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naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   4354 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for November 16, 2022

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In this post, @Walterodim confessed to his coffee and whiskey habits, which got me wondering:


How does The Motte enjoy its coffee and whiskey?


Coffee

I prefer buying fancy, freshly-roasted light roast beans and doing a pour over in a Chemex. I grind my beans in a DeLonghi grinder (middle of the road quality wise), put the grounds in an unbleached paper filter that has been rinsed to remove the papery taste, and then pour hot water (slightly cooler than boiling) from a gooseneck kettle over the grounds. Then I drink the coffee black, in silence, while it's still piping hot.

These days I've moved to a place where I can't get good beans at an affordable price, so I often get mediocre stuff and put a splash of milk in it to take the edge off of some of the less appealing flavors.

Occasionally, on Saturday morning or during holidays, I'll make myself an Irish coffee. I make a cup of coffee, add a shot and a half of Tullamore D.E.W. Irish whiskey, whip some cold cream with a cheap little milk foamer, and then pour the cream over the back of the spoon so that it settles on top of the coffee. These days, since it's autumn, sometimes I'll sprinkle a bit of brown sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg on top of the cream. It's a nice little treat for a lazy morning.


Whiskey

Ah, the water of life. I prefer Irish whiskey and Tennessee whiskey. I usually have a bottle of Red Breast 12 for sipping, Tullamore for mixing (or for my second glass), and then Four Roses as a "multipurpose whiskey." I like to drink my whiskey neat with a small splash of water. I used to make old fashioneds, but I don't feel that they're much of an improvement over just drinking the whiskey neat (and I'm lazy).

When it gets cold, I like to make a nice hot toddy with some cheaper whiskey. I boil some water, pour it in a mug, stir in a bit of lemon juice and honey and add a shot or two of whiskey. I like to use a covered Miir mug because it prevents the drink from cooling down too quickly as I sip it. This is one of my favorite winter drinks.

At home, I usually make a mug in a Turkish coffee pot. I buy pre-ground coffee and almost certainly don't follow the "correct" technique, but it's good enough. Now and then I top it up with some condensed milk.

At work or when I'm particularly lazy at home I make instant coffee.

At coffee shops I usually get a latte or a flat white. Plain Americanos are always way too watery.

Coffee

Cheap medium roast, small cold brew filter pitcher in the fridge to last me a week or two, to be poured with some milk and usually chocolate syrup over ice. I only drink a little coffee and I only drink it when I'm tired enough to need a quick wakeup, so trying to brew it each time is both inefficient and a catch-22.

Whiskey

Either:

  1. Peaty Scotch. I still fondly miss the top-rated Laphroaig Cairdeas year I was gifted once. I know that objectively a peaty whisky tastes like someone poured gasoline in a swamp and urinated in the gasoline and set the gasoline on fire, yet somehow that tastes really good to me, and I haven't yet stopped being fascinated at trying to figure out why. I don't like fancy brandies/tequilas/vodkas/rums nearly as much, I don't like most beer at all, yet I really love burnt swamp piss. Trouble is that I can actually taste price differences here but so can my wallet. Fortunately just a little of this stuff goes a long ways, and I can settle for a good Irish whiskey like Black Bush without feeling quite as much like I'm literally pissing away money.

  2. Bourbon or Rye, mixed. Crown Royal might be my favorite, but with cola or limeade or just a little vermouth the distinctions between different liquor quality levels get drowned, so I don't get too picky.

Coffee: I'm not picky about, I'm happy with just about any beans, but will pick a nice ethiopian light roast or Hatian dark roast if those are options. If the baby is sleeping I even have some grounds to make a quiet cup.

Whiskey: my preference has been McAfee's Benchmark Old #8 brand bourbon. It's a bottom shelf brand that's smooth and got some nice flavors. I don't care how it's served neat, on ice, mixed etc. If I feel like a treat, or it's my birthday, I'll splurge on an islay scotch, but those are too pricey for meet to feel good about keeping all the time.

COFFEE: I can drink any sort of swill, really. Like, if it's good coffee, great! But even the worst sort of charred bottom-of-coffee-maker-jug crap gives you the most imporant effects: coffeine and a working bowel in the morning. I always drink my coffee black, no milk, no sugar.

WHISKEY: Not really my favorite, as far as the hard stuff goes. If there was a need to get drunk fast at some point in my life, I'd probably just shotgun vodka like in the old days. Liquor, maybe.

Assuming this isn't some sort of odd American Psycho parody.

I don't care much for coffee but I like drinking quality espresso in warm milk. 1:4 diluted or so.

Also, when I need to be wakeful I chew roasted coffee beans. Vastly cheaper than energy drinks, actually tastes pretty good to me.

Whiskey - don't like it. Rum's much better. If quality, I'll drink it neat.

If not, I usually enjoy it in cocoa, 50 ml of rum in a frozen beer stein of cold dark cocoa.

If not, I usually enjoy it in cocoa, 50 ml of rum in a frozen beer stein of cold dark cocoa.

Never heard this one, but sounds pretty good.

It's a long drink named after a dead commie, which kind of feels appropriate.

