#LOOK AT MY BEAUTIFUL WIFE!!! SHE WAS INTRODUCED TO THE WORLD 25 YEARS AGO TODAY!!!

[woozapooza]

THE SOPRANOS, SEASON 1, EPISODE 1

(Aired January 10, 1999)

[highqueenofelfhame]

25 Days of Christmas: Day 25

The Scene: Rowan Whitethorn's Christmas Present to his girlfriend, Aelin Galathynius on Christmas Eve, 6.5 months before the birth of their daughter, Willow. 

Rowan didn’t particularly like keeping secrets from his girlfriend -- but when they were secrets about how much he loved her he would sway the tiniest amount. Swaying a little on this day had lead to swaying a lot because today, Rowan Whitethorn had so many secrets that he was going to lose count of everything. 

Right now, he knew that Aelin was at a salon being pampered in every way possible. Lysandra was doing her hair and makeup, they had hired someone else to give her manicures and pedicures. She had even had a massage this morning about an hour after she woke up and, according to her text to Rowan, she would have given the masseuse a happy ending if she wasn’t so in love with her boyfriend. He had laughed, rolled his eyes, told her he loved her, and then pocketed his phone and kept working. 

All throughout today, Aelin would be following a series of clues throughout Orynth. All throughout the city where they’d fallen so deeply in love. Everything he had been working on for months now was finally coming to fruition and, as Lysandra texted him that it was “Go time.” he knew it was all about to pay off. 

All over Orynth, their friends, even Lorcan, were stationed at different places that meant different things to Rowan and Aelin over the years. Their favorite date spot, the place they first kissed, the front door of his apartment where he had first asked her to be his girlfriend after he hadn’t been able to stop kissing her for half an hour despite wanting to drag her inside so horribly badly. All of the clues were cryptic enough that only Aelin would know the answers, and he was absolutely positive that she would. Over the last few months, every so often Rowan would bring up the little moments with her while they lay in bed, even letting them banter back and forth about big relationship moments. All of which he mentally ticked off to add to his list, to add to the clues that drag her all over Orynth while Lysandra and Aedion helped Rowan finish getting the ballroom in Orynth Castle set up just how it had been the night they had met a few years ago at the FBI Christmas Party. The first night when Aelin had introduced herself as the rookie and asked him to dance and subsequently stolen his heart in the coming months. 

Asking her to marry him was a no brainer. They talked about marriage constantly, talked about having kids, had even almost said fuck it and started trying for one a few weeks back. Instead, they decided they wanted to be married and established first, to build their family on a solid foundation that began with Rowan and Aelin. They didn’t have doubts of the other, not at all. They just wanted to be positively sure that when a baby came, they were in a spot that they were financially stable, where they had a house, where they weren’t in their apartments anymore. 

Well, they were in one apartment now, and later tonight Rowan would be taking her to their house. This was a Christmas that Rowan was quite certain he would never be able to top, not in a million years. This Christmas, Rowan was setting up every possible way for them to be perfectly sound so that after they got married, they would be able to start their family. He was ensuring their lives together, ensuring the she would be safe and secure and never have to worry about anything ever. Because he was going to protect her, to take care of her. He was going to be the biggest fan of her career, he was going to watch her grow through the bureau, watch her succeed and conquer everything she set her mind to. And then he was going to have a family with her, raise children with her, he was going to grow old with her and likely pass holding her hand. There was not a single thing in the world that Rowan wouldn’t do for this woman. Not a single godsdamn thing. 

So when it was finally time, when it was nearly nine in the evening, and Lys and Aedion were hiding in a room with the rest of their friends and family to surprise her when she accepted his proposal, finally time for him to ask -- and he couldn’t find the fucking ring. 

Any minute, she would be here, and the ring box wasn’t in his pocket. Fenrys didn’t have it, Aedion didn’t have it. He swore a thousand times as he realized he must have left it at home, but he didn’t have much time at all to consider who to kill because Aelin was walking through the door. 

And she looked the most beautiful, the most radiant that he had ever seen her in his life. 

The crimson dress that she wore had golden embellishments every which way over silk fabric. Layers of gossamer floated around her as she walked and the golden sparkle glistened in the low lighting of the ballroom. The red gloves she wore up to her elbows only made her look even more picturesque like an old movie star. No names rang a bell, however, because he couldn’t see anything but Aelin, couldn’t think about anything but Aelin. 

Rowan stood, waiting for her in the corner by the table as he had been the very first night he met her, wearing a tuxedo with a black tie at his neck and one hand in his pocket. When she finally reached him, he could see the makeup she’d opted for today: simple winged liner and a dark red lip with contoured and flushed cheeks. Beautiful. She looked absolutely beautiful. 

Already finding it difficult to speak, he held his hand out to dance with her. 

“Oh, why not,” she teased, quoting back to what she had said to him the night they met. He led her to the center of the ballroom and led her into a slow dance, urging the roaring in his ears to ease, begging the emotions in  his throat to calm so that he could get the words out before the tears fell. It wasn’t likely. He knew that.

“You look…”

“So good you’d leave your girlfriend for me?”

“You’re the only woman I’d leave her for,” he joked, pressing his lips to her temple. Rowan was jumping out of his skin, hardly able to contain his composure as he pulled back to look at her, completely in awe that in just a few minutes this woman would be his fiancee, and if he had any luck, in a few months his wife. Wife. 

“I love you,” he said, unable to stop the tear that slipped from his face. Silently he swore at the gods for not helping him keep it together just a little while longer, but he didn’t falter in his steps. He continued to lead the love of his life in an easy dance around the ballroom. 

“I love you,” she said back, wiping his tear with the satin of her glove. 

“I know you do, Fireheart. Gods above I -- you are the best thing that has ever happened to me. You being my partner I think was the gods throwing me a damn bone because they knew I needed you after losing my parents. Maybe because you needed me, too,” Aelin mouthed that she did, and Rowan grinned, pressing the softest of kisses to her painted lips. “Every day I think that I can’t possibly love you more. But I wake up the next day and I do. I fall more in love with you every day, every single day. Through the arguments and fights, through all the gray hair you give me for running into danger without me right behind you. I fall more in love. I fall more in love with you through the laughter, through the soft moments you don’t let anyone but me see, and I’ve come to realize that there is no limit to what I can give you. All that I am, all that I have, is yours. Even when this world is nothing but dust, forgotten between the stars, I will still love you, I will still be giving you everything that I am.” Somewhere between words, they had both started to cry, both lost all sense of composure while he spoke. Aelin seemed unable to do anything but mouth his name on her lips as he dropped to one knee and took both of her hands in his. 

“Aelin Ashryver Galathynius. Will you do me the extraordinary honor of becoming my wife?” The words weren’t even all the way out of his mouth before she was agreeing, nodding her head and saying yes over and over while she bent down to press soft yet hard kisses to his lips. Kisses that made promises of cold hands and feet wormed between his body and the sheets. Kisses that made him promises of burnt breakfasts and bad chocolate cakes, promises of bickering that ended in kissing, of fights that led to the growth of their understanding of each other. “I forgot you ring at home, I’m --” He was cut off by Aelin tugging the satin sleeve off her left hand, cut off by his own laughter that roared out of him as he took in the emerald engagement ring that was perched on her finger. 

“I found it this morning and I knew,” she was laughing, too. “It was always yes to me, Rowan. It was always you from the very first day.” Dropping her glove on the ground, Rowan stood and swept her off her feet, spinning her in a circle as they kissed. Their family and friends ran out in celebration, Aedion and Fenrys chaotically shooting champagne bottles off over everyone. Soon, their skin was sticky with champagne and they wanted nothing more than to just go home and soak in a long hot bath together and celebrate alone, but they stayed and partied with their friends for a few more hours before disappearing into the snowy night once again. 

Instead of getting into a car, however, Rowan walked her down the steps of the castle and helped her up into a horse-drawn carriage. A white fur coat had already been settled over her shoulders, and once they were settled he covered them both in thick blankets to keep them warm through the snow. Aelin rested her head on his shoulder while they rode out of it, their friends and family screaming behind them as though they had just been actually married. They spent half the ride sharing kisses and whispers of their love for each other, before the carriage finally came to a stop in front of a large brick house with each of their cars parked out front. 

Rowan stepped out first, then helped Aelin down to make sure she didn’t slip in the winter slosh. He carried her to the sidewalk the let her down, laced their fingers and lead her up the walk to the front door. 

“You didn’t.” Her voice was barely an awed whisper as he lead her inside. She wasted no time in stepping out of the shoes that she had told him twice were killing her, and lifting the hem of her dress so she could wander around. Their furniture had been moved in, today by their friends, and decorated with new things she’d not yet seen. From the look on her face, he could tell he nailed it, could tell that she loved it. After a moment, she turned to him, biting her lip. 

“What’s wrong, love? Is it --”

“It’s perfect, this is… Gods Rowan this is the best christmas present I could have ever… nothing is ever going to top this. Like, ever, but I -- I need to tell you something before I let you take me into our bedroom because I won’t want to come out all weekend and I’ll never say it.”

“Is this… the part where you rescind your acceptance of the proposal and leave me for another man?” Rowan joked, stepping toward her to capture her fingers and press them to his lips. Aelin laughed loudly, letting him tug her body closer, letting him kiss her until she pulled back to look at him. 

“Do you remember,” she started quietly, a fingertip tracing around his lips, then down his neck as she started to work off his bowtie. “The conversation we had about waiting for a baby?” 

“I do.” Rowan wasn’t quite sure where this was going as he unzipped the back of her dress and she let it slide off her body to pool at her feet in a crimson wave. Aelin’s fingers were deft in working the buttons of his shirt, the button on his pants. She ran her hands up his chest to rest on the sides of his neck. “Are you wanting to start trying?” 

“Well,” she said, lips twisting into a smile that Rowan thought he would never forget so long as he lived. “What if we… skipped the trying part and I maybe found out yesterday that we’re already pregnant?” 

“Are you kidding?” The feeling of euphoria that launched through his entire body was almost too much for him to handle. It was almost the same as when she had accepted his proposal, as when she had agreed to be his wife. 

“I’m so serious,” she whispered, pressing kisses to his mouth. “We’ve always sucked at being careful. I’m ten weeks.” 

And then they were both crying, crying as he lifted her out of the puddle of her dress and lay her reverently onto their bed. Crying as he kissed every inch of her body with love and wonder. Crying as they made love into the early hours of the morning. Because this life? This life couldn’t get more perfect. There would never be a Christmas that would top this so long as he lived. He just knew it. 

"Every day I think that I can’t possibly love you more. But I wake up the next day and I do" is something an ex of mine used to say to me and she deserves credit for it so bailey here’s your credit xoxo

tags: @starseternalnighttriumphant @mariamuses @keshavomit @faefromthenorth @ifyouwouldseemysoul @murlymoo150 @faerie-queen-fireheart @impossiblescissorspeachpaper @feyre-therabeaux @runawayrowan @someonemagical @stormymeow @singme-t0sleep @tswaney17 @shyvioletcat @city-of-fae @kandasboi @mynewdreamwasyou @tangledraysofsunshine @aelin-is-my-heart @empire-of-wildfire @mynameiscelaenasardothien​ @myfeyrelady​ @schmlip-scribble​ @musicmaam​ @nalgenewhore​ @westofmoon​ @aaronwarnvrs @acourtofrowaelinandfeysand​ @im-not-rare-im-rarr​

[lanaisnotwool]

410 Investing in Real Estate From Scratch - Interview with Ola Dantis

http://moneyripples.com/2020/07/30/410-investing-in-real-estate-from-scratch-interview-with-ola-dantis/

Chris Miles, the "Cash Flow Expert and Anti-Financial Advisor," is a leading authority on how to quickly free up and create cash flow for thousands of his clients, entrepreneurs, and others internationally! He’s an author, speaker, and radio host that has been featured in US News, CNN Money, Bankrate, Entrepreneur on Fire, and spoken to thousands getting them fast financial results. Listen to our Podcast:

https://www.blogtalkradio.com/moneyripples/2020/06/20/410--investing-in-real-estate-from-scratch-with-ola-dantis

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Chris Miles (00:09): Hello, my fellow Ripplers! This is Chris Miles. Your Cash Flow Expert and Anti-Financial Advisor. Welcome you out for another wonderful show. A show that's for you and about you. Those of you that work so hard for your money and you want your money to start working harder for you now! You want that freedom. That prosperity. That cash flow. Today! So you work because you want to, not because you have to, because you want to live that life of freedom, that life of joy, and not just a life of luxury necessarily, right? But you want to have comfort for yourself, but more importantly, you want to create a ripple effect as a Rippler for the lives of those around you. Through your family, creating a legacy that lasts well beyond you, not a legacy of scarcity and lack. The legacy of abundance and prosperity, and it leaks out to your community and the country across the world.

Chris Miles (00:53): And how amazing would it be if all of us would prosper this way? So I'm excited to have you guys on here today, because again, this show has done amazing things. Thanks to you guys. You guys have been bingeing on this show. You've been sharing it. You've been applying the things we talk about, which I appreciate so much. So again, thank you so much for following us and being a part of this movement.

Chris Miles (01:12): Here's a reminder, check out our website, MoneyRipples.com. You know, you're going to get the ebook Beyond Rice & Beans. You can download there to find more resource, more cash. And also too, you know, if you've got questions for me, shoot me an email through there. So anyways, check it out guys.

Chris Miles (01:25): All right today. So I've got a special guest here, Ola Dantis. Now I actually first met Ola because I was on his show. He's actually got the Dwellynn Show that he's got going on as well. That's really cool. And we'll talk about that a little bit too. But the thing is like, this guy is so impressive, right? Because you know, some of us have been born and raised in the United States for our whole lives, you know. And I meet a lot of people that feel like they don't have opportunity or they hope and pray that something will come along that'll work. And I'll tell you like, Ola, gets rid of all of those excuses. Right? And so that's why I'm excited to bring him on. Now a little bit about Ola here. Like, as I mentioned, like he has the show, of course, but he's also the founder CEO of Dwellynn.com. He's a multifamily investment syndication firm. Should I say that 10 times fast? Right? He's successfully sourced deals of over $40 million by working with closely with sellers and with other apartment syndicators cross country.

Chris Miles (02:18): Now, although he's only lived in the U S for about six or seven years, he has successfully completed rehab projects in excess of $1 million. Now not only has he exceeded his investors returns, right? But he also has this great success in the multifamily space. In fact, he just closed on a 160 unit apartment deal in Houston, Texas, and another 104 unit deal in another place in Texas as well. And again, he does huge value adds across the country, mostly in strong Metro areas across the U S. Now he loves working with new investors, both here and abroad, even those that are international. Which is kind of where Ola's background comes from as well. Now, one cool thing too, is that his firm also aims to give back. So they have, what's a one house pledge where by every Christmas they donate a house to a family for Christmas. So starting in Baltimore, for example. So in fact, he just did a recent trip to the Philippines and Bali. And he's visited the slums and now working on a local initiative to help people in need. So huge guy like big heart, welcome to our show, Ola, how are you doing?

Ola Dantis (03:17): Doing fantastic, Chris. I really wish I had just put that on full blast. Called my wife i here so she can hear the introduction. Thank you so much!

Chris Miles (03:24): I totally get it. People introduce me way better than my wife will. You know, it's awesome. That's how you keep it real. So tell us, like, you know, where'd you come from and why did you come to the U.S.?

