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Sharkbait’s Cocktail of the Week: Crushed Velvet

Sharkbait

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Happy Friday once again. It’s Valentines day weekend and a long one at that (sorry Canada). Being that this is a holiday weekend, I thought it would be fitting to feature sparking wine this week. Plus using sparkling wine allows me to finally break out the coupes I found during the move. Proper glassware is always a nice touch. Now that I have a base, I looked to the lone Guinness in my fridge leftover from the Superb Owl, and saw that I had the makings of a Black Velvet. I turned to an admittedly underused cocktail book called “Cocktails on Tap” by Jacob Grier for the ratio of beer to wine, and here is what he has listed:

Black Velvet

4 oz. Stout

4 oz. Brut sparkling wine

Combine the stout and sparkling wine in a champagne flute, coupe or other vessel. Stir gently to combine

 

Not really much of a nose here. All I pick up is the Guinness. No discernable aroma from the sparkling wine, but is there usually a telltale smell from sparkling wine? If there is I never noticed it. Either way, this looks, and smells like a normal Guinness in a fancy glass. But how does it taste?

The flavor is…interesting to say the least. It starts off with a normal Guinness flavor, but that quickly changes. I expected the wine to lighten the stout up, but not this much. Though I suppose having equal parts will do that. The carbonation from the wine is very noticeable here. I was expecting to notice it a little but, but it is still very prevalent, and I’m not sure if that is a good thing. I envisioned a Guinness with a hint of champagne and a little more carbonation to enhance the sip, but I think the equal parts ratio takes it a bit too far. To me, this ratio makes it seem like the inverse: like you want a little bit of stout in your champagne.

One huge factor at play here is the quality of the wine. I’m not saying to use a bottle of Dom or Veuve (if you do, I may have to come find you and confiscate the champagne before you cause further harm) But don’t cheap out either. In my case, I used a bottle of Korbel leftover from who knows when, so I was already kind of behind the 8-ball on this one. I’m glad only two ounces of stout was used here. That said, I don’t hate the idea of a Black Velvet, I just don’t think it worked for me this time. I’d try it again with better stuff in the future.

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BrettFavresColonoscopy

Not gonna lie, i hate the idea of this drink

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bk109

And I’ve been pushed back to 2PM, so officially going bloody hangry! And to think that I was hoping to be wheels up and heading back east towards Gander at this point… 🙁

Also, I just heard some tosspot proudly proclaim that “Vinyl is objectively better”, so if you hear a banshee-like wail in the distance… it’s me screaming to some cuntsicle that probably can’t hear dick over 15KHz that his opinion is about as valid as a Trump tweet…

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BallsofLacrosseAndMapleSyrup

Damn, that sucks

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bk109

That it is, on the other hand – given that the Citation I got was thanks to one of the people I’m still waiting for (don’t worry, not altruism – it was a tax writeoff AND it improved my efficiency 😀 ) I can’t get too annoyed. Still, I wish I knew why I had to be here in person in the first place (I only know it’s not a bad thing, because none of the hatchet people from HR are scheduled to be here, plus the giga-boss called me personally to summon me here)

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Brick Meathook

Go out and buy a gun while you’re waiting.

Booze and potatoes are cheap in California too.

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Don T

This drink is very intriguing. Will definitely try.
/opens new booze backlog list
//puts black velvet on top of apple brandy

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litre_cola

I just went to the liquor store and bought Luxardo Cherry, St. Germain, and I completely blame you.

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Sharkbait

Happy to take the blame for that

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blaxabbath

We busted out the Dom once the inauguration was complete. Also to own the stupid people who worship Trump. #stopthestupid

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King Hippo

Enjoy your VD, y’all.

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BallsofLacrosseAndMapleSyrup

Why would I enjoy it?
/scratches self

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bk109

Because unless you were in prison, you got some pleasant memories outta the whole thing to go with the burning sensation that somethin’ ain’t right with ya 😀

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rockingdog

thats ROCKING!

Guinness is my favorite beer. go-to drink is a Snake Bite or a Dublin Drop
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Brick Meathook

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BallsofLacrosseAndMapleSyrup

Happy year of the ox

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bk109

Not just the Ox, but according to (the easily editable and not actually reliable) Wikipedia – it’s the year of the METAL Ox 😀

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yeah right

I am an Oxen!, Or something. I’m Oxified? Of the Ox tribe? I don’t know but my birth year was an Ox year.

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Gumbygirl

Gumby and I are Rats. Figures.

