Author Archives: thebradical

Home Distillation – Woodinville Age Your Own Whiskey Finale

Several months ago I bought the Woodinville Age Your Own Whiskey Kit. And when I say several months, I mean July of 2011, it’s almost April of 2012… The kit instructions specify to let it age at least 3 months, MAYBE 6. Well, I tripled that. Mainly because of laziness and because other bottles came into the house and kept me distracted.


Now, when I finally poured the ages whiskey back into the original bottle(s), I expected the Angels to take their fair share. What I didn’t expect is for them to be so greedy! These Angels are apparently as big of whiskey fans as I am, I BARELY filled 1 of the 2 750ML bottles that I poured into the barrel! Now, because the barrel is so small, the aging process is sped up greatly but so is the evaporation and the soakage into the wood.


Since I bottled it a couple of days ago and have yet to taste it myself, I’ll go ahead and live-blog the experience. I know you’re all so thrilled, at least I’m not live-tweeting it. That’s for next time…

On first nose, I pick up a very fruity note with a very herbal back. The body is smooth and then BAM! it hits you with some heat, if I had forgotten that this is “Barreling Strength” and proofed at 110, I would remember now! It’s smooth though, very smooth. Very robust on the finish with a strong herbal lingering taste. Surprisingly though, after a couple minutes from your last sip, it leaves a sweet taste and makes me want another drink, don’t mind if…. I do… ahhh…!

I guess I’m a pushover though, it could be terrible and I’d still drink it, well not really, I do have some standards. But this is really good, delicious even! I’m a blatant Bourbon lover and the fact that I got to age it myself, make the experience that much better. Definitely, next time, I will be tasting it once every week for 3 MONTHS instead of 9. You could even say that I made a booze baby in that amount of time.

That’s enough from me, the proud father of a beautiful bottle of bourbon, signing off.

- Brad

Beardlord – A Webseries

Here’s Episode 1 & 2 of a wonderfully silly Webseries from NZBMAA (The New Zealand Beard and Moustache Appreciation Association)

- Brad

How to make: Benton’s Old Fashioned

Alrighty, now that you’ve made your Bacon Infused Bourbon, let’s take that and mix up a Benton’s Old Fashioned.

The Benton’s Old Fashioned has made a lot of headlines on the And A Beard We Go Podcast. On episode 202, I told my story about venturing to a bar that I’ve wanted to go to for a few years now called “PDT” or Please Don’t Tell. I asked the bartender that I’m a bourbon drinker and asked what she liked to make, because, if a bartender likes to make a certain drink, they’re probably pretty good at it…

The Benton’s Old Fashioned is different than your normal Old Fashioned in more ways than the Bacon Bourbon. Let’s just get into the good stuff, let’s make one.

What THEY do:

Crack 4 cubes and drop into a glass or shaker
Fill the rest with whole cubes
1/4 ounce of Grade B maple syrup
2 dashes of Angostura Bitters
Pour 2 ounces in the Bacon Infused Bourbon, they use Four Roses Yellow Labeled Bourbon
Stir a couple times and let sit to let chill
Put 1 large ice cube in a pre-chilled glass
Strain in the cocktail
Wipe the rim of glass with an orange twist and drop in the glass

What we did:

Cracked ice and dropped in a chilled pint glass, filled rest with whole cubes
Poured in more than 2 ounces of Bacon Infused Wild Turkey
Poured in less than 1/4 ounces of Grade A Mrs. Butterworth Maple Syrup
Dashed twice with Angostura Bitters
Stirred it a few times and strained into a chilled glass
Twisted in some orange and wiped it on the rim

Like all of our drinks, when you make them for the first time, you’re going to want to try different amounts of each ingredient to meet your specific tastes. It’s a fantastic cocktail, the orange twist on the rim really tricks your senses before you actually get down to the booze and the intense bacon taste.

Please, if you’ve made this or have had one made for you, comment on the blog and let us know what you did the same or differently and what you thought of it!

Enjoy!

- Brad

How to make: Bacon Infused Bourbon

At long last, I got off my ass and finally got this post put together!

I owe you all a How to and a Recipe, This one is both! How to make a Benton’s Old Fashioned, with Bacon Infused Bourbon. Yes, those two words are INDEED in the same sentence!

First up, you’ve got to infuse that bourbon, it’s actually super easy.

What you’ll need:

- A pack of bacon, the smokier, the better.
- A Fifth of bourbon
- A funnel & cheesecloth
- A bowl

Step 1: Cook up enough bacon to render 1/3 Cup of grease.
Step 2: Pour the bourbon into the bowl.
Step 3: Follow by the 1/3 Cup of grease.

Step 4: Leave sitting for about 30 minutes then put into the freezer for another hour or two. The grease will group together and can easily be spooned out.
Step 5: Put the cheesecloth in the funnel and the funnel in the bottle.
Step 6: Pour the concoction back into the bottle through the cheesecloth, this will strain any extra chunks and grittiness.

You may notice that not all of your booze will return to the bottle, you’ll be about a neck short. I would like to kin this to the “Angels Share” that you would get when aging White Dog bourbon in your White Oak Barrel.

And that’s it! You now have Bacon Infused Bourbon. I used Wild Turkey, I did this because it was just before Thanksgiving. The next time I do this, I would prefer to use a milder/smoother bourbon, like an Old Grandad or Maker’s Mark. Wild Turkey is very strong and I feel like it overpowers the initial bacon taste.

Now take that new Bacon Booze and let’s make a Benton’s Old Fashioned from PDT (Please Don’t Tell) in New York.

- Brad

Moustair – Another Amazing Tumblr Meme

Aaaaallllrighty! I ran across this one while doing my usual facial-folicle web browsing. It’s called Moustair and it’s pretty obvious what the theme is… I gotta make this quick, cause I have to make one of my own!

Enjoy!

Zack Galifinakis Moustair


Pai Mei Moustair


Gandalf Moustair

Couldn’t let this one slip under my radar…

- Brad

Episode 203 – Due West, as the Beard Grows


“Gobble Gobble”, says our hungry hosts!

It’s Thanksgiving today and we decided to jam out our November Episode the night before so we can enjoy the Holiday with fresh Hangovers and you all have a fresh Podcast for your ear holes!

In this episode, we drank a drink that we actually talked about in the episode before, the Benton’s Old Fashioned. Now, yes, we’ve made an Old Fashioned before, but who cares? They are a fantastic cocktail. This one’s a bit different, this was inspired by my recent trip to New York, and if you listened to the last episode, you’ll know where I went to find this little bit of magic. This particular cocktail requires a special type of bourbon, BACON infused BOURBON! Yup, you read that one right. I’ll have the recipe up for you soon and the step by step process explaining HOW to make your own BACON INFUSED BOURBON (I still get excited even typing that).

Step 1


Step 2

We both finally saw Kevin Smith’s Red State, so we yammered on about that in our usual non-style, we glazed over our music/comedy/podcast segment and moved right on over to our Food segment.

And being so close to Turkey Day, we expressed our particular fondness for this Holiday by blabbering on about what made our Thanksgivings so good and so different.

Enjoy!

- Brad

Listen Now

 

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Dapper Men T-Shirt

I think I need to put this on me…

From Chop Shop on Supermarkethq.com.
The everyman’s guide to looking dapper on a tshirt. 141 dudes sporting a right gentlemanly combination of hair, beard or mustache with a good majority scoring with all 3. Can you figure out all 141? No way.

- Brad

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