The Old Fashioned

Made with Rye or Bourbon, this classic aims to please.

Well as the colder weather has begun to hearken unto us again, I cast my mind to spirits I associate with fall and winter. I know you can drink American Rye and Bourbon whiskies any time of the year, and there are hundreds of cocktails with these fine spirits in them for all seasons. But for me, the smell of rye, makes me think of harvest, of chill evenings, purple tinged skies, and a good strong drink before dinner. There is something warm and comforting in the golden hues and spice scent of these two classic liquors, like a recollection of a time lost, an age when people enjoyed an evening cocktail as part of their day and not as a guilty pleasure. Yes, I am a bit old fashioned, but that's OK because one of my favorite whiskey cocktails is too, and it is conveniently named such so I'll not forget.

This aperitifs title says it all and does not lie, for this drink can be traced as far back as 1806 in which it was first described as a cocktail. President Truman and his wife Bess enjoyed this beverage without orange peel, lemon peel, bitters or sugar. (Essentially double Bourbon rocks) FDR was served one made with scotch once by an assistant and cried: "Silly, I've never heard of such a thing. It's absolutely sacrilegious".

It seems everyone has an opinion on not only what makes a good Old Fashioned but also on the proper method right down to the stir. Fruit? Fruit muddled? Sugar? Simple syrup or none? How many dashes of bitters? etc. etc. etc. Do an Internet search and you will find a thousand variations of this simple drink, each proclaiming it is "the Best". Me? I'm all in, because my ego cannot be bruised by some eejit who thinks an Old Fashioned should be a "fruit cup", or any other prattling child who believes that it is but whiskey on the rocks. For them I say; "Get back in your pram."

A True Old Fashioned is somewhere in between those two extremes, a blend of sugar, water, and high quality spirit, put together in such a way so as to lighten the heart but so too, to tempt the appetite. Crafted with care, an Old Fashioned is a wonderful, refined cocktail, that speaks to another age, more dignified. This is my recipe, "the Best", in which I use simple syrup, for the sake of ease, instead of pure cane sugar and water.

Use quality spirits, like Bulleit, Maker's Mark, and Knob Creek

Ingredients:
2 ounces of American Whiskey, Rye or Bourbon (I prefer Rye in this drink)
.5 ounce Simple syrup
2-4 dashes bitters (more bitters for more spice)
Orange to peel for garnish

Method:
Add simple syrup to a rocks/old fashioned glass. Next splash in your bitters to taste (I like four). Stir it up real well with a bar spoon. Place two fresh clean ice cubes in glass and add one ounce of your whiskey, again stir with the bar spoon to blend the tincture and let the ice dissolve a little. Add more ice and your last ounce of whiskey and repeat the stir process. Lastly, with a vegetable peeler slice off a good peel from the orange over the glass. Trim it up, then twist over the glass to get the oils out and run it round the rim for an extra touch. Pop the peel in the side of the drink and serve. The essence of orange really compliments the spirit.

Notes: Fresh, clean, cubed ice is best, do not use the little half moons that come from ice makers in your freezer as the control of the stir is lost as well as the beauty of the finished drink. Cubed ice tends to keep the drink colder for a longer period of time. Cherry garnish can be added if you so desire but it does nothing but add color for presentation sake. Some recipes call for a top off with soda water to fill the glass, I do not suggest this as I feel it cheapens the whole drink, bigger does not always mean better, you are going for quality, not quantity here.

Next game day, I will be making the Old Fashioned for our thirsty crew, both with Bulleit rye which has a really nice spiciness to it and Maker's Mark bourbon, which is sweet yet subtle. Hopefully this old American classic will meet with their approval. I know that if you like whiskey then this old drink is sure to please not only yourself, but any of your stodgy old guests, like me.

Cheers
AL

Masquerade Ball - The middle school dance of board game quests

Thanks to Valerie for the post title.

The weekly game group met again for the first encounter of the third quest: The Masquerade Ball. In this installment, the Heroes are invited to the Ball but Lady Eliza reveals herself as a vampire. She and her minions are trying to find a certain Lord that the Heroes now need to rescue.

Both sides rip the masks off the attendees to rescue guests or reveal Overlord spies. The masked attendees are spread over the board but unfortunately, they ended up in easy reach of the Overlord and the game lasted all of two turns for each side.

