A Christmas Cocktail

Dec 2009 06

The sleeping bag is coming along, but very slowly. I keep getting distracted by a lot of things. Soap making. Fixing leaky faucets. Getting a Christmas tree and then making a wreath out of the excess boughs…. Yes, it is the Holiday season and this will make it particularly difficult to finish the sleeping bag in time for the annual winter campout. What, with the twelve drinking days of Christmas starting tomorrow and multiple holiday parties on the horizon it will be a struggle to get any sewing done, but I’m convinced it can be done.

So, speaking of holiday parties, the neighbors had two last night. One was directly across the hall and the other just around the corner. We just stopped in for a couple of drinks; we didn’t really know anyone, although we met some nice people. Mostly it was just good people watching. For the first party we brought a bottle of sparkling wine that was in the fridge, which turned out to be a huge hit. Before I had even delivered it to the hostess I had people asking me to open it. When it was finally opened, glasses appeared, ready to be filled. I’m not to sure of how the bottle ended up in our fridge to begin with, but it was wine from Carneros, the southern part of Napa and it was pretty good. Either way the people at the party definitely liked and it was gone quickly. At the other party they had a couple of bartenders and an assortment of bottles, punches, and other libations. When I asked the bartender if I could get a Manhattan, he answered “no, but you can make it yourself,” thrusting a cocktail shaker and a bottle of Hudson bourbon at me.1 “No worries,” I thought, “it’s probably better that I do it,” and I mixed up a couple of Manhattans, one for me and one for the miss, and gave a taste to the bartender. Tasting it, he nodded approvingly and we cheered.

But what I really want to talk about it the cocktail I made before going to either party, the one I made whilst getting ready. I had been sort of inspired a bit before Thanksgiving by Michael over at A Dash of Bitters on this post Raising a Glass in Thanks. I to wanted to make a holiday cocktail. What with the recent Christmas tree, wreath, and the impending holiday parties, I thought that now would be a great time to start experimenting on one. I wanted some that really captured the holidays in a glass. Something spicy, but also with a touch of sweetness. And I wanted to use some Carpano Antica vermouth2, which I had recently discovered about a month ago and have decided it is the best thing ever. I’m not actually a huge vermouth fan, but this stuff is one a whole other level. It is sort of like when I finally had good gin and was reborn a gin aficionado, only even better. Anyways, I was convinced that the Antica would do superbly in my holiday-themed cocktail. I looked over my assortment of other liquors trying to think of what else would round out the formula that I was requiring. As soon as I saw it, I immediately decided it would need some Nocino della Christina in it. Nocino is a walnut liqueur that I absolutely love. I figured it would add just the right amount of sweetness and the necessary depth of complexity to the cocktail that I was looking for. I then pick up the Calvados for the base liquor and, remembering an article I read by Gary Regan about Christina, I also grabbed my bottle of Regan’s orange bitters and some Creole Shrubb. Here is what I mixed up:

christmas cocktail

  • 1 oz Calvados brandy
  • .75 oz Carpano Antica vermouth
  • .5 oz Nocino della Christina walnut liqueur
  • .25 oz Clement Creole Shrubb orange liqueur
  • Generous dashes of Regan’s orange bitters

The Carpano is the only one that is that you specifically need to make this. It is a must. Nothing else will do. Do not even think of attempting to make this with Martini & Rossi vermouth. Other than that, I used Calvados Prestige from France, but I’m interested in trying this with a different brandy, possibly a Cognac, although the spicy-appleness of the calvados does impart something quite nice. I also imagine any nocino will do here, but the only one available to me is Christina. It’s local to me and very, very good, so I recommend it. The Clement could definitely be played around with. I am not an expert by any means on orange liqueurs, but I do like Clement and it is different. I’d like to try it with Prunier Liqueur d’Orange and I’m sure Grand Marnier could work, but probably not as well. There isn’t a lot of orange liqueur in there, so it probably doesn’t matter that much which one you choose; I limited it because I wanted to control the sweetness of the cocktail and just add a hint of orange as a highlight.

Once you have everything, combine all the ingredients in a mixing glass with ice and stir well. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass and garnish with orange zest. I think I’ll name the drink “Lit Up,” but you can call it whatever you want.

So, I thought it would be a process to develop this beverage. But I’m so pleased with my first attempt that I think it’s good enough as is. I might play around with it a little, but certainly the basic elements I wanted are all there. It’s spicy deliciousness. And very complex. Certainly a holiday beverage. Now I just have to figure out how I am going to get all the ingredients back with me to Vermont so I can enjoy the cocktail with family and friends on Christmas. But then I also have a sleeping bag to finish. Like I said, I keep getting distracted.

1 He may have also mumbled something about Hudson bourbon being the “best bourbon ever made” while he handed it to me. I can’t really argue with that.
2 Carpano vermouth was what I used to make the Manhattan at the do-it-yourself bar. In fact, the Carpano and the Hudson were the reasons I wanted a Manhattan at all.

