In Which Oatmeal Nourishes Both Body And Soul

I will admit to a relatively diminished interest in whiskey these days. While much of note is undoubtedly happening in the wide world of whiskey, (Mr. Cowdery's tireless efforts to shame liars, the fall releases of unobtainables and unaffordables, the excitement about whether Chip Tate will be the first craft distiller to 'put two into the chest' of Mammon...) I am not sure that I give many or any shits at all about it. From the ever deepening trench of my poverty, my blackened groping hand finds purchase on the necks of few whiskey bottles these days. The explosion of interest and variety in whiskey is certainly a good thing, but the density of options has surpassed what I feel is necessary to enable an enjoyable life, and instead leads whiskey enthusiasts who want to keep up into a hierarchically-driven box 'ticking' mode devoid of much pleasure. "Not philosophers but fret sawyers and stamp collectors compose the backbone of society" 

As a distiller I am still very excited about making whiskey, but as a drinker it's harder to get a thirst up.

So I am moving on.

Wait, first a drink.

The production of this drink is somewhat involved, which is a twist as the recipe is adapted from Kingsley Amis' book of drinking advice "Everyday Drinking" and he sometimes felt a lemon twist to adorn a glass of gin was too much of a fussy struggle. As is likely apparent from this blog, I owe Mr. Amis many debts. As someone who has made relatively little headway into deciphering the world of wine, Amis gave me the greatest piece of advice on wine buying, easily trumping  anything Eric Asimov or Robert Parker ever supplied, to "Keep at hand a good supply of beer, stout, and cider, not to speak of stronger waters, to console you when the whole business gets too much for you".

An Atholl Brose, the alcohol version of oatmeal brose (uncooked porridge, truly the product of a culinary impoverished society), according to Wikipedia and Kingsley Amis has significantly more viscosity, alcohol, and sweetness than I desire. Below is my preferred technique

I Pity The Scottish Stomach

8 oz Hot Water
1.5 handful rolled oats
3/4 oz Smoky / Islay Scotch
Spoonful of Wildflower Honey

1. Heat up 8 oz water to tea making temperature, and pour over an oversized handful of oats. Stir to mix and allow to sit.
2. Sit outside in the garden in the chilly drizzling rain for 30 minutes while musing on how few possibilities for fulfillment the coming day will offer.
3. Strain the liquid off the oats (which should be cloudy and slightly thickened) and reheat in the microwave.
4. In a separate glass, measure out the scotch.
5. Stir a spoonful of honey into the hot oat water, and then pour into the scotch glass
6. With your steaming mug, return to the drizzly garden, and in general fell much better about the prospects of having to exist for at least one more day.

Do Words Matter? An unnecessarily drawn out review of Miyazaki Kinmiya Soju

Let's talk about something complicated. Something with a lot of nuance, that requires the reader to make an effort to understand. Something that no one except me cares about in the slightest. The topic - 

"Why I am Excited To Purchase Lousy Alcohol At The Weird Asian Grocery Store"

In Oregon there is a firm bifurcation between distilled spirits and other alcohol. Non-distilled alcohol is available in grocery stores, beer shops, convenience stores, and a myriad of other places who've obtained the proper license. Distilled spirits (regardless of their alcoholic strength) are available only through the state-run liquor stores. This can lead to some head scratching situations, for instance where Cardamaro (a 17% abv wine-based amaro) can be had with a volume discount at Fred Meyers but Aperol (an 11% spirit-based apertif) is only available in liquor stores. Every state has illogical blue-laws, but at least Oregon's is a knowable quantity if you are somewhat versed in how things are made. Fermented and/or fortified = grocery. Distilled = Liquor Store.

Fine. Rules Are Rules. The Oregon Liquor Control Commission (OLCC) does me many solids in my professional career, so I won't carp too much. However, I still get a perverse joy when something slips through the cracks, and I find a distilled spirit in the grocery store. Such is the case with Miyazaki Co. LTD's Kinmiya "Soju".  There it was, camouflaged among the Mirin and the incomprehensibly Chinese 'Special Pickle Wine'. When trolling for weird booze at the grocery store, keep an eagle eye for "1.5% Salt Added". To avoid excise tax for beverage alcohol, producers render their cooking products 'non-potable' with salt. This is how our country poisons the poor degenerate souls who have the audacity to try enjoying shaoxing wine. Someday in the future, we, the downtrodden and despised drinkers of cooking sherry will RISE UP, and say NO MORE. NO MORE WILL WE SUFFER YOU TO POISON US WITH SALT MERELY FOR TRYING TO DRINK COOKING SHERRY. But for now, the salt remains.

Miyazaki Co. LTD Kinmiya Soju
aka VODKA FOR BABIES THAT CAN ONLY SHOP AT WEIRD ASIAN STORES

Founder Miyazaki Shozaburo

Anyways, once you've located something interesting looking without any salt it's time for focused googling. Miyazaki Hoten was founded in 1846 as a producer of Sake, Mirin, and Shochu. In 2005 they won "The Best Prize at the '100 Selected IT Business Models.'" In between those events, invariably much occurred that might be of interest but I will allow to peruse the Company Newsletter at your leisure. Mostly it seems to be poems written by Dali about Japanese Highschool baseball.

