The storm predicted to drop 100 mm of snow on Chicago yesterday missed us completely. That made my Brews & Choos research a lot more pleasant, though I did tromp all over the place in heavy boots that I apparently didn't need. Of course, had I not worn them, I would now be writing about my cold, wet socks.
So while I'm getting two reviews together for later this week, go ahead and read this:
Finally, author John Scalzi celebrates the 25th anniversary of his domain name scalzi.com, exactly one month before I registered my own. But as I will point out again in a couple of posts later this spring, The Daily Parker started (as braverman.org) well before his blog. Still, 25 years is a long time for a domain to have a single owner.
We get one or two every year. The National Weather Service predicts that by Friday morning, Chicago will have heavy snowfall and gale-force winds, just what everyone wants two days before Christmas. By Saturday afternoon we'll have clear skies—and -15°C temperatures with 400 mm of snow on the ground. Whee!
We get to share our misery with a sizeable portion of the country as the bomb cyclone develops over the next three days. At least, once its gone and we have a clear evening Saturday or Sunday, we can see all five of the naked-eye planets just after sunset.
Meanwhile, I'm about to start my team's Sprint 75 Review, the last one of 2022, which contains a few goodies we put off because we spent most of our time on client requests. We have a strange habit of doing what paying customers know they want before we add the things they don't know they want.
Meanwhile, elsewhere in the world:
Finally, director James Cameron ended all debate about whether Jack and Rose could both have survived in Titanic: "Cameron maintains that Jack simply had to die, telling The Sun that 'if I had to make the raft smaller, it would have been smaller.'" Because the story, you see, required it.
It's 14°C right now, going down to -3°C tonight. Then it's back up to 8°C on Friday. Because why wouldn't the beginning of winter feel like April?
While you ponder that, read this:
Finally, Whisky Advocate has a good explainer taking the water of life from barrels in Scotland to the glass in your American kitchen.
The snow has finally stopped for, we think, a couple of days, and the city has cleared most of the streets already. (Thank you, Mike Bilandic.) What else happened today?
Finally, Weber Grills apologized today for its really unfortunate timing last week, when it emailed thousands of customers a recipe for BBQ meat loaf—on the day singer Meat Loaf died.
I just started Sprint 52 in my day job, after working right up to the last possible minute yesterday to (unsuccessfully) finish one more story before ending Sprint 51. Then I went to a 3-hour movie that you absolutely must see.
Consequently a few things have backed up over at Inner Drive Technology World Headquarters.
Before I get into that, take a look at this:
That 17.1°C reading at IDTWHQ comes in a shade lower than the official reading at O'Hare of 17.8°, which ties the record high maximum set in 1971. The forecast says it'll hang out here for a few hours before gale-force winds drive the temperature down to more seasonal levels overnight. I've even opened a few windows.
So what else is new?
So what really is new?
But Sprint 52 at my office, that's incredibly new, and I must go back to it.
I was pretty busy today, with most of my brain trying to figure out how to re-architect something that I didn't realize needed it until recently. So a few things piled up in my inbox:
And finally, Whisky Advocate has four recipes that balance whisky and Luxardo Maraschino cherries. I plan to try them all, but not in one sitting.
Actually, I'm ecstatic that a cold front blew in off the lake yesterday afternoon, dropping the temperature from 30°C to 20°C in about two hours. We went from teh warmest September 27th in 34 years to...autumn. Finally, some decent sleepin' weather!
Meanwhile:
And though the article could use an editor, Whisky Advocate has a short bit on Aaron Sorkin's love of whisky in his movies.
Whisky Advocate finally lays out something I've wondered about: which single malts go into which blends?
“Cardhu’s at the heart of Johnnie Walker,” says Emma Walker, one of 12 master blenders that work on Johnnie Walker. “Cardhu was always a blender’s favorite,” she adds. “It was essential to Johnnie Walker. They always created high-quality spirit and it became a partnership even before Cardhu joined the Johnnie Walker family.”
Owned by Diageo, Cardhu Distillery is just one of the global corporation’s 29 whisky-producing distilleries in Scotland alone. This gives the Johnnie Walker blending team a vast library of stocks to work with.
For fans of single malt scotch, being able to identify the single malts that make up a blend is a fun endeavor that is sure to bring new appreciation for the craft of blending.
That's true, and in some cases it works inductively. Like, where does 90% of Caol Ila's output wind up?
If anyone forgot to get me a birthday present last week, Whisky Advocate has a suggestion for you:
Many of us consider an 18 year old scotch a treat, and regard a well-aged 25 or 30 year old expression as an indulgent luxury. These are mere youngsters compared to the new Gordon & MacPhail Generations 80 year old distilled at Glenlivet Distillery. Matured for eight decades, this whisky spans the term of office of 15 U.S. presidents. It was approaching 50 years old when President George H.W. Bush took the oath of office, making him the last sitting president to be older than the whisky, and from Biden back to Clinton, none of the last five presidents were even born when this cask was filled. It’s a Speyside single malt disgorged from a sherry butt filled on February 3, 1940, which extends Gordon & MacPhail’s unbroken run of releasing the world’s oldest whisky, a record the company has held since the launch of the Generations series in 2010.
Gordon & MacPhail will release 250 crystal decanters globally, although the price remains a closely guarded secret ahead of the auction of decanter no. 1 as part of a Generations package going under the hammer at Sotheby’s, Hong Kong on October 7. Proceeds from this single lot will benefit Scottish rewilding charity Trees for Life, whose work involves restoring areas of Caledonian forest habitat to the Scottish Highlands. The winning bidder will receive decanter no. 1 with a set of matching glasses, the framed cask end of the Generations 80 year old Cask no. 340, a signed lithograph of Sir David Adjaye’s original design sketches for Generations, and a whisky tasting with Sir David to celebrate the winner’s new ownership of the whisky. That event will be hosted in London by Stephen Rankin, who is Gordon & MacPhail’s director of prestige and the great-grandson of John Urquhart, who took ownership of the business in 1915.
An example of the previous release, a 75-year-old whisky bottled in 2015, sold at auction last September for a mere £16,000.
Stories from the usual suspects:
- Sweden's Prime Minister abruptly resigned Sunday, saying it's for the benefit of his center-left party.
- Following Andrew Cuomo's resignation, Kathy Hochul became the first female governor of New York State this morning just after midnight.
- The Capitol Police have cleared the unnamed officer who shot domestic terrorist Ashli Babbit as she tried to force her way into the Speaker's Lobby on January 6th, adding that the shooting likely saved many other lives.
- Economist Paul Krugman credits the pandemic for showing low-wage workers, particularly in the leisure and hospitality industry, they're worth more than they were paid in the past. (In other words, we should call the "labor shortage" by the more correct term "market forces" instead.)
- Josh Marshall once again points out that the evacuation from Kabul, while appearing chaotic, has actually been very successful.
- Jordan Michael Smith asks, "Twenty years after 9/11, are we any smarter?"
- Sarah Zhang frets about the new school year and hopes it won't go as badly as last year.
Finally, Whisky Advocate calls out a few lesser-known distilleries in Scotland worth visiting—or at least sampling.