Camping with friends

A couple of weeks back we went camping to celebrate our friends birthday. It was sort of a disaster, but we did get one magical moment out of the deal. below is the only way I can describe it.

Saturday Morning September 22nd:

We crashed out onto the beach like conquistadors in reverse. We swaggered with the cocksure steps of ownership and alcohol. The pitch black of the open ocean and sky giving way to infinity as our eyes adjusted and the world fell away. We rushed to the water. We spun in place, eyes to the heavens until our equilibrium and delirium gave way to gravity.

Adventurers who marched a half a mile and centuries back in time.

We gazed at the stars with new eyes as they shone so clear and so bright with the defiance of eternity; only to be mocked by the fleeting appearance of shooting stars hither and yon. Lying on our backs in a row contemplating the universe like our fifteen year old selves, basking in the knowledge there was some unknown secret that would, someday, be revealed to us. Sluffing off the weight of expectations we had accumulated through the years. We were not celebrating a birthday, but all birthdays, and as Miles Davis wailed through the darkness, with his unspoken refrain of "so what" turning in our minds, we recaptured a moment we had all thought was lost years ago.

Once in a lifetime

Having lived in Charlotte for 13 or so years now and expecting anything but the unexpected, it came as quite a shock when we were picked to host the 2012 Democratic National Convention. Never one to let an interesting experience pass me by I decided to volunteer. Around the same time, as the announcement, an old friend from high school was visiting our city and while we were catching up over breakfast one day, she mentioned the event and that she knew one of the transportation organizers, and that I should do that. Sure, I love to drive. I scheduled a way to be off for the entire week and I was excited.

Fast forward nine months and I find myself in the thick of getting everything ready. I was asked if I would be up for, and eligible, to drive in the Senatorial pool. I told them they could try but I make no promises that I would pass. But, turns out my past is either not as interesting as I have self mythologized it to be or well under the radar of law enforcement, either way, I was accepted.

The week leading up to the event I was driving staff around to do final checks and things and everything was running like a top. When we signed up for the Senate duty we were told we would get one person and be assigned to them. This turned out to not be the case, but still seemed like a cool gig.
Come Monday morning, the week of the convention, I get a call from the transport staff, asking me to cover an evening shift, since I didn't have to start my Senate driving until Tuesday. I was free-ish. I re- arranged my entire schedule. I forgot to mention that on top of this, I was playing with my usual band, Broken Napoleons, on Friday and covering the final show for a band I helped start 2 years ago but hadn't played with in a long time on Sunday. So Monday was, work, two band practices, be at the transport center by 7. Perhaps I over did it a bit. Anyway.

I get to transport and get sent off to cover for a guy who did not get his credentials on time to get into the security perimeter. He was a dedicated driver for a congressman that, all I needed to do was get him into the arena and back to his hotel that night. Easy. After I switch with the driver, my phone dies, I get there late and miss the congressman, who decided to walk, but pick up his assistant and make my way to the arena for pick up. This is when I learn the congressman needs to be picked up at 6:30 the next morning and there is no way the other guy is going to have his credentials by then. I am a sucker, and feel like this is what I signed up for so, I say yes. The other driver should be good to go by 9am and I have to be at the Senate hotel by 3pm, all is well.

Next day I pick up the congressman, Chris Van Hollen, Maryland, from his hotel and the day begins. This time everything is going ok. He and his staff are very nice and I begin to relax. Unfortunately, traffic starts to build by 9am and the city is at a standstill. Even though a lot of the big corporations in the city told their employees to stay home, a good number of people decided it wouldn't be that bad, and it wouldn't have been, if they had stayed home. By 1pm, my nerves were frayed, I was getting reminder calls from the Senate staff, I wasn't getting calls about the original driver, and I thought I was going to loose my mind. All of this was made better when the congressman said the magic words "call and make sure we can keep Kevin for the week." I had not intended to steal the congressman, but we had bonded and, as I learned, they don't deal with change well. Some calls were made and it was settled. I would stay. Later that evening, the rain started and the traffic got worse, if that's possible. While driving the congressman and his wife to and fro, we found ourselves with some down time and empty bellies. I was asked for a recommendation for a local place that was quite. Knowing we had to be back at the arena in an hour and having a need to steer clear of uptown, I took them to local favorite, Crepe Cellar. The congressman was very gracious in asking me to join them and even picked up the tab, to bad I couldn't have a drink, I needed one. So we chatted about politics and their children and soccer. That is a night I will cherish forever.

The rest of the night was uneventful, and when I finally made it home. I had a nice glass of Cognac and crashed into bed.