Ola Dantis (03:34): Yeah. I, you know, obviously you got to have a fantastic podcast. Thanks for having me. Really appreciate you for bringing me on. I'm going to be, I'm going to try to be as stutter free as I can be. So I was born in a place called Nigeria. Many people probably know that country for several interesting reasons, but we're not going to go into that. But I actually grew up in London. That's probably where my interest in also, I call it hybrid accent comes from. And it's still coming from that I live in the US so obviously grew up in the UK where, you know, got my degree and my master's degree there shortly after that went back home to Nigeria. I've set up firm doing pretty okay. But my wife, who is Filipino. She's born in the Philippines, but also American, but she was born in a military base in America because dad stuff in the military.

Ola Dantis (04:22): So she's like, she was working in the US even though we both went to school in the UK, it's like, Hey, you should come check Disney out. Cause she was interning at Disney. This was years ago now. And so I, you know, I jumped on the plane, you know, I was about to touch down in Florida. I was just looking at I'm a, windows seat guy. So I was looking out and looking at Florida and it's just beautiful. The aerial view. I mean, you can see all these, you know, the suburbia America, you know, the code is acts on, you know, it was just, I was like, this place is gorgeous! You know, why didn't anybody tell me about this place? You know, obviously go to Florida, you know, go to Disneyland. It was happy place. Amazing! Fantastic! Anyway, fast forward, my wife and I moved to the US I think two, three years later, after that very first trip, you know, to try the American gym.

Ola Dantis (05:09): And here we are the American gym. We're loving it. We had a nice fancy apartment. We didn't move to Florida. You'd assume we did. We actually chose Baltimore, Maryland. Well it was actually Columbia, Maryland. We started in, you know, in Maryland, we had great jobs. We had a fancy apartment. You know at the time, I didn't know anything about real estate. And then a friend of mine called me and said, Hey Ola, do you want to, you know, fly and meet me in Dubai? I need you to help me with my business. So come to Dubai! I was like, Oh, okay. So I did well, you know, smart man does a wise man. I prayed a body, obviously and then ask my wife, like, Hey, you know, my friend whose got this real estate business wants me to come and help him with his business. But he wants me to meet him in Dubai. She's like, well, have you guys heard of, I mean, this was years ago, this is all pre COVID. Just what to put that out it was years ago.

Ola Dantis (05:59): So it's just like, have you guys ever heard of Zoom? You know, Skype or whatever? I was like, well, maybe if I go on this trip, maybe I'll learn something, you know, really good or cool. I mean, I can use it. We can use it. The reason I'm, you know, having these anecdote accounts is people really get a context, right? It's not like this guy just fell out of the sky. What does he think he is? He think that America is the greatest place on the planet. I really do think that. And I'll come back to that later. Anyway, the reason I'm telling this story is, success never comes to you as a golden box with a ribbon on it. It could come as a phone call. So be opened, right? Be receptive to things that might maybe might seem outlandish or out of the box, but that could be the beginning of your success.

Ola Dantis (06:44): So that's why I'm bringing up this story. Anyway, I was on my way to Dubai. Met with my friend, you know, just standard hotel. I were way like in the desert court biking, none of that, it was just three days, you know, with my friend and his business, which was real estate. Back home in the UK. So I was like, Oh my goodness! If he's doing this in the UK, certainly I can do this in the US! By the way, you know, I didn't mention this. I was living the American dream. Go to work. Come home. Go to work. Traffic. Come home. Go to work. It was just like, Oh my God, is this it? I'm just going to do this and die? So I was kind of having that...

Chris Miles (07:19): The dream we all have, right? We all hope we get stuck in traffic and work all day!

Ola Dantis (07:24): You know, I was like, this, there's gotta be something else. I mean, this is great. You know, we had great jobs, but it was just. So anyway, so I was like, I think this is what I've been looking for. Right? Great entrepreneurial excitement, go back to the US really just went hard on, I didn't know anything about real estate. So I just asked my best friend, you know, Google. And I started learning, you know, a website kept coming up Bigger Pockets. So watched that website, that podcast. This book kept coming up, Rich Dad Poor Dad. So I'm talking about pattern recognition yet, right? So every guest was saying, you know, read this book. So I read the book and literally what happened to me was an uppercut in my brain like, Oh my goodness! Whoever this guy is, stole my idea. Whatever this guy is saying is what I've been trying to say to myself.

Ola Dantis (08:14): You know, it's just that Eureka moment. Right? And anyway, fast forward. Put our first building, our first piece of real estate, and by the way, we were just in the US probably by then maybe two or three years also. But our first building, it was a duplex in Baltimore, Maryland, in the class A area of Baltimore. Because when folks hear Baltimore, you know, anyway, whatever, and you know, we did that, right. This was three, four months probably after my trip back. And my wife and I were having our home one night, you know, kind of doing what lovers do. Cooking! We're having a conversation. And I was like, Hey, like my account just keeps growing, growing and growing and growing. And she's like, me too actually! So we think about like, Hey, what did we do different? We bought real estate. And we had tenants in the top floor paying for most of our mortgage. So now we have the new problem, which is just money accumulating.

Chris Miles (09:14): Now what?

Ola Dantis (09:14): Now what. Right. And I say this because there might be folks out there thinking, well, I don't know what to do. I go to work. All my money is gone. I don't know where it goes. I kind of come for it, but you could house hack. Right. Which is what we did. You could buy a piece of property. It doesn't matter where you are in the United States. You know, it could be two doors or three or four. So a duplex or triplex or fourplex. You live in one and you rent the others. Right. So if you're thinking I don't have money, I don't know where to start. You could start there. Now.

Chris Miles (09:48): True.

Ola Dantis (09:48): Just to throw that in there. If you have kids and you have your wives, I mean, you know, it might be a little bit tricky because my wife and I did this when it was just me and her. We could live in a one bedroom. We didn't care about parking. You know, even though you've never find parking in city. That's the things that we sacrificed in the beginning. Right. So that's how I got into the game. And I realized we were making all this money. I was like, Whoa, maybe we can do this. If we did this 10 times more, we wouldn't have to go to any Ruby board. We wouldn't have to go to a job. Right. So that's what started. That was the impetus for Dwellynn, our company. Dwellynn.com. And I found a mentor, were kind of, you know, he was buying apartments and I was like, Oh, that's really what I want to do. I mean, I'd have to buy 10 of these things. I could just buy a building and maybe I'll retire. Right. That's how it works. Anyway, I got a mentor and then we started Dwellynn. And, you know, as they say, the rest is still history in the making, I guess.

Chris Miles (10:48): Yeah. The rest is history, right? That's awesome! Kind of take us back again. Like what, cause I know with a lot of listeners on this show, like sometimes they have a fear. I mean, one, they have a fear right now what's going on in the world. Right. So they're kind of, someone we're kind of scared of getting real estate anyways. But even before this, there were still people like, yeah, but isn't it risky? What if I do it wrong? What would you say to them?

Ola Dantis (11:12): So a couple of things, right? It, you know, is it risky? I don't think so. But living in the house every single day is risky. Stepping out of your door is risky. Living life is risky. Right? So that's, let's have that. The back of our mind, as I continue, I don't think it's risky because that's my opinion. I'm just one out of 7 billion people on this planet. But another way to mitigate risk is knowledge. Right? So try to go learn, you know, it's like if I talked to a friend of mine who maybe is a developer, right. I mean like programmer right in I.T. He's not going to learn about real estate cause he doesn't have the knowledge. Right. So if you'll speak into people who don't know about real estate, the natural thing. They're not bad people. They just said, Oh, he's in a risky. It's just a, I don't know. And he's, you know, risky. It's not a, you know, they're not technical people. So, so for you to be able to mitigate those risks is you need to understand and educate yourself about the subject matter. It doesn't matter if it's real estate or if you want to start buying stocks or whatever. So I think that's what I did. I may have skipped that in my story. But when I got back, I divulge and just binged podcasts, I read a lot of books and I had a big library of books and I continue to be, and that's why I said, Google is my best friend. Right. So, cause that's what I do. So Hey, when you do that, that would help you to mitigate that risk.

Chris Miles (12:40): What was one book that you really enjoyed? Like what really helped you a lot?

Ola Dantis (12:43): So at that time, it was definitely, definitely Rich Dad Poor Dad, that got me started. It's not much of a real estate book as such. You would think it is. Yeah. Yeah. And it's more life philosophy. But another book that really helped me was this book. Right? So this is like free, just free knowledge, Investing in Duplexes, Triplexes & Quads by a guy called Larry Loftis. Well you still see, it's like, arms length to me, right. I've always got a book around that. I got another book I'm reading right here. The reason I'm doing this is people will say stuff like, is it risky? Or can I do this? There are things that you can do to get successful.

Chris Miles (13:25): Yes.

Ola Dantis (13:26): One thing is this, you have to be a reader. And I'm going to throw something COVID-19 related. You know, Bill Gates knew that we could have a pandemic that we're having today. Now people might say, how did this guy know? Cause he's a reader, right? Of course there's crazy conspiracy theories out there. But just put that aside. The way Bill Gates could predict this is cause he read. He just reads. So if you're out there, you can hear the sound of my voice and you want to be exceptional and excellent in anything you do. Be a reader! But more importantly, be a divergent reader. Don't just read one topic. Be broad as much as you can.

Chris Miles (14:12): Interesting. I love that. I love what you're saying about risks too. Cause there's lots of different types of risks, right? There's market risk. Like a lot of people worry about, but you mentioned about like education is key, right? Because you want a lower risk. The best thing you can do is try to figure out how you can get risk within your control. How can you manage the risk? How can you reduce it yourself? And education is a key piece of that, right? Like you mentioned a little bit of these different books and things like that and podcasts, you know, not saying that we're we got two podcasts you might want to listen to, to help with that. You know, between Ola's show and mine. Right. But self serving of course, but it's true. That education is critical. Like without it, you're right. You know, cause that's where, I remember people would ask me all the time like, well isn't that risky? I said for you, it probably would be. For me, not so much because I've got the education and training behind it. And that's why a lot of people will end up coming to me because they're like, okay, how do we get trained and educated to know what to do or how to do it? You know, or that sort of thing or what to know, like what questions to ask even. Right. And I'll tell you if you think real estate is risky. I mean, if you've been investing in a 401k, an IRA or any kind of mutual fund where you have zero control of any markets and it gets you mediocre returns with lots of high risk and volatility, trust me, you're already taking more risks than any risk that Ola or I are taking right now.

Chris Miles (15:34): You know, if you're putting money in every single month, you are essentially losing money every month, putting money into something that you won't be able to get back out without asking for permission and sometimes waiting weeks to get that money. You know, like that's what happens when you put money in mutual funds or especially IRAs and 401ks, right. You know, real estate. It's like, Hey, you know, if you apply the same thing, you said, well, this is how it reduce risks with my mutual funds. I just hold onto it forever. Right? Like it's okay. Because in the long haul it goes up, well guess what happens to the real estate in the long haul? It always goes up, you know, like it's no different. The only difference is that you don't have to keep putting money into it all the time.

Ola Dantis (16:09): Right. And then with mutual funds and kind of some of this intangible assets, one they not had, you can't touch and feel them. But to the beauty that a lot of people don't really get with real estate is leverage. If you want to buy a mutual fund for a thousand dollars, you have to actually exchange a thousand dollars in cash.

Chris Miles (16:33): So true.

Ola Dantis (16:35): For that value of that mutual fund or stocks or whatever. But for real estate, if you were to buy a piece of real estate for $1,000, you only have to put down 200 bucks, 20%, like it's genius, it's gold. So that the power, the leverage piece is a lot of people don't really get that. They don't really understand that.

Chris Miles (16:53): Yeah. When I was, securities licensed back in the mid 2000s, right. I remember, you know, we'd have to have people sign waivers saying, I am not borrowing money to put in the stock market. Right. Like I am not borrowing money. This is not coming from a bank. You know, why they having to sign that because banks won't put their own money in, why would they want you to put their money in? Right. So, you know, with the real estate probably different. Real estate banks were like, Oh, you want some money? Here. Here you go. I'll pay for most of it. You know, you put your little down payment, I'll pay the rest. You know, like if obviously banks thinks it's less risky, why you keep putting money in the place where banks won't put money? Right. It's a good point. So let's, let's talk about like your syndication. Cause you have a syndication that you have as well where you, you buy into multifamily stuff. First. Like, do you still see deals out there or are you being very cautious and holding back saying, Hey, I know the deals are coming, but I'm not jumping right now. What's your viewpoint on it currently?

Ola Dantis (17:46): Yeah. So, definitely. Transactional value has gone down and I don't want to get overly technical, but essentially what syndication means is, you know, pulling together a group of investors to buy an asset that you cannot buy by yourself.So, If I were to go out on the streets and buy home. Yeah. I probably could double myself. Why you want to buy a 200 unit, 150. You'd definitely need a couple of partners, at least a ton of investors. Anyway. So that's what syndication is. So in terms of, do you feel definitely a lot of us in the syndication space are kind of taking a wait and see approach of the fascinating thing is what we're doing at Dwellynn is we're not waiting, you know, for the whole country. I mean, as we know, as you know, we record this in May. Early May.

Ola Dantis (18:34): Now some parts of the country I opened for business or at least partially opened and it's been phased out, but we don't want to wait for a time when the flood gates open and it's too late to get to. So we've taken the present approach and kind of looking at the daily numbers of new cases, not only in the United States, but we checked in Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom. So just to make sure that we're going into the market at the right time, a little folks that talking about that wants to see, you know, kind of to quotas of, you know, positive GDP growth. I think that's too late because you know, then confidence goes up and you just backed away. You were pre COVID. So what exactly. So we really try to time the market. And to be honest with you, now more than ever is when multifamily, which apartment buildings, the space we're in is doing pretty well. You know, not so much from an economic perspective, but really from an asset class perspective. People have to stay in place. They have to, you know, shelter in place. You have to stay in a place. So yeah.

Chris Miles (19:37): Very, very true. So if people wanted to like follow you more right. Or learn more about the deals that you have going on and stay up to speed on that. Because obviously like things are changing at the speed of a tweet and nowadays, you know, like Trump tweets something and all of a sudden people go crazy. You know? So health organization says something or CDC, or heck anybody the fed say something, the world keeps constantly changing. So if people want to follow you Ola, and they want to be able to follow your deals or even your show, what would it be the best way for them to do so.

Ola Dantis (20:08): Yeah, sure. Thanks for that, Chris. So best way is InvestWithOla. So that's InvestWithOla.com and that would kind of take you to our website. And then also if you want to check out the Dwellynn show, feel free to do that. You know, on iTunes where pretty much everywhere. So for those folks out there, Instagram, you know, folks I'm on Instagram, I'm ubiquitous. You wouldn't be able to miss me. So just go on Instagram, @OlaDantis or just Google OlaDantis all over the place. Linkedin, if you're into LinkedIn too, I'm right there.

Chris Miles (20:40): Awesome! I love it. Well, cool. Happy to have you on today, man. Cause this is such good information. It's so good to hear a perspective of someone who won. I mean, you really kind of kill a lot of the excuses we have, right? I mean, you come to a brand new country, you know, you work nine to nine grind almost, you know, if include traffic, right. Or, you know, seven to seven, you know, and you've done all this stuff. And then you built from the bottom up. I mean, you start with individual houses all the way to buying a hundred, 200 type unit apartment buildings. I mean, that's incredible. I mean, that really is. So I really appreciate you sharing experience and we'll put your information in the show notes that people can have see, InvestWithOla.com as well as your show there. So again, thank you so much for your time, Ola.

