Dodge again

It is a consistent, known problem.  I think too much.  I worry too much.  I look forward to things, but I can become so debilitated by my own brain that something I want to do, something I am looking forward to and know that I enjoy, can be put off over and over again because I feel, for no actual reason, like I'm not going to be able to, because I'm chicken.  It's human, I know.  But I get so sick of it as a human condition.

Am not!

The last time I went sailing was aboard the Betsy D in February.  Since then I have survived the cold of winter, the pollen of spring, the exhaustion of work, the ordeal of Zanne having an emergency cholecystectomy (she's OK), the shock of G'Ma nearly flatlining at Group Health Bellevue (she's OK), the stress of a drawn out move, and the damned old feeling that came with my own diagnosis of hypertension.  There's been a lot going on, but I have to admit that procrastination and needless worry are just as responsible.  Not any more.  On Tuesday, Zanne and I joined Dan on the Mirus again and returned to the Duck Dodge.  I'm back on the water.

On the drinker's frontier

Humans...are so fragile.

In a concerted effort not only to explore the (legal) borders of drinking but also to maintain HIPAA compliance, I want to report the following.  At an unnamed medical institution I am currently visiting, the good-health Fascists have taken over.  All regular vending machines are gone, replaced by "HUMAN" Vending.  Even the staff of ER admission rolled their eyes at the loss of Coke and candy bars.  I love, love, love Pirate Booty (it's pirates...and cheese!), but don't get me wrong.  Stevia--"sweetleaf," whatever you want to call it--in its ginger ale form as Zevia is a cocktail killer, just too damned, well, green, to keep the purpose of drinking true.  Sure, I'm starting with cheap rum, but add ginger ale, even and perhaps especially organic ginger ale, and you should have classic, palatable tipple.  But Stevia lingers like a bad licorice candy; not only do I not like licorice (oddly, raw anise is good with me), but it just doesn't communicate with aged rum and ginger.  My only solution was to cut this with orange Pellegrino, just to add an element that was not Stevia.  I deem this most desperate of concoctions the West Tower Wipeout...a recipe I urge my fellow mixologists and scalawags NOT to take on.

Booze and Boat Bits #6 (5 short items of interest)

Hehehehe

I was going to make this the “All Good News” edition, but every single story ended up with a flip side.  In the words of Robert Carlyle’s marvelously creepy Rumpelstiltskin on Once Upon A Time, “All magic comes with a price!”

Judith Tebbutt

1:  The good news:  On Wednesday, Judith Tebbutt, the British woman who was whisked away from the Kenyan resort of Kiwayu Safari Village by Somali "pirates," was released after six months of captivity.  The bad news…is considerable.  One, the son who secured her release appears to have paid a ransom of over a million dollars.  Two, she had no idea until she was a free woman again that her husband had been killed during the kidnapping.  Three, there are still several civilians being held in Somalia, not to mention the nearly two hundred sailors being held on vessels at sea.

All those dots mean booze.

2:  The good news:  Washington state residents are only a couple months away from Booze Emancipation, June 1.  Recently, a fun and helpful interactive map was published that allows you to zoom in on your neighborhood and see who has applied for a liquor license.  It’s just as you’d expect:  grocery chains like QFC and Safeway, “pharmacies” like Walgreens and Bartell, and big box stores like Target and—of course—Cost Co.  I am all abuzz over the potential for competition and, simply, the new convenience.  I can get me rum at the same time I get my cheese, Bandaids, or toilet paper…all the essentials in one spot.  The question:  specialties.  Are the buyers at Safeway really going to think to stock Rogue Blackbeard Dark Rum, Punt e Mes, or Domaine de Canton, or are they just going to stock Bacardi and Martini & Rossi?  Are there going to be stand-alone liquor stores for bartenders or at-home mixologists?  Liberation:  It's never as simple as how you imagined it.

3:   The good news...is that there's no news about the Kalakala.  No reports of taking on water, no threats of immediate demise.  The bad news:  Steve Rodrigues' trailer next to the ferry was hauled away by the property owners, and, as of last report on March 8th, he is depending on family and friends for a place to live.  I am not here to discuss Steve's personal affairs, but since Steve IS the sole visionary for the Kalakala's future this is yet another bad omen.  The one-cent buyer remains a shadow.  The vast majority of online commentary on the Kalakala is negative, most calling for the boat to be scrapped or sunk.  So no news really means that the fate of the Kalakala is still hanging by that same slender, ragged thread.

