Seven months, wasted

I can't believe I devoted 7 months of my life to the baseball season, only to see the Yankees win.

Imaging playing Monopoly for 8 hours, and at the end, the banker wins. That's what it's like to go through a season and see the Yankees win the World Series.

Joe Posnanski has an absolutely brilliant, devastating takedown of the payroll disparity in baseball here. You really must read the whole thing, but look in particular at these stats:

In 2002, the Yankees spent $17 million more in payroll than any other team.
In 2003, the Yankees spent $35 million more in payroll than any other team.
In 2004, the Yankees spent $57 million more in payroll than any other team. I mean, it's ridiculous from the start but this is pure absurdity. Basically, this is like the Yankees saying: "OK, let's spend exactly as much as the second-highest payroll in baseball. OK, we're spending exactly as much. And now ... let's add the Oakland A's. No, I mean let's add their whole team, the whole payroll, add it on top and let's play some ball!"
In 2005, the Yankees spent $85 million more than any other team. Not a misprint. Eight five.
In 2006, the Yankees spent $74 million more than any other team.
In 2007, the Yankees spent $40 million more than any other team -- cutbacks, you know.
In 2008, the Yankees spent $72 million more than any other team.
In 2009, the Yankees spent $52 million more than any other team.

Posnanski then goes on to argue, quite effectively, that baseball's entire postseason has been distorted to compensate. Really strong stuff. Read it now.

Drink of the Day: Passion Fruit Paloma

Since I had passion fruit juice, and nothing I would really be dying to use it for now that we're done with Hurricanes, I decided to try a bonus drink, the Passion Fruit Paloma. This was one I found from a podcast, the Art of the Drink. Although, admittedly, it had been so long since I made it that I forgot the precise instruction.

The drink consists of 1.5 ounces of tequila (it calls for reposado, but I used Cabo Wabo blanco), 1 ounce of grapefruit juice, 2 ounces of passion fruit juice, and a quarter-ounce of a new ingredient, agave nectar, along with a lime squeeze. A word about the agave nectar: It's a sweetener favored by organic foodies, and it seems to be popping up in more cocktails. I like it a lot, because it provides a subtle sweetness that is much softer than that from sugar or even simple syrup. In the Passion Fruit Paloma, it works just right to offset the pungent grapefruit juice.

All the other parts of the Passion Fruit Paloma work just as well. I loved that, in this drink, the accents of the tequila were highlighted and complemented, not drowned out or left to dominate in an unpleasant way. The passion fruit juice is a fruity, sweet flavor, but not dominant. And the lime juice was just enough to provide a hint of citrus that was particularly noticeable in the scent of the drink.

Unlike the video you'll see in the link above, I made mine sans rocks in a chilled cocktail glass. Not sure it made a whole lot of difference. But I figured, what the heck, I'll try it again. And while I was at it, I subbed some Cabo Wabo anejo for the blanco.

The resulting drink was much heartier. It takes a lot more than these ingredients to drown out the distinctive flavor of the Cabo anejo. The oakiness of it really shined through, with the balance of the drink providing just a hint of sweetness. Overall, it was tasty, but definite overkill to use a tequila so fine.

In either variation, though, you have a cocktail that really accents all that is good about passion fruit, and something a little different to try. That's a pretty good deal all around.

Rating: Blanco tequila: 4.5 glasses.
Anejo tequila: 3.5 glasses.

Drink of the Day: Hurricane

Welcome to the new version of Drink of the Day, in which I blog less frequently but more deeply on various cocktails and spirits and the like. (I tried to come up with a more accurate name than "Drink of the Day," because they won't be coming along every day, but I figured hey, I have a brand. Not really, but it's a convenient excuse for the fact that I couldn't think of anything new.)

We begin with my effort to find the ideal Hurricane recipe. I've had a few in restaurants and such, but never found one that I really adored. First, we must consider the Hurricane's place in the cocktail pantheon. (For a little background and history of the Hurricane, click here.) It is what I would call a party drink -- heavy on alcohol but easy to drink, simple to make in big batches, and evocative of a place, New Orleans, and the party mood that it represents. It's a high-volume drink, complete with its own entry in the glassware universe. At a minimum, it contains dark rum, lime juice and some derivative of passion fruit, but from there, the variations are vast.