Ola Dantis (21:21): Thank you Chris. I really appreciate.

Chris Miles (21:23): Hey everybody else, like thanks for joining us today. Again, check out Ola's stuff, you know, and remember like everything, almost everything starts with your brain first. Educate yourself, empower yourself, reduce the risk and do something that actually will create great wealth now because now is as good of opportunity as any trade amazing wealth. And so, and Ola is a perfect example of that. So everybody, I appreciate you guys coming on, have a wonderful and prosperous week. We'll see you later.

[elejah-verse]

Love in New Orleans/3

Fanfiction

Part 3

an AU TVD/TO story

Elijah Mikaelson x Elena Gilbert

Klaroline

Kennett

a/n: thank you so much for reading.

As the title said - it’s about love that three friends Elena, Caroline and Bonnie, who are native to New Orleans find, each falling for a Mikaelson.

credit to gif makers, for all those that are not mind and I have found them ages ago

❤❤❤

A week after

Caroline woke up and sat up a little. She watched her fiance dreamily. And at times being with him appeared to be a dream. She flashed back at the night she had met him on a fundraising Ball

Flashback

He was sweet, charming and funny, sweeping her off of her feet there and then.

And now, a year after, she is marrying this Royal Marine Commando.

"I love you"- Caroline whispered.

Klaus now opened his eyes 

"Am I dreaming? Are you an angel?"- he said to her.

"No. Just a girl."- Caroline said to her fiance and now neared him into a kiss. 

❤❤❤

Elsewhere

Elena took a deep breath before entering the Mayor's office. Working beside him every day made it harder for her heart, as her feelings for him didn't want to go away.

"Good morning, Mr Mayor"- Elena said as she got in.

"Good morning, Ms Gilbert.  I need to have some of my appointments rescheduled as my sister is preparing a party for another sister of mine and if I don't go it, she will disown me."

"When is it? How come it is not on your personal roster."- Elena said.

"Because I usually send them a private message, but this year they are really angry with me, because work takes all my time."- Elijah said-"and it is today. At 7:00 p.m. at Rousseau's, their favourite bar."

"All right. I will have it done. I have e-mailed all other things ready for you."

"I have seen it."- Elijah said-"thank you. Ok. Let's sit down and see how we can work this thing out about the French Quarter lights and parade. Oh,  and- they brought a new coffee maker. I tried  it and I can tell you that it makes a great cappuccino. Thanks for the suggestion."

"You're welcome."- Elena now went to the small kitchenette area and put the coffee maker on. He had obviously done this for her. She smiled, feeling her heart grow. As she made herself a cup now she returned to the office and continued with the briefing, saying-

  "At 2 pm, you will join the leadership at the New Orleans East Hospital (NOEH), State and City Officials, and community stakeholders to hold a grand opening and naming dedication ceremony for the Kenner & Marshall  and Genevieve & Joseph St. Claire Diabetes Center." 

"Can we talk all the Christmas events I have to be at."- Elijah said.

"You have The Kenner Christmas Village, light up at the Rivertown historic district.  It's on November 25 at 5:30pm"- Elena said-"then Lake Ponchartrain Basin Foundation Lights at the Lake on December 9, at 6 pm. Tonight is the French Quarter Lights at 6 pm."

"So, we will make it to the party. Worked perfectly. All right. After the party, I will need to ask you to stay for at least another hour, so we can go through the parking instructions and traffic restrictions for the Big Easy Running Festival."

"Of course."- Elena said-"would that be all?"

"Yes, thank you, Ms Gilbert."

"Thank you, Mr Mayor"- Elena said taking her cup with her and exited to the office out to her desk. She lost herself in the work to make her mind not think about him, and the way he was so nice to her. But her mind was not letting her at ease.

Flashback

A couple of days previously, in Caroline's house

Caroline and Bonnie now looked at her friend's serious expression slightly surprised. 

"I know, I joked about it"- Caroline said-"but this is serious?"

"It is so serious."- Elena said, continuing-"I wish he was not so nice, so considerate, so good looking! How could this happen? I have quit my job."

"You can't quit your job."- Bonnie said-"you worked hard to get where you are now."

"I know, but- you don't know what it is like. In between sorting his schedules, speeches and other stuff, I think of kissing him, and him kissing me. And it is so unprofessional. And I thought this is a figment of my imagination. But it really is not. I wish he does something bad, so I could say- there he is just like the rest of them."

For the first time her friends had no advice. The only thing they could do is commiserate. 

❤ For Elijah it was not easy either, and the same night Elena poured her heart's trouble to her friends, Elijah did the same with his brother Kol

Flashback Kol's house

As Elijah entered the house, Kol said straight out- "This must be serious, if you could not share it on the phone"

"It is serious."- Elijah said-"Do you have Bourbon?"

"Of course, I do."- Kol said and went to the cabinet to get the bottle.

Sven now, having heard Elijah came down from his room to greet his uncle.

"Hello little man"- Elijah said as he now picked the boy in his arms-"you're so grown."

"He is."- Kol said and as Sven shared some news about himself, especially the book signing, Kol whisked him off to bed.

"Is there something particular he wants for Christmas?"- Elijah now asked.

"The whole Fairy Kat world."- Kol said.

"Excuse me?"

"You haven't got a clue about the world of a 4 year old. And why should you. You have your political career, but do you seriously think of - maybe having a family one day? "

"Not really. Since Laney died, nothing seemed right."- Elijah said.

"I know."- Kol said thinking of his late wife Davina-"It's like we can't get a break in the love department. And you really had your share of wrong women since Laney- Sabine, Gia, Hayley."

"Can we not go there."- Elijah said taking a sip of the Bourbon and then added-"But now- I think I may have found the right one."

"Oh! Really? So, what is the problem?"

"She is my new PA. Elena Gilbert."

"Whoa!"- Kol exclaimed-"Seriously?"

"Seriously!"- Elijah said-"she is smart, beautiful, kind- and- "

"And she is your PA."- Kol said-"which makes it unethical, but not forbidden."

"Unethical, unprofessional. But I just- I tried to stop feeling the way I feel when I am with her. And nothing is working. How could this happen to me?"

"Mayors are human, too, brother. You are no exception."- Kol said.

"Can you keep it to yourself"- Elijah now said-"I can't risk anyone finding out, especially Rebekah."

"Hey, mum's the word"- Kol said-"I am glad you finally fell in love again."

"What??"

"You are in deep. When you went out with the other ones you just casually mentioned you were dating again. For this, you came all the way to my house."

"It's like someone spelled me"- Elijah said.

And a couple of hours later in the car, on the way to the Hospital- Elijah was looking  out of  the  window thinking of the speech he was about to read to distract him from being so close to Elena. And Elena was glad she was  on the phone to some official. And so, both distracted, they at one moment Elijah put his hand down on to the seat and he could swear

there was an electric surge burst through, as a second later Elena moved her hand as if she was stung. The car stopped at the red lights and she now looked at Elijah, who now  asked about the meeting that had to be moved.

"They said that it all can be discussed on Friday night Christmas Charity Ball."

"Thank you."- Elijah said and then asked-"I think of asking my sister to be my +1. It is somewhat a short notice, but I think it would not be a problem to send her name for the list."

"It's not a  problem. They said that you can send them an hour before the party."- Elena said-"which sister will you be asking?"

"Freya."- Elijah replied. 

"But, wait till I see if she agrees first."

Elena nodded and as they arrived they went to the order of the day.

❤️️

The Mikaelson siblings, actually Kol and Freya were at the French Quarter Light up and as soon as the whole ceremony finished, they went to Elijah. 

"We have to hurry now."- Freya said to Elijah-"Rebekah is about to get here any minute."

"All right."- Elijah said looking at Elena, who nodded that it was fine that he left somewhat earlier and that she would take care of everything else. 

"So, you will not introduce us to your PA?"- Kol now said to Elijah, who was about to do it.

"Of course, I am."- Elijah said and now introduced Elena officially to Frey and Kol.

"Are you coming to the party?"- Kol said to Elena.

"No, I still have a few things to do here."

"You should come."- Kol said-"it's nothing official. It's just a few drinks and a cake. I don't think it is unprofessional if you have one drink with the family?"

"No, it's not."- Elena smiled.

"Ok. So we will see you at Rousseau's"

"Yes."- Elena agreed. 

As they left, Elena called Bonnie and asked if she could meet her at Rousseau's.

"Ah, I was about to call you. I can't make it. Caroline has dragged me to cake sampling thing. I couldn't say no, you know what she is like."

"That's ok. I still have work after."- Elena said-"Oh, I have met Kol and Freya. Kol is so great, you were right."

"You think?"

"Yeah."- Elena said and now as she got to the bar she cut the conversation short. 

She walked to them and Kol got her a drink as Elijah was busy talking to Rebekah and her boyfriend. 

"Just club-soda for me."- Elena said-"we still got to work later."

"Ah, you two are all about work. Perfect couple."- Kol said-"Loosen up a bit. One cocktail will not kill you."

"I know, but still I- am kind of working."

"Come on. I guarantee you that we will persuade Elijah not bug you with work anymore today. It's been forever since we were all together like this. Well, the three of us meet off an on for a drink, but Elijah, he was first busy with the campaign, and then taking this job way too seriously."

"Well, it is quite an important job and he has got loads to work to do to complete with his promises."- Elena said.

"True. But he needs to live a little, too."- Kol said and now got Elena a cocktail, whisking her to the others, letting Elijah now introduce her to Rebekah and her boyfriend. 

"Ah, you are the one who is keeping Elijah ship shaped."- Rebekah said and added-"Welcome to the family."

"What?"- Elena was puzzled.

"You being his PA means that you will be part of his life in every instance."- Freya explained.

"It is a bit different from the other PAs. I am a special assistant. I don't do personal errands and such."- Elena said.

"We know, I am sorry, I didn't mean to offend you."- Freya then said.

Elijah now came to them-

"Everything fine?"- Elijah said.

"Yes."- Elena replied putting the cocktail on the bar. 

"I hope that we will get out of here in a half an hour or so?"- Elijah said.

"Oh, no"- Rebekah now cut in having heard that Elijah was already thinking of leaving-"Can you not have one evening off? The way you go on, you will work on Christmas same as Ebeneezer Scrooge."

"I can have it all done tonight, and tomorrow we can just go through it quickly before the meeting. The meeting is at 4 pm anyway."- Elena said.

"There, a voice of reason. Come on. This is my birthday and I really will be angry if you leave before the cake gets here."

"All right."- Elijah said.

Elena now took her bag and as she wanted to leave, Kol stopped her. 

"I have to do the work. Thanks anyway."- Elena said her byes to the others and Kol said-

"See you around."

"Yes, see you."- Elena said. 

Elijah now went to see her to the door and have his Chauffeur give Elena a lift home. 

As they got outside, Elijah said-

"I am sorry. It is not fair to leave you with all the work, while I-"

"You should stay with your family, at least on a birthday. I have already all the notes and I will do it in no time."- Elena said. 

"I can't thank you enough."

"It's my job. Don't worry."- Elena said smiling at him and looked around for a moment saying-

"The lights are really beautiful this year."

"They really are."- Elijah also turned to look around - and then  there -they were- lost in a momentary gaze-

[wineanddinosaur]

VinePair Podcast: Drinks Projects You Can Make at Home

With Covid-19 keeping many of us at home indefinitely, we’re finding all kinds of new projects to provide creative outlets. While some people are busy deep cleaning their bathrooms and perfecting their sourdough starters, we’ve opted to dial in our home drinking game — and maybe you’d like to join us? From whipping up batches of vermouth and bitters, to making quick infusions and syrups, to becoming a home brewing hobbyist, there are plenty of ways to put your at-home time to good use.

That’s the topic on this week’s VinePair podcast, where Adam, Erica, and Zach discuss their own experiences with DIY beverage projects and offer some suggestions on what to make, and how to turn those projects into great drinks.

Listen on iTunes

Listen on Spotify

LISTEN ONLINE OR CHECK OUT OUR CONVERSATION HERE:

Adam: Still from my Brooklyn, NY Apartment, I’m Adam Teeter.

Erica: From Jersey City, I’m Erica Duecy.

Zach: And in my house in Seattle, Washington I’m Zach Geballe.

A: And this is the VinePair podcast and guys, I’m excited about our topic today. Which is getting into alcohol projects you can do at home. I know I’ve been taking on a ton of projects myself, not just obviously alcohol- related. I’ve been baking some bread. I’ve been….well, baking a lot. But also doing some projects around the house but, before we jump in to all of that. What have you guys been drinking? What’s been getting you through for the last week? Anything exciting? Erica?

E: Yeah, I have been tasting through a ton of rosés for the big list that we put out every year – our top 25 rosés. And I’ve been excited by some of the really affordable selections that I’ve found. You know, usually when I’m thinking about rosé, I’m thinking [about] the south of France, but actually there were some sneaker hits out of Italy for me. So, I found the Planeta rosé from Sicily, that’s a $16 bottle. And it’s on the bolder side of the rosé flavor spectrum; it’s got strawberry, guava, crushed peach notes; I was totally surprised. And this would be the type of wine that I would pair with like barbecue chicken, tacos, even pizza, it’s got that kind of bolder flavor profile which is gonna be so wonderful with all of the summertime back-yard barbecue foods.

A: Yeah man, Italian rosés.

Z: That’s awesome!

A: That was a big thing last year, in our list last year; I think Planeta made the list, and the number one was Graci. Both from Sicily, ‘cause I think, yeah those wines are surprisingly amazing. Even though you normally think of France, right? Which is nuts!

E: Totally!

Z: And it makes sense in a way ‘cause you’re dealing with a similar climate, right? You’re Mediterranean, obviously if you’re in Sicily you’re IN the middle of the Mediterranean, but we think of all the great French rosé that, in particular that come from Provence and [have a] very Mediterranean sort of influence, so I think it’s definitely the case that you can find some great rosés from […] other wine regions that border the Mediterranean. Because they’re going to have, I think generally speaking, a culture of rosé drinking that goes back, ‘cause those kinds of wines are, sometimes the red grape… or what you wanna do with red grapes in those kind of places is turn ‘em into rosé.

A: Totally. So Zach, what about you, what are you drinking man?

Z: Well as you might have noticed on Instagram yesterday, as we’re recording this on Friday, I took the opportunity, and I have been taking the opportunity, to go in and pull some bottles out of my collection that I wasn’t saving for the most special of occasions, but might have been a little loathe to open under the general mentality of, “Fuck it, I might as well!”. And as Erica might recall I wrote a piece for the site, which now feels like it ran about a million years ago, but it was I think actually just last month, on the joys of aged Italian white wines. So last night I was looking…

A: Yeah, you’ve also talked about this on the podcast multiple times. This is your thing.

Z: I have, It’s true. It’s one of my things, but for good reason! I had the opportunity…

E: I love old Italian white wines.

Z: Yeah, and I had the opportunity to have a ten-year-old bottle of Arneis, which is one of my favorite varieties, and it’s not the kind of thing that I would necessarily have every single night, but I made risotto and roasted a chicken and it’s a wine that both my wife and I love. And you know, it… I mean look, there’s a lot of horrible news and everything going on in the world and we’re gonna try to kind of sort of steer away from that in this podcast, but for me, it’s like every now and then it’s important to really center my own, or our own joy and pleasure when we can, and wines like that are opportunities to do that. So I was really glad that I was like, “OK it’s the last bottle of this I have, it’s a kind of special wine but we’re gonna open it, we’re gonna enjoy it and then I guess we’re gonna talk about it on the podcast the next day as it turns out,” so that is what I have been drinking. Adam, how about you?