And you thought he was ugly alive...

4:  The good news:  Shane is dead.  The bad news:  So is Dale, and we all have to wait til Fall for more The Walking Dead.  But there will be Mad Men, and Christina Hendricks is infinitely more sexy than a walker in a barn.

The Goddess Joan

5:  We got an email from our landlord that we need to move by May 31.  This is a complex mixture of good and bad news.  It was inevitable, and in a way I’m surprised it didn’t happen sooner.  After the initial shock, compounded by the fact that it was morning--I am not a morning person, justsoyaknow-- I have come to realize that this is an opportunity.  Yeah, it's gonna be a gargantuan hassle.  But, in fact, I like moving, and it's something I've done a lot.  Moving is a reset button.  It's a chance to assess your material possessions, sort, and eliminate.  Moving, even just crosstown, means new environs and a chance to learn and explore.  Hell, it's a chance to redecorate, which means maybe I can set up my pirate cave.  For all you readers, I am not going to make this a blog about the move (since this isn't going to mean fulfilling my liveaboard fantasy), and naturally this will temporarily impede my ability to write.  Another day, another horizon.  Watch for my signal flags.

Pirates, archaeologists, and smugglers: a tale of three documentaries

Ile Sainte-Marie:  just another pirate paradise

Last week, "H2," previously known as "History International," aired three shows targeted towards the drunken pirate demographic.  The first I stumbled into (on G'Ma's TV), and when I looked on the Comcast guide and set the DVR for a full showing of that I found two more.  The first, accidental discovery was the best as an actual documentary:  Pirate Island, about investigations of Ile Sainte-Marie off northeast Madagascar.  Ile Sainte-Marie was one of the premier pirate havens of the Golden Age, because it had everything you could ask for--a location close to the rich shipping lanes of the Indian Ocean yet undisclosed to the law, a harbor to keep ships same from both storms and the Navy, and a local supply of fruit and water.  Kidd, Levasseur, Every, and other legendary pirates of the era used the island as a base at one time or another.  It was known for having vestiges of pirate days, but no professional archaeological survey had ever been done.

Bell of the Whydah

The team leader for the investigations documented in Pirate Island is a modern name well known to pirate buffs, Barry Clifford.  Clifford reached fame in 1984 with his discovery of the Whydah (pronounced WID-ah, not WIDE-ah).  The Whydah started as a trading and slave ship in 1715, but two years later it was captured in the Caribbean by the pirate "Black Sam" Bellamy.  Bellamy added cannons, made the 105-foot vessel his flagship, and preyed off the East Coast.  Unfortunately, in April, 1717, the Whydah was caught in a storm near Cape Cod.  Gale-force winds snapped the mainmast, and the ship capsized and broke apart.  Over a hundred pirate corpses washed up on the beach the next day as well as scattered goods that were quickly picked over by wreckers.  Three hundred years later, Clifford found the wreck of the Whydah.  Over 200,000 artifacts have now been recovered, ranging from buttons and buckles to grape shot and grenades...and 10,000 coins and 400 jewelry fragments.  The key find was the ship's bell, clearly inscribed with "The Whyday Gally 1716."  Clifford had found the first positively identified pirate shipwreck.

Booze and Boat Bits #5 (5 short items of interest)

Keeps me in rations

1:  I love good rum, but I am not a total snob.  Although I know and value quality, I still want to make sure I have rum even as I wait for the next paycheck.  That's why Cruzan is awfully nice, because it's inexpensive and tasty.  I recently decided to further explore the lower shelves.  But how to decide, other than the orange sale tag?  How about a pretty label?  On the left we have Calypso Spiced Rum.  The name is meaningless:  There isn't even a remote reference to the Goddess of the Sea, whether among the ancient Greeks or the modern Captain Sparrow fans.  What we do have is a bodacious redheaded pirate with a very nice chest...and a very nice chest full of treasure.  Oh ad men, I am weak.  I soaked the label off, pasted it on a card, burnt it around the edges, and had a cool bookmark (now between pages 342 and 343 of The Mauritius Command).  On the right we have Admiral Nelson's Spiced Rum.  The Hero of Trafalgar now sports flaming red hair, an eye patch, a cutlass that appears to be curved backwards, and...both arms!  OK, so the Nelson of the rum world bears about as much relation to his historical namesake as, well, the Morgan of the rum world.  The common denominator here isn't just nautical kitsch but spice, which seems to make cheap rum palatable in much the same way that blending does for cheap whiskey.  The good news is that, with some ginger ale and a good squeeze of fresh lime, it may not be a fancy cocktail, but it keeps the crew happy.