Funny how genetic tastes are. Not only I came up with the drink independently, I also found that amaretto also goes very well with it.

Recently I've been putting in some egg nog and that also works.

The only hard part of making it is mixing up cold milk with cocoa if you're using artificial sweeteners like I do. (have to get teeth fixed, too lazy to call the dentist as I eat basically nothing sweet).

My wife is slowly shaping me into a coffee drinker. Before her it was all water for me in the morning. I still choose to avoid coffee for the most part, but when I do I'll get a nice caramel iced coffee from the local coffee shop on my way to work. I can't drink hot drinks for the life of me.

Part of the problem for me has been sensitivity to bitter flavors. I found out a few years ago I'm a super taster, which explained a lot about my pallette. I really can't stand the bitter of the whiskey (or coffee for that matter) so I'll either sweeten it with something or I won't drink it at all. I've found a bit of simple syrup can go a long way in making it easier to drink, and on the rocks feels better in my mouth.

Frankly, I prefer a good beer usually. That or rum. If I'm drinking whiskey or scotch it's usually because I'm tasting with a friend, that's about it.

4R Single Barrel is the best readily available bourbon imo, I try and never run out of that stuff. The Wild Turkey offerings are also good value as a daily sipper and rarely run afoul of the collector/flipper mania.

I can also give high, high marks to Redbreast's cask strength offering and the Lustau edition, Lustau in particular is excellent for getting people who don't like whiskey into whiskey as there's no need to fight the drink as is common for most hard liquors.

Decent to good scotch kind of starts at the $100 mark, but scotch is my preferred tipple. It's just so much more interesting than bourbon; I can pick apart a small amount of scotch for hours. Bourbon I end up drinking too fast because I look for more in the glass than is generally there.

Scotch I enjoy neat with a small splash of water depending on the proof. Bourbon, I occasionally like a small rock or two, as the hazmat proofs are generally cheaper than scotch even if they're harder to come by.

Back in my college dorm days, I used to make do with pouring instant coffee powder into a bottle of cold water and swigging it like that.

Being less depressed and living with a girl who would leave me if I indulged in such habits, I just make reasonably decent instant coffee, hot water and all. Really bourgeois, but the things we do for love..

As for whiskey, my opinion is the cheaper the better, because fuck me if whatever ineffable taste and aroma the expensive ones have are worth the steep increase in price. Although I'm partial to a little JD these days, that's about the sweet spot as far as I'm concerned. On the rocks if the mood takes me, with a bit of soda or water otherwise. I drink to get sloshed anyway, it stops mattering pretty quick!

Back in my college dorm days, I used to make do with pouring instant coffee powder into a bottle of cold water and swigging it like that.

Good lord, I thought I had seen the depths of college depravity... I stand corrected. I hope you're ok now bud.

Oh and for cheap whiskey I highly recommend Rebel / Rebel Yell. (They rebranded for wokeness.) Although not sure if you can find it in the UK.

The abyss and I prefer comfortable silence rather than speaking terms these days haha

Thanks for the rec, I haven't seen any of it around in the UK supermarkets, but I'll keep an eye out! And even Jack Daniels seems cheap af compared to Indian prices, so I'm not complaining either way haha.

I have a Mormon-like attitude to stimulants, so I don't enjoy either.

Which drugs do you like?

YT and Reddit are probably the biggest vices I've not been able to evade.

Folgers. Black.

Whiskey on the rocks. I'm slowly opening up to the more expensive side of things, and would be open to suggestions in the $50-100 range.

@TheDag, count me as a vote for spending the extra couple bucks on Jameson over Tullamore.

I do love Jameson but I drink too much to justify the extra $20-$25 per handle. Then again I am slowing down so maybe it's worth it.

I'll try Tullamore / Jameson and report back.

Around me, it's more like $25 vs $30 for a fifth. A bigger gap could swing that.

Yeah I thought Tullamore was similar price to Jameson but someone downthread said it wasn't. I'll have to check.

Locales may vary, but I just checked Total Wine near me and Tullamore Dew is $22/750ml while Jameson is $24/750ml.

Sadly my state only sells liquor in ABC stores which makes it far more expensive. Alas.

I'm slowly opening up to the more expensive side of things, and would be open to suggestions in the $50-100 range.

Redbreast 12 is on the lower end of that and is a pretty noticeable upgrade over Jameson.

Redbreast 12

Well, that was delightful. Thanks for the suggestion, and the permanent doubling of my whiskey budget. Anything else you'd care to recommend or suggest avoiding?

I managed to totally miss this and obviously the thread is dead now, but on the Irish whiskey front, I personally don't think much of high-end Bushmills options for their price (have Bushmills 16 currently, not worth the price tag, even though it's decent). On the flip side, I love the whole Spot lines of whiskeys, although they're kind of pricey.

Really though, the whole Redbreast line is fantastic and probably the best value in Irish whiskey - not cheap, but reasonable price point and great quality.

Coffee: Iced Tea with with a lot of sugar

Whiskey: Cheap, preferably not at all, I can't control my boozing habit, so its best I avoid it altogether.

coffee

cheap light roast out of a percolator drunk black. I barely even taste it. I also like to buy ice black coffee from anywhere but starbucks.

