Now that you mention it, I could stand to have my ears lowered a bit…
Via Kottke and nyer photo booth, bootleggers’ Cow Shoes:
A new method of evading prohibition agents was revealed here today by A.L. Allen, state prohibition enforcement director, who displayed what he called a “cow shoe” as the latest thing front the haunts of moonshiners.
The cow shoe is a strip of metal to which is tacked a wooden block carved to resemble the hoof of a cow, which may be strapped to the human foot. A man shod with a pair of them would leave a trail resembling that of a cow.
The shoe found was picked up near Port Tampa where a still was located some time ago. It will be sent to the prohibition department at Washington. Officers believe the inventor got his idea from a Sherlock Holmes story in which the villain shod his horse with shoes the imprint of which resembled those of a cow’s hoof.
I’m making tonic
I called the health food store.
“I’m looking for something…forgive me if I say it wrong…sin-choan-uh…kin-chone-uh…it’s spelled c-i-n-c-h-o-n-a. It’s a powder or a bark.”
“Yes.”
“Can you order a pound?”
“Yes.”
“Can you order a pound of citric acid, too?”
“Sure.”
My wife walked in. “Why are you ordering bark?”
“That’s where the quinine is.”
Maybe I was always like this, or maybe there was some transformational moment earlier in my life, but I want to make things. I want as few steps between me and what I consume or use as possible, and I want my hands in all of it.
This is where you start thinking I’m a luddite. This is where you imagine I’m part of the idle middle class, so burdened by invasive technology and so bored of convenience that I can’t help but romanticize a time when not everything was available already put together.
This is where I reject that, but not with the usual handwringing “we don’t make anything anymore” line or the old classic “we’re disconnected from what we consume.” This is where I say it’s just fun to make things. It’s a challenge. It’s hard. The stakes are low and the reward is high.
I want to make tonic so I know I can make tonic (and so I can avoid HFCS and the higher prices of real-sugar tonic). It’s a matter of time before I try to make bitters. I’m sure I’ll get it wrong, but eventually I’ll get it right.
This is also making-as-guilt-avoidance. It’s easy to pour a drink and the satisfaction of a simple bourbon neat is nothing I want to be without for very long. It’s a simple exchange, though. I spend money on whiskey, I drink whiskey. With a more complex drink, the satisfaction is higher if I’m the one mixing and consuming. I spend money on ingredients, I mix the ingredients, I drink. So mathematically, a drink that I assemble from ingredients I assembled would provide even more pleasure. I can’t not make tonic. It’s science.
I should clarify that I’m not going to stop enjoying simple drinks. There’s a time and a place for everything (that time is usually “after 6”). The enjoyment from drinking is one we all have experienced. But the enjoyment of making something isn’t. They are two joys I want to combine. Each drink can be a reward. I want to make each drink a prize as well.
Polls reveal that a mere quarter of Southerners have ever sampled the iconic cocktail. Even Louisvillians derisively begrudge one glass a year to May festivities, while others leave the clichéd imbibing to naive tourists. How did the mighty julep fall?
Get ready for a lot of mint julep posts
Because it’s that time again.
Wikipedia's List of Cocktails
Because you have no other plans for the evening.
Buster Keaton for Smirnoff Vodka.
Photographed by Bert Stern.
(Source: becketts, via splitsider)
I’m guessing this was the lunch buffet.
New Albany Confidential at the American Distilling Institute’s annual conference.
Time to make the whiskey. Archive photos of Louisville’s bourbon industry.
(Source: consuminglouisville.com)
