The Bourbon Review

Being a Kentuckian, my favored drink is bourbon. And for the same reason, my favorite soft drink is Ale-8-One, a locally made and regionally available ginger-ale type beverage. Naturally I, and many others like me, have been inspired to combine the two into a kind of highbrow hillbilly delight. This year's Kentucky Derby was a good reason for me to trot out a surprisingly good mint julep made with Ale-8-One; I've also been dabbling with a similar recipe made with sweet vermouth and orange bitters (in place of mint) to arrive at a sort of bastard step-child of the Manhatten drink.

So you can imagine my interest when I stumbled across a new recipe using my two favorite iingredients in a recent issue of The Bourbon Review (The Bourbon Review, LLC, Summer 2009). The drink is called A Late Freeze, and I cannot wait to try it out. My favorite thing about the ingredients? There are only two. This drink, apparently, is all in the preparation:

A Late Freeze

• 6 ounces bourbon
• 6 pack of Ale-8-One

Instructions:

• Boil a 6-pack of Ale-8-One in a saucepan until reduced by half
• Cool, then add one ounce of bourbon for every bottle/can of Ale-8-One
• Freeze until slushy
• Place in blender, pulse
• Serve

Oh, Boy!

Vintage Base Ball World Series

My brother Paul (from over at the Ultramontanist) and I attended the Vintage Base Ball World Series at the magnificent, recently restored West Baden Hotel in French Lick, Indiana (home of The Hick From French Lick, basketball great Larry Bird!). The hotel had been abandoned around the 1950's, and then an eccentric millionaire (my favorite kind) swooped in and poured some real money into it. As you'll see from the video, it really is splendidly oppulent (Al Capone sure thought so, anyway--he and many other Chicago mobsters reportedly spent much of their down time here in their heyday).

Anyway, the Indianapolis Blues played the Cincinnati Red Stockings (the Red Stockings prevailed, 15 aces to 12). As you'll recall from my earlier post, vintage base ball teams have been popping up all over the midwest in recent years, a very happy phenomenon indeed. The players conduct themselves according to 19th century rules, which means barehanding the ball (sans mitt), catching the ball on one hop is an out (although it is not called an out, but it is said that the "striker [batter] is dead"), runners are not given leeway to overrun first base, and there is no stealing, among many other disorienting deviations from the modern game. Needless to say, I was overtaken with unmitigated glee the entire afternoon--this experience is a little like a civil war reenactment being taken in by a history buff: a chance to geek out entirely among like-minded sorts, on an interest that is usually enjoyed all alone because no one else really understands. I guess it's also similar to what a Star Trek convention is for the painfully lonely trekkie nerd.

"The principle rule of action of our model base ball player is, to comport himself like a gentleman on all occassions, but especially on match days, and in so doing he abstains from profanity and its twin and vile brother obscenity, leaving these vices to be alone cultivated by graduates of our penitentiaries."

-from "Haney's Base Ball Book of Reference," 1867 by Henry Chadwick

Vintage Base Ball: Not Your Grandpa's Civil War Reenactment

Readers, I am falling all over myself with excitment! I am here to report on the most extraordianry of events, something that I am astonished to only be finding out about this very day: vintage baseball leagues! VBL's are an amazing phenomenon, they consist of a network of teams which include players anywhere from 20 to 60-something years old, and they play baseball the same way they did circa 1840: throwback uniforms, short-brimed caps, and no gloves!

Yep, in the olde days, the players, even the catcher, went mittless. These were burly guys, men who took it as a personal affront to their manhood if it was suggested that they might be more comfortable using leather gloves when trying to snatch a line drive out of the air. Not that the players were uncouth. When the game was first played, it was the providence of educated dandies--sort of like polo. There was no professional baseball, it was all unpaid amatuers, out to prove their athleticism in a healthful, gentlemanly fashion. They wore stockings, with their knickers pulled up to the knee in order to allow for full range of leg motion (I have always wondered why modern players insist on wearing their pants all the way down the ankle, not a sock in sight. Those pants can't be all that strechy, and what about the heat? kids these days...!)

Anyway, you can read more about this story at NPR. Oh, and guess what? I get to watch a vintage world series game tomorrow in West Baden, Indiana! According to a press release, the six midwestern teams participating in the series will play by the 1864 rule book, recreating the language and customs of 19th century "base ball." I'll be attending the free games and taking notes, readers, so you can look forward to a full report on this event.

