My Top 20 songs of 2011

1. Robin Pecknold – I’m Losing Myself
2. Frank Ocean – Novocane
3. The Dodos – When Will You Go
4. Surfer Blood – Voyager Reprise
5. Bon Iver – Beth-Rest
6. The Weeknd – House of Balloons / Glass Table Girls
7. M83 – Midnight City
8. Real Estate – It’s Real
9. St. Vincent – Cruel
10. Weezer ft Hayley Williams – Rainbow Connection
11. Washed Out – Eyes Be Closed
12. Fleet Foxes – Helplessness Blues
13. James Blake – The Wilhelm Scream
14. Jay-Z and Kanye West – Otis
15. Destroyer – Chinatown
16. Drake – Crew Love
17. Kendrick Lamar – Fuck Your Ethnicity
18. The Head and the Heart – Lost in My Mind
19. Kurt Vile – Jesus Fever
20. Dia Frampton – Heartless

21. Mayer Hawthorne – The Walk

 

 

 

Welcome (back) to the Machine

I heard some crazy number about when the Giants score 4 or more runs and what their record is. It’s 45-9! If the Giants can score just 4 runs, they have an 83% winning percentage. Ridiculous! Here’s one I counted. When the Giants score just 3 runs, they have a 21 – 8 record. So with the above number, the Giants are 66 – 17 when they score 3 runs or more.

The Giants got 6 walks tonight, and Burrell was in the lineup. I don’t think there’s any coincidence there. I have a feeling that when the Giants walk more than 4 times, they have some ridiculous winning percentage.

 

FDR cocktail party

I’ve thrown a couple of cocktail parties based off of a story I heard about FDR during WWII. I was watching the News Hour, and Doris Kearns Goodwin was on as a commentator discussing Iraq and President Bush and whether or not he had cleared enough brush at Camp David – or something to that effect. She brought up FDR and said that one quality that made FDR so great was his ability to detach himself from the situation, and come back to it refreshed. As the story goes, in the middle of WWII he had all his advisers move in to the White House and for one hour every evening they would convene in the parlor and have themselves a drink. The only rule was that they couldn’t talk about the war. I can’t be certain, but I could swear that Goodwin said that even Churchill for a time lived in the White House as well. When I lived in Davis I tried organizing what I thought a modern version of that would be. They were pretty successful as a way to break up the week.

Here are the rules:

1. no beer or wine
2. no blended drinks
3. no shots
4. no getting belligerent
5. please bring a friend
6. please bring a bottle of something
7. and the main rule to honor the tradition was that you couldn’t talk about what tied you with another person there. For example, if you were classmates, you couldn’t discuss the class you were taking together. If you worked together, you could not talk about work.

As for the reasoning behind the other rules, no beer and wine  simply because it’s a cocktail party, do you really want to be that guy? Go have a kegger, or have your own wine and cheese thing. Blended drinks just made conversation more difficult. Shots and getting belligerent are just uncouth. Friends are always nice, but not having to supply all the booze is nicer. The last rule was the most important, and the hardest to enforce. But after it was explained, most people tried to honor it.

For further reading on FDR and drinks, Modern Drunkard has a lovely story.

Barrel aging cocktails

Perhaps too long to add to my Bartlett’s,  but a great argument for why serious bartenders and home enthusiasts should consider experimenting.

“The subject of sherry actually has a great relevance to the barrel ageing debate. Oloroso sherry is a marriage of wine and spirit that is aged in cask – in fact the same ingredients (in principle) that are used to make a Martinez or a Manhattan – spirit, wine and bitters. On that basis, I think it’s hard to dismiss the very concept of barrel-ageing cocktails, as some do, when the same theory applies to such great effect in the production of sherries? “

~Tristan Stephenson

 

 

 

My top 11 albums of 2011, so far

1. Bon Iver – Bon Iver
2. The Dodos – No Color
3. James Blake – James Blake
4. Explosions in the Sky – Take Care, Take Care, Take Care
5. Fleet Foxes – Helplessness Blues
6. Jill Scott – The Light Of The Sun
7. Destroyer – Kaputt
8. The Weeknd – The Weeknd
9. James Carter – Caribbean Rhapsody
10. TV On The Radio – Nine Types of Light
11. Smith Westerns – Dye It Blonde

On Jokes and News – Personal Bartlett’s entry no. 8

“Everything is changing. People are taking their comedians seriously and the politicians as a joke.”

~Will Rogers

 

I had heard this one before, but recently saw Jon Stewart quote it during his recent appearance on Fox News Sunday.

 

Please FOX, don’t have them take down the video.

Olly Moss

Awesome new artist!

Reggie Watts

MTV cocktail (Milano-Torino-Valencia!)

Being a a big fan of bitters I had the desire to break out my new bottle of Campari and make an Americano. Unfortunately I didn’t have any club soda. However, for I did have Orangina in the fridge. Thus my spin on a classic bas born. Valencia was added to acknowledge it’s Spanish creator Dr. Trigo. I’m tempted to try it out with Pellegrino’s Arancina to keep it all Italian.

1.5 oz Campari

1.5 oz Sweet Vermouth

top with Orangina

garnish with a twist of orange