I started my search at Pappadeaux, a cajun seafood restaurant. I ordered one and was quite proud of my cocktail savvy when I correctly surmised to the waitress: "This is made with grenadine, instead of passion fruit syrup, right?" She looked at me as if to say, "Oh, great, a cocktail dork." But she cheerfully offered up that they certainly can make the proper version, so I ordered that, too. Needless to say, the grenadine version was far too sweet, even syrupy. (Rating: 2.5 glasses.) But the version with passion fruit syrup was darn near perfect. It was sweet, but not overwhelmingly so, and balanced enough that the spices of the rum and the lime flavor came through. (Rating: 4 glasses.)

With that good bit of basic knowledge, it was time to try one at home. As always, I started with my drinking bible, the Playboy bartending book. It was a good, strong version that highlighted the flavor of the passion fruit syrup. But oddly enough, it was a short drink, served in an old-fashioned glass. That really took all the fun out of it. (Rating: 3.5 glasses.) Next, in the interest of thoroughness, I broke one of my cardinal rules and mixed up some powdered Hurricane mix sold by Pat O'Brien's, the original home of the drink. (That makes it OK, right?) That recipe couldn't be simpler: 4 ounces of dark rum, 4 ounces of mix. You can imagine the punch that that packed. The rum was far too strong, and as you would expect with a mix, the drink was thoroughly average. (Rating: 3 glasses.) Confident at this point in my mixology skills, I decided to try to modify the recipe, switching to 2 ounces of dark rum and one ounce of light. That's when I learned the point of all that rum: to mask the taste of the mix. When that flavor came through, it was a 2-glass rating, and that's probably being generous.

At that point, I had to venture out into some different recipe sources and get creative. I began working from three basic recipes: this one from whatscookingamerica.net, this one from gumbopages.com and this one from the great folks at Kegworks.

The original recipe from whatscookingamerica.net, with its 4 ounces of passion fruit syrup, was ridiculous. It made my mouth pucker, and it wasn't from the lemon juice. (Rating: 2 glasses.) So I modified it using passion fruit juice instead of syrup. That made the dark rum (Gosling's Black Seal) really stand out. It tasted much better, but still wasn't quite what you think of for a traditional hurricane. (Rating: 3 glasses.) For good measure, I tried a final version of this recipe with passion fruit nectar, but that was, frankly, boring. (Rating: 2 glasses.)

What I clearly needed was a recipe with a few more subtleties; hence, the gumbopages.com version, with its equal parts light and dark rum, and the use of passion fruit syrup, orange and lime juices, sugar and grenadine. The result was probably the closest I came to the good Pappadeaux version, so it earned a 4-glass rating. Seeking perfection (always a mistake), I started trying different variations. Replacing the passion-fruit syrup with passion-fruit juice made for a refreshing drink, but not one that tasted like a Hurricane. (Rating: 3.5 glasses.) And using passion-fruit nectar was, again, pretty boring. (Rating: 2.5 glasses.)

Finally, it was on to the Kegworks recipe, and for some reason, I couldn't ever get this one right, so I ended up with a handful of different cocktails. The original recipe -- light and dark rums, passion fruit, orange and lime juices, simple syrup and grenadine -- brought out the intense flavors of the various ingredients, which I liked. The passion-fruit juice was dominant, so the drink could have been a tad sweeter. (Rating: 3 glasses.) Using passion-fruit syrup instead of grenadine helped a little, but the drink was quite tart. (Rating: 3.5 glasses.)

That's where things started to get comical. I tried loading up on the passion-fruit syrup, subbing it in for both the grenadine and the simple syrup. That made for a better passion-fruit flavor, but it still wasn't very sweet. (Rating: 2.5 glasses.) I couldn't understand how that could be, until I realized I'd used TEAspoons instead of TABLEspoons. That was enough to throw the drink off. So I tired again, with tablespoons, but I was concentrating so much on that that I used 4 ounces of dark rum instead of 2 ounces of dark and 2 ounces of light. Not surprisingly, this Hurricane was painfully strong. Category 5 strong. (Oh, c'mon, I deserve credit for waiting this long to make a hurricane pun.)

