Bourbon taste - Red Stag (cinnamon)

Red Stag (spiced with cinnamon)
80 proof (40% ABV) Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey infused with natural flavors

Aroma:  Pleasant aroma - hint of sweetness typical of bourbon.  Inhaling through my mouth I can sense a hint of cinnamon taste and smell.
 

First sip:  Taken neat at room temperature.  I gave the first sip a good swishing to cover all parts of my mouth and waited a moment before swallowing.  I immediately recognized the taste of bourbon with something else also present.  I couldn't immediately pick it out as cinnamon though.  After a few swishes around my mouth, I was able to feel the heat - a pleasant heat - of the cinnamon on my gums.  There was no throat burn when I swallowed, but swallowing did allow the full spice of the cinnamon to blossom - rather like the flavor and sensation of the spice in a cinnamon chewing gum.

Second and third sips:  Trying to think more specifically about the bourbon flavor on this sip...  It's not harsh.  The alcohol doesn't burn.  The alcohol seems clean - no suggestion of rubbing alcohol.  The majority of the heat is from the cinnamon.  There is a little sourness in the bourbon that I pick up on the roof of my mouth.  Any complexity or subtle flavors that might be in the bourbon are masked by the cinnamon.  Mouth feel does not stand out as thick nor thin.

Fourth taste:  Now on the rocks - in a glass with a few ice cubes.  The cool temperature takes the edge off of the cinnamon heat.  Surprisingly a little sweetness comes through when the cinnamon is damped down.  The after taste still reminds me of chewing Dentyne or Big Red gum.

Fifth taste:  Mixed with an equal amount of Coke on the rocks.  Not bad, rather tame when mixed like this.  I'm not sure either product benefits from the mixing.

Recommendation:  Not for the bourbon aficionado, but it has its place.  Order a shot at the bar or buy an 'airline' bottle (like I did) and try it.  If you sip it, it can provide an interesting diversion - a novelty - from the usual sipping experience.  Or try it as a cinnamon shooter or as a mixer.

Bourbon taste - Old Forester

OLD FORESTER (green label)
86 proof (43% ABV) Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whisky

Aroma:  Pleasant aroma - the smell of sweetness and corn

First sip:  Taken neat at room temperature.  I give the first sip a good swishing (the Kentucky chew) to cover all parts of the mouth.  A little heat on the tip of the tongue and roof of the mouth.  A normal mouth feel for bourbon - neither thick nor watery.  No throat burn when swallowing.  Flavor a little sweet, but not complex.  Hint of rubbing alcohol in the taste.  Leaves my gums feeling warm.

Second sip:  The second sip can reveal more about the flavor.  Often the first sip is dominated by the heat of the alcohol.  The first sip allows you to become accustomed to this heat and it is not as noticeable in the second and subsequent sips.  A larger sip - still some alcohol heat.  Flavor is not great, certainly not a deep or complex flavor.  Still a little bit of rubbing alcohol underlies the taste.  This is not a 'sipping' whiskey.

Third+ sips:  Now on the rocks - in a glass with a few ice cubes.  Picking up a hint of caramel in the aroma.  But now the flavor seems just unpleasant.  A little heat at the back of the palate.  I'm getting some of the flavor that I don't like in scotch whisky - perhaps a something like a smokey or burnt flavor.  The malted barley used to make scotch is dried over a peat fire and takes on some flavor from the peat smoke.  Many people love that smokey flavor, but I don't, and Old Forester has some of it.  If you want a bourbon with a touch of sweetness, a little smoke, and a bit of rubbing alcohol then this is the bourbon for you. It's not for me though.
 

Recommendation:  Pass on this one.  It's not a sipping whisky, and there are better tasting, low-cost whiskies for mixing.

Bourbon tasting

After completing a tour of Kentucky's bourbon trail I decided to do a little more bourbon tasting on my own.  The Liquor Barn chain of stores in Kentucky has an impressive selection, including a good selection of the 50 ml 'airline' bottles.  They hold just a bit more than a standard 1.5 ounce American shot (50 milliliters = 1.6907 ounces).

I picked up seven bourbons:

1. Jim Beam original - (AKA Jim Beam white)
2. Jim Beam Black - double aged
3. Red Stag - Spiced with Cinnamon
4. Booker's
5. Wild Turkey Rare Breed
6. Old Forester
7. Bulleit Bourbon Frontier Whiskey

• The first four are produced by Jim Beam distillery.  The Booker's is part of Beam's small batch collection.  Beam Inc. trades on the NYSE with the symbol BEAM.  Beam owns a large family of liquor brands, including Courvoisier, Windsor, Pucker, Maker's Mark Bourbon, and DeKuyper to name a few.
• Number five is from the Wild Turkey distillery, which is owned by parent company Gruppo Campari, who also makes Skyy vodka, Frangelico hazelnut liqueur, and others.
• Number six is from Brown-Forman distilleries.  Other Brown-Forman brands include Woodford Reserve bourbon and Jack Daniel's Tennessee Whiskey.
•  Lastly, the Bulleit brand is owned by parent company Diageo, who produces many other brands, including Johnnie Walker, Captain Morgan, Tanqueray, and Guinness beer, to name a few.