A sad portrait

2:  Meanwhile, the fate of the Kalakala has gone from unknown to downright mysterious.  On December 19th, it was reported that the ferry had a buyer for Rodrigues' token dollar.  The name and location of the buyer is unknown to apparently all but him.  Indeed, all that has been officially posted is:  "After considering offers from two interested parties, the Kalakala has been sold for $1 to an anonymous buyer. The Kalakala will be saved from the scrap yard and restored to her full glory."  Unofficially, Rodrigues has told the Seattle Times that the buyer is not in Washington State; New York is rumored.  Meanwhile, Rodrigues has been under the gun of the Coast Guard to move or at least to offer a plan.  On December 23rd, his appeal for an extension was denied.  The Coast Guard doesn't even believe that this "buyer" exists.  So now there's a distinct possibility that the next actual owner of the Kalakala may be the Corps of Engineers, who may move her, "pin" her in place, or do nothing at all.  As usual, Rodrigues speaks more mythically than realistically.  The ferry needs someone with vision but also with, ideally, some idea of how a boat works, funding, and connections.  What we have instead is a purported fairy godmother, with the authorities on Rodrigues' heels.  Seriously Steve, show us the moneybags.  Even the faithful need to see that miracle, not just promises.

You never know what you'll drink...but it'll be good.

3:  I love random beer!  I discovered  a while ago at Fred Meyer the Dick's Beer Variety Pack, and I got another box of random beer last week.  The case could contain any of fourteen different brews.  I like Dick's generally--this is a brewery in Centralia, WA, that produces about 3,500 barrels per year in about 20 varieties.  Buying random beer does have its risks:  I may be stuck with styles I just generally wouldn't choose, like IPA and hefeweizen.  On the other hand, their trademark dark Dick Danger Ale is very tasty, the Irish Ale is right up my alley, and the Lava Rock Porter I have in my tankard right now is roasty and deep.  Consider the season and opening that gift from the aunt that doesn't know you.  Now consider opening up a box, and even though you don't know the details, you get beer.  A worthy adventure, eh?

4:  I have been completely remiss keeping up on Somalia, what with being absorbed by Naval exploits of 200 years ago.  There have been attacks averted (by Iran!), civilians released, and pirates sentenced.  It is my duty (at least to my own interest) to get caught up.  I will do this in a more thorough post soon.

Cheery, yummy

5:  Lastly, a thank you to my coworker, Joseph, for giving me a truly great beer.  Trader Joe's 2011 Vintage Ale is in fact made by the great Unibroue brewery of Chambly, Quebec, makers of well-known beers such as La Fin du Monde and Maudite.  Trader Joe's scored a marvelous, dark, bubbly, and spicy limited edition ale.  It's good, it's cheap, and it won't be around for long.  Go now!

and a Bottle of Rum: The Playlist

A number of months ago, I read Wayne Curtis' superb and immensely enjoyable and a Bottle of Rum:  A History of the New World in Ten Cocktails.  It's all here really:  Rum, history, pirates, the Royal Navy, old Havana, Tiki bars, anthropology, and even recipes.  As I was reading--and drinking--my way through Curtis' socio-historical tale of the New World's definitive tipple, I also started thinking of music.  Keep in mind that the real Lou, besides playing a pirate, is a Doctoral Candidate in Ethnomusicology (the anthropology of music) and a former public radio DJ.  So, when I finished Curtis' book, I went back and figured out how to make a sort of soundtrack to it.  Some of the tunes I already had, others I quickly snatched from iTunes.  At Pauline's request (it didn't take much urging, really), I have posted the annotated playlist here.  Consider this music not just to drink by but to contemplate by...a playlist for the thoughtful rumpot.  We start, in time, at the beginning...

