Fraters Libertas

These Are A Few Of My Favorite Things

Back in the day when I was a subscriber to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, I would occasionally take a "cruise" through the Sunday paper here at Fraters Libertas, making note of the outrageous editorials, sloppy writing, and examples of the not so subtle bias that could be found in nearly every section of the Strib. Now that I am no longer taking the Strib, my Sundays are much more relaxing and my newspaper reading experience is much more enjoyable.

To give you an idea why, let's take an excursion through the Weekend Edition of the Wall Street Journal.

We start with an article that looks at the single malt scotch industry and some of the unique problems it faces with supply and demand. It could have been called, Drink all you want, we'll make more but it might take ten or twelve years:

The appeal of single malts is based on a singular proposition. Each spirit comes from a particular distillery and has been aged, generally for 10 years or more, a period that is usually specified on the bottle. But at a time when clothing retailers can adjust to changing fashions by ordering new designs from Asian manufacturers in a matter of weeks, scotch makers have been handcuffed by their glacial production processes and the very traditions that sells their product.

Scotch makers, meanwhile, have historically been limited to just a few varieties, mostly based on the age of the whiskey -- and rushing out new products when your manufacturing process takes a decade or more presents some challenges. For one thing, it is impossible for distilleries to decide how much of what should be put into casks in any given year, because they can't predict what people will want to drink 10 years down the line. And while the producers of blended scotches can alter their products by introducing whiskeys from any number of distilleries, single malts have generally been locked in from the start.

The scotch theme continues with the story of a son who travels to Scotland to share Scotch With My Father:

Some fathers and sons go fishing together. My dad's love of Scotch whisky has rubbed off on me, and on the rare occasions when we're together -- he lives in Kolkata, India, and I'm in Washington -- we sip single malts together. What better way to pay homage to our mutual interest, we figured, than to drive around Scotland for a few days, visiting distilleries and sipping scotch.

Now that's what I call bonding.

Most single malts are diluted with distilled water after being tapped from the cask to reduce their alcohol content to 40% or 43% from, say, 60%. Taking a sip of cask-strength whiskey can literally take your breath away. Our guide at Glenfarclas explained how her husband had once tried transferring whiskey from the cask by taking a suck. "Never again," she said. "He went to bed on Friday and woke up on Sunday, insisting it was Saturday."

Sounds like a typical weekend for Atomizer. Speaking of A-dog, our next story is on a matter near and dear to his heart (and liver): the Martini. The author of this piece advises that the key to a mixing a mouthwatering Martini is to not be afraid to get wet:
A Martini made with dry gin and dry vermouth proved to be a far more sophisticated cocktail than its sweet predecessor. "The ultimate class bifurcation based on drink," Paul Fussell wrote in his sly and malicious little book, "Class," is "the difference between dry and sweet." But somewhere along the way, "dry" came to mean a Martini's relative absence of vermouth. Even so, the social cachet attached to "dryness" persisted, and decades of striving have produced today's dry Martini standard: in effect, a straight shot of gin or vodka. Which is odd, because there's nothing particular swanky about a glass of plain gin -- in Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty-Four," everyone gulps his synthetic gin straight.

If that's not enough of an apostasy for worshippers of the Church of Atomizer, what follows is positively heretical:

A couple of the less expensive brands gave me what I paid for. Beefeater and Gordon's were just a little too raw for the naked exposure of a Martini. But more expensive didn't always mean better. I much preferred the broad-shouldered, everyday Bombay gin to its pricier sibling, the watery Sapphire.

Please Atomizer, don't hurt him. The scribbler goes on to make a good point that the "proper" ratio all depends on the gin you're quaffing:

There's no such thing as the perfect Martini, so, as the bartender in a New Yorker cartoon once said, a near-perfect Martini will have to do. For me, it starts with Hendrick's, a gin that one could describe as bursting with flavor if the tastes weren't so beautifully rounded and seamlessly integrated. Hendrick's is self-assured enough to stand up to Vya, a delicious dry vermouth made by the Central Valley's Quady winery. Because Vya is itself no slouch in the robust-flavor department, I found that it was best to mix Hendrick's to Vya in a fairly modern ratio of 8 to 1.

