to report this price gouging or the hotels who must get a percentage from the shuttle service for those $16 a head van trips to and from the airport-while not mentioning the $1.75 train which is faster.
Not to mention the rats,I've never seen so many when I was walking around - individuals and packs of them roaming around downtown - they must have even outnumbered the office workers it seemed.
They seemed a metaphor for the numerous locals who fed on the tourists-suddenly appearing ripping you off in little bites and myriad ways till they drained you dry.

Glassware

If you are setting up a home bar, or are a serious student of drink you need the proper glassware and if you are doing things properly a lot of it.
Frankly I am disappointed by a lot of the glassware out there currently -not to mention the cost of it.
A lot of the martini glasses out there now are suitable for keeping fish in but not a drink.
A too large martini glass means your drink will get too warm before you have finished it- a ugly proposition.
I suggest going to estate sales to find good quality glassware- it is cheap and plentiful.

If it doesn't all match? Well at least you don't have to spend money on those glass charms so people can tell their drinks apart.

New Additions

I hope everyone is remembering to hit the refresh button every so often. Otherwise (especially if you are using Internet Explorer) your browser will always serve up a saved version of the webpage-without the new reviews.
This week we did a few vodkas and later this week or Monday we plan on adding at least 4 tequilas and some Eau de Vies to the mix.
Meanwhile we will be updating some odds and ends along with trying to increase out linking with other pages.
If anyone would like to link to us please go to our links page to the link to us section, THANKS!

New Bookmarks are up!

After days of reorganizing the damn things the new bookmarks are integrated and up. We now have 2100 or so links on the Spirits Review Links Page.( www.spiritsreview.com/links) and a number of new reviews. With the new computer things are going much faster!

New Computer Up New Material to Follow

The new computer is up. It is a dual processor type running Ubantu Linux and uses a RAID configuration that stripes and backs up (and uses 4 hard drives) .So we are ready to get back to the salt mines and post some reviews!

New Computer Up New Material to Follow

The new computer is up. It is a dual processor type running Ubantu Linux and uses a RAID configuration that stipes and backs up (and uses 4 hard drives) .So we are ready to get back to the salt mines and post some review!

Progress Report

We still haven't seen the new server,the new computer is being reworked but the filming has stopped and gone to editing.
We now will be posting more reviews the old way (slower) but they are getting done and we have a backlog of products to post. We will be up late tonight posting on the website(www.spiritsreview.com of course)We hope to have the new computers in our hands later this week and hit the ground running after July 4th on stepping up our postings !

Spirits Review FUBAR

In case anyone has been looking for some more new reviews we apologize.
Here is the current situation here:

Server has been fried by Niagara Mohawk- we are still trying to build a new one.

New computer is still not acquiescing to our demands to work.When it is up we expect to increase posting by 100-150% as our new software packages will eliminate a lot of work and boost productivity. It will also allow me to post directly to the page eliminating some time lags (see below for example)

Photographer and webmaster are MIA till at least next week.They are working on a movie called "Summer Longings" by Cyanotype Productions (www.cyanotypeproductions.com). This means no photos or postings till then.In the interim we are reviewing and writing as much as possible to get ready.

New group for "Spiritual Assistance"

We have started a new google group for Craft Distillers and Importers of fine spirits who are looking for markets,distribution, and retailers at Spiritual-Assistance@googlegroups.com .
We are looking for people who would like to sign up for membership and exchange information,tips, and leads on how to get a foothold in the market.
We will be setting up forums and topics as people ask for them and will also be setting up a website (www.spiritualassistance.com) later on and incorporate it into the site.
The aim is to form a group of individuals/companies that can help get products advertising,public relations, and to market .
This venture has started because there are so many good products out there and breaking into the market requires a lot of money,savvy and luck. We hope to overcome this through mutual assistance, trading information,and pooling of resources.
As many in the trade know, the distribution network is consolidating rapidly and many small good products are being squeezed out by the mass produced dross. Most small producers cannot get the large distributors to sell their products.
We are actively looking for distributors who are seeking high quality products and are willing to hand sell them to retailers and restaurants, retail stores ( brick and mortar and internet) restaurants who wish to have some of the best new emerging products on the market .

