Beer, Bourbon and BBQ

Earlier this week, when I first heard about the “Beer, Bourbon and BBQ” show, my gleeful reaction was, “They’ve finally come up with a show just for me!” It turns out that it was a show for me and what seemed like 100,000 others like me.

The show, at the 4-H building on the state fairgrounds in Timonium today (Saturday, 4/5/08) drew a shoulder-to-shoulder crowd of beer-swigging, bourbon-sipping, bbq-chomping humanity. Most of that humanity was male and in what seemed to me to be the 20-35-year-old range. I wasn’t surprised that it was mostly male and I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised at how young the crowd was. For the $35 entry fee, you could get samples of beer and bourbon from the exhibitors, limited only by how much those exhibitors brought with them. The food at the show cost extra.

It took about 10 minutes of shuffling in line to get into the building, where after paying for entry you picked up a glass for sampling. It was by the door that I also saw the first of a few long lines of people waiting to get into the restrooms. This was the point at which I decided to forgo the beer and stick to bourbon.

I believe I hit most of the bourbon booths that still had samples available, and by the end of my day I had sampled five small-batch brands. Three of them I had had before – Bookers, Wild Turkey Rare Breed and Woodford Reserve. Two were new to me – Buffalo Trace and Evan Williams. I was very pleasantly surprised by the Evan Williams, which I found to be very smooth and not too sweet. The Buffalo Trace, a brand I had gotten good reviews about from a co-worker but have found hard to find, was a little too sweet for me. The others, all of which are among my favorites, didn’t disappoint.

In between the bourbon samples, I wormed my way through the crowd. In addition to the food and beverage booths, there were other exhibitors pushing salsas, spices, t-shirts, brand new windows and other odds and ends. The only booth I saw with no action whatsoever was for the National Guard. Almost out of pity, I stopped to talk to them. They said things tend to pick up for them after people drink for a while, once they start to become less inhibited, one of the guardsmen said. I asked if guys try to enlist their drunk buddies as practical jokes. They explained that they’re not allowed to actually enlist people at the event, but if a name winds up on their list, they do indeed follow up a few days later with a phone call.

After an hour and a half at this four-hour event, I started to see the first signs of trouble, as a few people were starting to stagger. I had spaced out my five shots, wolfed down a delicious pulled-pork sandwich from Kloby’s and was feeling like I’d gotten out of the event what I’d wanted. Being smart enough to know better than to drive myself, I phoned my wife, who was my pre-appointed designated driver, and she came and picked me up.

Am I glad I went? Yeah, I think so. If I hadn’t, I would have just moped about not going. Would I go back? I don’t know that I would. It’s one of those things that would be a lot of fun for someone in their 20s (21 and up, of course) and 30s – and there were plenty of them there. But for an old fogey like me, I think I’d prefer to line ‘em up on the bar with an intimate gathering of friends or loved ones.

Friday Fun - Ohio State vs Michigan

The Game is in Ann Arbor this year, thus robbing more than 100,000 fans of the experience of watching - and feeling - the Best Damn Band In The Land's stirring ramp entrance into Ohio Stadium.

At Ohio State games, the band is as much a part of the experience as the football. And no true fan would show up late enough to miss the band entrance. You literally feel it happening. The band gathers under the stands in the closed end of the horseshoe. Then you start to feel the rumble as the drums start pounding. The drum squad then marches down the ramp and assembles on the north end of the field as the thousands of fans clap in unison. Once they're in place, the rest of the band marches out to join them. As soon as all are in place, they begin to play "Buckeye Battle Cry." Then the drum major high steps onto the field, moves through the middle of the assemblage and takes his or her place in the front. The major slowly arches backward until the plume of his or her hat touches the ground. At that point the place goes wild and the band begins marching down the field with fight song blaring.

This sort of tradition is what makes college football sooooooo much better than the pro game. Being there and soaking in the spirit of these sorts of soul-stirring rituals gives me goose bumps and often brings a tear to my eyes. I've been to a few NFL games and the experience can't hold a candle to a college game. It's overly commercialized, overly sensational and at times approaches soft-porn. Give me a college game - any college game - anytime.

Michigan Jokes

I was delighted, but not amaized (pun intended), to see how many sites there are devoted to Michigan jokes. I've included links to the source of each one listed below. Feel free to add your own in the comments.

Q: How many batteries does it take to beat Michigan?
A: 1-AA

Q: How do you make University of Michigan cookies?
A: Put them in a big Bowl and beat them for three hours.