This looks more fun than tonight's game

But the heroes still rescued one of the four guests and had a chance (one in six) for it to be the Lord. They rolled a die but unfortunately it was not.

Thanks to Valerie for this cool photo collection too.

Who knows what this outcome means for the second encounter but at least the Heroes are healthy and the Overlord's deck of cards is small (due to lack of turns to draw more).

a Bronx Cocktail, it's not what you'd expect.

A Bronx 

About a month ago a work mate of mine Brian S. darkened my office door and abruptly asked :

"Ever hear of a Bronx cocktail Al?"
"No. What's in it, Thunderbird and Kool Aid?".

Yeah I get to say such things as I used to live in that somewhat maligned borough of New York City, back when I was young, and though there are some very fine neighborhoods to be sure, my mind's eye raced right to one of the darker and seedy areas of the Bronx, Charlotte street. Thus, my somewhat witty and derogatory response to my well meaning friend. For when I was kicking about, you weren't going to be drinking anything grand down there, though you could have bought some nice crack, ahem, Jumbo to go with your bagged wine.

Of course I didn't frequent the area, my instincts of self preservation are just too strong, and stayed up in Kingsbridge where I belonged, yet the visual remains all the same. By the way, for all you sensitive sorts, the South Bronx is not what it used to be and all the towering abandoned buildings and trash filled vacant lots have been replaced with little ranch houses.

The Bronx cocktail is as far removed from dark alleys, winos, and crack dealers as one can get. As a matter of fact it was once called a rich man's drink and was associated with elegance and sophistication. An aperitif of refined taste for a discerning palate it was supposedly the favorite drink of author F. Scott Fitzgerald. Not that I care what he liked, the Great Gatsby, made me want to strangle the man, but I am quite sure another famous man, Arthur Flegenheimer a.k.a. Dutch Schultz partook of this wonderful concoction. If was good enough for the Dutchman hell it's good enough for the likes of me.

"Drink it or else"~ Dutch Schultz

In the 1930's this little Martini spin off was ranked number three in the "World's 10 most popular drinks" following the Manhattan number two, and the Martini as number one. Yet it has all but disappeared from bar and restaurant menus today. Ask for a Bronx in a cocktail bar and you will most likely be given the dreaded "barman stink eye" as he looks you up and down in confusion. So it is we are relegated to making this wonderful classic at home, for the most part.

Ingredients:

2 ounces London Dry Gin
.5 ounces Sweet Vermouth
.5 ounces Dry Vermouth
1 ounce fresh squeezed Orange Juice
Orange twist for garnish

Method:

Fill a cocktail shaker with ice, add gin, vermouth and orange juice. Shake vigorously and strain into a chilled cocktail or martini glass. Add an Orange twist for garnish (if you want to make the effort)

With a wee twist.



The above recipe is the original as created around 1905. Some newer versions that I have heard about ask for orange, or just plain old bitters to be added. You can do that, but then the cocktail is no longer called a "Bronx" but an "Income Tax".

The Bronx is a sweet drink without the uninteresting and sickly stickiness of some of our more modern cocktails. The Gin's natural juniper flavors are not overpowered by the juice and vermouth, but rather complimented by them. I encourage you to give this old drink a try the next time you are looking for something classy, tasteful, and refreshing. Wow! I never thought I'd be using those words to describe the Bronx.

Cheers
AL


  

Whirlwind? More like a gentle breeze

The continuation of the wheat saga...

It turns out the Splig, a lieutenant of the Overlord, used the wheat to gain additional health. The Heroes now had a tougher task ahead of them. Splig, the Fat Goblin, was torturing prisoners, looking for someone in particular. He was then planning to kidnap him. The heroes were faced with cave spiders, then fire demons, before battling Splig and his gobin minions directly.

Early on, luck conspired against the heroes. Splig found the man he was looking for on the very first try. So before the heroes had barely moved (they spent a turn recovering from last week's challenge), Splig was already on the way out.

The Fat Goblin himself

If only they could quickly take out some other enemies, Splig would still have to run straight into them to get out.

If only they had some sort of attack that could take out multiple enemies at once.

Oh wait! They did.

Grisban the Thirsty possesses a giant axe of huge damage and a move called Whirlwind. His attack hits every adjacent enemy. With so few enemies down, the hallway was packed full of them.

How could this crazy drunkard ever miss?