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bk109

Unrelated – ffs, I love how I can fly my own arse 5200 miles away with 0 notice and be on time for my appointment, but the guys that live in the fucking city are running an hour late at this point…………. Honestly, if I wasn’t paid handsomely for every single second of this waiting (and the food at the HQ executive caffeteria wasn’t this delicious, I’d be hangry as fook)

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bk109

Delightful – now the meeting’s postponed to 11, so amuse me, DFOers… you’re my only hope (because the part of the internet I tend to frequent’s currently tearing itself to pieces because of the Baby Yoda show firing someone for something)

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BallsofLacrosseAndMapleSyrup

I’m so confused. I thought you lived in Europe somewheres, so either have an 11 pm meeting or on the westest Coast

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Dunstan

That’s “best” coast.

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bk109

That’s highly debatable… it’s not even the best US coast (hint: the best coast involves watching the sunset over Apra), let alone “the best coast”

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Dunstan

You go on saying that. We don’t want more people moving here anyway!

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bk109

Here’s the thing – I actually live somewhere better, so downgrading to California doesn’t tempt me in the slightest. Hell, tell me what does California have that’s better than Dublin or //undisclosed location north of Stockholm// ?

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Dunstan

Can’t tell you, or more people will move here!

(Seriously, there is of course no single “best” place to live. It’s horses for courses. People like what they like. Having grown up in the cold, I had my fill of it, and if I really want to experience snow I can go to the mountains for a weekend. But there are people who really are saddened by the thought of not spending months trudging through snow or shoveling it. Same thing for big cities vs. small towns, etc.)

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Brick Meathook

At least in SoCal we don’t have to live amongst the Irish (except for Bono and The Edge, who both built illegal eco-destroying mansions in Malibu).

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bk109

See, another point in favour of Ireland/Sweden – no Bono, nor his godawful music !

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bk109

I know, I was just hoping for the “women and weather” type of comment, so I could respond with – “I’m as happily married as ever … especially with the clear knowledge that my wife can read my post history here… and I get moonburn on cloudless nights” 😀

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Dunstan

The weather really is good here. Again, some people have a thing about wanting snow or “a change of seasons” or more frequent rain, so that’s all subjective too of course.

Women… I don’t know, depends where you hang out I suppose. If you’re going to clubs where the aspiring models and actresses hang out, then I suppose you’ll see a lot of that type. Whether the average person here is more attractive than elsewhere, I couldn’t say. I certainly wouldn’t tell anyone to move here for that reason.

That’s the thing about the public image of California in general and L.A. in particular — people often talk like everyone here is in the entertainment industry. (In NorCal, it’s probably the tech industry.) It certainly doesn’t help that a lot of American cultural products are written and performed by people who move to L.A. from elsewhere, and then bitch about the people here because they’re judging the entire place by the douchebags in their industry. Like yes, I’m sure that a lot of these people prefer their group of lifelong friends from Baaahston who they hang out and watch the Sawx with to the agents and producers and casting directors who jerk them around here, but that’s hardly an indictment of the entire city or state.

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bk109

Actually, I dislike California mostly for the weather, because I really wasn’t kidding about me and sunshine not meshing particularly well is basically the weather (I wasn’t kidding about me easily getting sunburn) and the insane costs of living (driven by the tech/entertainment industry) even compared to living in an expensive European city like Dublin and that’s before taking into consideration the support structure for raising kids in the Bay area (I’m not being specific outside of not being Cuppertino, because … paranoia’s literally paying part of my bills :D)
As for the people – since I tend to try to avoid generalizing regardless of the area, I give everyone the benefit of the doubt, because you can always be (occasionally) pleasantly surprised everywhere 😀

That said, there are places around here that’d turn a bloody Brooklynite into //insert soon to be disgraced firebrand political commentator/host here // with levels of douchiness unseen since the last time celebs tried to exploit an ongoing national crisis to boost their PR 😀

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Gumbygirl

Sunshine.

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bk109

I’m in the Bay area after a fun little 8000+ km (with refuelling) flight over ‘ere… and my 9AM sharp meeting is now “around 1PM”.

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Dunstan

The Springsteen DWI story is interesting. It now looks like what happened is this:

Springsteen is on his bike and stopped to take some pictures with fans. They offer him a shot of tequila, which he does.

A cop is nearby and sees this. Unclear if Springsteen knew the cop was there or not. When he starts up his bike again, the cop stops him.

So far, so good. The cop has seen him take one drink, it’s possible he’s had others earlier. Doing it where a cop can see is maybe questionable judgment that could suggest impairment.

Cop puts him through the roadside tests. Then the breathalyzer. (There’s some discussion in the reports that he “initially refused,” but the reports also note that he was cooperative throughout the entire stop, “eventually” took the test, and he hasn’t been charged with refusing to take a test. My guess here is that Springsteen probably said something like “come on, man, all I did was that one shot, there’s no need for that,” so then the cop puts him through the other tests and then insists.)