I hear that Lloyd Carr is only dressing 25 players this Saturday. The rest can dress themselves.

A guy in a bar leans over to the guy next to him and says, "Wanna hear a Michigan joke?" The guy next to him replies, "Well before you tell that joke, you should know something. I'm 6' tall, 200 lbs., and I am a Michigan alumnus. The guy sitting next to me is 6'2 tall, weighs 225, and he's a Michigan alumnus. The fella next to him is 6'5 tall, weighs 250, and he's a Michigan alumnus. Now, you still wanna tell that joke?" The first guy says, "Nah, not if I'm gonna have to explain it 3 times."

Q: What did the Michigan grad say to the OSU grad?
A: "Welcome to McDonalds. May I take your order please?"

And there are so many more...

Beer Me

If you want an authentic Ohio beer to swig while watching the game, try to find an eight pack of Little Kings. These 7-ounce bottles of ale are brewed by Cincinnati's Hudepohl-Schoenling Brewing Company. It's a cream ale, so it's not the lightest drink you'll find. But they go down dangerously easy and provide a decent kick after a few. So, if you're driving, surrender those keys before the first sip.

When I was in college, I worked as a bartender at a campus bar that, alas, is no longer there. Thursday nights we had a special deal of three Little Kings for $1.25. We kept the bottles in 30-gallon trash cans filled with ice and we must have sold thousands of them every Thursday. I still have calluses from opening those suckers with wet hands.

Enjoy your weekend and The Game!

Beer Haiku

Canned beer makes me burp.
So I drink from a bottle.
I'm a beer baby.

I'm so proud to claim that little nugget of verse as my very own. It's one of two haikus I've published to date on this blog. There is a site, though, that I've recently discovered that is dedicated to publishing a beer-related haiku each and every day. In fact, the name of the blog is Beer Haiku Daily.

The blogger, who goes by the name Captain Hops, writes most of the verse himself, but also takes submissions if the muse moves you. Each day's post begins with the haiku, then crisply links off to some relevant beery info or has a short, digestible item of relevance. Among my favorites of late is his October 12 post with the following 5-7-5 effort:

Here’s a candidate
that we all can get behind.
Beer for President!

Gets my vote.

Closing today with a jump from haiku to music, here's, Todd Snider's "Beer Run".



Enjoy!

Friday Fun, Sept. 28, 2007 - Curse of the Billy Goat

The baseball year is coming to an end and my Cubs are doing their best to kill me. They're dangerously close to losing their division lead with only three days left in the regular season, and bedeviled Cubs fans like me are wondering if the Curse of the Billy Goat is at work again.

The curse can be traced back to the Billy Goat Tavern on Lower Michigan Avenue. It's a historic bar and grill that's literally under Chicago's Magnificent Mile.

The Goat, as it's familiarly known, was the model for the old Saturday Night Live's Olympia Cafe skit. They really do shout, "Cheezborger! Cheezborger! No Pepsi - Coke!"

As in the skit, patrons line up in front of the lunch counter where their orders are taken and then famously called to the cooks. The food isn't great, but is sufficiently greasy to coat your stomach in defense of the many glasses of Schlitz or shots of Early Times (or both) you can drink in the perpetually dark, underground bar.

The Goat has long been a hangout for Chicago's journalists, many of whom are memorialized on the walls. The late, great columnist Mike Royko was a regular and his "Wise Guy's Corner" is still there.

During our 11 years in Chicago, it was one of my all-time favorite places to drink and socialize. But there's that darn curse.

The curse started when the Cubs' owner, P.K. Wrigley, prevented the tavern's owner, William Sianis, from bringing his pet goat to game 4 of the 1945 World Series. Sianis was so upset, he cried, "The Cubs ain't gonna win no more!" Well, it was effective. We're still waiting to get back to the series for the first time since the curse was invoked. You can read the full history of the curse and more about the Billy Goat Tavern here. And my former colleague, Rick Kogan, wrote a terrific book about The Goat, called "A Chicago Tavern: A Goat, A Curse, and the American Dream."

Now excuse me while I curl up in the fetal position for the rest of the weekend.

Go Cubbies!