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Beer and sewing

Nov 2009 30

What happens when one wants good quality camping gear that isn’t made from crazy synthetic materials? For a while I thought it was “nothing,” we are now doomed to purchase bright-orange nylon bags with material brand-names like “Event” or “Nano” and we have to pay through the teeth to get them. They I realized that it doesn’t have to be this way. There is no need to get these ridiculous looking bags that go up in flames the instant that a hot ember touches them.1

You can sew your own. And with whatever material your want. Although you might still have to pay quite a bit for them, just a little less so. Maybe a few less teeth are lost in the process as well.

Which brings me here:

Sewing is actually not all that difficult. At least not yet; I am not actually done with the bag. But I have already sewed a few things. And once you get past the intimidation of the machine with all those dials and knobs, it’s pretty straight forward: you press the pedal and stitches appear. Truly one of the easier things in life. Now, I can not sew in a straight line at all, but that doesn’t matter. I’m not trying be a fashion designer. I am not trying to compete on some show with Tim Gunn. I just want some decent gear to go camping in that doesn’t look like it was made for a sci-fi movie.

In the coming posts I plan on writing more about the how’s and why’s of the sleeping bag. So, there is that.

1 Remember actually sleeping near the campfire when you were a kid in that cotton bag from K-mart? Yeah, don’t try that with your EMS Mountain bag that you paid 350 dukes for.

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Long Spoon

Nov 2009 26

I got this today:

Marc Johns’ work speaks to me: ridiculousness, whimsy, and objects that are ordinary but, strangely, play important roles in my life story. I have a few of Marc’s prints and I had been wanting an original, but nothing had quite struck my fancy. Until today, and it is oh-so-perfect. I am now the proud owner of a femur and a long spoon on a post-it note.

There is more I could write about Marc: I recently a party for my birthday partially inspired my his work. How I first heard of him. How I emailed him about a piece he did on two smoking pipes discussing shaving. But I’m not going to right now. Mayhaps it is for another time.

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Mayperhappenstance

Nov 2009 24

In the not so distant past I wrote a paper. It was technical in nature. Some might even say it was a technical paper. In the body of the text, some deep inside of it, I used the word “happenstance.” My colleague, in the course of editing my various drafts, discovered this and suggested that I change that particular expression. Now, I am person that definitely needs help when it comes to writing, particularly some of the more technical1 aspects of it, but in this case I stood my ground. He clearly thought it was idiomatic in some way. I disagreed. It stayed in.

More recently, the same colleague was reading a different technical paper by a much more established author than myself and, much to his surprise, he found that the word was used twice in the course of that article. I was overtly pleased, but secretly surprised as well; I have only half sure that my “happenstance” usage in my paper was justified.

My point is this: write. Put your ideas down on paper. Put them out there. Get criticized. And take that criticism well and to heart. Sometimes you might be surprised by the outcome. Mayhaps.

1 I can not resist a good play on words.

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Shackleton’s Whiskey

Nov 2009 21

Arctic exploration holds a special place in the McChoppin mythos. So does whiskey. In particular Scotch whisky.1 So when I heard about a New Zealand expedition to retrieve a few bottles of the supposedly 25 cases of Scotch whisky left behind by Shackleton, I got excited. I imagine that preparations looked like this:

I also initially imagined that the Scotch was from Shackleton ill-fated Imperial Trans-Antarctic expedition, the expedition otherwise known as Endurance. Despite my extensive literary knowledge of the expedition, I imagined that as their ship, the Endurance, was being crushed by the churning sea-ice Shackleton and his men were pulling out 25 cases of whisky. Later, it was decided by Shackleton to have his men abandon all unnecessary items, including killing McNish’s cat, Mrs. Chippy,2 for the long journey. He did mercifully allow them to keep a few luxury items. I knew about a banjo, but could Shackleton also have allowed the equivalent of a barrel of whisky? Could they have dragged some 340 kgs of whisky, along with all their other supplies, some 12 km across the sea-ice?3 And then, the 160 km boat journey to Elephant Island? If all that happened, maybe Shackleton, Crean, and Worsley even took a few bottles with them on the James Caird for their 1300 km journey to South Georgia. Maybe they still even had a half a bottle with them as they made the thirty-six hour crossing of the island from King Haakon Bay to Stromness? Maybe the three men toasted the final drops as they spotted the whaling stations that signaled the end of their incredible journey? Maybe all that happened and it was left out of all the accounts that I read. Or, maybe even more unlikely, I somehow failed to appreciate those parts.

No, none of that happened. The Scotch in question was from Shackleton’s Nimrod Expedition (I will hold off using any puns). Now, I’ve read quite a bit about the Endurance, Discovery, Terra Nova expeditions, but I know but scant information about the Nimrod adventure. So here are some facts. It, like all the others, was named after the flagship, the Nimrod.4 Shackleton had wanted a different ship, the Norwegian Bjorn, but due to lack of finances had to settle for the older and smaller Nimrod, but still of Norwegian heritage. It was Shackleton’s second Antarctic expedition, but the first one he commanded. He had previously accompanied Robert Falcon Scott on his Discovery expedition. He had told Falcon Scott that he would not set up camp in McMurdo Sound, where Discovery had its camp and Terra Nova was to be based as well, but because of sea-ice he ended up there anyway. The expedition ended up making camp on Cape Royds on Ross Island and at the foot of Mount Erebus. They stayed there for two years, during which they discovered the Beardmore Glacier, one of the largest glaciers in the world and a route to the heart of Antarctic and the South Pole.