Grisban charged a group of a goblin and three fire demons! Result: Miss.

Later on, Grisban is in position again. Whirlwind. Miss.

Grisban, the small red dwarf hoping to kill something. Anything.

Again, as the heroes are desperate with so many enemies repeatedly knocking them down, Grisban goes for another big kill. He can't miss three times in a row right? Yes he can. Miss

Descent dice with the dreaded white miss X on the blue die.

Finally, as the fight has left Grisban behind, he has one last chance to take out the three remaining goblins that are causing the other heroes so much trouble. Whirlwind. Nope. Miss.

The last stand as the heroes block the way out.

But against all odds, the game still came down to the final turn. The heroes have four rolls of the dice to do nine damage to Splig. If they don't kill him now, he runs out with his prize. Three rolls later, two health left. It all came down to one roll. 

Watch to see what happened:

http://youtu.be/t0kgp4XTMWQ

A great feature of the game Descent is the balance. After two weeks of playing, everything came down to the last roll. And after that, the winner only received a small reward. Over the course of the campaign (which will likely take us in 2014), no side ever gains a huge advantage over the other!

Make no mistake, we all made a stupid mistake.

Zombicide 2 Prison Outbreak.

It is rare for me to read through rule books and manuals for games, as my attention span is generally like that of a cat, easily distracted by quick, rapid movement...oooh look a bird. That is why I leave it to others to explain the rules and mechanics of all the various games we play, well that and it allows me to mix drinks instead.

However, when I get a brandy new game or, in this case expansion, I do find myself looking over the instructions out of curiosity. Expansions to games sometimes adjust the mechanics of play on the original, as the designers discover deficits and flaws in the original after release. These changes where what I was looking for in the rule books for Prison Outbreak and Toxic City Mall when I realized we had been playing the original Zombicide wrong all along. Our error is/was not a "deal breaker" by any stretch but I believe it explains why we had not seen the dreaded Abomination in any of our games.


The rules clearly state in all three manuals:

The Mission plans show where Zombies appear at the end of each turn: these are the Spawn Zones. Chose a Spawn Zone and draw a card. Place the amount of Zombies which is shown on the color that corresponds to the Danger Level of the most experienced Survivor still in the game (Blue, Yellow, Orange, or Red). Repeat this operation for each Spawn Zone.

The last line is our error.

What we have been doing is drawing a single card, choosing the appropriate danger level and assigning that amount of spawned zombies to ALL the spawn points. In playing thus we, through our ignorance and arrogance, fail to turn over enough of the Zombie action cards during a game, thereby decreasing the chance for an Abomination to appear. On the other hand we have increased our chances for the Zombies to get an "extra move/attack" as when there are not enough minis to complete a spawn properly all Zombies of the spawn type get and extra action.

I have mocked up the following example to show how by drawing a card for each spawn point changes how we will have to adjust our play style and thinking.

Happy Tuna during a Zombie Apocalypse 

Survivor Joshua has bumped his experience level up to the Orange bar by clearing the board of  a whole slew of walkers. Thus on the Zombie turn all spawns will reflect that experience level i.e. Orange.

Uh-Oh!

There are three Spawn points on the board, so a card is drawn during Zombie phase and as the Survivors are at the Orange experience level the card generates the amount of Zombies for that card. In this case it produces two walkers. Under our current system of playing we would place two more walkers at each of the other spawn points for a total of six on the board. This of course is no big deal and the players adjust their planning accordingly and dismiss such a minor threat. But if we play by the rules the following occurs:

Shit!

As per the instructions, for Spawn point 2 another card is drawn which produces three runners!

Seriously? No f*@#ing way!

And on the third Spawn point the Orange level card produces two Berserker runners!  Now the entire dynamic of the next turn has changed dramatically as the survivors have much more of a threat to deal with.

Run Away! Run Away!

So instead of having to deal with just six slow ass walkers, which would be the case as we play now, the Survivors would now have to face, two walkers, three runners and two Berserker runners if we play by the rules.  I believe this fun but oft times difficult game just got a bit more challenging.

To err is human or so the old saying goes but so too is it human to lay blame. And as I am human (shut it!) I immediately attempted to discover who caused us to make such a stupid mistake in the first place, and my mind's eye went directly to... Yup "Hippies". There really is no other acceptable explanation for us missing the basics on this most awesome game.

Cheers

AL