He blows .02. Yet he’s still charged, apparently based on the cop’s evaluation of the roadside tests, which strike me as fishy as hell. He “smelt strongly of alcohol coming off his person and had glassy eyes.” Which… yeah. When they’re justifying a search or arrest, cops have such amazing abilities to smell alcohol or drugs that they ought to be studied by scientists. (Apparently, drug sniffing dogs are largely bullshit as well — in controlled tests, they generally don’t do better than random chance.)

So my working theory is: this is a “contempt of cop” case. Park ranger got pissed off that Springsteen did a shot of liquor on his bike in front of him, and was then determined to make an arrest. Now the Park Service has a little bit of a mess on its hands — they know the charge is kind of bullshit, but if they drop it people will say they’re giving a celebrity special treatment.

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bk109

In all (and severely limited) fairness – if you’ve just done a shot, you may in fact noticeably smell of booze…
That said, I think I recall something about Springsteen being critical of cops with regards to BLM, so that may have been a case of a cop taking down one of those “rich clueless celebs” down a peg “for coming after us”…. Honestly, that’s why I think that bodycams should be mandatory across the board for uniformed personnel (both law enforcement AND military), because then you can get the actual context of how events occured and not having to potentially rely on witnesses

Alternatively – it can be a newbie or (the cop equivalent of a) REMF trying to apply the law and going completely overboard (and doubling and thrippling down after each of his own missteps) outta some misplaced sense of ego or something

Last edited 5 years ago by bk109
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Dunstan

Yeah, at first I found the whole thing surprising, because my assumption is that Bruce is a god in New Jersey and cops are likely to bend over backwards to avoid charging him.

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bk109

Yeah, but I just thought of something (and checked) – he’s been purrty vocal against Trump including calling him a threat to democracy itself (I’d have made a joke using “for some reason”, but I’m pretty sure there’s no fibre-optic hookup in the US rated to handle that much sarcasm), so for all we know … it may’ve been a Trumptard trying to avenge his TaintTumour God ?

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Dunstan

Absolutely possible. And given that Bruce had just stopped to take a photo with fans, it’s unlikely that this was an instance where the ranger didn’t know who he was.

1
TheRevanchist

A .02?! I hope the judge throws out the case and tells the prosecutor to go fuck himself for wasting tax payer dollars.

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BallsofLacrosseAndMapleSyrup

Mmmm Guinness

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bk109

lol, ironically Guinness is held in almost a low a regard in Ireland as Fosters is in Australia 😀

Also, forgot which DFOer(s) were in the Bay area, but just farted in their general area 😀

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BallsofLacrosseAndMapleSyrup

What do they drink instead? More so I can try to find it to try.

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bk109

Personally, when I go with stouts I tend to drink Porterhouse and O’Hara’s. Beamish isn’t half bad either, but mostly I just drink ice-cold cider 😉

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BallsofLacrosseAndMapleSyrup

Thx

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bk109

In all fairness, Guinness is considered (as a product in itself) as a better product than say Fosters or Pisswasser, but its corporate owners are considered purrrty much the devil, because they bought out and shuttered most other breweries in Ireland, which irked a lot of people 😀 Then there’s also the simple fact that most younger people have moved towards lagers, wines and the like (and towards ciders like myself), so it’s become less of a go-to drink and more of a St.Paddy’s tradition… and stuff for expats and older people (ironically cider used to be the latter when I first invaded the emerald isle :D)

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Senor Weaselo

Pisswasser is the official beer of both Liberty City and San Andreas, ppl forget that.comment image/revision/latest?cb=20150505175505

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Sharkbait

Will be trying to find those now

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bk109

You may also want to keep an eye out for Wicklow as well and on the cider front – Magners (because for some reason our Bullmers is actually Magners) XD

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Sharkbait

Magners is good stuff. Had that in the UK as well as here

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Sharkbait

I was too young to drink (even by Australian standards) when I was there, but I always wanted to try VB

Australia is also where I saw this label for the first time:comment image

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Dunstan

I thought VB was ok, but of the major Australian breweries I prefer Cooper’s. Lots of good microbrews there, though, the names of which I have certainly forgotten.

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litre_cola

In your sommelier course they use cat’s pee and gooseberry to identify New zealand sauv blanc.

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Dunstan

I was planning to study Irish beers in great detail last spring. This, of course, is the true tragedy of the pandemic.

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Dunstan

I feel like this cocktail is an example of two great tastes that don’t go great together.

One of the things that makes Guinness special is the creamy texture. Adding carbonation from the sparkling wine disrupts that. Meanwhile, the strong aroma of Guinness swamps out the nose of the wine.

If I really felt like I wanted both things, I think I’d rather have one glass of each side by side than actually mix them together.

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BallsofLacrosseAndMapleSyrup

Was just thinking the same think.

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Sharkbait

My thoughts exactly. I’m willing to give it another go, but it might be better to leave them separated.

1
Warthog

A reverse gestalt. Parts are better than the sum.

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