Zombie Fiction Round-up

As per my last post about Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, I thought I might draw from my (regrettably) vast experience with the zombie fiction genre and give any interested-yet-inexperienced parties the low-down on what to read (and what not to read) in this wildly inconsistant area of what I will generously call "literature."

This is actually a very easy task. Basically, you should avoid everything except two books by Max Brooks:

The Zombie Survival Guide

This is an amusing book of the Worst Case Scenario persuasion: a kind of tounge-in-cheek "non-fiction" book that is pretty much set up like your average guide book. I like it because it's the type of thing everyone runs through in their heads everytime they watch a zombie movie. Brooks indulges in applying serious practicality to goofy B-movie hijinks, and that's something I can really get behind. He is really thorough, and it's good for settling zombie-related arguments and getting ideas for your own zombie apocolypse survival plans.

World War Z

This is also written in a "non-fiction" format. It contains what is refered to as the "oral history" of a zombie plague that has already happened, essentially a collection of survivor stories. This is one of the few times I have been reading a book and have actually gotten a little scared--I had to turn on the lights in the next room. I'm not much for horror books (in fact, I don't like them at all), but there's a soft spot in my heart for zombie scenarios, and this book in particular satisfies that weakness.

And, that's about it as far as my recommendations go. A quick search has informed me that I have not nearly exhausted the coffers of what zombie fiction has to offer, so I cannot promise you that there is not some other gem out there to add to this breif list. I hope there is, as I really do enjoy the idea of a good zombie story. Unfortunately, it's one of those storylines that seem to get handled only by the quickie low brow, barely literate "hey, I'll, like, write my own book--how hard can it be?" types and/or the torture porn set. I suppose I could also recommend Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, but, despite the title, it doesn't really dwell too much on zombies. Honestly, it's just a really poorly done re-write of Pride and Prejudice, minus the clever dialogue, plus a smidge of zombie carnage (NOT as fun as it sounds). I think it is worth adding to our "zombie shelf" just on merit of the cover and title--honestly, one doesn't really need to read it to enjoy it (in fact, more pleasure would likely be gained by avoiding the contents altogether).

Prise & Prejudice...and Zombies!

I've never considered myself to be a particularly girly girl. In fact, for the majority of my youth I was a consummate tomboy, swearing off things like lace, dolls, the color pink, and other decidedly girlish trappings. But I think there is one aspect of feminine identity that transcends any kind of personal choice, except maybe in the most extreme cases of butchness and/or illiteracy: Jane Austen.

She wrote several novels, but when someone talks about liking Jane Austen, they are really saying that they like Pride and Prejudice, her most celebrated book. I, like nearly all other members of my gender, have read Pride and Prejudice multiple times. I cannot explain this, it's not even in my top ten of favorite books, but I think I've re-read it more times than I have re-read any other book. I've seen every incarnation of the story in movie form as well, multiple times (well, except for Kate and Leopold, which is obviously the most open-mouthed kiss of a piece of fanfiction as I have ever heard of). This affinity for Austen is a firmly feminine constant, I've never even known a dude (and I've come across plenty of fey little English major type boys) who ever mentions having read her, certainly never one that speaks openly about enjoying her.

And speaking of Pride and Prejudice fanfiction, pictured above is the newest object of my reading pleasure, Seth Grahame-Smith's Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. I bought this a few weeks ago for my zombie fiction-loving husband's recent birthday; he was appropriately excited and, honestly, the cover and title alone made it a good gift, although he was not prepared for the quasi-Austen-like writing style. Grahame-Smith seems to be an actual male who has actually read P&P; he seems to get the tenor and spirit of Austen's overly-fussy Victorian dialogue more or less right, although he tends towards the Yoda-esque in his turns of phrase, and doesn't exactly embrace things like correct or sensible sentence structure, grammar, and punctuation.

Overall it is as silly as silly parody books go. I'm happily reading it as in-between fodder material before I start another sober biography or something, and it is certainly not disappointing me yet. I will admit that the first line really pulled me in:

"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains."

“In the immortal words of Jean-Paul Sartre, ‘Au revoir, Goph-er!’”

(from Caddyshack, the quintessential “dad movie”)

Happy Fathers’ Day, everybody!