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Spent a couple of hours with coworkers last night at Disotto Enoteca, the wine bar in the lower level of Francesca's on Chestnut. I was in charge of selecting the wine for our happy hour(s) and randomly picked the Uncastellum Barrica Tinto Barrica Certified Organic 2007, a tempranillo blend. It was universally liked by the group and was pretty affordable at $38/bottle. The space itself is pleasant in a wine cave sort of way (think bricks and weeping mortar.)

Disotta Enoteca at Francesca's on Chestnut
200 E Chestnut
312-482-8727
http://www.disottoenoteca.com/

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-Mary

Sipping on some Schlitz beer out of my vintage 1960s Schlitz mugs.

Tonight more Schlitz. Last night it was Prosecco and chardonnay my sister n law says she bought at Whole Foods though I don't recall the brand.

Manhattan.

2 oz. Rittenhouse bonded rye
1 oz. Carpano Antica
2 dashes Fee Brothers old-fashioned bitters
1 dash Fee Brothers orange bitters.

Shaken and strained into a rocks glass. I went with shaken on the recommendation of another thread, but this is a bit too "round" for my tastes. I'll stick with vigorously stirred in the future.

OMG this is a rich dark stout!
Might take me a few days to get thru this 750ml bottle!

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my food shots

The Italian Fisherman, courtesy of La Veranda, Phu Quoc Island, Vietnam

3 parts Campari
2 parts Martini Bianco
3 parts Orange Juice
2 parts Lime Juice
1 part Phu Quoc Fish Sauce (45°, preferred)

This was one of several fish sauce cocktails on the resort's menu, and certainly the most appetizing. The battle between the powerful bitter and funky umami elements was quite delicious.

Tonight it is Vittorre Sangria from Spain. Not bad for the bargain price I paid. Was hoping it would not be awful and it is actually pretty good.

Acquired a bottle of the newly available St. George "Dry Rye" Gin at Binny's the other day. That, combined with a gift of a bottle of Veuve Clicquot from a vendor that my wife works with resulted in fortuitous French 75s to start off the holiday weekend.

St. George has three new gins, all worth of exploration. The Dry Rye is treading close to genever territory. It's pretty assertive; enough so that I tempered it with some Tanqueray when I made the cocktails. It made for a very interesting twist on a classic that I love. Many prefer a French 75 with cognac, and this was almost like the best of both worlds as you got the whiskey-like notes of the rye and still had the botanicals of the gin.

Lineup from Xmas Eve party & my cost/purchase location/remarks:

2002 BV Tapestry Cabernet ($27 from Diageo employee website)--great, big wine, heavy sediment
2005 BV Rutherford Merlot ($11 from Diageo employee website)--extra good value
2000 Bogea (?) Bordeaux ($10 from DiCarlo's/Mundelein)--wasn't expecting much for price, but very serviceable)
2006 Moulin D'Issan Bordeaux ($16 from DiCarlo's/Mundelein)--smooth, silky, phenomenal value
2002 Killibinbin Australian Cabernet (~$20 from Schaefer's Wine Sale in 2004, friend brought it)
--star of the night. Decanted an hour, unreal complexity
2009 HobNob Pinot Noir ($10 from Mariano's)--parents love it, goes pretty well with everything
2009 Kendall Jackson Grand Reserve Chardonnay ($16 from DiCarlo's/Mundelein)--great, solid white

Forgive me, cocktail purists, for I have sinned:



Made maple pumpkin old fashioneds last night. Fortunately, they were sacrilecious.

LOL...maybe I just found a use for the jar of artisanal pumpkin butter I received for Xmas. How did you make these?

=R=

p.s. I won't call them Old Fashioneds

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I just wanna live until I gotta die. I know I ain't perfect but God knows I try. --Todd Snider

Twitter: ronniesuburban

Pulled out a 2004 Shea Wine Cellars Willamette Valley Pinot Noir (Wädenswil Clone). Wow. So very good!

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Leek
SAVING ONE DOG MAY NOT CHANGE THE WORLD, BUT IT CHANGES THE WORLD FOR THAT ONE DOG.
American Brittany Rescue always needs foster homes. Please think about helping that one dog.
http://www.americanbrittanyrescue.org

Nelson from Alpine Brewing. Incredible grapefruit notes from the NZ Nelson Sauvin hops. (A tough beer to find, BTW.)

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Chicago Craft Beer Week!

Alpine Brewing's distribution is limited to Southern California, so it is tough to find indeed. Others may be able to purchase it from online vendors and have it shipped, but I am not certain.

That being said, Alpine's IPAs are second to none. Alpine is about an hour outside of San Diego and the brewpub is absolutely worth a visit if you are in the San Diego area with access to a car.

Started with the Ronnie holiday variation of the standard Bar DeVille Old Fashioned (a.k.a. subbed the demerara with maple syrup, but added half as much as I normally would), plopped in a tsp of pumpkin butter per drink, and shook instead of stirring. Then just expressed lemon oil over them...skipped the orange, thought it might make for too many flavors going on.

The result was a not-too-sweet drink with a just-noticeable pumpkin butter flavor.


Probably wise. When I did so, it was as if millions of voices of late-1800s barmen and modern-day, handlebar-mustashioed craft mixologists cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced

Did you say the appropriate number of Hail Jerrys?