Sept. 10, 2007 - In the News

A busy week coming up, so let's get right to it. Here are this week's finds:

White Trash BBQ: The blog, operated by an unnamed (not even a pseudonym) "fire-obsessed" guy from Brooklyn is very much pegged to bbq events and issues around NYC. And that's okay. Nice to know there's good q action going on in the Big Apple. As you may have figured out by now, good names are Sullicom bait and I kept seeing this blog pop up on other sites and thought I'd take a look. Among the first things that struck me is that this guy has some seniority - he's had his blog going since June 2004! Even with the New Yorkiness, I found it interesting to read about this blogger's efforts as he competes on the KCBS Championship Barbecue circuit. He shows his results and describes the effort - not always a smooth one. There's also some humor in his posts and he's not afraid to stand up for the little guy, as evidenced by taking issue with A&P for not just firing, but also suing a couple of kid employees who made a parody video that wound up online.

Very Short Novels: Most of the blogs I've spotlighted to date deal with bbq, hot sauce or comfort foods. But I try to seek comforts for the mind, too. And this next blog falls perfectly into that category. I mentioned this site in Saturday's Mailbag. It's run by David B. Dale (a pen name, the initial and last name in honor of his parents, Beatrice and Dale), who says that anything more than 299 words "would be a waste." An additional description on the blog notes, "Character, conflict, emotional impact. And sentences! Everything you want in a novel, without one extra syllable." Being the skeptical journalist I've been trained to be (sorry, David. Just a habit), I copied and pasted several of the stories into Microsoft Word so I could use the Word Count tool to see if maybe one or two of the stories came up a word or two long or short. Nope. All that I checked were exactly as promised - 299 words. And they're not drivel, either. As of the wee hours of this morning, the post atop the blog, Little Worm, is a poignant, creative tale. This month marks the year anniversary since David launched the site and since September 2006 he's posted more than 130 entries. February was his most prolific month with 15 posts, including my favorite, Bunting for a Hit, about a father watching his son in a baseball game (baseball is another of my sentimental weaknesses). It's a terrific display of creativity and writing discipline to be able to continue that sort of output at all, but again to hit the mark of 299 words over and over is pretty incredible. As I suggested in Saturday's Mailbag post, David's got some sort of writing juju going on. Check it out. (299)

And now, the news...

What's up with the Brits? Our friend Alan at A Good Beer Blog examines the possible factors behind a severe slump in beer sales in the UK.

Leapin' Lizard! Sullicom spans the globe to bring you this item, from Borneo via Brunei.

Must be the sauce. Port Orange, Fla. police are seeking a burglar who keeps breaking into area bbq joints. A surveillance camera caught him during his last visit.

Unusual recipe of the week - This'll get you going in the morning. Tex-Mex Savory Waffles from the Group Recipes site.

Have a great week everybody!

Blog Spotlight - Pork and Whiskey

"A fridge full of beer and a good hotsauce. One of the many reasons a second refrigerator is a necessity."

That line rode beneath a photo of an open fridge, and indeed it was loaded with nothing more than a variety of beers and hot sauces. I was hooked. The post was labeled "heaven?".

Thus I became a fan of Pork and Whiskey.

It's hard not to like the name of the blog, and the nom de post of the blogger - Rev. BigDumbChimp. But the Rev.'s interests extend beyond pork and whiskey. He speaks with authority on beers and barbecue and offers reviews of several restaurants in his Charleston, SC area.

The blog launched back in February 2006 and you can see from the early posts that the Rev. was struggling - like all of us - to figure out where he was going and how to find his voice. He went dark for several months between September 2006 and June of this year. After 'fessing up that he "sucked" (his description) as a "blog daddy", he promised to re-engergize his efforts. And he has.

Good, visual and instructive posts about Spicy Fennel Sausage, Maple Cured Hickory Smoked Bacon and Tasso Ham on the pork front; while in the other realm he introduces us to Noah's Mill Bourbon and Stranahan's Colorado Whiskey.

I hope the Rev. continues the momentum he seems to have regained. Maybe if he finds an audience he'll do so. Give him a look and let him know what you think. We can't let a blog called Pork and Whiskey go to waste!

Mailbag, Aug. 25, 2007

A good week for the mailbag.

A couple of comments came in this week on my family recipe for Kentucky BBQ Dip.

My cousin Jackie in Louisville said she was happy to see that I'd dragged out the recipe, which has roots, like her husband Bill, in Owensboro. You bbq aficionados may recognize Owensboro as one of the bbq capitals of the world. It's home to the famous Moonlight Bar-B-Q Inn and one of the few places where mutton is always on the menu. I'll eventually get around to posting on both those topics.