Wednesday and Thursday morning were fairly uneventful. Everyone stayed home, so the traffic was much better and those that did not, or could not, now knew the security routine. All was well until it was announced that they would be moving the president's acceptance speech from the Bank of America stadium, 70,000 seats, to Time Warner Arena, 20,000 seats. You do the math. The scramble was on. Thursday was a busy day for the congressman and as it got closer to the time when the president would arrive, security got tighter and tighter.

The Mrs. had taken off the entire week to avoid the madness, good call on her part, and to volunteer for Thursday at the stadium. It was the only way to guarantee seeing the speech, I would have also seen it with my credentials. With the new venue and 50,000 fewer seats all that was out the window.
I had been listening to all of the goings on at night while I waited for the congressman in the secure parking deck; It was nice up there, all the drivers hung out and gossiped we could get some reading done and maybe nap a little, all of my days started at 6am and finished after midnight, So, it didn't seem like a bad way to listen to the speech. I was closer than most people would be and could still feel the charge of the event, being within the security perimeter.

This all changed when I was told the Congressman had secured credentials for The Mrs. and I. It was crazy. I could have hugged all of them, but that would have been bad form. I finished my driving duties on Thursday with a huge grin and made plans with The Mrs. to meet up. She was told to arrive by 3pm and we would be arriving around 5pm; No one was sure how long we would have before the fire marshall shut the building down, which he had done on Wednesday by 7pm. I met up with The Mrs., we watched the speeches and took as much in as we could. I left her a couple of minuets before the president was finished, so I could be in place for the congressman down at the VIP exit. It was cool I got to see Madeline Albright, Jesse Jackson, and a host of congressmen and woman and Senators. Apparently, I also saw Jessica Alba, she looked like a hooker so I didn't notice. Well, I noticed, but not that it was her. Once in the car, the congressman and his staff wanted to blow off some steam so we headed toward the Google wrap party, picking up the congressman's friend Peter, whom I believe is a representative from Vermont, I didn't get his whole story, on the way. So we went to the Google party, with me, again, not drinking. More celebrities, the daily show cast was there, I got hit on by a very drunk girl with a heaving bosom, and an hour later we were back at the hotel making arrangements for the airport the next morning.

I picked up the congressman and Peter, who was on the same flight back to DC, and needed a lift knowing full well he'd never get a cab in the chaos of the mass exodus. Made no difference to me, I was going there anyway. I got my credentials for the week signed by the congressman and we said our goodbyes. It was something like the end of summer camp. Empty promises of keeping in touch and the like. But, you can bet I'll be in touch if I ever need a letter of recommendation.

It was a great experience, one that comes once in a lifetime, how can you pass those up.

The cherry on top for the week was playing two awesome shows.

Impromptu Bourbon Tasting

For an experiment that I will write about in a future post, I found myself in need of a drinkable yet inexpensive bourbon. My go to is usually Buffalo Trace but, with the closest liquor store being the ghetto liquor store, not that all of the liquor stores run by North Carolina are barren wasteland of mediocre swill, I found myself staring down a shelf with none to be found. So on a whim I decided not to soldier onto a different store and try some of the lesser bourbons available that have been recommended to me. Armed with the promises of one friend and one complete stranger, I picked up a bottle of Ancient Age and a bottle of Old Crow. The following tasting ensued.

I still had a little Buffalo left in a bottle, which made for a good comparison, as I drink it fairly regularly. The First up was the Old Crow; this is the cheap bourbon of choice for Will Gordon, writer of the Serious Eats Blog "Drinking from the Bottom Shelf", a hilarious blog about alcoholism. I found it a little on the sweet side with a decidedly peanut butter character to it, not unlikable or undrinkable and for $7.50 an out right steal. Ancient Age, which I have been dogged to try by my friend Mr.Ozark, was next up and fully delivered on its sour mash billing. It was quite sour actually and, like the OC, a bit one dimensional. At $14.00 I'm not sure it's worth twice the OC. We'll find out when I start making cocktails with them (a post for another time). Last came the Buffalo Trace, which I can usually pick up for around $20.00. BT is miles ahead of both of the other two in complexity, but had a mineral-y taste when compared with them. All had a pretty good nose of vanilla and oak, with the OC, again, being a tad on the sweet side. For sipping I would probably stick with something other than any of these, like the Woodford Reserve Double Oak I have in the cabinet now. However, as I mix with the other two I may find that I can save a couple of bucks. Look for that post in the near future. Next post will be my week at the DNC.

A Sia Saide

Quinn

Northern Lights in the Southern Hemisphere

And now a break from our regularly scheduled programming.