Whisky

transmogrified into rum and mixed something like 1:1 with Dr. Pepper.

I do not have a refined palate and actively resist gaining one.

Whiskey coke can be pretty good too.

Every morning after my workout I make a Moka pot of cafe Bustelo on the stove. I use a breville milk frother to heat and froth two cups of milk, normally with some kind of sorority girl flavoring mixed directly into the milk like a brown sugar maple or a toffee nut, I love a good bitch coffee. That's my morning ritual time to relax and decompress, then I put it all together and wake up my wife for morning coffee.

Whiskey I drink single malt on the rocks, normally with a good book, Plutarch's Lives these days. For a long time I was a bourbon drinker, from starting drinking to a year or so back. I feel like bourbon is easier drinking for beginners, and you can get drinkable bottles at college student prices. While bourbon prices have skyrocketed in recent years especially for higher end bottles, cheap bourbon is the best deal out there because the strict regulations on labeling bourbon makes even a lower end product consistent.

a Moka pot of cafe Bustelo on the stove

Awesome! I only use mine when I want to take the time to whisk up some Cuban coffee.

I got an Aeropress and enjoyed it for a few weeks... but since then I've been too lazy to use it since my husband brews a pot every morning. The quality difference doesn't matter enough to me to make up for the minor hassle.

I'm not too picky with coffee. I'll sometimes add almond milk/honey.

I enjoy Rebel Yell for whiskey, although I do like Irish. Know any good relatively cheap Irish whiskey?

Tullamore is not bad, about $20 a bottle where I live. Writer's Tears is also pretty good and not much more expensive. I don't like Jameson, I think it's overpriced and just rides on name recognition like Jack Daniels.

I wouldn't really go cheaper than that since below that grade of whiskey the quality really drops off and you start to get really flat, boring, and/or astringent stuff. We probably have some whiskey snobs floating around here who could give some more interesting recommendations.

Hmm didn't realize Tullamore was so cheap I'll check it out.

Tullamore Dew was my favorite in grad school. The store by my apartment stocked it on my recommendation, actually. The owner hadn't heard of it, but since I was asking for it by name he asked if it was a great whiskey; my response was "no, but it's a good whiskey at a great price". Since those days my wallet has gotten fatter and so have I, so optimizing price-per-volume isn't as important, but I'll probably get some again one of these days for sentimental reasons.

OK, now we're talking. I'm also a Chemex guy, grinding with a Baratza Virtuoso plus and tinkering with grind settings depending on what's brewing. I switched over to an electric gooseneck kettle last year (Brewista, with the wood accents) because the heating time is better and I appreciate being able to set it to exact temperatures. I'm typically doing a bloom with 100g of water, second pour to 450g, finishing with 750g with pulse pouring. The amount of beans will vary a bit based on what I'm brewing, but I start with 17:1 ratio, so 44g of beans. Always drink it black, usually out of my favorite mug that I won in a race.

I'm extremely partial to fruity, floral African coffees, particularly Ethiopians. I also enjoy some of the funkier fermentations and experimental stuff though, which tends to come more from South and Central America at the moment. This Wilton Benitez bag is a recent example and it's delightful. My wife prefers more chocolate and spice, so we'll grab a decent number of Guatemalan stuff for her as well. I probably drink more coffee from Rogue Wave than anyone else; they're in Vancouver, often post a 10% discount code on Reddit, we benefit from the exchange rate here in the States, and they're an excellent roaster. I also order from JBC frequently (see the link above) because they're local and very good. Vibrant in Philly is always great too, they tend to have excellent Ethiopian beans.

Whiskey! I am a bourbon guy, through and through, but I actually enjoy pretty much everything. Almost everything is neat, just the occasional couple drops of water for the hazmat-tier proofs. I don't really have one go-to bourbon because I'm a sucker for variety. My favorite thing that I have on the shelf at the moment is EH Taylor Barrel Proof, but among things that aren't obnoxiously hard to find, the New Riff Single Barrel is really nice. I tend to prefer heavy oak and sweet things, less on the spice, but I'm always happy to make an exception for a good rye. My wife absolutely loves whiskey sours, and she's not wrong, but I'd rather just drink them neat. Eagle Rare is the go-to there - kind of blasphemous given what some people pay for those, but it's a $38 bottle here, so whatever.

I hadn't tried Irish whiskeys much until we had a trip to Ireland, and it turns out Irish whiskey is good too! I came home with a bottle of Yellow Spot and Bushmills 16, which were surprisingly good deals at the Dublin Airport Duty Free. I'm still more partial to Redbreast though and keep coming back to Redbreast 12 because of the killer balance of price and quality. I do like Redbreast 15 more, but not $40 more.

Related, I love a good rum on a hot summer day. Foursquare rums are absolutely fantastic.

I just drink whatever medium roast is cheap at Costco, with plenty of whole milk and maybe a bit of honey to make sure I can't taste the coffee.

Don't drink alcohol, but when I did it was usually that Costco vodka with either honey and lemon or milk and their cheap (just under the abv% for liquor tax) Bailey's knockoff.

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