Just had a Ballast Point Sculpin IPA - another excellent example of the genre.

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Chicago Craft Beer Week!

It is a shame that Chicago does not get distribution from Ballast Point either. Sculpin is definitely a great IPA. Another wonderful SoCal IPA that we don't get is AleSmith IPA.

Ballast Point does distribute to Rockford and even DeKalb, but does not make it to Chicago. I have found AleSmith in Ohio and New York City, but Chicago is a no-go. This is probably due to the pay-to-play type distributor politics that plague bars in Chicago.

You can definitely get Ballast Point shipped from their online store to your home in Illinois and Holiday Wine Cellars will ship many other great San Diego beers to your doorstep. Shipping is quite pricey though.

While I prefer many California IPAs including Pliny the Elder from Russian River in the Bay Area, I can't complain about having Three Floyds and their fantastic hoppy pale ales (Alpha King and Zombie Dust especially) 30 minutes from downtown Chicago. Daisy Cutter is also a wonderful West Coast-style Pale Ale that we are spoiled to have.

Having a California beer that took some effort to track down myself! Spike and I are drinking Duck Duck Gooze and it totally lives up to expectations, it feels like my tongue is melting into the rest of my mouth.

An improvised Martinez, where I ended up loving the combination of two very different gins:

2 oz Cocchi Vermouth di Torino
1 oz Ransom Old Tom Gin
1/2 oz St. George Dry Rye Gin
2 barspoons Luxardo Maraschino
1 dropper Bittercube Bolivar Bitters

Stirred, strained and garnished with a Luxardo cherry.

I'm in lager hell!



lager hell by Mel Hill Photography, on Flickr

Swiss swill but OK after skiing.

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my food shots

Barrel aged cider (or was it cydar?) At Publican.
Crisp, dry and nice fizz

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What is patriotism, but the love of good things we ate in our childhood?
-- Lin Yutang

I just drank a shot (2 oz) of Angostura Bitters. It is not as calming to the stomach as possibly claimed in this dosage.

Aha, welcome to the team! Make your next one 1 oz Ango, 1 oz orange bitters (my preferred shot these days).

Finally found something other then Swiss lager....

Leffe, Vielle Cuvée by Mel Hill Photography, on Flickr

roasty malt and spice with some funk! maybe a bit of the 8.2 % sticking out a bit...

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my food shots

I shared a few bottles with some friends this past weekend (2007-2011 Bourbon County Stout as well as the Rare (2010), Vanilla (2010) and the 2010 Coffee versions). While it would have been nice to have the most recent variations (2011 Bramble Rye and 2011 Coffee), as you can see, we had plenty. The Rare, Vanilla and 2010 Coffee were opened last and I'm sure our palettes were sufficiently blown by that point that the more subtle nuances were totally lost on us. Rare was noticeably different (in a good way) than any of the others, though, so it was still a joy to drink and something I look forward to revisiting soon without the additional beers beforehand. The Vanilla didn't seem as distinctive to me as it once did -- it was still very good and probably just sweeter than the rest but I couldn't exactly pinpoint a vanilla flavor. The Coffee has suffered the most (unsurprisingly). While the aroma still had a nice coffee punch, the body and finish only had the bitter notes I associate more with coffee grounds than an entire cup of coffee. The 2011 version has just been bottled and if it's anywhere near as good as the 2010 was when it was freshly bottled, it will already be a contender for my favorite beer of 2012. It will be a royal PITA to find but should be entirely worth it.

As for the '07-'11 vintages of the regular BCBS, they were all very good. Sitting next to the younger vintages, the '07 probably suffered the most, but really only by comparison. The flavors were just more muted and tasted flatter overall (not just in terms of carbonation). The '11 came out stronger than in past years (14.5% vs 13%), and it was pretty apparent. I prefer by bourbon-barrel stouts to be pretty bourbon-forward, so I really enjoyed the '11 -- others preferred something a little more mellow. The '09 and '10 were pretty similar to me -- wonderfully mellow, still boozy, thick, full body, lingering finish, etc. The '08 stood out just a touch more than the '09 and '10 for me, though - like it had a more structured body, if nothing else.

If anyone missed the December release of the 2011 Bourbon County Stout, Goose is saying there will be another batch some time in February. I wouldn't be surprised if the Bramble Rye, 2011 Coffee and this second batch are released at the same time, even though that would be something of a perfect storm for retailers. The swath of destruction left in the path of roving hordes of beer nerds in search of these three beers... it won't be pretty!

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best,
dan

I'm currently sipping on some JW Black Label mixed with a little bit of Coke Zero. It's actually unreal how this tastes better than any other scotch + cola mix I've made.

And I just bought another bottle of Glenmorangie 10 year/'The Original' since I finished my last bottle in a pretty short amount of time. For a cheaper single malt, I have to always have it in my cabinet for after-dinner or when guests come over.

Had a New Glarus Black Top last night. It really hit the spot.

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-Mary

My bro-in-law has a summer home up in Wisconsin and he just brought me another 12 of Black Top last night. Great stuff, I was surprised it's still out as I thought it was a seasonal release.

Fat Squirrel is a really good session beer too. I wish New Glarus would distribute down here.

gorack-

On our last trip up to Wisconsin in the fall, we stopped at Woodman's and bought three cases of New Glarus. We're slowly working through the supply.

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-Mary