When I finally got it right, it was a 4-glass rating -- still could have been a bit sweeter, but we were getting there. A final variation, using both the double passion-fruit syrup and a dose of simple syrup, bumped the rating to 4.5 glasses. Dropping the simple syrup to a teaspoon would probably make the perfect recipe, though I didn't actually try that, because at that point, I never wanted to see another Hurricane as long as I live.

In the end, it was a lot of work, but it was a good lesson in the subtle variations of various flavors. And a reminder that mixology is experimentation, and tastes vary, so get creative and find what you like.

Beyond mockery: Hollywood impatient with Obama?

Here's an unintentionally funny CNN report about Hollywood stars starting to bag on Obama a little bit:



The way I see it, Hollywood is all emotion, zero brain power, so they're not going to abandon Obama any time soon. Unless Dennis Kucinich runs again.

An aside: What the hell is up with Lady Gaga? First, there was this bizarreness on SNL. Now, she's screaming at a rally. Honey, you ain't been around long enough to be THAT crazy just yet.

Why isn't this a major scandal?

How can the cost of college be going up, up, up so fast, even in a recession?

I blame two things: the relentless message that college is for everyone, and it's so valuable that any burden should be borne to attend; and the glut of government money that goes into education. Colleges never have to be accountable for what they spend, because families and the government keep ponying up.

If this were about, say, gasoline prices, the heads of oil companies would be called before Congress and whipped until they cried uncle. Where are the investigations?

A drinking experience: The Macallan tasting

I had an experience every drinker should have recently: A Macallan Scotch tasting. It was totally free. And it was totally awesome.

I'd love to say that I was invited because someone at The Macallan saw this blog and figured I was a mover and shaker in the drinking world. Or even that I used my connections as a high-powered journalist to snag an invite.

But really, I got an e-mail. And it wasn't even sent to me; someone who knew I would enjoy it forwarded it to me.

Not that it matters. I was there, with 200 or so of my closest friends, and I tried five Scotches in the Macallan line. First, was one I didn't even know existed: The Macallan 10-year. I didn't know they made this, and it was clearly their economy brand. It was a bit harsh, and even though it was a single-malt, it shouldn't be sipped as one. It would, however, be a nice option for, say, a Mamie Taylor.

Next was the 12-year, the smooth Scotch people think of when they think of The Macallan. (Hard-core readers -- both of you -- might recall that I was already a little-too familiar with this one.)

Then, we were on to two oak-barrel aged Scotches, 15-year and 17-year. What amazed me about these were how light and crisp they were. Each had the distinctive Macallan smoothness, but the flavor was very clean.

Finally, we finished up with the ultimate, the Macallan 18-year. It was, without a doubt, the smoothest alcoholic beverage I've ever had. And I was grateful, because at $140 or so a bottle, it'll be a loooong time, if ever, that I have it again.

The overall experience was a blast. A fellow from the distillery, complete with a light brogue, led us through the tasting, telling us about each of the different Scotches. And he had a nice multimedia presentation, complete with music and facts from the year each Scotch was born. (Hey, I hadn't heard Live in a while.) And with each whisky, you got just enough for a few sips but not so much that you left feeling tipsy. Best of all: The host demonstrated the unique Macallan ice-sphere machine, the awesomeness of which I cannot reduce to words.

Somehow, I've got to get into more of these things. It is my quest. It is my destiny.

That's it, I'm officially sold on Twitter

And this is the reason why. How did I miss this?

Actually, I got on board the Twitter bandwagon when I was alerted to the greatness of Shit My Dad Says. It's a guy who just tweets what his 73-year-old dad says, and it's the funniest thing I've seen for weeks. Here, for example, is today's entry:

"I like the dog. If he can't eat it, or fuck it, he pisses on it. I can get behind that."

How great is that?