Chapter One:  Kill-Devil
The simplest definition of rum is distilled sugar cane juice.  Whether it comes directly from the cane, from sugar, or from molasses is just one of the variables that make the many varieties of rum different.  Sugar was, with a due nod to historian Sidney Mintz, along with tobacco, the foundation of North American economics, the goods that made the Colonies profitable.  Someone, perhaps in Barbados, figured out that what Curtis calls the "industrial waste" of the sugar plantation could be made into alcohol, and so not only did North America have a native booze but also another tidy means of making cash.  Some called it "rumbullion," meaning "tumult," while others called it "kill-devil."  Let's just say that the earliest rum was hard and rough, the moonshine of the Caribbean.

I lead my playlist with a sort of theme song, performed by my favorite folk trio led by Gordon Bok, Maine's premier maritime folk singer.  "My Images Come" is an ode to to the many inspirations of the songwriter, with "a bottle of rum" a constant in every verse.  It seemed appropriate to acknowledge the slaves that worked the plantations and may in fact have invented rum themselves.  For this I turned, naturally, to possibly the best songcatcher in Ethnomusicology, Alan Lomax, but unable to locate anything from Barbados I instead found a couple good songs from Grenada...

1.  "My Images Come" by Bok, Muir and Trickett from The First Fifteen Years - Volume II -->

2.  "Work Song" by Norman Miller from The Alan Lomax Collection: Caribbean Voyage - Grenada Creole and Yoruba Voices

3.  "Roll, Roll, Roll and Go" by Irene McQueen from The Alan Lomax Collection: Caribbean Voyage - Grenada Creole and Yoruba Voices

Booze and Boat Bits #3 (5 short items of interest)

1:  Move over Somalia, there's a new pirate hot spot:  Nigeria.  An article for the AFP indicates that there is a surge in maritime attacks in West Africa, and specifically in the Gulf of Guinea.  Fact is, this is neither surprising nor new...just new to me.  After only a quick search, I found online articles about Nigerian pirates going back to at least 2008.  There's even a short Wikipedia entry.  Nigeria is well known for its organized crime, from drug trafficking to international fraud.  This is one of the things that makes piracy here very different from piracy off the Horn of Africa.  I'm learning (see my comments about Jay Bahadur's book below) that the Somali pirates are opportunistic and do not have what could be called long-term structure.  The Nigerians, in contrast, are all but militaristic.  They have to be:  Their prime targets are oil tankers, and they're not after ransom but the cargo itself.  The Nigerians, heavily armed and working in organized groups of high-speed boats, seize ships which they divert to waiting facilities so that the oil can be sold on the very busy, lucrative black market.  Although the pirates are Nigerian, their safe harbor appears to be Benin.  The navies of both countries seem to be unable--or unwilling--to handle the problem.  I'm curious to see what the international reaction is going to be.  Nigeria, Africa's biggest oil-producing nation, supplies a full fifth of the United States' imported oil.  Guess what, we've got more modern pirate news to watch for.

Rum Recipe of the Week: The Executioner's Reward

Another cocktail emerges from the notebook:

--shot of aged rum
--equal parts blood orange soda and (cheap) champagne
--top with lime zest

Aye, hangin' convicted pirates all day works up a mighty thirst, 'n' mebbe a bit o' existential angst.  This be how I drown me sorrows, as I watch the sun set from the gallows...

Rum recipe: Hernán's Day Off

Invented by Zanne, executed by me, and named for the bastard who made the Aztec empire crumble, opened up North America to white people, and gave buccaneers a whole new coast to plunder.  But even Hernán Cortés needed a break and a cocktail.
--white rum
--sprig of chocolate mint
--smaller sprig of Moroccan mint
--Fee Brothers Aztec Chocolate Bitters
--ginger ale
--crushed ice
Muddle mint in crushed ice.  (Be sure to use both leaves and stem.)  Stir remaining ingredients.

500

Thank you to my 500th visitor, who appears to be from the Czech Republic and Googled a picture of the HMS Surprise.

Huh???

OK, it felt significant.

