Happy Repeal Day!

And it's a special one when it falls on a Friday!

Drink up folks! It's legal!!!

Cactus Beer

I've mentioned a few beers here before that I like to drink though my preference is red wine or bourbon. Beer has too many carbs and too many calories and hell, red wine is good for you. Bourbon drinking on the other hand makes you a man!

Anyway, one beer I have to confess to really liking is Tequiza from Anheuser-Busch. It has this lime and agave cactus flavor that reminds you of the taste of tequila and lime. I could have sworn that they stopped making this beer a few years ago (and the dead tequiza.com website adds to that suspicion, only, I bought a six-pack of it last month at an Albertson's in Pomona. That was the first time I have seen Tequiza in a few years.

Since then I have been looking and can't find it anywhere else. So where are you to go to sate your beer, lime and cactus Jones? Have no fear, Tequiza may or may not be dead but Anheuser-Busch has come to the rescue with Michelob ULTRA Lime Cactus, which I discovered just this week.

ULTRA is supposed to be a low-carb beer, but ULTRA Lime Cactus has 6 carbs which is higher than a lot of the low-carb beers on the market. The lime and cactus taste is not nearly as strong as in Tequiza, so I don't find it quite as refreshing (I don't think tequila), but it does seem to be available everywhere. When you want to drink one, that becomes a big plus!

Also different is I believe Tiquiza is actually a malt liquor while the ULTRA Lime Cactus bottle says it is a Pilsner Beer. Personally I don't care; this is all about taste.

Now That's What I Call A Beer!

My step-son John and I have what I would call a strained relationship. We don't have a lot in common except our despise of Apple Macintosh computers. Mine stems from the fact that I am no fool and John's stems from the fact that he owns one and knows first-hand what a piece of shit it is. So if one of us teaches the other something, I am the one doing the teaching and John is the one doing the learning (or not, I told him not to buy that Mac). However, a week and a half ago, on the occasion of his 40th birthday, John taught me something. I'm not sure I should thank him or not.

We met John at his latest digs in downtown Los Angeles and headed for Pete's Cafe, a place that John used to be a waiter at when it first opened. My wife and I ordered wine with dinner, John ordered something I had never heard of before; he ordered a Chimay. Chimay is a brand of beer, made since 1862 by Trappist monks at the Scourmont Abby in Chimay, Belgium. No pun intended, but "Holy crap is this great beer!" Then again, at between $8.50 to $10.00 a 25.4 oz bottle it better be. Those are store prices, at Pete's it ran $18.50 a bottle.

Chimay comes in three flavors, Red, White or Blue. That night John offered me a taste of his Chimay Blue, which had the unmistakable tang of cinnamon. While shopping at Whole Foods yesterday I picked up a bottle of Red and Blue and had the Chimay Red last night with dinner. My god, what an amazing beer. It froths and expands in your mouth like a creamy root beer and has a spicy taste and a fruity aroma. The monks describe it so:

Topped with a creamy head, it gives off a light, fruity apricot aroma produced by the fermentation. The taste perceived in the mouth is a balance confirming the fruity nuances noticed in the fragrance.

Its taste, which imparts a silky sensation to the tongue, is made refreshing by a light touch of bitterness. To the palate, the taster perceives a pleasant astringency which complements the flavour qualities of this beer very harmoniously.

This top fermented Trappist beer, refermented in the bottle, is not pasteurised.

However you want to describe it, Chimay Red is unlike any beer I have tried before. If only it didn't cost so much!

A Rare Breed

As I have mentioned before, my drink of choice is bourbon and I have tasted quite a few. I have been staying in Florida off and on this year working and went to a local liquor store in search of a good bottle of the amber stuff and found Wild Turkey Rare Breed.

My preference is to drink bourbon neat and Rare Breed is smooth enough to stand by itself in the glass. Rare Breed is a blend of 6yr, 8yr and 12 yr old Wild Turkey, and is bottled uncut at barrel proof. I like to sip it slowly over a good deal of time, letting every caramel-maple sip work its way around my mouth and down my throat, where it then spreads out to the rest of my body, bringing a soothing warmth. And in between sips, I like to dig my nose into the glass and savor the aroma.

You have to search for Rare Breed, but the you will be well rewarded for the effort.

It's Getting Weller All The Time!