I have been working on a new cocktail and thought I would share. I am calling it the Northern Lights in the Southern Hemisphere. I started with the name and worked it out from there. It started as a genever  and rum drink until my friend Mr. Mustache pointed out that rum really wasn't from the southern hemisphere, Nerts!, to use his expression. So I started to consider my options and moved to pisco, from Peru. This brought me to thinking about the time The Mrs. and I went to the Columbia Room (my cocktail nerd friends just clenched their fists in a jealous rage) but Derek Brown made us a Veiux Carre using genever in place of the rye. It was fabulous.

So as a play on that I have my first real try at it. Please forgive the half empty glass in the photo, I had to decide if it was good enough to share. If anyone has any suggestions, feel free. I believe next time I will try Carpano Antica in place of the Maurin quina, although I like the cherry notes.

Northern Lights in the Southern Hemisphere

1oz Bols Genever (Smoke Glass)
1oz Pisco (I used Demonio de Los Andes)
1oz Maurin
1/2 tsp Allspice Dram
2 light dashes Aromatic Bitters
2 light dashes Peychad's Bitters
2 heavy dashed Regan's Orange Bitters

Shake with Ice

Garnish with cherry (Homemade Maraschino)

Journey to the land of Bourbon Pt.II

One of the draws of the trip was getting to explore Louisville, a city none of us really had any ideas about what it was like. We arrived Friday evening in time to take in the Gallery Crawl they have down town, so we walked down the main drag toward one of the places we had found online and were very excited about. The 21st Century Museum Hotel is a large old office building in the middle of downtown that now houses, not only a hotel but a bar and restaurant called Proof and a large gallery space that holds the owners lard modern art collection as well as hosting traveling exhibits and local art works. As we got close we could see a 20ft tall gold painted replica of Michelangelo's "David", and we knew we had found our spot. We made our way in and to a table in the bar side of the restaurant  ordered a round of drinks and appetizers  and tried to take in all of the art that was right there in the bar. Or favorite being a representation of the Satyr Pan in life size bronze as if he were a bartender serving drinks. All of the food and drinks were very well executed and the fact that they would make a sidecar with my preferred proportions, without really raising an eyebrow, was quite comforting. From there we moved into the gallery space where they were having an opening for a new set of works; some being rotated in from the collection, others by local artists who were on premises for the event. I am not always the biggest fan of modern art but there were some really great pieces from around the world and while not all of them were the most competently accomplished technically were still quite thought provoking. From there we wandered down the street and took in more of the awesome public art before stopping for a bite that isn't really worth spending time on and then, finding our way back to the hotel, crashed out for the night.

The next day we found ourselves beating a path to breakfast that took a rather circuitous route, due to my crappy memory, was it N. 6th street or S. 6th street? But we eventually found our destination, Toast, for an awesome breakfast cocktail and superb comfort breakfast. The star of this meal was the lemon chiffon pancakes ordered by The Mrs. after breakfast we walked back across the street to a shit shop that we had spotted but had been closed on our way to breakfast. This place was crazy, four or five floors of what looked to have been an old school building filled with every bit of crap you could imagine. Tons of furniture, toy collectibles, collectible liquor bottles, architectural stuff; we even found etched photo plates, it was amazing. We spent way too much time there and ended up having to forgo the trip to the Speed Art Museum and skipped to the Louisville Slugger Museum. Yes, where they make baseball bats.

I'm not much of a baseball fan these days, but I am a cabinet maker so I was interested in that aspect of it. We got there just in time for the architectural tour of the facility, which was pretty cool, and then went in for the main factory tour. That is quite a place, they still do some of the old school production but mostly it's done on CNC machines. You wouldn't believe how many suckers will pay 7 bucks to watch people make bats. They had us crammed in there like we were gonna catch a bolt in the forehead at the end. All in all an enjoyable day.

After the tour we walked back to the hotel for a little rest, knowing there would be some more serious eating and drinking in a couple of hours.

Journey to the land of Bourbon pt.1

Last week was The Mrs. birthday and she originally wanted to go to Chicago to drink herself silly and eat at Alinea. This, for a number of reasons, did not happen. We, instead, decided to trek on up to Kentucky to check out the most American of spirits, well, two of the most American of spirits; we have a real soft spot for rye, and there are some great ones up there. We put out a call to see if anyone wanted to join us and, much to our surprise, the intrepid traveler heretofore known as Ms.Furman quickly spoke up. This was quite exciting for us, since we always ask if anyone wanted to come with us and , up 'till now, no one had and Ms.Furman is someone we hang out with quite a bit but have never really gotten to know that well and after almost twenty years there are no new stories to tell between The Mrs. and I, only stories to be written. Getting to know her better on the car ride was definitely a highlight.