I just made this for Zanne, and I'll name it the Morning 500:
--Cruzan white rum
--blood orange bitters
--Domaine de Canton
--orange juice
--ice

Rum recipe(s): The Errol and the Olivia

OK, OK, so I've been mixing more than I've been sailing, but I just went into the kitchen feeling mixological mojo and came out with not one but two new cocktails.  These vary only by two ingredients, and thus I decided to name them together:

The Errol:
--Cruzan Aged Rum
--Domaine de Canton
--Regan's Orange Bitters
--Fee Brothers Grapefruit Bitters
--Ginger ale
--ice

The Olivia:
--Cruzan White Rum
--Domaine de Canton
--Regan's Orange Bitters
--Fee Brothers Grapefruit Bitters
--Coke
--ice

Gimme a break, just looking those two together in Captain Blood makes me melty.  One of the best classic screen duos ever.  If only improvisatory cocktails could do them justice.

Rum recipe: Captain Blood

Variation on the classic Dark 'n' Stormy.  Credit goes to the inimitable Mike and Kat of the Driftwood Room at the Hotel deLuxe for introducing me (us) to the magical fourth ingredient.  But I thought this one up as Zanne and I were at the bar and named it for the dashing Mr. Flynn's (and Mr. Sabatini's) classic character.
--Gosling's Black Seal Rum
--ginger beer/ale
--slice of lime (not optional)
--Domaine de Canton ginger liqueur
--ice

"We, the undersigned, are men without a country. Outlaws in our own land and homeless outcasts in any other. Desperate men, we go to seek a desperate fortune. Therefore, we do, here and now, band ourselves into a brotherhood of buccaneers... to practice the trade of piracy on the high seas. We, the hunted, will now hunt." --Captain Blood

Rum recipe: Kraken and water

Simple, yet poetic.  Kraken Black Spiced Rum and just enough agua to open it up.  Don't mess with rocks.  Just sip.  Somehow, pleasantly, this excellent rum is widely available in Seattle's State Liquor Stores.  The rum itself isn't as dark as blackstrap, and the spicing is a bit more mellow than Sailor Jerry.  Seek it out, before the Kraken seeks you out instead...

Rum recipe: The Nassau Chaise

I was going through my pocket notebook, writing in my (other) Journal, and came across this cocktail recipe from a few weeks ago:
--Sailor Jerry rum.  This is second only to Cruzan Aged as my stock rum.
--Coco Solo.  This is a coconut-flavored soda that you can often find at the local Latin market. It's from Cuba, where Coco Solo is the name of a neighborhood in Havana.
--sweet lime.  This tastes almost like tangerine...a lot less tart than a regular lime, something you could actually eat raw (tho' I knew plenty Tejanos in San Antonio that ate raw limes).  It's apparently very popular in the Middle East and India, tho' it's originally from Southeast Asia.
--ginger ale, just to cut.  You could leave this out if you wanted the Coco Solo to take over, but keep in mind the Coco Solo is strong in coconut flavor.

This has a lot of flavors going on, not in the least because it's using spiced rum, and I leave it to the mixer's discretion how to proportion and which flavor you want to dominate.  I named this concoction Nassau Chaise because I was picturing this as drink in hand while reclining in the Bahamas.  I didn't know until after that a Nassau chaise is actually a style of chaise longue.

rum find: Saratoga

The SODO (South of Downtown) Liquor Store is the one liquor store in this State-controlled, Prohibition-minded place they call Seattle where I can actually discover new rums.  Today--yay, payday!--I went on the hunt.  First new discovery was Saratoga, a "Virgin Islands" dark rum.  I can't find out much about the distillers; the label says it's imported by Richards Co., Weston, Missouri, but online it's attributed to McCormick Distilling, tho' their web site doesn't mention it.  What I do know is that it on sale it only cost $11!

I sipped it straight first.  It's not that dark--more amber than black.  It's dominant flavor and scent is almond.  Zanne suggested it would work well in a Cuba Libre, so Coke and lime it was.  Oddly, the flavor of the rum completely vanished.

Then the nutty flavor's purpose became obvious.  Saratoga Rum, Fee Brothers Aztec Chocolate Bitters, and ginger ale.  I like candy-bar cocktails, I'll be honest.  But there's more to come from this rum; it's a mixing rum, not a sipping rum, and that means exploration...