A: So you know I’m going through the eight stages of… I don’t know, mourning, drinking, etc. So I have been drinking a lot of rosé for the tasting, but I won’t talk about any of those here ‘cause I think Erica already hit on that. But you know like last week when we were first like “this is happening,” I drank a lot of brown spirits. So, I found a few bourbons that I really enjoyed. I was drinking a Jefferson’s bottling that was really delicious, I was drinking some Lagavulin, so you know Scotch that I really liked. Somebody gifted me a bottle of Whistle Pig, so I enjoyed a little bit of that last week. And also like dirty Martinis for my wife — I don’t take them dirty, but I was drinking just a classic gin Martini, a little dry with a lemon twist. So I was really drinking liquor last week, and then this week I definitely transitioned back to like beer and wine. So I had a few pretty delicious IPAs that I enjoyed earlier in the week. I’m also trying to go back to my normal schedule of not drinking three to four nights a week. So I guess… so if I didn’t drink Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, so Wednesday night I had a really nice New England style IPA from Monday Night Brewing that was pretty cool, and then last night I did enjoy one of the rosé from the round up that I was like, “wow, this is just amazing.” We featured it a bunch before, Kathleen Inman’s wine, so Endless Crush is just a beautiful wine.

Z: Oh yeah!

E: Yeah, that’s great.

A: And so it was submitted again for the tasting this year, and then I was like, “well I’m not gonna dump this,” so I drank it. I have to say, Erica, I’ve been impressed for the past few years actually that there’s some really stellar rosés coming out of other countries. A lot out of California or just the West Coast in general and you know, a lot of bad ones coming out of Provence. A lot of ones that are really trading on that regional name that are getting away with like a true lack of balance or just like really harsh, off flavors, fruit that doesn’t taste super high quality. But [which] are still being [sold] for over $20 bucks because they put Provence on the label. So I thought that was interesting. There was another one that I really liked a lot that surprised me called Seaglass, that was like I think it’s like $10.99. And I remember… so I’ve been tasting with my wife Naomi which has been fun. ‘Cause you know, she loves wine but never gets to come to our office tastings when we have people in, and she turned to me and was like, “What is this wine? This is really good!” And it had come after a string of not a lot of very good wines… and I was like, “Yeah! This is really good.” And so then like we looked at it and we were like holy shit! And then we looked at the price and we were blown away. So yeah, I think it’s been fun, and then I don’t know this weekend… Tonight is pizza night, so I’m gonna make some delicious pizza and pop something good, who knows? And then maybe get back on my spirits wagon, I don’t know.

E: Yeah, I mean I’ve been going the same way too. I think I’m sort of alternating at this point. So I’ll do wine one night or a cider, and then I’ll switch over and have a cocktail but yeah, I think the things we’re gonna talk about today with the cocktail projects that’s actually gotten me pretty excited to start back into my cocktail experimentation land, I definitely went through a phase of that a couple of years ago, but I’m right back on the train now.

A: I know you’re a wine lover but when I was first introduced to you it was through the fact that you have written this cocktail book and really have this expertise in cocktails. Like the things you tell me you’re trying to do at home, like recreate a classic Martini from… I would never do. Like, I can make a really good Negroni, I can make a really good straight-up Martini, but if you ask me to recreate some of my favorite cocktails from some of my favorite cocktail bars in New York I’d be like, “nah, I’m just gonna wait ‘til they re-open.”

E: ‘Nah, I’m good!’ Yeah, I mean I definitely went through a phase like years ago where I was just making bitters all the time, making bitters from like Buddha’s hand and like all sorts of crazy citruses and so forth so I mean that’s… I think that’s one of the nice things right now, is that if we have a little bit extra time where we’re looking for something creative to do, hey start on those holiday gift projects now, you’ve got nothing else to do, [so] you might as well get creative.

A: I mean yeah, so I guess jumping straight into the topic: Zach, what sort of projects do you have in mind that people could be doing now? Or what are you working on, or wish you were working on?

Z: Well I would say that I’ll let Erica talk about things like bitters because that’s something that I don’t have a lot of experience with personally. But what I would say, and I think this is the operative thing here is, for the most part I think most of us in our daily lives, we don’t have time, and really it’s not even just that we don’t have time because a lot of these things don’t take a lot of active time. It’s just we don’t really want to commit to a couple of week-long projects, even if most of that time is spent sitting in a closet or something. And what I have started doing at home, because I anticipate having some time to commit to this, is working on some infusions. That’s something that I started doing as a bartender years ago. Basically, it’s a simple way to add flavor to a spirit. I’m mostly working with clear spirits at the moment because, while you can certainly do cool things with brown spirits, I find that if I kinda just wanna get like a simple flavor, like a fruit flavor, like I’ve got some blueberry gin going on right now, the idea there’s is basically to extract the flavor from the blueberry into the gin, and I imagine that in a couple of weeks, which is about how long these things tend to take, that the weather in Seattle may have turned to the point where sitting outside and having a drink made with blueberry gin is gonna sound really, really delightful as opposed to [how] it sounds now, which is pretty miserable ‘cause it’s pouring rain. [That’s] kinda what I’m aiming at. And then one thing that I’ve mentioned on the podcast before that I’ve done, and I think is another thing to think about doing especially for people who are home more, maybe opening wine more often but aren’t necessarily drinking a lot is vermouth. Which is a little tricky to make in that you kind of have to find the right balance in ingredients and sweetness but I’ve had some success with making vermouth and I find it actually to be more useful as something to kind of sip, a way to kind of preserve that wine – if you’re not interesting in cooking with it – or making vinegar which you can also do. I like to make vermouth and then it’s just something that I’ll pour over ice, maybe add a little bit of soda water to and it’s my afternoon (maybe while I’m cooking) beverage, ‘cause it’s lower in alcohol. And it retains some of the wine flavor but has some spice notes that you expect from vermouth.

A: So Zach, quickly. ‘Cause you know you’re talking about these things, I’m loving it, I’m getting into it, but now I’m like “how do I do it?” So first of all, with your blueberry gin, can you please explain the process, and also tell me what kind of drinks you’d put it in? And then could you please do the same for the vermouth?

Z: Yeah, absolutely!

A: Thank you.

Z: So I would say, with the blueberry gin, it’s basically, the only things you really need are gin – for one. And I like to look at something that’s not… I’m not going for top shelf gin, I’m looking at something that’s probably like a London dry, cause I want something with a relatively neutral palate, so I’m using Gordon’s ’cause it’s kind of a relatively inexpensive…

A: It’s a very… yeah that’s a good one.

Z: Yeah, I find the flavor unobjectionable, but it’s not that expensive so I’m not putting it in my really premium gin. And then you basically just need a jar or other vessel that you can close. It doesn’t have to be air tight, you don’t have to worry because of the alcohol of the gin, it’s not like anything is gonna go bad, in terms of like the fruit rotting, but you just don’t want it spilling and you do wanna be able to capture the flavor. And then, basically what I do is, I have a [container that] you would put a punch in that’s got a spigot. And so I just put the gin in, and I usually do like 2 liters at a time, and then it ends up being about… oh gosh I should probably measure these things, right? It probably ends up being about 2 pounds or so of blueberries. And I throw maybe a bay leaf or two in also ‘cause I like a little bit of that additional herbal flavor, and I let it sit. And I let it sit for about ten days and then I start tasting it. And really what you’re tasting for is, you want there to be a noticeable blueberry flavor. But what I don’t want, is I don’t want it to start tasting like… if you’ve ever had dried blueberries? Or like really concentrated candy blueberry flavor, then I feel like you’ve extracted a little too much. So at that point then you just literally strain the gin off, you throw the blueberries away. I made the mistake once when I was very young in the restaurant industry of eating them and they are miserable, it just tastes like alcohol. But basically yeah, you just dump that out. I think you could theoretically do something with the blueberries, like maybe you could cook them down but there’s really very little flavor left in them…

A: Put em in pancakes and give ‘em to your kids.

Z: God! Yeah, If you want them to take three naps a day….

A: Like, Yo! I need to get some work done, I made you blueberry pancakes, enjoy!

Z: I would worry that the pan might catch on fire with all that alcohol in there. And then as far as cocktails, one of the things I like to use it in, one of my favorite spring cocktails [is] the Aviation, which is typically made with crème de violette: so gin, crème de violette, lemon and Maraschino liqueur. And what I do is, I basically just cut down a little bit on the crème de violette and Maraschino ‘cause with the fruit flavor in there, even though the gin isn’t sweet, I feel like the whole drink can get a little syrupy if you’re not careful. But I basically just do that, you get this even deeper blueberry, kind of blue color than you would get normally from the crème de violette. That’s one thing. I like it…I mean you can make just a simple gin flip. So basically, again just in, lemon juice and an egg white. [A] little bit of simple syrup or sugar if you want, to kind of sweeten it up. But really, I mean I think it’s pretty versatile, and also just as a gin and tonic, frankly. Like if you just want to pour that over some ice with some tonic water, it’s fucking delicious, it’s got a nice little kind of pale blue color, or pale purple color really and it’s great when and if the weather improves, which it will eventually here in Seattle, I promise.

E: Yeah, that sounds great!

A: So we’ll come back to you on the vermouth tip. But Erica what about you? Gimme a project.

E: Yeah, super simple project. So yesterday we launched this article with 5 simple projects that you can do at home to up your cocktail game, and the thing that I made was oleo-saccharum, which… do you guys know about this? It sounds like a crazy Latin thing but it’s actually a super-simple citrus syrup. So, it’s been used since like the 1700’s if you read David Wondrich, in either of his books, you’ll see him refer to it as really the essential ingredient in punches in classic times. You take the peels from citrus, usually you could use lemon or orange or grapefruit, and you just steep it and mix it with some sugar. And then the sugar pulls out all of those wonderful essential oils to create this beautiful syrup that, you know, in Wondrich’s telling, creates the difference between a good punch and a great punch. So it has a lot of uses other than a punch though, [and] my favorite way to use it, and I’m gonna be posting this all up on Instagram because it’s really one of the best cocktails, is an Old Fashioned. So just a rum Old Fashioned with an aged rum like El Dorado 12 year which is my favorite on its own – it’s such an incredible rum, but then I just do one teaspoon of the oleo-saccharum syrup, and bitters over a big ice cube. It’s such a beautiful cocktail. And really the only thing, like I said, to make the oleo-saccharum is that you steep the orange or citrus peels in sugar overnight, you mix it occasionally and then in the morning, anywhere from 3 to 12 hours later you can decide based on the taste. You’ve got a ready-to-go syrup. From a quantity perspective, just get and peel a cup or so worth of the peels and then you just add about a half a cup of sugar, and it creates about a little bit more than a third-cup of syrup. That can be kept in the refrigerator for a week and used in a variety of ways. You can use it in a French 75, you can use it in a whiskey sour, you can use it in a Sidecar, I mean there’s so many different applications for it. And it’s just such a wonderful lifted citrus flavor that you can’t really get any other way.

A: Dude that sounds delicious. Like…

E: It’s pretty good.

A: I also kinda wanna make some pancakes from [Zach’s] blueberries and then put your syrup on top of it, that sounds pretty good. I mean that sounds pretty good.

E: I mean that sounds pretty good.

A: That sounds pretty good.

Z: Adam, are we recording this before you have lunch or something? ‘Cause I feel like all you wanna do is eat our drinks projects.

A: Nah man I had lunch. I actually had lunch with bread I baked myself… So for me one of the things that’s fun to make is bathtub gin. So like, yes I know it’s not real gin, but basically you take a vodka, and you… I like to again, same with you Zach, not an amazing vodka, but a quality vodka, right? So like, we’re not going out here and putting Ketel [One] in this, but I’ll usually do it with something like, honestly it works really well with Smirnoff or Tito’s or something. So take a 750 ml bottle, dump it in a Mason jar – a large enough Mason jar or some sort of vessel and then it’s the same kind of idea, right? You basically flavor it with gin flavorings. So as opposed to distilling those gin flavorings into the gin, you’re just steeping them into the vodka, so I use like, cucumber peel, lemon peel, dill, you have to use…. I think you have to use juniper berry, some people disagree, but I kinda feel like it’s not gin without the juniper berry, so some dried juniper berries, you can get those at a lot of grocery stores so you shouldn’t have a problem even in the quarantine. But you can throw in a lot of other stuff too, right? You could do different kinds of teas, you can do orange….any other kind of citrus peels, I think grapefruit would be really awesome, you could also do like heat if you like it, some sort of spicy you know note to it. And then you let it sit for basically the same idea, 10 days to 14 days, stirring it I think every other day just to make sure it’s still doing its thing, and then you start tasting. And once it tastes good to you, you strain off the liquid, I like to bottle it and then you have your own kind of gin to use in a lot of different cocktails. I use it to make straight-up Martinis, I use it to make Negronis, I use it to make gin Gimlets, like all these things you would normally use regular gin for but now you have your own gin. And it’s also fun to then give to people, it’s like “hey, here’s this like gin I made.” It’s always like a good time, which is a lot of fun. We’ve talked a lot about spirit style projects, but I know Zach, we’re gonna get to your vermouth, but have either of you ever brewed beer?

E: No

Z: I have not. But you have?

A: Ahh. Yes, the best! I’ve had a lot of explosions too.

E: Really?

A: Yeah, so… I mean, I think the worst explosion was… Josh and I, the other co-founder of VinePair, we attempted to brew a Belgian tripel, that was a really bad idea. And it started re-fermenting in the bottle ‘cause it was just… it’s so much sugar and so much yeast in a Belgian tripel, and they exploded all in his closet, there was beer everywhere.

E: Oh no!

A: So that was when Naomi told me that we were never allowed to brew beer in our apartment, only in Josh’s. [But] brewing beer is super fun ‘cause I think it’s one of the easiest ways to sort of see how alcohol happens, if that makes sense?

E: Yeah.

A: You know, it’s not that… I think people get really freaked out about it because…like “oh, I read that the kitchen has to be super clean.” Like yes, cleanliness is important, but I mean you have to be clean when you cook, right? Like no one is sitting there being like “Oh, I’m gonna make some cookies and there’s like, dirt everywhere.” So as long as the counter is clean and you’ve washed the equipment with hot water and soap, the way you should wash your hands right now, everything is fine and it’s a fun project that takes, you know, four weeks. So, at the end of this whole bullshit you should emerge with a really good beer that then you can take out in the park and drink and there’s lots of amazing recipes online and you can buy kits which I’m sure are still shipping right now, to make beer and it’s a really fun project. I love doing it, we did it for like 2 years and then just sort of moved to places where we felt like it wasn’t as…we didn’t have as much space. Josh was really lucky in that one of his first apartments in New York was a big loft. So we were able to sort of brew… but you know, I bet your husband’s studio would be a perfect place to brew beer, just saying Erica.

E: I bet he does, we’ve got plenty of space up in his studio.

Z: I was gonna say, you’ve got… you can probably start a whole brewery, let alone just home brew. I have a question for you Adam, about brewing though, at home. Which is, are there styles of beer that are easier for people who’ve never done it to kind of take on? Obviously, it sounds like a Belgian tripel is a bad idea for a first beer, but is there kind of an ideal first beer?