The topic is bourbon, one of my favorite things in life. I mentioned last time out that my love of bourbon started when my brother Jack bought me a bottle of bourbon one Christmas. It was a registered bottle of Old Weller Antique 107 proof bourbon. He bought it for me well over 20 years ago and I still have the bottle. No, there is nothing in it, but with its red velvet sack and its gold spider-webbed bottle I just can't seem to part with it. It hooked me on bourbon.

Wine Enthusiast gives Antique a rating or 88, declaring it, "A medium amber bourbon, bearing a sweetish note with some unusual floral notes and a string dash of vanilla. The body is big and the palate is very well balanced, flirting between sweet honeyed fruit notes, a strong vanilla undertone and some sharp spicy tones; the finish is long and spicy.

A very well crafted whiskey. Sip it at room temperature with a little spring water or over ice."

Well, after my Origine fiasco, I decided to get back to the basics that I knew worked for me and that meant Weller. Before I tossed money at Origine I had previously purchased a bottle of W. L. Weller bourbon, the namesake of the company that makes Old Weller. I have found all of the Weller bourbons harder to find than other brands and locally I've only found them at Bevmo! (Beverages and More) and that is where I found W. L. Weller Centennial.

This is just one amazing drink. Wine Enthusiast give it a rating of 97! Of it they say...

An intensely complex, fruity nose switches among vanilla, dried fruits and just a dash of mixed spices. The body is huge and the palate follows along the line of the nose with an abundance of rich vanilla, a basketful of lush fruits and a wonderful butterscotch backdrop. The finish is long and incredibly sophisticated and understated.

What I have found is a bourbon that literally sends a chill running down my spine and across my back with the very first sip. I'm not kidding; this 10-Year-old bourbon is almost hallucinogenic and so damn smooth and flavorful that it would be a crime to mix this with anything. At $30 a bottle, I think I've been spoiled; follow this link if you'd like to be spoiled too!

The Origine of the Species

Ever since my brother Jack bought me my first registered bottle of bourbon I have been a bourbon man. There is just something about the beautiful rich golden brown color and the sweet, butterscotchy taste of good bourbon that nothing else compares to. I never mix bourbon with anything (well, almost never); not soda, not water, not ice. I only drink it "neat" and I prefer it to just about any other alcohol.

My one exception to this "neat" rule is Turkey Gobblers, which has fast become a seasonal requirement at Casa del Keller. One shot Wild Turkey 101 in a champagne glass with a stick of cinnamon and the rest of the glass filled with unfiltered apple cider

I am always on the look out for a great, reasonably-priced bourbon. A month or so back I was at Albertson's getting groceries when I hit the liquor department with bourbon on the brain. That is when I found Origine. Just look at that bottle; it looks like the real deal, but I should have looked closer. What would normally be a barrel number is multiple still numbers. Had I looked closer I would have noticed that, but at $24 a bottle I knew it wouldn't be swill. Boy was I wrong.

This is the wost stuff I have ever tasted. That said I should let you know that my wife loves it. That is not said to disparage my wife's taste. There are two kinds of whiskey people in the world: those who love bourbon and those who love scotch. My wife has no love for bourbon, but much affection for scotch. I'm just he opposite and after a few sips of Origine it began to dawn on me that it didn't taste like bourbon at all, so I asked my wife to taste it. She declared it to be a fairly drinkable scotch; fine for her but not so great when you are looking for bourbon.

A quick trip on-line revealed that I was not the only bourbon lover who found Origine to be swill of the highest order. One reviewer said they only paid $12 for a bottle and thought it was still over-priced. Then I came upon the truth about Origine: it is the Albertson's house brand of bourbon. The label states this nowhere, for if it did, I doubt they would sell much of the stuff.

Next time out I'll tell you about a better bourbon experience I had more recently.

Happiest Place On Earth?

Now I know Disneyland is called the "Happiest Place On Earth," but for a lot of people it is missing one ingredient that would assist greatly in making the slogan a reality.

Having gone to Disneyland off and on all my life I never really noticed the problem, but when I took my nephew Jeff there a dozen or so years ago, he noticed it immediately. He was on a break between Marine boot camp down in San Diego and going wherever he was to be stationed and came by to see my wife and me. He wanted to go to Disneyland for the first time and so I took a day off to show him the ropes of the Magic Kingdom.

We were there a couple of hours when we got hungry and decided to eat in New Orleans Square at the Blue Bayou Restaurant, which overlooks and is partially inside of the Pirates of the Caribbean (if I have a choice, I'm gonna eat Cajun). We sat down ordered our food and then Jeff ordered a beer. "I'm sorry, there is no alcohol inside of Disneyland," the waitress said. Jeff was in shock.