The Barbecue Bachelor was also glad to see I'd finally gotten off my duff and posted a recipe of my own. I continue to offer the excuse that I'm a novice in a universe of experts when it comes to recipes. But I do have a few family secrets locked in a chest. I promise to be a little more forthcoming with them from now on.

Another post that generated feedback was about former baseball player Boog Powell. Chef JP, aka "The Chef From Hell", wondered if any other ballplayers had recipes for bbq or hot sauces. He said that former Yankee Ron Guidry had a "Louisiana Lightning" sauce and that Rusty Staub, who owned a Cajun-style restaurant in New York, made his own bbq sauce. The Chef asked if I could think of any other ballplayers-turned-sauce-maker. The only other two I could come up with are here in my Baltimore back yard and both are football players. Andy Nelson's, owned and operated by the former defensive back (1957-1963) for the Baltimore Colts, offers wonderful Memphis-style bbq in an authentic setting - a bit of a rambling shack with lots of little rooms, many of which offer simultaneous tribute to the Colts and Elvis Presley. Andy's place is north of the city, in suburban Cockeysville. Our other local footballer in the bbq biz is the Ravens' Ray Lewis, who owns the struggling Ray Lewis' Full Moon Bar-B-Que in Baltimore's Canton neighborhood. I haven't eaten there yet (maybe why it's struggling), but Ray is merely lending his name and money to the operation, which offers Alabama-style beef, pork and chicken. If you know of any other athletes who have their own eateries or recipes, let me know.

And finally, my friend Alan Silberberg, had a comment on my profile photo. Alan and I shared an office 20+ years ago at a television studio in Columbus, Ohio. He's since gone on to become a successful author, cartoonist and animator. He said he liked the "doodle" of myself. As I said to him, it ain't a doodle. That's what years of eating hot sauce has made me look like.

Hope your next week is a good one!

Mailbag, Aug. 18, 2007

After just one week of blogging, I've had three comments either posted or e-mailed to me, which is three more than I thought I'd have at this stage. This has been a classic soft launch, and I've only announced the blog's existence to a select few friends and other bloggers whose sites I've discovered and liked.

Thanks to BBQ Bachelor, fellow blogger mentioned in Friday's Spotlight. He was kind enough to post a supportive comment and give me a shout out on his blog.

Also checking in was MKR, my good friend to whom I referred in one of the first posts.

And my big brother came to take a look. He was complimentary, but asked a legitimate question: "Why do people read those things?"

If you're reading this, you probably know the answer to that, whether you realize it or not. We read these things because we have an interest in the subject covered by the blog, or in the person doing the blogging. It's about community building, the sharing of like interests and in creating a dialog with like-minded individuals. Or even engaging in civil discussions with people who may think a little differently than we do.

So, if you like bbq, hot sauce, great tunes and other good stuff, come on in and see what I have to share and tell me what you know in return. If for some reason you land on the blog and you don't like what we're about, let me know why. It's all about listening and learning and maybe we can all be a little smarter as a result.

Los Pinkys, Salsa and Cerveza

Los Pinkys is a Conjunto band I ran across while living in Austin, Texas. I have to admit that the clip above doesn't show them at their best, but it gives you a flavor for the sound. I have one CD, "Esta Pasion," which has some songs that range from full-tilt conjunto to a bluesy, rockin' version of Sugar Bee that's the equal of anything Los Lobos has done.

My taste for Conjunto music flourished when we lived in Texas. It's a style of music that bears similarities to polka and western swing and it's no accident. Texas was settled by lots of Germans, Czechs and Bohemians who brought their accordions and music with them.

Whenever I hear Conjunto, it makes me want to dip a chip into some salsa, take a sip of a Margarita or any Mexican beer and dig into some hearty Tex-Mex food.

Here is a link to a great recipe for salsa verde, a green salsa that's both fiery and refreshing. If you're going to opt for a Margarita, do yourself a favor and stay away from the bottled mixers. The drink's not that hard to make on your own and you'll be glad you did. Here's a simple Margarita recipe from the "Dave's Drinks" blog. If you prefer beer, the Rate It All site has a good list of Mexican brews. The cervezas are ranked by whomever has been there before, but remember that any rating system is subjective, so pick something you think you might like and go for it. I tend to go for Pacifico, Sol or Dos Equis, but as long as it's cold and helps put out the fire on my tongue, anything will work.