Tequila Dinner at The Strathallan
Friday was Cinco de Mayo which is usually observed ib a similar fashion to St Patricks Day- An excuse to get paralitic because of something done by a ethnic group that you don't belong to hundreds of years ago, on some rot gut drinks.
This was not the case at the Strathallan.
The Strath hosted a 5 course dinner which was paired with 10 Tequilas.
The Full menu is posted on the previous post as I cannot figure out how to cut and paste this article and the menu togetherr.

All of the food was outstanding.
My only observations were:
1. The room was small,noisy and hard to around in.
2. The tequila was fairly mainstream (Mostly Herradura)
Otherwise it was a wonderful dinner, well executed and cheap considering the type and amounts of both the food and tequila. We look forward to other Spirited Dinners there and will post announcements about them as we get the information

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Cinco De Mayo Dinner Menu at the Strathallan

Cinco de Mayo Tequila Dinner Menu

Friday May 5, 2006 at 7:00 pm



Course I

Smoked Tomato and Ancho Veloute with Lime Pesto and Chayote

Cazadores Reposada



Course II

Lime Dusted Ahi Tuna with Daicon Sprouts, Red Oak and Meyer Lemon Vinaigrette

Herradura Hacienda del Cristero



Course III

Niman Ranch Cedar Smoked Pork Tenderloin Accompanied By Chipotle Pear Chutney and Sweet Potato Pierogies

Herradura Anejo



Course IV

Lime Butter Basted Opakapaka (Pink Snapper) with a Cilantro Risotto and

Citrus Baby Vegetables

Oro Azul Blanco & Chinaco Blanco



Course V

Mango Tomato Flan Parmesan Arregiano and 'Planeta' Extra Virgin Olive Oil

made with

Margaritaville Mango Tequila



Chef de Cuisine - Ethan Drake

Sous Chef - Jeff Yaniak



$75 All Inclusive (Includes Tax and Gratuity)"

This is Were I was Last Week

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE               Contact: Tom Keating
                                   Ybor City Chamber of Commerce
                                   813.248.3712 x23               


Cane Spirits Taste Test Blows into Ybor City
Tampa’s Historic Latin Quarter Hosts International Spirits Competition

(Tampa, Florida - March 28, 2006)  
Smooth, rich, dark, sweet…?  A. Ron Zacapa rum, B. Millie Puente’s voice, C. Arturo Fuente cigars, D. All of the above.  If you said “D,” you are correct.  The first annual International Canes Spirits Festival - Tasting Competition was conducted in Ybor City this past weekend.  The Bay Area’s National Historic Landmark District was again making history as it hosted an “international tasting competition” for the sugar cane spirits industry.  The Festival spanned four days, from the judge’s reception on Wednesday evening to the awards ball on Saturday night, featuring the début of the Millie Puente Band.  The event consisted of four major components:  Tasting Competition, Rum Trail, RumFest and Rum Ball.

The key element was the Tasting Competition, which brought 28 judges from all over the world to Ybor to sample sugar cane spirits from 16 countries.  Over two days, 58 different products were judged on their aroma, initial taste, body and finish.  This is the first time an international judging competition has been held in the U.S.  According to Edward Hamilton, of the Ministry of Rum, “There are other spirits competitions around the world but none is solely for sugar cane spirits.”  Jeffrey Pogash, Directory of Communications for Moet Hennessy USA and one of the judges said, “I have been involved in a number of judging competitions and this one was flawless.”

A panel of qualified judges from across the U.S., Britain, Australia and the Caribbean awarded 28 gold medals, 18 silver medals and 12 bronze medals.  For several small brands this was the first time they have been in an international competition. Ron Zacapa Centenario - 23 year old, from Guatemala was top-rated in the premium rum category.  While many connoisseurs focus on the oldest aged rums, there were many superb white, flavored and dark sugar cane spirits as well.

Dori Bryant of Polished Palate, organizer of the overall event stated, “I am very pleased with the industry response and level of community support.  The judges and distributors loved Ybor City and are looking forward to coming back.  Ybor is an incredible venue for this event.”  A full list of results can be found at http://ministryofrum.com/iscsc.htm as well as more information about participating brands.



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