A: Ales are the easiest. It’s very hard to do lagers because of the cold fermentations. So lagers are much more difficult than ales. And then pale ales and IPAs are actually very easy to brew at home, as long as you have the right ingredients, which again you can buy online and I have to say like we definitely brewed a bunch of different batches of IPAs and pale ales that came out really well. We actually have a home brew columnist on VinePair that writes I think monthly, or bi-weekly with different ways to brew.

E: Yep.

A: So there’s a bunch of resources there. But then also, I mean you can go down rabbit holes on Reddit and stuff like that of people who’ve like literally recreated beers. You can brew Heady Topper for yourself at home or someone’s like “Oh, I think I figured out the Pliny recipe,” so you can brew Pliny, which is crazy. So there’s a lot of fun you can have, and then the kits are easy to at least get you started, like the recipe’s there. So like literally “dump into water, boil, strain, you have this style of beer that we’ve already perfected the recipe of,” but it’s just a cool way, again, just to see how fermentation works.

E: Totally, and if you’re looking for the column on our site its BIY, “Brew it yourself,” it’s with national home-brew competition gold medal winner and certified cicerone Mandy Naglich. So that’s where you can check out dozens of articles to get a sense of best practices and projects you might wanna try out yourself.

A: Exactly, so now Zach back to you. How do you make vermouth?

Z: So I think the simplest way to do it, and I’ve mostly done it with red wine, because I find that it’s a little more…. I’ve only talked about making a white vermouth once, and I think I screwed up, so I don’t think that it’s not doable, I [just] think it’s that I didn’t kind of approach it the right way. But I will say that, before we get into the specifics, one I find about making vermouth at home is that, at least so far, I haven’t been able to kind of get the exact texture that you might expect from certain kinds of vermouth. Like if you like a really kind of rich vermouth like Carpano Antica or something like that, without adding a lot of essentially really, really reduced sugar syrup, you’re gonna have a hard time getting that real richness. And I don’t know that I can offer you a suggestion for how to get that at home, I’m not an expert. But otherwise, I mean basically what I’ve done is: I’ll take a certain amount of leftover red wine, in this case usually like you know about, yeah about 2 liters or so. So about two and half bottles, three bottles or something like that. And you take about a third of it and you reduce it over, you know over really low heat. You’re just trying to kind of cook it down a little bit. And then I would say once it’s about reduced in volume by about half, you add about a cup of sugar, and there’s your base syrup. And so at that point that’s had all the alcohol cooked out of it, so you’re not dealing with booze from that. And then basically you let it cool back down to kind of room temp, you add it to the remaining wine along with some…I mean again, you kind of want to use spices. I like to use like there’s certainly black pepper, again bay leaf I throw in there, I like to use things like coriander and cardamom, and a little bit of even cumin seed. Infusion of that along with a little bit of… you want to add some sort of spirit cause you want to bring the alcohol level up a little bit. So I sometimes will use Cognac, it definitely adds more flavor. If you have like… you can use vodka if you’ve got that that you wanna use. If you have… I mean ideally I think you would add a little bit of even higher-proof spirit, but I don’t have moonshine lying around so… that’s not an option for me…

A: What?

Z: I know, right? We haven’t talked about home distilling which is a bad idea. And also illegal most places.

A: I kinda want to do it though, but anyways keep going.

Z: Well we’ll see you at Jono’s studio too. So then… basically again, it’s just a process of waiting. It doesn’t take long. I find that within a week I’m kind of at the place I wanna be flavor-wise. But, you can kind of taste… give it a few days and then taste every day, and then at that point you just again, strain everything off, I put it right in the fridge. I find that it lasts for about a month in a pretty good state, and like I said, you know, my favorite use for it is just drinking it over ice with a little soda water or tonic because it’s kind of the best way to sort of enjoy that flavor. But it works in cocktails… I find that it actually, interestingly, does better in cocktails where you might use a fair bit of vermouth, so it works well in a Negroni. I haven’t loved it in my Manhattans, and maybe that’s just me. Again, I think it’s a texture thing. I think it feels like it waters them down a touch because it doesn’t have the viscosity that a commercially produced vermouth might have.

A: Right

Z: So in a Negroni I don’t mind it as much in part because Campari already has a lot of, you know, kind of richness and body, so it being a little lighter in flavor isn’t such a big deal. Or no, not lighter in flavor but lighter in body. But in something like a Manhattan I do find that I miss it a little bit, I miss that body that you get from vermouth a little bit. But you know you can find it… you can put it in a lot of different things. But like I said, I just like it a thing to sip over ice, with a little bit of soda water or just as is. Which is one of my favorite ways to enjoy vermouth period, so it’s not like I’m only doing that with this. But yeah… and again, if you’ve got open bottles, the nice thing about it is, you can just kind of combine stuff together. I haven’t found any issue with mixing… as long… I mean maybe if you’re mixing Beaujolais and Zinfandel you might find it a little weird but frankly even then I don’t think so. It all kind of comes together in the end. You might find slightly better results or more sort of homogenous results if you use the same wine but I don’t think any of us are at that stage so your leftover bottles… and I’ve used it with wine that’s been open for a week and it’s fine.

E: Wow!

Z: You know, you’re not looking for freshness and brightness in your vermouth for the most part, at least I’m not in the way that I would be in my wine. So you know, I wouldn’t use a three-week-old bottle. You know, another thing you could do is go buy a relatively inexpensive box of wine, you know a three liter and use that and probably end up with a very cost-effective vermouth solution.

E: Sure, sure. Yeah, that sounds like a great idea, I’d try it.

A: I dig.

Z: Well I would share it with you guys but that’s probably not gonna happen for a little while.

A: I think these have been like some really good ideas. I mean, Erica, have you got anything else?

E: Yeah, I mean I do have one more.

A: Yes!

E: I would say that a lot of people don’t realize that bitters is just a pretty simple infusion. So for that…

A: I didn’t.

E: Everyone’s talking about Everclear and how you can make your own hand sanitizer from it, but you can also use Everclear as the base for your bitters. So, really all you do to make bitters is you can take some like zest of lemons or oranges or whatever you want that main flavor base to be. And then you add cardamom, cloves, cinnamon, lemongrass, coriander, pepper, and then kind of the bittering agents that you wanna have in all bitters which are cinchona bark and gentian root, you know you can get those at natural stores or even at some bigger grocery chains. So for those things you just, you really just prepare the ingredients, divide them out into some Mason jars, and fill it up with grain alcohol. And for that you just let it sit there and kind of agitate it maybe once or twice a week for a month. And then portion it out into tiny little dropper bottles, and that’s one of my favorite holiday gifts that I typically make for people. Like to package that up with a cocktail book or something like that. And it’s a fun way to go. Maybe in this case it’s gonna be a post-apocalypse drinking gift that you can give to all your friends once you finally see them this summer.

A: I dig, I dig. Cool, so I guess you know, go home….well stay home, make one of these projects, and if you do shoot us an email at podcast@vinepair.com and let us know that you made one of the things we suggested, take a picture and share it with us, that would be awesome! Agreed?

E: Agreed.

Z: Yeah absolutely! And if you have other projects too. I would love to hear if people are trying other stuff out there that’s not stuff we covered too, cause I need some new projects.

E: Yeah, definitely. And try the sourdough, gotta move on, gotta keep going.

A: Well, as always everyone, thank you so much for listening, we hope you’re also checking out our podcast [Covid-19] Conversations, our corona diaries if you will, that we’re running in the feed three times a week. We’d love to know what you think about those as well. As always if you enjoy the podcast, if you feel like you’re getting a lot of amazing information and we’re helping make your day a little bit better please drop us a review or rating in iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever else you get our podcast. It really helps other people discover the show. And Erica, Zach, I’ll talk to you again right here, next week.

Z: Sounds great

E: See you then.

A: Thanks so much for listening to the VinePair podcast, if you enjoy listening to us every week please leave us a review or rating on iTunes, Stitcher, spotify, or wherever it is you get your podcasts, it really helps everyone else discover the show. And now for the credits:

VinePair is produced and hosted by Zach Geballe, Erica Duecy, and me: Adam Teeter. Our engineer is Nick Patri and Keith Beavers. I’d also like to give a special shout out to my VinePair co-founder Josh Malin and the rest of the VinePair team for their support. Thanks so much for listening and we’ll see you again right here next week.

The article VinePair Podcast: Drinks Projects You Can Make at Home appeared first on VinePair.

source https://vinepair.com/articles/vinepair-podcast-drinks-projects-you-can-make-at-home/

[johnboothus]

VinePair Podcast: Drinks Projects You Can Make at Home

With Covid-19 keeping many of us at home indefinitely, we’re finding all kinds of new projects to provide creative outlets. While some people are busy deep cleaning their bathrooms and perfecting their sourdough starters, we’ve opted to dial in our home drinking game — and maybe you’d like to join us? From whipping up batches of vermouth and bitters, to making quick infusions and syrups, to becoming a home brewing hobbyist, there are plenty of ways to put your at-home time to good use.

That’s the topic on this week’s VinePair podcast, where Adam, Erica, and Zach discuss their own experiences with DIY beverage projects and offer some suggestions on what to make, and how to turn those projects into great drinks.

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LISTEN ONLINE OR CHECK OUT OUR CONVERSATION HERE:

Adam: Still from my Brooklyn, NY Apartment, I’m Adam Teeter.

Erica: From Jersey City, I’m Erica Duecy.

Zach: And in my house in Seattle, Washington I’m Zach Geballe.

A: And this is the VinePair podcast and guys, I’m excited about our topic today. Which is getting into alcohol projects you can do at home. I know I’ve been taking on a ton of projects myself, not just obviously alcohol- related. I’ve been baking some bread. I’ve been….well, baking a lot. But also doing some projects around the house but, before we jump in to all of that. What have you guys been drinking? What’s been getting you through for the last week? Anything exciting? Erica?

E: Yeah, I have been tasting through a ton of rosés for the big list that we put out every year – our top 25 rosés. And I’ve been excited by some of the really affordable selections that I’ve found. You know, usually when I’m thinking about rosé, I’m thinking [about] the south of France, but actually there were some sneaker hits out of Italy for me. So, I found the Planeta rosé from Sicily, that’s a $16 bottle. And it’s on the bolder side of the rosé flavor spectrum; it’s got strawberry, guava, crushed peach notes; I was totally surprised. And this would be the type of wine that I would pair with like barbecue chicken, tacos, even pizza, it’s got that kind of bolder flavor profile which is gonna be so wonderful with all of the summertime back-yard barbecue foods.

A: Yeah man, Italian rosés.

Z: That’s awesome!

A: That was a big thing last year, in our list last year; I think Planeta made the list, and the number one was Graci. Both from Sicily, ‘cause I think, yeah those wines are surprisingly amazing. Even though you normally think of France, right? Which is nuts!

E: Totally!

Z: And it makes sense in a way ‘cause you’re dealing with a similar climate, right? You’re Mediterranean, obviously if you’re in Sicily you’re IN the middle of the Mediterranean, but we think of all the great French rosé that, in particular that come from Provence and [have a] very Mediterranean sort of influence, so I think it’s definitely the case that you can find some great rosés from […] other wine regions that border the Mediterranean. Because they’re going to have, I think generally speaking, a culture of rosé drinking that goes back, ‘cause those kinds of wines are, sometimes the red grape… or what you wanna do with red grapes in those kind of places is turn ‘em into rosé.

A: Totally. So Zach, what about you, what are you drinking man?

Z: Well as you might have noticed on Instagram yesterday, as we’re recording this on Friday, I took the opportunity, and I have been taking the opportunity, to go in and pull some bottles out of my collection that I wasn’t saving for the most special of occasions, but might have been a little loathe to open under the general mentality of, ���Fuck it, I might as well!”. And as Erica might recall I wrote a piece for the site, which now feels like it ran about a million years ago, but it was I think actually just last month, on the joys of aged Italian white wines. So last night I was looking…

A: Yeah, you’ve also talked about this on the podcast multiple times. This is your thing.

Z: I have, It’s true. It’s one of my things, but for good reason! I had the opportunity…

E: I love old Italian white wines.

Z: Yeah, and I had the opportunity to have a ten-year-old bottle of Arneis, which is one of my favorite varieties, and it’s not the kind of thing that I would necessarily have every single night, but I made risotto and roasted a chicken and it’s a wine that both my wife and I love. And you know, it… I mean look, there’s a lot of horrible news and everything going on in the world and we’re gonna try to kind of sort of steer away from that in this podcast, but for me, it’s like every now and then it’s important to really center my own, or our own joy and pleasure when we can, and wines like that are opportunities to do that. So I was really glad that I was like, “OK it’s the last bottle of this I have, it’s a kind of special wine but we’re gonna open it, we’re gonna enjoy it and then I guess we’re gonna talk about it on the podcast the next day as it turns out,” so that is what I have been drinking. Adam, how about you?

A: So you know I’m going through the eight stages of… I don’t know, mourning, drinking, etc. So I have been drinking a lot of rosé for the tasting, but I won’t talk about any of those here ‘cause I think Erica already hit on that. But you know like last week when we were first like “this is happening,” I drank a lot of brown spirits. So, I found a few bourbons that I really enjoyed. I was drinking a Jefferson’s bottling that was really delicious, I was drinking some Lagavulin, so you know Scotch that I really liked. Somebody gifted me a bottle of Whistle Pig, so I enjoyed a little bit of that last week. And also like dirty Martinis for my wife — I don’t take them dirty, but I was drinking just a classic gin Martini, a little dry with a lemon twist. So I was really drinking liquor last week, and then this week I definitely transitioned back to like beer and wine. So I had a few pretty delicious IPAs that I enjoyed earlier in the week. I’m also trying to go back to my normal schedule of not drinking three to four nights a week. So I guess… so if I didn’t drink Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, so Wednesday night I had a really nice New England style IPA from Monday Night Brewing that was pretty cool, and then last night I did enjoy one of the rosé from the round up that I was like, “wow, this is just amazing.” We featured it a bunch before, Kathleen Inman’s wine, so Endless Crush is just a beautiful wine.

Z: Oh yeah!

E: Yeah, that’s great.

A: And so it was submitted again for the tasting this year, and then I was like, “well I’m not gonna dump this,” so I drank it. I have to say, Erica, I’ve been impressed for the past few years actually that there’s some really stellar rosés coming out of other countries. A lot out of California or just the West Coast in general and you know, a lot of bad ones coming out of Provence. A lot of ones that are really trading on that regional name that are getting away with like a true lack of balance or just like really harsh, off flavors, fruit that doesn’t taste super high quality. But [which] are still being [sold] for over $20 bucks because they put Provence on the label. So I thought that was interesting. There was another one that I really liked a lot that surprised me called Seaglass, that was like I think it’s like $10.99. And I remember… so I’ve been tasting with my wife Naomi which has been fun. ‘Cause you know, she loves wine but never gets to come to our office tastings when we have people in, and she turned to me and was like, “What is this wine? This is really good!” And it had come after a string of not a lot of very good wines… and I was like, “Yeah! This is really good.” And so then like we looked at it and we were like holy shit! And then we looked at the price and we were blown away. So yeah, I think it’s been fun, and then I don’t know this weekend… Tonight is pizza night, so I’m gonna make some delicious pizza and pop something good, who knows? And then maybe get back on my spirits wagon, I don’t know.

E: Yeah, I mean I’ve been going the same way too. I think I’m sort of alternating at this point. So I’ll do wine one night or a cider, and then I’ll switch over and have a cocktail but yeah, I think the things we’re gonna talk about today with the cocktail projects that’s actually gotten me pretty excited to start back into my cocktail experimentation land, I definitely went through a phase of that a couple of years ago, but I’m right back on the train now.