"How can you call this the happiest place on Earth and not serve alcohol? I just got out of boot camp, I need a drink!" Jeff declared.

She was very understanding and told us to take the monorail to the Disneyland Hotel. We could drink there and then come back. And that's what we did.

As soon as we left the restaurant we made a bee-line for the nearest monorail station and took off for the Hotel. We drank three or four beers in the next hour at an outdoor bar near a pool, then took the monorail back into the park, and I have to say it was an improvement.

A few years later, when I worked at Disney, we had our Christmas party at Disneyland one cool December night. As my wife and I walked through the front tunnel under the train station we were greeted by waiters with trays of champagne. The "Happiest Pace On Earth" is a lot happier once you have five or six glasses of champagne in you. Even the Disney people know that!

Louis! Louis!

A couple of years ago my wife and I took a 17-day cruise to Hawaii. It wasn't perfect (though it was damn close!), no cruise ever is, but one of the things we could not complain about was the company; my ex-boss, Shawn and his partner Brian went with us. Shawn and I shared an elevator one day at work and he asked where I was going for lunch. This just happened to be the day I was going to AAA to pay for our cruise and I told him so. He went with me (we work about 200 feet from an AAA office) and ended up signing up for the same cruise that day.

On the cruise we all shared a table at first seating dinner and Shawn and Brian had brought on board a case of wine from their wine cellar. Each night they brought a bottle to the table and we all partook. I think we must have drank about $1,200 worth of their wine.

Ah, cruising and drinking, this is what brings me to Louis; Louis XIII that is; Remy Martin Louis XIII cognac to be exact. I know little about cognac, but I knew of Louis XIII. It cost about $1,200 a bottle, and what a bottle, a beautiful Baccarat crystal decanter. If you don't care about the cognac you can bid on one of the empty bottles on ebay for anywhere from $150 to $250. It ends up Brian has always wanted a Louis bottle and Shawn had always wanted to drink Louis. It also ends up that they sold Louis XIII on the ship. In the gift shop it was $900 a bottle, in the bar it was $90 a shot.

Early on we found out that the person who drinks the last shot gets to keep the bottle and that the one open bottle on the ship had about seven shots left in it. Ends up our last night on the ship was Shawn's birthday. The pieces were in motion, the cards were being dealt. Things were coming together.

For Shawn's birthday we made reservations in the Pinnacle Grill restaurant on the ship. We had eaten their once before and the food was amazing. What we needed was a gift for Shawn, for his birthday for sure, but also to in some way pay for the wonderful bounty of wine they shared with us each night (one night they were not going to make it to dinner and had a bottle of wine sent to our room so that we would not have to go without at dinner). My wife and I decided that if the Louis had four or less shots, that we would buy them all and give the bottle to Shawn.

A great plan, but the day before Shawn's birthday we asked how the bottle of Louis was doing and were told it still had seven shots in it. $630 was a little more than we wanted to spend on Shawn's birthday, so we decided to at least buy Shawn a shot of Louis for his birthday and set it up with the Pinnacle for the bottle to be there waiting for us.

The morning of Shawn's birthday I was passing by the Ocean Bar (this was the bar that we mostly hung out in because the bar waiters were just really great there) when one of the waiters, Jay, called out to me, "Did you hear what Shawn did last night?"

"No, what," I asked?

"He bought the Louis. Ends up by last night there were only three shots left, so he said he would buy them all. Ended up only being two shots, so he bought the bottle for $180."

Great news for Shawn, but not for us; our birthday gift was now blown. We improvised though and bought a bottle of Dom Pérignon 1993 champagne. We actually got a good deal on the bottle by getting it at the bar and bringing it to the restaurant. Now, I've had Dom Pérignon before and thought it was very overpriced wine, but I have to say, this was the best champagne I ever tasted. It was velvety smooth, crisp and clean, everything champagne should be, and made a great beginning to our dinner that night.

As for the Louis XIII bottle, Shawn's plan was to display it in his bar at home, filling it with a less expensive cognac and just "pretending" it is Louis. He also said the same thing we had heard from person after person about Louis, for the price it doesn't taste that much better than regular cognac. I had some a year later on another cruise and I would have to agree.

But it does come in a really beautiful bottle.