OK, OK, so I’ve been more than delinquent with posting lately. Sue me.
I’d like to say I’ve been busy, and I really have been, but I don’t see that as a valid excuse to not keep writing. To be fair, it’s very hard to type out a long missive on an iPhone with a beer in one hand at 11:30PM in a bar. There, that’s my excuse, I’ve turned into a lush.
Wait, I pretty much already was one, and that is what brings me to tonight’s message.
I’m a huge beer fan. My big “scheme” about two years ago to lose a lot of weight for a contest at work was to stop drinking Guinness on Tuesday nights after my soccer games and to switch to Bud Light. That’s a big damn switch and Bud Light has a lot more alcohol than Guinness, so I had to pace myself a lot more. Guess what? It freakin’ worked! With the small step of switching to Bud Light and moving from the forward position to playing defense on the pitch, I managed to drop almost 20 pounds in the first month. Sure, I switched up my disgusting eating habits, but the bulk was just playing more aggressively and drinking shitty beer.
Like I said, I drink a lot of beer.
This past year, however, I have developed quite the taste for whiskey. It’s probably because I’m growing older and quickly coming up on those “hair grows out your ears” years, but the good ol’ brown water makes me happy as hell now.
Typically I like Jameson on the rocks (Dewers tastes like wet flannel to me), but I took a tad of a jump today.
Back in my punk rock days at Baylor University I knew this fantastic gentleman who rocked some serious dreadlocks and played in a couple of pretty awesome punk bands by the name of Jared. Jared was very soft-spoken, but was always around with his crew of miscreant Christian punks. Jared’s involvement in the youth programs that grew up in the Waco area were astonishing and all of us figured he would eventually find a great life as a missionary; reaching out to the dysfunctional and outcast.
It turns out, Jared went a slightly different route and hooked up with a crew of guys starting a distillery in Waco by the name of Balcones Distillery.
My brother, who art in Austin (that just sounded appropriate), had mentioned that Jared was doing this sort of thing a year or so ago, but I thought it a hobby. Lo and behold, I see this tiny distillery on Zane Lamprey’s new show on HDnet and it piqued my interest.
Today I ran out to the only place I know of in Dallas that carries the Balcones line of fine alcohol and picked up their Baby Blue whiskey and their “Rumble.”
I’ll address the Rumble first just because it’s so unique. A blend of local wildflower honey and mission figs, Rumble comes off more like a tequila in its flavor profile, but, despite my typical aversion to tequila, was quite the tasty bevvy.
If you are shooting Rumble then you are wasting your time and everyone who had a hand in its creation’s time. This stuff demands to be sipped and savored. It’s strong as all hell, but has a great finish. I’ll not be drinking Rumble every day, but I’m definitely sharing it with my tequila/whiskey crossover friends. Hell, it might even end up in the stocking of many of my drinking friends. The big kicker is that there, handwritten on the bottle, were my old buddy’s initials indicating that he drew the bottle himself. Small freakin’ world.
The Baby Blue is a very distinct whiskey. I typically try to avoid corn-based whiskeys just because they seem to have a flavor to me that reminds me of that Tootsie Roll you let fall down between the seats in your car a couple of years ago. So many distilleries muck up their product with carmel coloring and flavoring these days and it makes me nuts.
This stuff was right damn tasty. I’m sure this bottle will go way before the Rumble does, and I’ll replace it when it does. Happy liquor makes for happy monkeys.
So, as the season of the witch decends upon us, gather up your minions and seek out this tiny distillery from Waco that makes some tasty tasty corn squeezins. Next time I’m down that direction, I’m going to seek out a couple of their other products (namely their scotch) that I can’t find here in Dallas. It’s whiskeylicious.