In the 21st century, bourbon is made by large corporations, but then so is the vast majority of liquor.  It does seem that big-liquor-inc allows its bourbon making divisions to operate with a fair degree of independence.  Maker's Mark and Woodford Reserve are certainly small operations as shown by their old cypress fermenters.  And US law requires that bourbon be made in a traditional manner - aged for at least two years in oak barrels - so there is still a certain hand-crafted charm to these products.  Each of the barrels is hand loaded into the rick house where is will wait for that fateful day some 2 to 20+ years in the future when it can be tasted, catergorized, and bottled.

Dutch women's field hockey team - best of show

Yahoo! Sports dubs the Dutch women's field hockey team the best looking team in the Games.

I'm not sure this is responsible sports journalism, but I see no reason to argue with the assessment.

Dutch women's team wearing orange 'home' uniform at the London 2012 summer Olympic Games.

Those cute orange outfits remind me of Ulala from the Space Channel 5 game.

 Ulala in orange

The Dutch team had on their white 'away' uniforms for their 2008 win.

Dutch team winning Olympic gold in 2008.

 Ulala's got the white outfit covered too.

Then there are a few pictures of the team members out of uniform.  It's easy to admire team member Ellen Hoog's athletic figure. 

Ellen Hoog

Beauty is often thought to signify health, and who is more healthy than a gold-medal-winning athlete.  These lovely ladies are world champion athletes.

Ellen Hoog

Woman sues because Bieber fans too loud

Read the article —>  Woman sues Justin Bieber for $9.2 million, says Bieber Fever’s too loud

Stacey Wilson Betts, is claiming all those screams from the crowd left her with permanent hearing loss — to the tune of $9.2 million! In a lawsuit filed Wednesday, Betts claims that after attending a Bieber concert with her daughter in July 2010, she suffered ringing in the ears and hypersensitivity to sound.

I'm no fan of the Bieb.  I'm not a Bieb hater either.  I just don't know much about the Bieb's music.  I'm not sure I could even identify one of his songs if I heard it.  I am, shall we say, a little older than his typical fan demographic.  I suppose that tween and teen girls do need something or someone to obsess about so why not a young male singer - even if he sometimes looks a little like a girl.

This women suing for millions seems not to understand the simple, obvious truth - that concerts are often loud.  In this case, the noise was generated by the crowd, not the performers.  Maybe she should sue the audience?

High sound volume is a foreseeable occurrence at any large gathering such as concerts, sporting events, monster truck pulls, etc.  She could have covered her ears when the volume became bothersome.  She could have brought ear plugs.  Even makeshift earplugs made from cotton balls could provide noticeable noise reduction.  If she thought she was being exposed to a harmful level of noise, she had a duty (to herself) to cover her ears.  Or to just simply leave.  Why didn't she?

The way I see it, if you're standing on the railroad tracks and you notice that a run away train happens to be barreling down those same tracks, then you have a responsibility to step off the tracks to protect yourself.  If you choose not to take even the simplest steps to protect yourself from clear danger, then it's at least partly you own fault when you get hurt.  No wait, in this case, it would be completely your fault.  Trains are meant to drive on railroad tracks - you stand on the tracks at your own risk.

Concerts are meant to produce sound - often loud sounds.  If it's uncomfortablly loud and you do nothing, it's your fault.  Can her daughter still hear?  What about the other concert goers?  I haven't heard that they are lining up to sue.  If the noise was at such a dangerous volume why have we not heard many similar complaints from other audience members?

Can she say how loud the concert was?  How loud it was at her precise seating (or standing) location?  Did she have an audio engineer standing by with a decibel meter in the seat next to her?  Has this engineer provided a notarized affidavit stating the 'a weighted' sound pressure level that she was exposed to during the concert?
     I didn't think so.

If she can't actually say how much sound energy she was exposed to, it will be difficult to prove that this one concert event damaged her hearing.

Did she have any previous hearing loss?  Can she prove the status of her hearing prior to the concert?  Maybe she had some preexisting hearing loss.  Most people do experience some decline in hearing threshold with age.  If an audiologist tests her hearing now, how could we know that she isn't faking hearing loss?

Is she regularly exposed to other sources of noise that might contribute to gradual hearing loss?  Maybe she loves to cook and uses a really loud food processor.  A lawn mower?  An I pod turned way up?  Highway driving in a convertible?  A noisy vacuum cleaner?  Paper spreader?

If this case ever makes it to trial, they won't want me on the jury.  Well, maybe Justin Bieber would.

Acoustic reflex
noise exposure whitepaper

Life is a transient response

Life is a transient response between the steady states of pre-birth nonexistence and post-death nonexistence.  May your rise time be long and your oscillations be pleasant.

I am a hoarder of thoughts.  I hope that publishing some of them here will help to unclutter my brain.