Ishmael sent me a donation while back with advice to get some good whiskey. He prefers rye. I understand that whiskey is more popular in the West because hauling beer on horseback would just be too much of a pain in the ass. I have found a vast discount liquor store where my affluent son shops, that has much lower liquor prices than my normal stops.
I do not like the idea of drinking spirits stored in plastic. If tap water can leach chemicals out of plastic bottles I suspect alcohol can too. Besides, everything tastes worse out of plastic and better out of glass.
For my whiskey purchase I wanted to go with the 1.75 liter rye for $40, but thought that I might want some rum for the hotter days, for sipping while I read Black Vulmea’s Vengeance. Now, I hate Jack Daniels, like Maker’s Mark, and like Hayes Parker almost as much. Plus it’s less than half the price of JD with 5% more alcohol by volume. The big glass bottle with the jug handle cost $21 and I am assured by the stern illustration of Colonel Parker that the nectar of the Confederate Corn gods is made only in small batches and is 100% genuine, distilled in North Charleston, South Carolina.
Now, for the pirate juice. Since I actually sell a book a day now, and could technically afford to live in the gym locker room if I quit my night job, I’m feeling like somebody now and would like to enjoy my rum, rather than dread it as a shocking cure all. No longer do I settle for the 25-cents an ounce Port Royale rum, bottled in Baltimore.
Largo Bay Silver Rum [and to think that I had no idea that Princeton, Minnesota was situated amidst sugar cane fields until now!] is on sale for only $16.99 for the 1.75 glass, jug-handled bottle. I liked spiced rum but it has a lesser alcohol content and I’m trying to prep the liver for drinking with two guys who are conspiring to get me drunk so I’ll eat some raw coyote liver. I am also looking to protect my stomach, so I shall use the same substances that have made my switch to tea from coffee beneficial to my coffee-sensitive digestion.
Note, I am a sissy who drinks his spirits cold from the freezer.
I am taking a 24 ounce glass bottle and placing in it the following:
-three pinkie-sized pieces of trimmed and split ginger root
-two cinnamon sticks
-three fresh peppermint leaves, from the garden of the commandant’s daughter
Drown that with your 40% rum and it will be as spicy as the spiced and diluted rums that come in between 30-35%. The alcohol is what extracts the flavor, so when they add water to the spiced and flavored rums it’s not as good as this.
Two such containers will last me sixth months at a few shots each per week and a monthly toast with my literary coconspirator, Mister Franklin.
Thriving in Bad Places
Glad you have taken my advice, and yes, distilled spirits take up less space when packing horses. I have a bottle of Buffalo Trace and Hi West double Rye for our Liver eater quest, I take it neat, or washed down with a beer chaser or iced tea, now come on James, mixing drinks, really, get you stomach trained its almost September.
James,
Might this Pict make a suggestion in regards to your spiced rum recipe? I know it can be a little pricey but the addition of a vanilla bean pod would make your recipe even better. Just buy a vanilla bean or tow and cut the pod and scrape the seeds into your mix...you can toss the pod in as well (it will add flavor). Try it once in awhile, as it is possible to over extract vanilla in alcohol...which might lead to a slightly bitter flavor (Never happened to me though as I go through rum at a steady pace).
Consulting an old apothecary manual I see that vanilla might aid if you are suffering "excess intestinal gas" from coyote liver or ramen or what have you..
I shall get that bean, oh King.
I used to drink vanilla Bacardi back when I was an honorary Puerto Rican.