Our first day out we left Charlotte in the mid-afternoon, with the goal of making it to Knoxville, TN by 7pm. I had made arrangements to go to a Tiki Bar hidden in a private home there and we did not want to be late. This was a serendipitous find on the interwebs that had occurred just as we were deciding to go to Kentucky which worked perfectly into our plan. The place was amazing, the "proprietors", had been collecting artifacts for years and really did it right. The space was a 250 sq.ft mudroom that had been converted into a tiki paradise. We chatted about cocktail culture and The Mia-Kai (see previous post), where he started an east coast tiki convention some years ago, while we sipped on fruity rum-based deliciousness. After a little while a couple of the neighbors cane by to join us and, I'm guessing, to make sure we weren't ax murderers, hacking their liquor hook up into tiny pieces. The night was perfect, even if it started by knocking on a strangers door and hoping for the best.

Day two had us up and moving early, making a beeline for our first distillery of the day, a four hour drive from Knoxville. When we arrived at Makers Mark we were there for one thing, a bottle. Being one of the biggest names in bourbon we felt we knew enough about the company to skip their dog and pony show in lieu of some of the more intimate tours. So, on The Mrs. Birthday, she got to dip her own bottle in the famous red wax and then sign and date it; and then we left. From Makers we made our way to the rather generically named Kentucky Bourbon Distillers, LTD. makers of the, anything but generic, Willett line of Bourbons and Ryes, as well as a number of other mid and top shelf lines of the same. This, I'm not going to lie, is why we were in Kentucky. We love their products. Also, since they are a smaller distillery that is not on the "official" Bourbon trail our tour consisted of four people and to top it off, since they were in the summer shut down, our tour guide was the master distiller, grandson of the distilleries founder. We got a great tour and tasting, their rule is, if they have it you can taste it. So, we tasted the 23yr rye, why wouldn't you, and then proceeded to buy a bottle. It was delicious. I can imagine I'll be getting a visit from Mr. Whiskey any moment now. Sadly, we did have to move on from there and get to our final tour of the day Heaven Hill. This is a massive operation with a fairly extensive if somewhat disappointing tour, but they have a very informative visitors center for whiskey novices, it was just a little to corporate for my taste.

Makers Mark welcome sign

Dipping bottles at Maker Mark

Kentucky Bourbon Distillers, distillery building

Pot Still at KBD

This is how they weigh the barrels at KBD, to this day it gets certified every year.

Rickhouse at Heaven Hill

I'll end here for now and continue the adventure in a day or two.

City Smoke

The Mrs. and I decided to venture into uptown yesterday. We had seen something about City Smoke, located in Founders Hall and part of the Sonoma Group, so we decided to check it out. We rarely venture uptown, but a quick look at the menu online with its long list of Bourbons and what appeared to be a decent cocktail list, we threw caution and better judgement to the wind.

Well.... the music was good, a nice mix of classic rock, mostly southern tinged.

The rest, not so much.

The list of bourbons and whiskey's is impressive and, as stated, the cocktail list looked compelling. So I dipped my toe in the water and ordered their "signature" Old-Fashioned. Now, my friends, there are only 5 ingredients in an Old-Fashioned and one of those is ice. You muddle orange zest with bitters and sugar, then pour over bourbon or rye add ice and voila. I ask you, how is it possible to screw this up? I'm not sure, but somehow they managed it. It tasted like nothing. It felt like the flavor already in my mouth was sucked out and into the glass.

I want so badly for there to be some kind of cocktail culture in this city and so many people tell me I'm to hard on the bars here, but if someone can't competently assemble a mindless classic that should need no more than the ability to breathe to assemble, how am I the one in the wrong? If you won't hire someone capable of doing anything other than sling beer, Please, Please don't do anything other than serve beer.

The food was fine, but by the time I'd had my soul crushed by my drink, I wasn't pre-disposed to like anything else. For the good, their take on pigs in a blanket was good, a sausage wrapped in a potato chip. Everything else was bland. The Mrs. had a pork sandwich that was supposed to be pulled but came more chunked with baked beans that were serviceable. I got the brisket plate with fried okra which was bland; I would have been happier if it were over salted, at least that is more traditional, and grits which were creamy and pretty tasty. The meat was ok but it comes pre-sauced, this is fine, but they have three house-made barbecue sauces and tell you all about them and then you stare at the meat on your plate that is already sauced. what the hell is that about?

Normally, I would give a place a second chance because there is some glimmer of hope that it might have been an off night, I don't see that here.

City Smoke - 100 N. Tryon St. (Uptown) - http://www.citysmokeclt.com/