A: I know you’re a wine lover but when I was first introduced to you it was through the fact that you have written this cocktail book and really have this expertise in cocktails. Like the things you tell me you’re trying to do at home, like recreate a classic Martini from… I would never do. Like, I can make a really good Negroni, I can make a really good straight-up Martini, but if you ask me to recreate some of my favorite cocktails from some of my favorite cocktail bars in New York I’d be like, “nah, I’m just gonna wait ‘til they re-open.”

E: ‘Nah, I’m good!’ Yeah, I mean I definitely went through a phase like years ago where I was just making bitters all the time, making bitters from like Buddha’s hand and like all sorts of crazy citruses and so forth so I mean that’s… I think that’s one of the nice things right now, is that if we have a little bit extra time where we’re looking for something creative to do, hey start on those holiday gift projects now, you’ve got nothing else to do, [so] you might as well get creative.

A: I mean yeah, so I guess jumping straight into the topic: Zach, what sort of projects do you have in mind that people could be doing now? Or what are you working on, or wish you were working on?

Z: Well I would say that I’ll let Erica talk about things like bitters because that’s something that I don’t have a lot of experience with personally. But what I would say, and I think this is the operative thing here is, for the most part I think most of us in our daily lives, we don’t have time, and really it’s not even just that we don’t have time because a lot of these things don’t take a lot of active time. It’s just we don’t really want to commit to a couple of week-long projects, even if most of that time is spent sitting in a closet or something. And what I have started doing at home, because I anticipate having some time to commit to this, is working on some infusions. That’s something that I started doing as a bartender years ago. Basically, it’s a simple way to add flavor to a spirit. I’m mostly working with clear spirits at the moment because, while you can certainly do cool things with brown spirits, I find that if I kinda just wanna get like a simple flavor, like a fruit flavor, like I’ve got some blueberry gin going on right now, the idea there’s is basically to extract the flavor from the blueberry into the gin, and I imagine that in a couple of weeks, which is about how long these things tend to take, that the weather in Seattle may have turned to the point where sitting outside and having a drink made with blueberry gin is gonna sound really, really delightful as opposed to [how] it sounds now, which is pretty miserable ‘cause it’s pouring rain. [That’s] kinda what I’m aiming at. And then one thing that I’ve mentioned on the podcast before that I’ve done, and I think is another thing to think about doing especially for people who are home more, maybe opening wine more often but aren’t necessarily drinking a lot is vermouth. Which is a little tricky to make in that you kind of have to find the right balance in ingredients and sweetness but I’ve had some success with making vermouth and I find it actually to be more useful as something to kind of sip, a way to kind of preserve that wine – if you’re not interesting in cooking with it – or making vinegar which you can also do. I like to make vermouth and then it’s just something that I’ll pour over ice, maybe add a little bit of soda water to and it’s my afternoon (maybe while I’m cooking) beverage, ‘cause it’s lower in alcohol. And it retains some of the wine flavor but has some spice notes that you expect from vermouth.

A: So Zach, quickly. ‘Cause you know you’re talking about these things, I’m loving it, I’m getting into it, but now I’m like “how do I do it?” So first of all, with your blueberry gin, can you please explain the process, and also tell me what kind of drinks you’d put it in? And then could you please do the same for the vermouth?

Z: Yeah, absolutely!

A: Thank you.

Z: So I would say, with the blueberry gin, it’s basically, the only things you really need are gin – for one. And I like to look at something that’s not… I’m not going for top shelf gin, I’m looking at something that’s probably like a London dry, cause I want something with a relatively neutral palate, so I’m using Gordon’s ’cause it’s kind of a relatively inexpensive…

A: It’s a very… yeah that’s a good one.

Z: Yeah, I find the flavor unobjectionable, but it’s not that expensive so I’m not putting it in my really premium gin. And then you basically just need a jar or other vessel that you can close. It doesn’t have to be air tight, you don’t have to worry because of the alcohol of the gin, it’s not like anything is gonna go bad, in terms of like the fruit rotting, but you just don’t want it spilling and you do wanna be able to capture the flavor. And then, basically what I do is, I have a [container that] you would put a punch in that’s got a spigot. And so I just put the gin in, and I usually do like 2 liters at a time, and then it ends up being about… oh gosh I should probably measure these things, right? It probably ends up being about 2 pounds or so of blueberries. And I throw maybe a bay leaf or two in also ‘cause I like a little bit of that additional herbal flavor, and I let it sit. And I let it sit for about ten days and then I start tasting it. And really what you’re tasting for is, you want there to be a noticeable blueberry flavor. But what I don’t want, is I don’t want it to start tasting like… if you’ve ever had dried blueberries? Or like really concentrated candy blueberry flavor, then I feel like you’ve extracted a little too much. So at that point then you just literally strain the gin off, you throw the blueberries away. I made the mistake once when I was very young in the restaurant industry of eating them and they are miserable, it just tastes like alcohol. But basically yeah, you just dump that out. I think you could theoretically do something with the blueberries, like maybe you could cook them down but there’s really very little flavor left in them…

A: Put em in pancakes and give ‘em to your kids.

Z: God! Yeah, If you want them to take three naps a day….

A: Like, Yo! I need to get some work done, I made you blueberry pancakes, enjoy!

Z: I would worry that the pan might catch on fire with all that alcohol in there. And then as far as cocktails, one of the things I like to use it in, one of my favorite spring cocktails [is] the Aviation, which is typically made with crème de violette: so gin, crème de violette, lemon and Maraschino liqueur. And what I do is, I basically just cut down a little bit on the crème de violette and Maraschino ‘cause with the fruit flavor in there, even though the gin isn’t sweet, I feel like the whole drink can get a little syrupy if you’re not careful. But I basically just do that, you get this even deeper blueberry, kind of blue color than you would get normally from the crème de violette. That’s one thing. I like it…I mean you can make just a simple gin flip. So basically, again just in, lemon juice and an egg white. [A] little bit of simple syrup or sugar if you want, to kind of sweeten it up. But really, I mean I think it’s pretty versatile, and also just as a gin and tonic, frankly. Like if you just want to pour that over some ice with some tonic water, it’s fucking delicious, it’s got a nice little kind of pale blue color, or pale purple color really and it’s great when and if the weather improves, which it will eventually here in Seattle, I promise.

E: Yeah, that sounds great!

A: So we’ll come back to you on the vermouth tip. But Erica what about you? Gimme a project.

E: Yeah, super simple project. So yesterday we launched this article with 5 simple projects that you can do at home to up your cocktail game, and the thing that I made was oleo-saccharum, which… do you guys know about this? It sounds like a crazy Latin thing but it’s actually a super-simple citrus syrup. So, it’s been used since like the 1700’s if you read David Wondrich, in either of his books, you’ll see him refer to it as really the essential ingredient in punches in classic times. You take the peels from citrus, usually you could use lemon or orange or grapefruit, and you just steep it and mix it with some sugar. And then the sugar pulls out all of those wonderful essential oils to create this beautiful syrup that, you know, in Wondrich’s telling, creates the difference between a good punch and a great punch. So it has a lot of uses other than a punch though, [and] my favorite way to use it, and I’m gonna be posting this all up on Instagram because it’s really one of the best cocktails, is an Old Fashioned. So just a rum Old Fashioned with an aged rum like El Dorado 12 year which is my favorite on its own – it’s such an incredible rum, but then I just do one teaspoon of the oleo-saccharum syrup, and bitters over a big ice cube. It’s such a beautiful cocktail. And really the only thing, like I said, to make the oleo-saccharum is that you steep the orange or citrus peels in sugar overnight, you mix it occasionally and then in the morning, anywhere from 3 to 12 hours later you can decide based on the taste. You’ve got a ready-to-go syrup. From a quantity perspective, just get and peel a cup or so worth of the peels and then you just add about a half a cup of sugar, and it creates about a little bit more than a third-cup of syrup. That can be kept in the refrigerator for a week and used in a variety of ways. You can use it in a French 75, you can use it in a whiskey sour, you can use it in a Sidecar, I mean there’s so many different applications for it. And it’s just such a wonderful lifted citrus flavor that you can’t really get any other way.

A: Dude that sounds delicious. Like…

E: It’s pretty good.

A: I also kinda wanna make some pancakes from [Zach’s] blueberries and then put your syrup on top of it, that sounds pretty good. I mean that sounds pretty good.

E: I mean that sounds pretty good.

A: That sounds pretty good.

Z: Adam, are we recording this before you have lunch or something? ‘Cause I feel like all you wanna do is eat our drinks projects.

A: Nah man I had lunch. I actually had lunch with bread I baked myself… So for me one of the things that’s fun to make is bathtub gin. So like, yes I know it’s not real gin, but basically you take a vodka, and you… I like to again, same with you Zach, not an amazing vodka, but a quality vodka, right? So like, we’re not going out here and putting Ketel [One] in this, but I’ll usually do it with something like, honestly it works really well with Smirnoff or Tito’s or something. So take a 750 ml bottle, dump it in a Mason jar – a large enough Mason jar or some sort of vessel and then it’s the same kind of idea, right? You basically flavor it with gin flavorings. So as opposed to distilling those gin flavorings into the gin, you’re just steeping them into the vodka, so I use like, cucumber peel, lemon peel, dill, you have to use…. I think you have to use juniper berry, some people disagree, but I kinda feel like it’s not gin without the juniper berry, so some dried juniper berries, you can get those at a lot of grocery stores so you shouldn’t have a problem even in the quarantine. But you can throw in a lot of other stuff too, right? You could do different kinds of teas, you can do orange….any other kind of citrus peels, I think grapefruit would be really awesome, you could also do like heat if you like it, some sort of spicy you know note to it. And then you let it sit for basically the same idea, 10 days to 14 days, stirring it I think every other day just to make sure it’s still doing its thing, and then you start tasting. And once it tastes good to you, you strain off the liquid, I like to bottle it and then you have your own kind of gin to use in a lot of different cocktails. I use it to make straight-up Martinis, I use it to make Negronis, I use it to make gin Gimlets, like all these things you would normally use regular gin for but now you have your own gin. And it’s also fun to then give to people, it’s like “hey, here’s this like gin I made.” It’s always like a good time, which is a lot of fun. We’ve talked a lot about spirit style projects, but I know Zach, we’re gonna get to your vermouth, but have either of you ever brewed beer?

E: No

Z: I have not. But you have?

A: Ahh. Yes, the best! I’ve had a lot of explosions too.

E: Really?

A: Yeah, so… I mean, I think the worst explosion was… Josh and I, the other co-founder of VinePair, we attempted to brew a Belgian tripel, that was a really bad idea. And it started re-fermenting in the bottle ‘cause it was just… it’s so much sugar and so much yeast in a Belgian tripel, and they exploded all in his closet, there was beer everywhere.

E: Oh no!

A: So that was when Naomi told me that we were never allowed to brew beer in our apartment, only in Josh’s. [But] brewing beer is super fun ‘cause I think it’s one of the easiest ways to sort of see how alcohol happens, if that makes sense?

E: Yeah.

A: You know, it’s not that… I think people get really freaked out about it because…like “oh, I read that the kitchen has to be super clean.” Like yes, cleanliness is important, but I mean you have to be clean when you cook, right? Like no one is sitting there being like “Oh, I’m gonna make some cookies and there’s like, dirt everywhere.” So as long as the counter is clean and you’ve washed the equipment with hot water and soap, the way you should wash your hands right now, everything is fine and it’s a fun project that takes, you know, four weeks. So, at the end of this whole bullshit you should emerge with a really good beer that then you can take out in the park and drink and there’s lots of amazing recipes online and you can buy kits which I’m sure are still shipping right now, to make beer and it’s a really fun project. I love doing it, we did it for like 2 years and then just sort of moved to places where we felt like it wasn’t as…we didn’t have as much space. Josh was really lucky in that one of his first apartments in New York was a big loft. So we were able to sort of brew… but you know, I bet your husband’s studio would be a perfect place to brew beer, just saying Erica.

E: I bet he does, we’ve got plenty of space up in his studio.

Z: I was gonna say, you’ve got… you can probably start a whole brewery, let alone just home brew. I have a question for you Adam, about brewing though, at home. Which is, are there styles of beer that are easier for people who’ve never done it to kind of take on? Obviously, it sounds like a Belgian tripel is a bad idea for a first beer, but is there kind of an ideal first beer?

A: Ales are the easiest. It’s very hard to do lagers because of the cold fermentations. So lagers are much more difficult than ales. And then pale ales and IPAs are actually very easy to brew at home, as long as you have the right ingredients, which again you can buy online and I have to say like we definitely brewed a bunch of different batches of IPAs and pale ales that came out really well. We actually have a home brew columnist on VinePair that writes I think monthly, or bi-weekly with different ways to brew.

E: Yep.

A: So there’s a bunch of resources there. But then also, I mean you can go down rabbit holes on Reddit and stuff like that of people who’ve like literally recreated beers. You can brew Heady Topper for yourself at home or someone’s like “Oh, I think I figured out the Pliny recipe,” so you can brew Pliny, which is crazy. So there’s a lot of fun you can have, and then the kits are easy to at least get you started, like the recipe’s there. So like literally “dump into water, boil, strain, you have this style of beer that we’ve already perfected the recipe of,” but it’s just a cool way, again, just to see how fermentation works.

E: Totally, and if you’re looking for the column on our site its BIY, “Brew it yourself,” it’s with national home-brew competition gold medal winner and certified cicerone Mandy Naglich. So that’s where you can check out dozens of articles to get a sense of best practices and projects you might wanna try out yourself.

A: Exactly, so now Zach back to you. How do you make vermouth?

Z: So I think the simplest way to do it, and I’ve mostly done it with red wine, because I find that it’s a little more…. I’ve only talked about making a white vermouth once, and I think I screwed up, so I don’t think that it’s not doable, I [just] think it’s that I didn’t kind of approach it the right way. But I will say that, before we get into the specifics, one I find about making vermouth at home is that, at least so far, I haven’t been able to kind of get the exact texture that you might expect from certain kinds of vermouth. Like if you like a really kind of rich vermouth like Carpano Antica or something like that, without adding a lot of essentially really, really reduced sugar syrup, you’re gonna have a hard time getting that real richness. And I don’t know that I can offer you a suggestion for how to get that at home, I’m not an expert. But otherwise, I mean basically what I’ve done is: I’ll take a certain amount of leftover red wine, in this case usually like you know about, yeah about 2 liters or so. So about two and half bottles, three bottles or something like that. And you take about a third of it and you reduce it over, you know over really low heat. You’re just trying to kind of cook it down a little bit. And then I would say once it’s about reduced in volume by about half, you add about a cup of sugar, and there’s your base syrup. And so at that point that’s had all the alcohol cooked out of it, so you’re not dealing with booze from that. And then basically you let it cool back down to kind of room temp, you add it to the remaining wine along with some…I mean again, you kind of want to use spices. I like to use like there’s certainly black pepper, again bay leaf I throw in there, I like to use things like coriander and cardamom, and a little bit of even cumin seed. Infusion of that along with a little bit of… you want to add some sort of spirit cause you want to bring the alcohol level up a little bit. So I sometimes will use Cognac, it definitely adds more flavor. If you have like… you can use vodka if you’ve got that that you wanna use. If you have… I mean ideally I think you would add a little bit of even higher-proof spirit, but I don’t have moonshine lying around so… that’s not an option for me…

A: What?