So, apparently under Shackleton’s hut on Cape Royds there are some 300 bottles of whisky. The whisky is being called McKinlay or Mackinlay by the press, so I’m not sure which is correct, but the first one seems to be used more often. The expedition ended in 1909 so it’s been buried under the ice for a hundred years. Whisky wasn’t the only thing they brought with them. On Christmas Day, 1908, while navigating the Beardmore, the four men, Shackleton, Wild, Marshall, and Adams celebrated the day with cigars and crème de menthe. So maybe there is some crates of McGuinness crème de menthe and a couple boxes of Dunhills. I wonder what else is buried under the ice of Antarctic?

So there you have it. Antarctica, whiskey, and cigars. And adventure. Now that’s McChoppin’. That is an adventure of a lifetime. That’s stuff to write a book about. That is the kind of thing that if I could somehow get invited to go on, I’d have to figure out how to drop everything so that I could do it. I mean, what sounds better than having a cocktail of crème de menthe and Scotch from 100 liquor left by Shackleton himself in -5 C weather while smoking a equally old cigar?

1 As an American, I normally spell whiskey with the ‘e.’ However, the Scots spell it sans the extra vowel. Very little was attempted to ensure consistency here.
2 Mrs. Chippy was actually a male cat.
3 A feat which took them seven days.
4 It was officially called the British Antarctic Expedition 1907, but they were pretty much all called some form of that.

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The McChoppin’ Experiment

Nov 2009 19

Very soon after I moved out to California I starting trying to get my best friend, Mr. Slick, to move here. We have been friends since junior high school and unlike most all my other friendships ours had only gotten stronger over the years. It is just the nature of relationships; over time they deteriorate as people move away from each other and on to new things in life. But this friendship defies this and, incredibly, we have in many ways gotten closer despite distance and time. People, that is the kind of relationship that you should cherish because it is rare. Anyways, things were going great for me in the Golden State and I naturally thought that he would love it too.

Well, at the start of this year the economy was tanking and Mr. Slick was in the Midwest in a town that he didn’t hold much love for and in a job that he was increasingly worried he might not have for much longer. I was putting the pressure on him more and more to move here. His assessment was correct and shortly he was laid off. Immediately after that he moved here. He had already tossed out most of his unnecessary possessions and packed up the rest into his vehicle and drove across the West to land of opportunity, that special place in the American psyche: California.

So, one day I came home to him sleeping in a tent in my parking space of my apartment complex: the Slickman had arrived. He slept on the couch for a few days while we quickly made plans to vacate my current apartment, which was good because my then roommate was becoming increasing passive-aggressive about me moving out. (She had met a man about a month previously and I guess she thought he was the one?) Our criteria for a new place was based mostly upon our ability to do projects. And by quickly, I mean we looked at two apartments. The second one was McChoppin’. It had an enclosed porch and a small shared patio space in the back. Sold. Our decision process literally took less time than you’ve been reading this article. I’m not even sure we looked at the bedrooms anymore than to note that there was bedrooms. Needless to say, we moved into McChoppin’ directly.

Now, to fully understand how it is that we could base our living arrangements so quickly and almost entirely on the existence of a project room is to understand the two of us. Hopefully that I will come, in part, during the course of this blog. But suffice it to say for now that the way in which I sold this move to my friend was in part with the promise of doing lots of projects together. We had had been doing projects separately for a long time and here was our chance to do them together. To make beer, to make soap. To build shit. McChoppin’ was our place to do all of this and we recognized it immediately. It was perfect.

In the end however the McChoppin’ experiment failed. It failed almost immediately. Not for lack of projects or what not. To be sure projects immediately started happening and, in some instances, with great fervor: Slickman made a hand-joined bed with a Cod chiseled headboard. We carved spoons. We made soap. We made costumes, a treasure chest, and even improved the shower amenities of McChoppin’ (apparently the previous tenants were either dwarves or they were content only washing below the waist.)

No, the McChoppin’ experiment failed because life often times doesn’t exactly work out the way you planned it. I met a girl. The economy tanked more. I moved in with the girl and the Slickman had to move on to get a job. But, although it didn’t work out, I don’t think that they are were any regrets on either of our parts about the experiment. Sure I feel guilty about barely living in an apartment with by best friend before calling it quits. He probably feels disappointed about California not quite living up to the land of opportunity that I had sold him on. But I doubt either of us, given the chance, would have played our hands any differently. Yes, the McChoppin’ experiment failed but it had to be done. We had to try it out.

Well, McChoppin’ the apartment experiment failed. But maybe something else can come out of it. The Slickman and I had a vision. This blog is meant to be an attempt to explore that vision. We started to do that at McChoppin’ the locale and will try to continue it here. We’ll learn from that experience and expand it. McChoppin’ will live on in a new form. And I’ll write McChoppin’ alot.

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