The Kinmiya is their flagship shochu brand, an affordable high-volume spirit with a minimal taste. By their description

Nicknamed "Kinmiya shochu", turtle Miya shochu has gained popularity in the Kanto area from ancient times. Mellow taste to use the subsoil water of pure Suzuka River sprung from Suzukasanmyaku, and clean it features. Design also incorporates the design of the gold seal turtle Miya shochu tradition, it is proposed the products that can be enjoyable temporary gatherings.

So keep that in mind for your next 'temporary gathering'.

But wait, what's all this shit about Shochu when the bottle is clearly labelled "Soju"? While it says "Soju" (a Korean spirit typically produced from rice or sweet potatoes), the Kinmiya is in fact actually Shochu (a Japanese spirit which can be distilled from a variety of raw materials). Why the mislabeling? Ahem, go ahead wikipedia

The liquor licensing laws in the states of California and New York specifically exempt the sale of soju from regulation relating to the sale of other distilled spirits, allowing businesses with a beer/wine license to sell it without requiring the more expensive license required for other distilled spirits.The only stipulation is that the soju must be clearly labeled as such and contain less than 25% alcohol.

This had the knock-on effect of traditional japanese shochu producers diluting their products and labeling them as "Soju" to sneak into this lucrative loophole. This loophole doesn't apply in Oregon, but there are still many Shochus in the liquor store marked as Soju because of the size of the California and New York markets. This is an Okinawan Awamori, something with a proud history, bottled at a pathetic 20% and disgraced with the label "Soju". 

"Blah Blah Blah" you might say. "Soju and Shochu are the same thing, who caaaaares." You are Wrong, and I would strike you if I had enough internet bandwidth and appropriate haptic techonology to do so. I think this misconception occurs because some people prefer to deal in generalities. "Both Soju and Shochu are asian and they are spelled almost the same, so they ARE the same. Case Closed. I don't have time to care about this, I have pressing TV shows to watch and my countdown timer for the return of Pumpkin Spice Lattes needs to wound." They shellac these generalities into a thick shell which protects their flabby brains from the Heavy Facts and Sharply Specific Truths which the world is truly composed of. In fact, Shochu and Soju are made by different people, in a different way, out of different materials, for different reasons. In a similar way to how Ten-High Blended Whiskey is different than an Islay Single Malt, even if the philistine calls them both whiskey.

That was a wonderful tirade. Very invigorating. And it was for the most part true. Unfortunately, complexity looms. While most Soju (like Jinro, the most popular spirit in the world) is highly-distilled flavorless ethanol, made industrially and artificially flavored with sweeteners and thickeners, there are traditionally made Sojus  which use mixed culture fermentation and small pot-still distillation to produce something similar to a traditional honkaku Kome (rice) shochu. And conversely there exists Japanese Shochu called korui or new style shochu, which is highly-distilled, nearly flavorless ethanol, made industrially for mass consumption. Such is the case with the Kinmiya "Soju", a VERY lightly flavored spirit distilled from sugar cane.  
 
How about a review? Been a while....

Nose - Slight sharpness, with the medicinal / tool-cleaner aroma common to mid-grade vodka. With some air this dissipates and yields a vaguely sweet, mellow sugar cookie aroma but you really have to jam your nose in there. A splash of water nullifies the aroma, not surprising given the low abv (20%).

Taste - Tastes fine. Mild, smooth, and clean with only the tiniest hint of flavor. There is some brown sugar to the midpalate, and a bit of heat to the finish but otherwise slips down pretty unnoticed. While honkaku shochu can be earthy and savory, or bright and fragrant, this is neither and resembles nothing so much as an acceptably bland vodka which has been heavily watered.   

Value - At $15/750ml for a 20% spirit, it's certainly a stretch to say this is a deal. However, when compared to other Japanese shochus available in Oregon it is a more appealing proposition. Also, the thrill of buying alcohol at the grocery store in defiance of Oregon God and OLCC is difficult to put a price on. Also, I had fun reading their newsletter in the course of writing this, so that gives them a bump. I will say a 6 for value, but your scale may read differently.

Thus concludes the most comprehensive english language examination of Miyazaki Hoten's Kinmiya shochu. I hope this helps the other 3 people in the world who might be desperately googling.

Florentino Liqueur - My Personal Cross To Bear

I think I've cracked the nut of the mysterious Florentino Liqueur, a traditional elixir long savoured by the indigenous people of Cleveland Ohio. Ohioans typically drink it straight, or cut with Mountain Dew, in an effort to as rapidly-as-possible reach the LD50 threshold for FD&C Yellow #5, I believe with the goal of ending their miserable existence. I lack the fiery spirit and Devil-May-Care attitude of the blazing Buckeye, and so find Florentino is best enjoyed sparingly over the course of an entire lifetime, with as much delay between samples as possible. There has been surprisingly limited research into the effects of Florentino on the human endocrine system, but here is a link to a study about feeding food coloring to albino rats because Progress Is Cruel.