Z: I know, right? We haven’t talked about home distilling which is a bad idea. And also illegal most places.

A: I kinda want to do it though, but anyways keep going.

Z: Well we’ll see you at Jono’s studio too. So then… basically again, it’s just a process of waiting. It doesn’t take long. I find that within a week I’m kind of at the place I wanna be flavor-wise. But, you can kind of taste… give it a few days and then taste every day, and then at that point you just again, strain everything off, I put it right in the fridge. I find that it lasts for about a month in a pretty good state, and like I said, you know, my favorite use for it is just drinking it over ice with a little soda water or tonic because it’s kind of the best way to sort of enjoy that flavor. But it works in cocktails… I find that it actually, interestingly, does better in cocktails where you might use a fair bit of vermouth, so it works well in a Negroni. I haven’t loved it in my Manhattans, and maybe that’s just me. Again, I think it’s a texture thing. I think it feels like it waters them down a touch because it doesn’t have the viscosity that a commercially produced vermouth might have.

A: Right

Z: So in a Negroni I don’t mind it as much in part because Campari already has a lot of, you know, kind of richness and body, so it being a little lighter in flavor isn’t such a big deal. Or no, not lighter in flavor but lighter in body. But in something like a Manhattan I do find that I miss it a little bit, I miss that body that you get from vermouth a little bit. But you know you can find it… you can put it in a lot of different things. But like I said, I just like it a thing to sip over ice, with a little bit of soda water or just as is. Which is one of my favorite ways to enjoy vermouth period, so it’s not like I’m only doing that with this. But yeah… and again, if you’ve got open bottles, the nice thing about it is, you can just kind of combine stuff together. I haven’t found any issue with mixing… as long… I mean maybe if you’re mixing Beaujolais and Zinfandel you might find it a little weird but frankly even then I don’t think so. It all kind of comes together in the end. You might find slightly better results or more sort of homogenous results if you use the same wine but I don’t think any of us are at that stage so your leftover bottles… and I’ve used it with wine that’s been open for a week and it’s fine.

E: Wow!

Z: You know, you’re not looking for freshness and brightness in your vermouth for the most part, at least I’m not in the way that I would be in my wine. So you know, I wouldn’t use a three-week-old bottle. You know, another thing you could do is go buy a relatively inexpensive box of wine, you know a three liter and use that and probably end up with a very cost-effective vermouth solution.

E: Sure, sure. Yeah, that sounds like a great idea, I’d try it.

A: I dig.

Z: Well I would share it with you guys but that’s probably not gonna happen for a little while.

A: I think these have been like some really good ideas. I mean, Erica, have you got anything else?

E: Yeah, I mean I do have one more.

A: Yes!

E: I would say that a lot of people don’t realize that bitters is just a pretty simple infusion. So for that…

A: I didn’t.

E: Everyone’s talking about Everclear and how you can make your own hand sanitizer from it, but you can also use Everclear as the base for your bitters. So, really all you do to make bitters is you can take some like zest of lemons or oranges or whatever you want that main flavor base to be. And then you add cardamom, cloves, cinnamon, lemongrass, coriander, pepper, and then kind of the bittering agents that you wanna have in all bitters which are cinchona bark and gentian root, you know you can get those at natural stores or even at some bigger grocery chains. So for those things you just, you really just prepare the ingredients, divide them out into some Mason jars, and fill it up with grain alcohol. And for that you just let it sit there and kind of agitate it maybe once or twice a week for a month. And then portion it out into tiny little dropper bottles, and that’s one of my favorite holiday gifts that I typically make for people. Like to package that up with a cocktail book or something like that. And it’s a fun way to go. Maybe in this case it’s gonna be a post-apocalypse drinking gift that you can give to all your friends once you finally see them this summer.

A: I dig, I dig. Cool, so I guess you know, go home….well stay home, make one of these projects, and if you do shoot us an email at podcast@vinepair.com and let us know that you made one of the things we suggested, take a picture and share it with us, that would be awesome! Agreed?

E: Agreed.

Z: Yeah absolutely! And if you have other projects too. I would love to hear if people are trying other stuff out there that’s not stuff we covered too, cause I need some new projects.

E: Yeah, definitely. And try the sourdough, gotta move on, gotta keep going.

A: Well, as always everyone, thank you so much for listening, we hope you’re also checking out our podcast [Covid-19] Conversations, our corona diaries if you will, that we’re running in the feed three times a week. We’d love to know what you think about those as well. As always if you enjoy the podcast, if you feel like you’re getting a lot of amazing information and we’re helping make your day a little bit better please drop us a review or rating in iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever else you get our podcast. It really helps other people discover the show. And Erica, Zach, I’ll talk to you again right here, next week.

Z: Sounds great

E: See you then.

A: Thanks so much for listening to the VinePair podcast, if you enjoy listening to us every week please leave us a review or rating on iTunes, Stitcher, spotify, or wherever it is you get your podcasts, it really helps everyone else discover the show. And now for the credits:

VinePair is produced and hosted by Zach Geballe, Erica Duecy, and me: Adam Teeter. Our engineer is Nick Patri and Keith Beavers. I’d also like to give a special shout out to my VinePair co-founder Josh Malin and the rest of the VinePair team for their support. Thanks so much for listening and we’ll see you again right here next week.

The article VinePair Podcast: Drinks Projects You Can Make at Home appeared first on VinePair.

Via https://vinepair.com/articles/vinepair-podcast-drinks-projects-you-can-make-at-home/

source https://vinology1.weebly.com/blog/vinepair-podcast-drinks-projects-you-can-make-at-home

[spooktales]

Twice

“Hey! Hey, excuse me, sir! What are you doing over there!?”

The yelling voice came from behind Claire, making her whirl around, startled. She barely heard it over the sound of her headphones, still playing a true crime podcast as she took the woodsy bike path through town to her friend Mel’s house that cold morning. When she turned around, Claire was met with a confounding scene: a man, dressed in a black bomber jacket, dark blue straight-legged jeans, and wearing what looked like a balaclava pulled down over his face sprinted from the path behind her, and into the thick overgrown brush to the side of the trail.

Seeing this, Claire yelped and backed up quickly, stumbling over her own two feet and landing on her butt on the rocky dirt. She scrambled backward, crablike, and watched as the masked man also tripped and fought through the thorny bushes that lined the path. She noticed he also wore black gloves and heavy boots. It was mere seconds before he vanished into the thickly wooded area surrounding the trail and Claire was met with an almost as curious sight: an older man, further down the trail, also watching the masked man disappear into the forest. The older man wore a reflective fluorescent vest, highlighter yellow in color, over a beige work shirt, and dark khaki pants finished off with nice brown leather shoes. In his hands he held a large black trash bag, and in the other, a grabbing stick, the kind with the trigger on one end that moves a pincer claw. Claire realized he must be trail maintenance.

“Hello miss, do you know that person?” the older man asked as he slowly approached Claire.

Claire stood frozen, still reeling from the quick turn of events that just happened. It reminded her of the one time she had been in a car accident and got so frazzled she barely remembered it at all. The older man grew closer.

“Excuse me, are you alright? Who was that guy? You know them?”

Claire shook her head “no”, and took her headphones out, wrapping them around her iPhone and putting them in her pocket.

“No I- I’m not sure who that was. I only saw him for a second,” Claire replied.

The older man frowned but didn’t say anything for a few seconds, taking in the scenario.

“Okay miss, well I have to say I don’t have my little name badge but I volunteer for the trail maintenance and I come out here early like this on weekends. Kind of a meditative thing, it’s nice and quiet. My wife and I used to do it together. Well, nothing lasts forever I suppose. Anyway I don’t have that little badge-card-thing but my name is Fred and if you’d like, I can walk with you to the end of the trail. Like the parking lot? Is that where your car is?”

Claire nodded, tears forming in her eyes out of stress and the sudden graciousness of this stranger.

“No tears now,” Fred said. “We’re only about a five minute walk to the parking lot as I’m sure you know. You’ll be in your car and out of here in no time flat.” Fred smiled. It was kind.

Claire nodded in agreement. “Yes that would be nice, thank you.”

Fred lifted a crooked arm, gesturing for Claire to lock elbows with him. He did a little old-timey jig. “Come along miss! We’ll get you to your car lickety-split. And safe!”

Claire smiled through her uncertainty and chucked a bit. “Thank you so much.”

“No worries, miss. My wife and I used to walk this path years ago and would sometimes see some, well let’s just say ‘characters’ around these parts. I don’t want to worry you, but let’s keep a sharp eye for the rest of the trail. The woods are pretty thick up until the parking lot and I’m weaker than I look, which is obviously very, very strong.” Fred smirked and Claire smiled again.

The unlikely pair walked for about thirty seconds in silence before Fred broke it.

“So how old are you Claire, what do you do?”

“I’m, I just turned 25. Last month. I go to grad school upstate, I’m back down here for Thanksgiving.”

“Oh, that’s nice. Just to see the family?”

“Yeah, and friends. We go to my aunt’s house for dinner tomorrow, then I’ll meet up with some people in the evening I’m sure. Just the usual. Who are- what will you do for the holiday, normally?”

“Well, since Gina died, that was my wife, it’s been a little, well certainly lonely. But I’ll manage. I’ll probably go to a friend’s house. I have a son too, I’ll call him later on today. I always have my eyes open for the next step.”

“I’m glad you *did* have your eyes open today,” Claire said with a shudder. “I have no clue who that guy watching me might have been.”

“Oh I’m sure it was nothing. Just some weirdo watching lady joggers. Still gross, don’t get me wrong. But either way I scared him off. Hopefully he’s long gone now,” Fred said as he scanned the tree line through his glasses, skeptically.

Claire and Fred walked along quietly for another minute before a twig snapping to their right startled them both. They jumped and grasped one another, standing still in the middle of the trail. They stood in silence, staring at the dense brush that flanked the entire trail until it opened up into the parking lot. Fred looked Claire in the eyes and motioned for her to let go of him. She did, and he approached the bush where the sound came from.

Claire stood statuesque as Fred inched closer to the side of the trail and the dense bushes.

“Hey now, you come out now if you’re in there,” Fred said, weaker than he wanted to sound. “It’s not very nice to scare an old timer and a beautiful young lady like that. Why don’t you take your party elsewhere buddy?” Fred struck the bush with his long trash grabber.

They stared at the thick bushes and trees.

Nothing happened for a full minute.

“Hmm...” Fred remarked.

“Maybe we’d better- I think we’d better get going,” said Claire.

“Hmm...” Fred said again, but in a more agreeing tone, and walked back toward Claire. They continued walking the path.

Just a few minutes away now.

“There were old stories about these woods, like things live in here forever.”

“What does that mean?” asked Claire.

“Well, Claire, I’m surprised you’ve never heard that, being from town and all,” Fred began. “There were stories about some graduate students, researchers for the State Parks, and they found animals in here that, I guess seemed to have been alive far longer than they’d thought possible. Like maybe there was some weird water or berry growing in here that allowed them to continue living far longer than they should have. I dunno how much is truthful about it, I tried to look it up but couldn’t find anything. Likely just a wives’ tale, at any rate. But I’ve always been curious walking around in here. Like wondered if I’d ever find something in these woods that would last forever-“

The parking lot emerged in front of them, about 20 yards ahead on the trail, which was so thick that now was their first glimpse of it around the bend.

The parking lot wasn’t empty though.

Neither was the van which blocked the path from the lot.

Claire and Fred paused as they heard the driver side door open and shut. They saw black boots on the other side of the van from underneath, walking around the back. The figure turned the corner and emerged from behind the vehicle.

It was the masked man. He stood in front of the van and stared silently.

Claire trembled, she clutched Fred’s arm, wondering if the older man could even help her; the masked man seemed younger and larger.

“What do we do?” Claire whispered into Fred’s ear.

Fred shook his head subtly. “I’m not sure, love.”

A pregnant pause took over the world.

“I think I’ll- yeah, I think I’m gonna go see what he wants,” said Fred.

“No! You shouldn’t! What if he has a gun or a knife or something. This is super weird, I’m gonna call the police,” Claire was whisper-yelling to Fred now, welling up.

They looked back at the masked man who still stood there, himself and his van completely blocking their way. His only movement was his shoulders rising and falling with his breath.

“Nonsense, I’ll go give him what for. I’m a veteran, I’ll have you know. If he tries anything, he’ll regret it. If you’d like, you can call the police while I walk over there. It’s up to you, Claire. I’m just going to walk over, and see what he wants. Maybe he’s ill or something. Just give me one minute, stay right here. Okay, Claire?”

Claire’s eyes darted from the masked man to Fred. He gave her a weak smile. His eyes sparkled, almost excitedly, and he walked over to the man slowly.

Claire dialed 911 and hovered her finger over the green “send” key as she watched Fred tentatively approach the masked man, who remained unmoving. She couldn’t quite hear what was being said, but Fred appeared to be stern with the masked man, who simply looked at him.

There was more mumbling. The masked man glanced at Claire, then back to Fred. The masked man made a gesture akin to the sign of the cross, Fred tilted his head back and seemed to realize something. Fred laughed and looked back at Claire.

“Claire, you can come over here,” Fred said.

“What?” asked Claire, wildly confused.

“Yeah Claire it’s no big deal, it’s pretty good actually, come here. I’ll introduce you,” Fred said, smiling warmly.

“Are- are you sure?”

Fred laughed. It looked like the masked man laughed too.

“Of course, Claire!”

Claire wanted nothing to do with meeting a masked figure in the woods, regardless of what Fred thought. Fred had been wonderful to her that morning, but maybe their friendship was at its end already. Claire kept her call screen on, but slipped her phone into her pants pocket, approaching the two men slowly.

As Claire neared the men, she could see her car, a red Honda Civic, to the right of a black Maxima not far beyond the van. She could maybe sprint by them and get into her car as fast as she could. It was a risk, but one Claire was nearly willing to take. She worried slightly about Fred; should she leave him there? Claire put her left hand in her other pocket and clasped her car keys, placing a couple between her fingers in a fist. Claire was now within ten feet of the men and felt the need to keep facing the masked one, her eyes never leaving his, which she could now see were an icy shade of blue above the black balaclava. She stood slightly in front of Fred, hoping if the masked man made a move, she could key him in the face before he did anything to her or Fred.

“Claire there has been a misunderstanding. This is Patrick, he’s a photographer. He was just in the woods taking photographs and wanted to say sorry for spooking you. Spooking both of us, I guess,” Fred laughed.

Patrick nodded behind his mask but didn’t say anything.

“See Claire, it’s not a big deal! Just a silly mistake on our part! On my part, really,” Fred continued from behind Claire.

Claire’s eyes were locked with Patrick’s. She couldn’t tear them away. Something about them consumed her. It was almost as if the icy blue grey of his eyes swirled and moved like mist inside of his head.

“So where’s the camera?” Claire asked.

Nobody spoke for a few seconds. No birds called. Nothing happened.

Then Fred’s grabber claw closed around Claire’s neck, and Patrick placed a gloved hand over her mouth as he wrenched the sliding van door open. The two men took Claire off her feet and tossed her into the van, slamming her head on the plywood floor and causing something to fall off a shelf inside. It was a hammer. Claire was barely conscious, a trickle of blood running from her nose.

“Claire, I’ve always wanted to find something in these woods that would last forever.”

Before closing the door and shutting Claire into darkness, she saw Fred and the masked man Patrick look at each other, Fred handing him an envelope. The door slammed shut as Patrick walked toward the black Maxima.

“Too easy.”

