Last night's experiment: the Bosom Caresser. A very old drink with a very good name. I really wish it was a good drink. But it's not.

Bosom Caresser, Savoy Cocktail Book
1.5 oz brandy (used Armenian brandy from a glass rifle)
3/4 oz orange curacao (de Kuyper's)
1 tsp grenadine (homemade hibiscus grenadine)
1 egg yolk
Shake well with ice, strain into cocktail glass.

This is really, truly a terrible drink. It isn’t the egg yolk’s fault. You’d think so, but it isn’t. The problem is that there’s no balance to this drink whatsoever. It’s overwhelmingly spirit-forward despite the richness, with the curacao sweetness following the burn of the brandy, and the weird eggy flavor of the yolk cruising in at the rear of the pack. It tastes like something you'd drink on a dare.

There might be a core of something good buried in here, but it's going to take some work to bring it out.



Molokai Mule, Beachbum Berry Remixed
2 oz orange juice
1 oz fresh lime juice
1 oz orgeat syrup (used homemade)
1 oz Cognac (Courvosier)
1 oz light Puerto Rican rum (used Matusalem)
1 oz Demerara rum (used El Dorado 5)
Shake well with ice cubes. Pour unstrained into a double old-fashioned glass.

Tonight's experiment, by contrast, is excellent. Velvety and rich, fruity but well-balanced, and dangerously easy to drink. My homemade orgeat might be a little too powerful for this drink, as the almond and rosewater flavors come out very strong - it's delicious, but to give the other players a chance to shine, the orgeat should be dialed down a little. A milder commercial orgeat might be fine here.

Going through Beachbum Berry REMIXED with the ball n/ chain. ( Enter the rum.Collapse )

Schonauer Apfel

This is a sort of German apple schnapps, about 21% ABV. I was expecting an apple brandy, something along the lines of an eau de vie, but instead was greeted by a lightly fragrant, lightly sweet liqueur that tasted like biting into a juicy, fresh, ripe apple. Delightful, but confusing. A little research reveals that the Apfel is a mix of grain-based essential spirit and apple juice, which explains how they got that fresh apple flavor to happen in a distilled product.

Bottom line: Tasty but not powerful, this might substitute well for the more expensive Calvados in some lighter cocktails, but is probably best enjoyed on its own or over a little bit of ice.



Ron Roberto Superior Dark Rum

Picked this up looking for a basic dark cocktail rum. It was cheap, so I figured it wouldn't be sipping rum, but thought it was worth a gamble to find something inoffensive to bulk out a Dark and Stormy. I was wrong.
I poured a little into a glass and smelled it. Not much happening, maybe a hint of turpentine. Against my better judgement, I tasted it. Aaaugh. It wasn't even bad rum. Bad rum, I can handle. This was over-distilled and nearly flavorless except for the chemical burn of cheap booze - the caramel coloring was a lie, this was no dark rum. This was cheap, terrible, colored vodka. Maybe it had come from molasses at some point, I'm not sure, but whatever island spirit this "rum" might once have had was long gone, leaving only a slightly toxic flavor and a deep sense of disappointment.
I washed my glass out sadly, and had to pour myself a finger of Laphroiag to restore my faith in alcohol.

Bottom line: Avoid at all costs. Shoot on sight.

Title: The Steerswoman's Road (actually two novels, The Steerswoman and The Outskirter's Secret, first two of four in the series)

Author Rosemary Kirstein

Published: 2003, Ballantine Books

Synopsis: Steerswoman Rowan and her traveling companion Bel follow the trail of a mysterious gem across the known world, braving natural travails and a conspiracy of wizards determined to keep the gems' secret from the eyes of the world.

Rating: 10 labryses, easy. SO MUCH AWESOME. The world is richly detailed, the characters fascinating, and the writing fast-paced and intellectually engaging. We get to see the characters conflicted, frightened, exhausted, vulnerable, in victory and in defeat, and love them through all of it - these aren't perfect people, but they are heroes.

The setting is at first glance approximately medieval with some light magic, wherein the steerswomen represent the most advanced available body of knowledge. The steerswomen (and steersmen) of this world are a school of explorers, scientists, and cartographers bound by the rule of their order - information must be given to those who ask, and a steerswoman's questions must be answered. Those who lie or refuse a steerswoman's question fall under the ban of the order; no steerswoman will receive their question. Wizards do not, as a rule, answer questions from a steerswoman - the implication being that they wish to keep their secrets, and are willing to tolerate the loss of the steerswomen's accumulated knowledge.

Despite the presence of wizards and outland barbarians in the story, and despite the low tech level of the world, this is by no means a usual sword and sorcery fantasy. There's a story under the story. Read it, find out.

If you liked Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, keep an eye out for the upcoming release of Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters. (Book trailer in link.)

I recently picked up one of these shaker things (thanks to Spiderbabe for telling me about these!) and they're pretty much awesome with the making lump-free protein shakes. I can't do that with a blender, y'all. And the blender doesn't store as easily in the tiny kitchenette at my lab.

I got mine at GNC, which is having a sale on these devices. They're a little cheaper online, but without the advantage of immediate gratification.

As some of you know, the projector's been acting up - it has a tendency to shut down during use, and the indicator lights show some unspecified "problem in the lamp circuit". The image starts to flicker before the device fails. Turning the projector off and letting it rest a while seems to temporarily correct the problem.

We sent it in for repairs a few weeks ago; the repairman replaced the old lamp and filter, and things seemed to be working fine for a few days. Then the problem started recurring - time to shutdown was 2 hours, then 1 hour - and we sent it back to the shop. Apparently, the shop can't replicate the defect, which probably means 1) the defect is intermittent, which would be a pain in the ass, or 2) the cause of the circuit problem is outside the projector.

Can anyone offer any insights into diagnosing (2)? The projector is normally hooked up to a surge protector, but it's getting older, and has been through a few moves - any chance the protector isn't doing its job any more, and how would we diagnose it? Could it be a problem with the apartment's electrical system? It's an old building. I don't really know enough about electronics to speculate further. Help?

If anyone out there in the internets knows a girl with size 6.5 feet who wants some shoes, I have some nice ones for the having. Apparently, I take a 6.5 wide, which is why none of my formal shoes fit.

I picked up a pair of combat boots a few weeks ago - black leather, speed-lace - and was careless with trying them on - end result, my boots are too big. They're labeled men's 4.5, but run very large - measuring by length, they would fit a men's 6/women's 8 most comfortably. I've worn them a few times, in the spirit of optimism, but they'd do better on larger feet than mine. Asking $25, to go toward a more carefully-considered boot attempt. If you know anyone who might be interested, send them my way.

Bench-pressed body weight today! One rep, but did it three times. Once I stopped thinking about how much weight it was and just lifted it, it turned out to be not impossible. Which is cool.