On aforementioned nut cracking - lime is the key. Also you want to use a darkly color liqueur to disguise the diabetic urine glow of raw Florentino. I have now ruminated on Florentino longer than any soul not consigned to Purgatory and I still have little positive to say about it. Why do I return so frequently, to a well so dry? Florentino is distressingly the only search term which is driving traffic to my still basically undiscovered blog. And so, thou faceless truth-seekers of the great Network-In-The-Sky,  thy weird, desperate will is my command. 

The Will Of The People Is A Specious Directive
1.5 oz Cranberry Liqueur*
1 oz Florentino Authentic Ohioan Liqueur
1/2 lime
Soda
Sprig of Mint

This drink is good. If you are burdened with a bottle of Florentino this is so far the best option. To make this cocktail, use the ingredients listed about and combine in some fashion. I find that if you pour them into an old paint can (use only oil-based paints, NO LATEX) with some ice and take them to the paints department of your local hardware store, they will often let you use the paint stirring machinery to achieve a sublimely thorough mixing.

*Stonebarn Brandywork's Cranberry liqueur is particularly dry, so an effective replacement would be natural cranberry juice touched up with a bit of vodka to "cure" it

This is an excellent breakfast drink. Some of the more moralistic may look askance at drinking in the morning, but they are chowderheads who have no grasp of how to create Joy in one's own life. They cast a shaming eye towards my post-breakfast Watermelon & Absinthe Blender Potion, yet these same hypocrites can often be found on Sundays bright and early guzzling down wine with their good-time buddies merely because it has been ordained 'The Blood Of Our Saviour'...

In Which Grain is Exchanged For Grape, with a great spiritual uplifting

Well it seems even my quiet lobe of the internet (the lobe that is whiskey-related, not streamable jazz flute music or the history of exotic tree barks) has been invaded by Big Media, with the recent deluge of taunting clickbait about the looming "whiskey shortage". Is nothing free from the charnel taint of the Content Mill? I put "whiskey shortage" in quotation marks to show that I know the entire concept to be spurious, just another cataclysm-of-the-day aimed at gumming up a news cycle already swollen with dubious threats and tedious regurgitation. If the inability to purchase Pappy Van Winkle, something you possibly neither knew or cared about 3 years ago, causes you heartache then perhaps it serves you right to suffer. You Will Die before even the worst liquor store has less than an aisle of whiskies available for you to purchase, many of them cheaper than even a mid-range bottle of wine.

While shortage is the wrong term, there is unquestionably a whiskey Gentrification of sorts occurring. Prices (not costs) are up across the board, with the sharpest increases among enthusiast whiskies (aka "lawyer whiskey") which reluctantly prices out many who have never IPO'd. Oh well. Yoghurt Liqueur is still affordable.

Should your preferred bottle become hard to find, maybe that is a sign from God that you should stop being so boring and branch out. The world of whiskey is broad, with enormous variations in flavor and something for everyone.  Bourbon is often characterized by its sweetness, heavy with vanilla and cinnamon. Scotch, more expansive, is iconically linked with the honeyed Speyside malts or the bolder peated whiskies of Islay. Craft Whiskey is most profoundly flavored by oak; raw, overextracted, sawdusty oak, like a chair leg jammed into a bottle through a perverse combination of greed and incompetence.

Why the polemic? The topic has been on my mind, as I am struggling to find a purpose for a particularly egregious craft whiskey. I'm not one to turn my nose up at anything with liquor in it (see my ongoing battle with Florentino) but something about a less-than-year old whiskey that is RED gets the bile duct on overdrive.

Well I've been sitting, staring at the bottle of it now for an entire bowl of oatmeal and have made little progress towards acceptance. Let's have some grappa.

The Herb-of-Grace bestows some civility on a fraught morning

Rue (ruta graveolens), Herb-of-Grace, is a Mediterranean herb once fairly common which seems to have fallen out of favor. It was used for many unlikely purposes, as you might imagine a pre-Internet civilizations would try to apply something they grew in the their gardens to the problems at hand. Eyewash, an anti-magical herb to prevent witchcraft related indigestion while eating with strangers, and also fried in batter or as a salad green. It was also a universal poison antidote, despite being somewhat toxic. I know more about it but am tired of typing, so visit this wonderful site to learn more. The most lasting use and the one most relevant to me, has been to aromatise and flavor grappa. Grappa alla ruta. It adds a heaviness to the grappa, a slightly vegetable bitterness, with a musky lemon aroma. Quite nice. Easy enough to make, just snip a few fresh leaves prior to flowering from the plant you had the foresight to plant 2 years ago, and allow to macerate in grappa or white brandy for 1 month. The plant can cause Phytophotodermatitis in hot weather, so avoid that.

Let's end this post on a different note than we started, with some Elizabethan poetry.

'Then sprinkles she the juice of rue,

With nine drops of the midnight dew

From lunarie distilling.