My second-favorite gin was Plymouth, a venerable English brand recently revived by some savvy entrepreneurs. Plymouth has an elegant balance of the traditional gin flavorings, and a light, airy quality that matches up perfectly with Noilly Prat's delicate vermouth. Unlike the Hendrick's and Vya, Plymouth and Noilly Prat were around in the Martini's formative years. Put them together in a 1930s ratio -- four parts gin to one part vermouth -- and you have the classic in its classic proportions. Add a couple of dashes of orange bitters, and you have what I call the "Original Intent Martini."

Both fine selections, particularly the Hendricks:

Hendrick's is an iconoclastically produced small batch gin distilled in Ayrshire, Scotland. Our unusual distillation process combined with our oddly delicious set of infusions yields a one-of-a-kind gin that is passionately loved by a tiny yet growing handful of individuals all over the world. No other gin tastes like it because no other gin is made like it.

Next up is a book review on the dreaded "S" word:

For at least half a century, academics, aesthetes and all-purpose agonizers have looked at our ever-sprawling cities with disdain and even horror. The spectacle of rings and rings of humankind nested in single-family homes has inspired in them all sorts of revulsion and, relatedly, a whole discipline of blame: Suburban sprawl has been faulted for exacerbating racial tension, contributing to energy shortages, worsening pollution and heating up the globe -- even expanding waistlines.

Largely missing from this debate has been a sound and reasoned history of this pattern of living.

With Robert Bruegmann's "Sprawl : A Compact History" we now have one. What a pleasure it is: well-written, accessible and eager to challenge the current cant about sprawl.

No, Mr. Bruegmann says, don't go blaming the Federal Highway Administration for sprawl or the executives at General Motors and Exxon or racist developers fleeing urban environments. Don't even blame Karl Rove. You really don't need to blame anyone. Mr. Bruegmann notes that contemporary sprawl -- best defined by places like Los Angeles, Phoenix and Houston -- is nothing new. It represents "merely the latest chapter in a long and curious history."

What propels that curious history is something often overlooked by the makers of grand theories -- the particular choices of individual human beings. Mr. Bruegmann places the urge to sprawl squarely where it belongs: on people's logical desire to escape the high costs, crime, pollution, congestion and lack of privacy that accompanies life in dense cities.

Individual choice and logical desires? How positively un-American.

We close with a sad but inspiring story from the world of sport:

You've probably never heard of Tim Breslin. He played forward for the Chicago Wolves, a minor-league hockey team. A year ago, he was diagnosed with a rare cancer. In eleven weeks, at the age of 37, he was dead.

A community grew up around him -- guys who played with him as kids, guys who played with him later, guys who knew guys who played with him, along with wives and girlfriends and coaches and Zamboni drivers, an ever-widening circle of people who love a peculiar game. Some knew Mr. Breslin; some didn't. When he died, this extended hockey family rushed to the aid of his immediate family. It was more inspiring than anything you'll ever see on "SportsCenter."

He'd been complaining of stomach pains for days when his wife took him to the hospital on Thanksgiving last year. Doctors found cancer of the appendix. He underwent surgery and was scheduled for chemotherapy. A few days before his first treatment, Mr. Breslin showed up at Johnny's IceHouse, where the Blackhawk alums were playing their weekly pickup game. They thought he'd watch and then head to the rink bar, the Stanley Club, for a soda. But Mr. Breslin played. Then he ordered a Bud Light.

That's a hockey player.

Along with Cliff Koroll, a former Blackhawk player and president of the alumni club, Mr. Nardella started planning a benefit game between ex-Wolves and Hawks that would benefit Mr. Breslin's children. It wasn't the best time to plug hockey. Many fans were soured by the cancellation of the NHL season. The Wolves and Hawks were more accustomed to competing for fans than cooperating. But there was something about Mr. Breslin -- and the sport he loved -- that made it easy.

Hockey players are an unusual breed. They slam each other into walls, then line up and shake hands. They play until they are fat and old and their equipment smells so bad that they have to stow it in the garage. Whether they are in Moscow or Minneapolis, Stockholm or Saskatoon, they know that if they can find a rink, they can find a friend.

That's one of the many reasons why it's the greatest game in the world.

By the way, all the stories that I've mentioned here were not only from one edition of the Weekend Wall Street Journal, they were from ONE SECTION (called "Pursuits") of said newspaper. These days when people ask me if I miss not getting the Star Tribune I can't help but laugh. Yeah, many a Sunday when I curled up with my Weekend WSJ I'm wishing I had that Sunday Strib instead.