Miscellaneous Ramblings

After an unexpected and sudden trip (sans the boy) to Cafe Capistrano I’ve now gotten on a Sangria kick. Capistrano does not have their liquor license, but does have their beer and wine license. So they make margaritas and sangria with wine only. The last time I made sangria it didn’t go so well, I loved it and proceeded to drink half of it, T hated it and wouldn’t touch it. I’ve been trying to find a by the glass recipe so that I can try different recipes without devoting an entire bottle of wine to each experiment.

It’s a daunting task because there are as many sangria recipes out there as there are bottles of red wine most of them call for adding hard liquor and soaking the fruit for several days prior to mixing. But they say wine is good for you so I guess I’m up to the challenge.

My previous post about the ‘Perfect Manhattan‘ probably misled a few people. I’m in general not a fan of dry vermouth, hence why I like ‘The Haining’. I’ve always been in search of the perfect (note the lowercase ‘P’) Manhattan. Every time I’m out at a bar and I have one they are usually really good, in fact often times, so good they are dangerous. But yet when I make them at home I don’t get it right. I had suspected that despite ordering just a ‘Manhattan’ that I was actually getting a ‘Perfect Manhattan’. After having one there is a definite difference. So I’m still on the hunt for the right recipe for me. Sadly it’s actually hard to find Rye Whiskey here in NC (yay state run liquor). Traditionally when I’m out I generally order bourbon Manhattans but I’d like to try one with Rye.

Maybe I’ll take a more scientific approach this weekend and make a couple of small variations for tasting purposes. One of the downsides (is it really a downside?) to experimenting is that once you have 2 or 3 they all start to taste the same.

So tonight, adventures in vermouth continued with the 007 Vesper, which was ok and a ‘Perfect Manhattan’. Sadly the only bourbon around the house is Elijah Craig which is a bit strong for a Manhattan, also I was out of maraschino cherry’s so the garnish was missing. I’ve come to realize that especially with traditional cocktails the garnish is probably the most important ingredient. It makes the drink in a way the ingredients do not. I didn’t love the Vesper but I’m glad I tried it. Gin just offends my palate in a way no other liquor does.

I also found this today. Led Zeppelin and STP would be an awesome show, one that I would certainly attend if it was remotely close. T would love it as well as she’s bigger into Zep than I ever am or was. We’ll see if it ever comes true. It would be amazing to see them live.

At the recent nuptials of the Lovely Miss Molly and Sir John, I had the opportunity to rediscover one of my old favorites. Vodka Martini, sweet, with a twist. Since that weekend I’ve been craving them like mad. So today after a long and especially frustrating day of work, I made a quick stop at the liquor store and picked up some Grey Goose (my vodka of choice) and vermouth. After a couple of tries (isn’t experimenting with liquor enjoyable) I’ve recreated the mix to perfection.

2 shots Grey Goose Vodka
2 shots Sweet Vermouth
long thin twist of lemon

pour liquids over ice… shake vigorously… pour into a chilled martini glass.
Rub the lemon peel around the edge of the glass (very important) twist and drop in.

Since I’m going magnanimously claim that I invented this variation (which I probably didn’t) and because I drank many of them at Molly’s Father’s expense. I’m going to name it The Haining in his honor.

So as you’ve probably noticed miscellaneous.net has undergone some changes. For a very long time I was running this site (and my mail, etc) off of an old pc under my desk in my office using dyndns (and the fact that Time Warner almost never changes your lease). Well that old compaq (yes I know) finally died and rather than buy something new or salvage slightly newer hardware from work or some other place I decided (upon recommendation from john) to buy a VPS from slicehost.com. I’ve been pretty impressed so far. It took about 10 minutes to request, pay and setup my VPS. It’s Centos 5.1, which is fine I guess. I feel a little dirty using centos given my employment but fedora is too much of a moving target for me right now.

So I have a nice new server and I’ve migrated most everything as well. I updated to the latest wordpress and decided to find a new theme. I’m pretty happy with things as they are now, though I’d like to figure out why I have 2 meta blocks at the bottom of the page. Not sure where the second one is coming from.