Technorati Wants Me

I've just signed up with Technorati to give a little pop to the blog. Now it should pop up when people are looking for bbq, hot sauce and other blogs about living a comfortable life.

Here's the link to Technorati -
Technorati Profile

BBTuesday - BBQ Pit

We had a bbq pit in our backyard when I was growing up. That's not ours above, but ours was similar to it. The pit above was built by the guy who runs the pigsmoke.com site.

My dad built our pit. One side was a fireplace, where he'd burn hickory to make the coals. Above the flames was a metal shelf where he'd heat up the sauce.

The other side of the pit was the grill. I seem to recall that it was about 4'x6', with trays of red hot hickory coals smoking slabs of ribs and whole chickens.

I was only five when daddy died. Some of my fondest childhood memories involve him standing over the grill, mopping sauce over the meat. I still remember seeing little beads of sweat hanging off his nose as he cooked.

We moved out of the house when I was 16. A few years ago, whoever was living in the house tore down the pit and put up a storage shed. A shed isn't exactly the sort of thing that inspires special memories.

Building a pit requires some effort, but for those who are interested, here's a link to some instructions by Murray Anderson on the doityourself.com site.

Aug. 13, 2007 - In the News...

I don't profess to being an expert in much of anything. But part of my mission is to find the experts and deliver enough information about them and other relevant events to make us all a little smarter along the way.

Sources of information about bbq, hot sauce, drink and music aren't hard to come by. But some are better than lots of others and I want to share them with you. Here are a couple of my first picks:

Hot Sauce Blog - the blog is incredibly robust, with lots of links to sauces and reviews. One thing I particularly like is that it is updated frequently. The posts are a little long, but I guess that means they're thorough. Lots of photos give it a nice visual flavor, too.

BBQ Forum Blog - the featured focus of this blog is bbq people. The home page features profiles of bbq aficionados from all over the place. The site also has links to correspondents who report on topics like cooking equipment, restaurants, and even computer stuff. There are also podcast interviews with lots of bbq people.

And now, the news...

My good friend Candy Thomson reports (story and video) on the Chesapeake Bay BBQ Cookoff.

They should have known better than to mix politics with their bbq.

India's "ghost chili" - twice the punch of habanero.

Unusual recipe of the week: Grilled figs with bacon and blue cheese.

Food for the Soul, Aug. 12, 2007

I grew up in Madisonville, Kentucky, a town in the western part of the state that's 45 miles due south of Evansville, Indiana and 100 miles north of Nashville, Tennessee. I heard a lot of country music growing up and absolutely hated it when I was a kid. But I moved away during my teens and over the years have nurtured fond memories of both the town and the sounds associated with it.

Just down the street from where I lived was a church where the Happy Goodman Family ran their ministry. The Goodmans were then and still are a well-known gospel group. I never went to their church but still run across their music, like this clip on YouTube.com.



When I was growing up there, Madisonville had an economy built on coal mining and tobacco farming, two industries that aren't exactly booming these days. Today, there's a respected regional medical center there that has attracted many talented health professionals to the town, including, ironically, a very good friend I went to college with in Ohio. I still have lots of childhood friends who live there. I don't get back nearly as often as I'd like to, but I did discover another YouTube video that someone had shot while driving up Main Street in Madisonville.

Clearer Still

Thanks to anyone who happens to stop by while this baby's still birthin'. What you're likely to see are some experiments with various types of content. I'm hoping that Saturdays will ultimately be a day where I share the best of reader comments and e-mails. Sundays will provide a little food for the soul. Mondays you'll find some news items, ranging from helpful (like this one) to the unusual (careful now). BBTuesdays will be devoted solely to bbq. Wednesdays will be hot sauce day. Thursdays and Fridays will be fun - ideas for weekend menus, beverages, music, etc.

While I do want to give you some solid expectations about what you'll find here and when, I also want to offer you surprises. So don't be shocked if I break format from time to time. It's for your own good.

Birth of a Notion

Slowly coming into focus now. This space will ultimately be dedicated to the good things in life - bbq, hot sauce, comfort foods in general, good drink, cool music and some thoughts about livin' life the right way. I'm no expert on anything, but I know what I like and I do appreciate hearing from people who feel like they know a thing or two about the categories listed above. By the time I get my blog legs, I hope to post at least once a day. And I hope you'll check back regularly and let me know what you think. If it works out like I'd like it to, it'll put a smile on everyone's faces and we'll all end up learning a few things.