Yeah, believe it or not – it’s just me.? I know I haven’t been around a lot lately, and I’m not going to make excuses for that.? From now on my goal is one post a week!

Feel free to chuckle or what have you.

Obviously, I was posting pretty hardcore up until Tales last year.? Then we hit Tales, then soon after that I was sent to Korea for a month, and then…well, it’s been busy.? However, I’ve been redoing a few things the past few weeks, one of which means cleaning and redoing a lot of my apartment (thanks to mom and dad a lot for that) and it’s made it much easier for me to cook and make drinks in my place.

Thus, right now, I’m sipping a freshly made mai tai while smoking a Rocky Patel Edge Lite on my balcony.? Why a mai tai?

I’m using the Mr. Boston recipe for it, not the original Trader Vic recipe: 1 ounce each light and gold rum (I used El Dorado 3 year old and Scarlet Ibis), 1/2 ounce orange curacao (Creole Shrubb), 1/2 ounce lime juice (fresh squeezed mojito lime from Wegman’s), and 1/2 ounce orgeat, shaken, topped with one ounce of dark rum (Coruba) and garnished with a maraschino cherry (Luxardo – mine didn’t go bad like Marshall’s did).? But it’s the orgeat that made the drink for me.

For Christmas I bought myself (and Marshall) a selection of Trader Tiki‘s syrups.? He’s even having a TDN using the syrups February 11th – be there, or be square, or something like that.? Oh shoot – I’ll be in San Francisco that week!

Trader Tiki, of course, is a friend of the Den and a member of the CSOWG, and so when I saw he was making the syrups, I had to get some.? Also, the only orgeats I’ve had were from Fee’s, and I really wanted to try someone else’s.? I had bought some almonds to make my own but hadn’t gotten around to doing it yet.

Well, tonight I decided I wanted a drink with orgeat in it.? A mai tai came to mind, and a mai tai I did make it.? It wouldn’t fit in a lot of the smaller, vintage cocktail glasses Marshall got me for Christmas but that’s okay.

It’s still quite delicious.

Other than that I haven’t done much non-beer home drinking.? I’ve gone out to the Passenger a few times – and Eventide a few times, PS7 once or twice.

Repeal Day was at the beginning of December and if I thought last year’s was good, this year’s was even better!? Jeffrey Morgenthaler was the MC for the event, we had drinks from all over DC – and bartenders from all over the country – making fabulous drinks, great food from PS7, I wish I’d written this earlier so I could remember more of it.? One of my favorites was a thick, scotch-based drink with oats and I can’t remember what all else, made by the kilt-wearing Dan Searing (and which went great with my cigar from Curtis Draper in the heated cigar tent).? All in all, it’s a night that you shouldn’t miss.

I was also happy to introduce people to stuff that I can get readily in the DC area lately.? I gave my buddy Dan a bottle of Chairman’s Reserve rum, which is a great, well-priced rum that just hit the market (and for the next few months, a portion of its proceeds will go to help Haiti).? My granddad got a bottle of Highland Park 15 year old Scotch which it sounds like he’s enjoying a lot, and I gave my parents a couple of nifty bottles.? That’s my favorite thing about this whole hobby, to be honest – introducing new people to all the stuff that’s out there (like getting my brother hooked on Dark & Stormy-s) that they might not have known about.

I’ve also got a bunch of samples I really need to work up write-ups about, so hopefully you’ll see some of that coming up.? That being said, let me make sure I caveat something just in case you didn’t realize, and also to help cover our butts with the FTC.

From time to time, marketing folks like to send people free samples.? For the most part, we accept almost any samples, though Marshall is a bit pickier than I (and I still feel really guilty about drunkenly making fun of one offered sample back to the marketing person involved – I mean, I just feel bad about that, that’s unprofessional, though “unprofessional” is not an uncommonly used adjective around me).

HOWEVER, a sample does not mean we will necessarily cover it unless we specifically agree to ahead of time and NEVER means we agree to give it a good review.? We will review it as we find it.? We will review stuff we buy on our as we find it.? We will talk about drinks and products from bars, people, etc., that we get, no matter how it’s gotten, truthfully.? The advantage of us accepting samples from marketing folks is that it gives us more of a chance to tell you, our readers about it, and also to use our own money to “fill in the gaps” as it were.

And sometimes it’s also a second chance to try something we might not have wagered the money on again.? I’ll use Bulleit bourbon for an example.? I’d only tried it straight, from a mini bottle, and wasn’t impressed with it.? Mike Manning hooked me up with a sample of it, and I experimented a bit more and found it rather useful in a number of cocktails thanks to its flavor profile.? It’s not a straight-drinking bourbon, it’s a mixing one, but it works well as long as you keep in mind that it’s also not a SWEET bourbon.? The folks representing Bulleit have been very nice and generous, but if someone asks me for a bourbon to drink on the rocks, I’ll be suggesting something else.? If someone asks me for a bourbon to use in a Suffering Bastard, though, or a bourbon that likes to act like a rye, then I’ll say Bulleit.

Okay, enough of that.? It’s making me thirsty for whiskey.? What time do the Saints play?? That sounds like a good time for some Sazeracs…