[topimagines]

Don’t go- Josh Dun

Y/N P.O.V

He hadn’t answered his phone in over 5 hours. This wasn't like him. He always answered your calls and texts almost immediately.

Did he meet someone else? He probably didn’t care about you anymore, he won’t even be here for our 3rd anniversary. He could get anyone in the world, so why did he settle for you? You we’re a piece of crap. You we’re far from perfect, you had an ugly smile, and your laugh was so annoying.

Those thoughts had been haunting you for the past 3 months but when Josh didn’t answer your calls for the last 5 hours, that was enough for you to believe all of them. You just wanted to push all the voices out. There was only one way though.

You walked to the bathroom sobbing, knowing that both you and Josh would be free again. You from your misery and Josh from you. That’s what he wanted wasn’t it?

You opened the medicine cabinet and grabbed a bottle of sleeping pills. You heard a knock on the door as you took a big swig of water swallowing the pills then your phone rang out from the counter. It was Josh.

That’s when you fell to the ground and everything went black. You wanted to go back but it was too late.

Josh P.O.V.

I met her just over 3 years ago. Her smile pulled me in. The way she laughed made my heart skip a beat. She was freaking beautiful and she was so talented. From the first time I met her I felt a special connection to her.

Fast forward 3 years and we’ve been dating for 2 years, 11 months, and 29 days. Yes I kept a count because she meant so much to me. She always knows exactly the right things to say and do. I couldn’t help but think she ended up in my life for a reason. She was perfect.

Tyler and I just got off the plane from finishing our tour. Y/N doesn’t know we’re back yet. She thinks I’ll be home late tomorrow night, but I wanted to surprise her for our anniversary tomorrow.

I had a lot planned for us and I couldn’t wait to see her reaction when I proposed to her.

Once Jenna and Tyler dropped me off at Y/N and I’s apartment I started towards the door.  Was so excited to see her again. It has been 2 months since I got to see her in person.

I knocked on the door and waited for it to open. There was no answer. I decided to call her and I got a little nervous when she didn’t answer. I went to the neighbors to get the key they had of our. I could help but fear the worse. Y/N has battled with depression and when I went away she wasn’t in the best state of mind.

When the door finally opened I called out her name. That’s when I came across the bathroom to find the love of my life on the ground with an empty bottle of pills next to her.

I called 911 while trying to find a pulse. I was a little hopeful when I felt it but it was weak.

“Stay with me baby. I love you Y/N, don’t go. We were gonna get married. Baby I need you.” I just kept talking in hopes she could hear me.

The ambulance showed up about 7 minutes later. I had to call Tyler to meet me at the hospital because I couldn’t do this alone.

“Hey Tyler. Meet me at the hospital right now. I just found Y/N on the ground,she took some pills and I’m scared.” I could barely breath, my chest felt heavy with worry.

“We’re on our way now Josh stay strong, she’ll be okay.” Tyler’s voice was filled with fear and concern but he was trying to hide it.

She was taken away right away once arriving at the hospital. I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was Tyler. My tears just feel and I collapsed to the ground.

“I knew I should have told her I was coming home. I knew I should have never left her in the beginning.”

“Hey Josh She’ll be fine. She’s a fighter, she loves you and if she did hear you before then she’s gonna get herself better.” Tyler and Jenna stayed with me until the doctor came out.

“You must be Josh Dun, correct?”

“Yes. How’s Y/N? Can I see her.”

The doctor let out a sigh the started to talk. “She’s doing great. She overdosed on sleeping pills. Once we got her back there her heart stopped but we have her stabilized now. We have hopes that she will be awake tomorrow. Thank god you found her when you did. She wouldn’t have made it if you had waited all of 3 more minutes. You can go see her now.” With that the doctor lead all of us to where Y/N was.

She must have not eaten in a few weeks. She was at least 25 pounds lighter and her arms were covered in scars.

“Oh my god. Josh how long has she been this bad?” Tyler asked kneeling next to me as I held her hand and kissed her knuckles.

“I-I don’t really know. I got so wrapped up in the album and tour I guess I didn’t even notice. Fuck this is all my fault. I love her so much and I didn’t even realize that she was hurting herself. I don’t deserve her.”

“Don’t blame yourself for this Josh. Just be there for her.”

Tyler and Jenna left about 3 hours later after they knew I was okay. They offered to bring me home but I wasn’t leaving Y/N’s side.

I pulled a chair up next to her bedside and just held her hand. I drummed a little beat with my thumbs on her hand and I must and fallen asleep. I was awoken by yelling and a loud beeping noise. The nurses removed me from the room quickly as I tried to fight my way back to Y/N.

“Sir we need to make sure she’s fully stabilized before you can go back in.” The nurse explained to me as I asked to go back in after sitting in the waiting room for 20  minutes.

It was about an hour later when I could go back in. She looked like she did before except this time her eyes were open. She was just staring down at her wrist crying.

I placed a hand on her leg. She jumped “Are you a nurse?”

I looked at her with a quizzical face. Before I could reply the doctor came in and asked to speak to me.

He explained how she had some sort of seizure when she woke up. He then explained how she will have some memory loss for the next few hours but she should be okay by tonight. He had full faith in her which made me feel good.

“Hey Y/N, do you remember me?” I entered the room again.

“Umm… Yeah don’t you play in a band or something? Like the drums?” I thought it would be best to go along with whatever she said for now.

“Yeah. Are you a fan?”

She smiled and it made my heart skip a beat like always.

“I think so. Can I hear a song?”

“Of course.” I said pulling out my phone playing her favorite song.

As We Don't Believe What's On TV played I couldn't help but stare at her. She was so beautiful, how could she ever how doubts about herself?

When the song ended she asked to hear more. We listen to the whole Blurryface album and I gently drummed my fingers on the bedside again. She watched me the whole time.

“You must be really talented. Do you have a girlfriend?”

“I do actually.” I smiled and then it faded when I realized what she had asked me.

“Wow she must be very lucky to have you.”

“No I'm lucky one.”

“Josh, will you tell me about her?”

“Well for starters she’s beautiful, talented, and her smile. Her smile makes me the happiest man alive. I could go on for hours about everything I love about her. She's perfect for me.”

She smiled down at me.

“I feel like I know who you are. Are we friends?”

“I would say more than friends. What do you remember about me?”

Y/N P.O.V.

“I would say more than friends. What do you remember about me?”

I sat and thought for a moment. My thoughts and memories were all cloudy and I wasn’t sure what was real or not.

“Well I remember that there is Tyler he’s the one who sings those songs.A blonde girl. Gianna, possibly. I think we’re all friends right?”

“Close, her name is Jenna. Tyler and I play in the band twenty one pilots and Jenna is one of your best friends.” Josh said reassuring me.

With that a man and a woman walked in. they looked to Josh as if they didn’t know what to say.

“Hey guys. Y/N woke up a while ago and she’s getting some memories back.” Josh told them what I remembered. After talking a bit about our friendship Jenna asked if Josh wanted to take a walk with her. I wondered why he said yes, I thought we were getting along so well. I wanted to know more about his girlfriend,he sounded so madly in love with her. Something I only dreamed a guy would do about me.

Once they left the room Tyler sat in the chair next to the bed that Josh just left.

“Hey Y/N. How do you feel?”

“Good I guess. Tyler can I ask you a question?”

“Sure, what’s up?”

“Is Josh happy with Jenna? I mean he deserves the best and I think she would be great for him I guess.”

He chuckled and looked at the ground. “Well I hope they don’t get to close. After all she’s my wife.”

“Oh whoops, I thought they were dating. Sorry. So who is he dating?” You felt sort of embarrassed but you felt comfortable around Tyler like you did with Josh.

“Well she’s this funny girl who I introduced him to over 3 years ago. Today is their 3 year anniversary actually and he was gonna surprise her, but something came up. She’s my wife’s best friend and she was her maid of honor in our wedding. We all missed her being on tour with us, but she had work so she could join us the past 3 months.” You sat and listened to Tyler go on about this girl for a while.

Josh P.O.V.

“Thanks for getting me out of there Jenna.”

“No problem. I saw the tears in your eyes and knew you probably needed a minute to breathe.”

“Yeah. It’s just so hard not being able to wish her a happy anniversary or kiss her. I mean she doesn’t even know we’re dating. I had all these plans to propose today and I just feel so bad for her.” I wanted to cry but just held the emotions in. I wanted to stay as strong as possible.

“The doctor said we could show her picture and videos and things like that to jog her memory but I don’t want to mess with anything, you know?”

“I get it, but i think she’s getting a lot of the memories back she just needs a little more push to get the rest.” Jenna said pulling out her phone. She showed em a few pictures she had taken of Y/N and I when we were on tour together.

“Show these to her and maybe it will help her.” She said handing me the phone as we walked back into Y/N’s room.

Y/N P.O.V.

Josh and Jenna walked in and Josh sat next to me again. He handed me the phone and scrolled through a few pictures of him and me. It was when he got to the 5th or 6th picture that it clicked. I was his girlfriend. Tears filled my eyes and Josh looked up at me.

“What’s wrong?” Josh said wiping away a stray tear that must have fallen from my eye.

“Happy anniversary babe.”

The room went silent. Everyone’s jaws fell open. Then Josh stood up and put his lips to my forehead.

“I love you Y/N. Happy anniversary baby.”

Josh handed Jenna her phone back. Then they left leaving only Josh and I in the room. I moved over on the bed so Josh could sit next to me.

Not that he felt like a stranger but I still didn’t have full memory back so I still didn’t feel like I’ve known him for 3 years.

Josh's P.O.V.

It had been a few hours since she remembered who I was. I know there were pieces still missing from her memory but the next morning she would have it all back says the doctor.

It was early in the morning when I woke up and saw her sleeping so peacefully. I didn't want to leave but I hadn't taken a shower in over 3 days now.

Once I returned 3 hours later she was awake.

She greeted me with the biggest smile.

“Hey Josh.”

I was so happy to hear her voice again with a happy tone.

“Hey babe. How did you sleep?” I asked as I sat down on the bed with her again.

“Great.” There was a moment of silence as the cuddles close into my side. “Josh I'm so sorry. I-”  I cut her off before she could say anything more.

“Y/N there's nothing to be apologizing about. Just please promise me you'll come to me about this if there's a next time.”

She nodded her head and I kissed her on the top of her head.

“You missed.” She said as she came up to met her lips with mine. We were interrupted by Tyler walking in.

“Woah didn't know I was getting a show with visiting my best friend.” Y/N pulled away and chucked. I just stared down at her. I can't believe I almost lost the love of my life to her stupid demons.

6 weeks later

Y/N and I just left having a nice dinner at her favorite restaurant. We were walking along the river path when I stopped and dropped to my knee. Y/N didn't notice for a few seconds and when she turned around to see me pulling out the small velvet box she started to cry. This was it. The moment I've been anticipating since our first few dates.

I planned a whole speech but I couldn't get the words to form so I simply just said “Y/N make me the happiest man to ever live and marry me.”

She stepped closer to me and shook her head yes. I slipped the ring in her finger and then pulled her into a hug.

She was finally mine. I was never letting her go again and something told me she was thinking the same about herself and I.

“I love you Y/N.”

“I love you too Josh.”  

[keywestlou]

IF YOU DON'T SPEAK FRENCH, BE WARY OF EATING IN CHAMONIX.....THE BOILED HOT DOG CAPITAL OF THE WORLD

DAYS 36 and 37…..Greece the First Time

Posted on July 3, 2012 by Key West Lou

I am back!

It is a question mark each day whether I will return. I failed to bring my computer with me. I am at the whim of internet stores and friendly people. One thing I know for a fact. Everyone in Italy is using old and sick machines. Each day is a task and a surprise.

I have been sleeping in Courmayeur the last three nights. Driving back and forth to Chamonix each day. The Alps are always before me. From the moment I rise to the time I go to bed. They are there on the drive to Chamonix and back. The mountains dominate the scene.

I would be remiss if I failed to make some additional comments regarding Mont Blanc. Recall it is 11 peaks on top of an already big mountain.

Mont Blanc defies description. I guess that is why I am back trying to tell you more about it. Words do not adequately verbalize what the eyes see.

The mountain is high and tall. It stands defiantly. Speaks quietly. Says…..Don’t screw with me!

Impossible to see all 11 peaks at one time. Clouds up high. Block the view.

Trees cover the lower range of Mont Blanc. Pine. All the way up to a certain level. Then nothing but bare rock. Someone told me pines will not grow above 2,000 feet. The bare land is formidable. Then comes the peaks. Not just the very top. The top for a considerable distance downward.

When I arrived, some of the peaks had valleys of glaciers. Ice. One day later all the peaks were covered with snow. A significant dusting. Impressive.

Many waterfalls. They are streams running down the sides of the mountain. All over. Some a foot wide. Others up to 20 feet. Beautiful. They run in and out of the woods. You see it, then you do not. All of a sudden the stream reappears again.

The thinner streams were not running yesterday. They were frozen. Yesterday at this time (11 am) the temperature was 29 degrees F. At the same time 24 hours later it is 50 degrees F.

The waterfalls are attributable to two factors. The first is the melting glaciers. The other is that the mountain top is loaded with natural springs and wells. Below ground. They seep their way upward and add to the glacier spill off.

Yesterday morning, I had a unique experience. When I opened the door to the balcony starring at Mont Blanc, I saw a number of clouds. Some were below my eye level. Others at my eye level. Others above my eye level. All set against the green pines of Mont Blanc. A wow!

Last night when driving back to Courmayeur, I had another experience. Though one I have had before. Fog. Big time. There were occasions I could not see at all. Bad.

Moving on from Mont Blanc, let me share two food experiences I had yesterday.

The first was in Chamonix at lunch time. I went into a big restaurant at the main corners of Chamonix. Where all the world walks by. It was too cold to eat outside, however.

The menu was in total French. No English sub titles as I had become accustomed to elsewhere on this trip. I saw what appeared to be the word sausages. I have been eating many sausages this trip. All different. All good.

I ordered sausage. Pointed to it on the menu to the waitress. My mistake was not asking her to spell out exactly what I was ordering. Assuming she spoke English. I do not know. I found whereas many Greeks and Italians have at least a smattering of English, the French seem to be above a second language.

I was served two boiled hot dogs and french fries. Not big fat hot dogs. Not long ones. Two regular sized.

I looked at them for a few minutes. And then decided, oh well! My mistake. Eat them. I did not wish to be the ugly American.

I called the waitress over. Asked for ketchup and mustard. The least I could do was dress the meal up. She looked at me in shock. I knew what was coming…..We do not serve ketchup and mustard! We are French!

I quietly ate my boiled hot dogs and fries.

Dinner last night got screwed up, also. I was at what might best be described as a good neighborhood restaurant in Courmayeur. It had been so described to me. I was told to be sure to eat polenta. It is the favored dish in this Alpian village.

There were only six entrees on the menu. Each served with polenta. The only thing I recognized was chicken cachetore. I asked what polenta was. No screwing around this meal. Lunch had been bad enough bad enough.

The waiter provided a polenta description. It was crushed corn. All mashed together with what I could not understand. He told me it was everyone’s favorite. Had me look at the other tables. Each had a heaping large dish of yellow stuff on their table. He further told me Christopher Columbus introduced polenta into Italy. There was no corn in Europe prior to Columbus. He brought it to the old world from the new world.

I did not like the polenta. I was told to bury it in the tomato sauce. That is the way it is supposed to be eaten. I did. Better, but still not my dish.

The polenta alone cost me 12 euros. About $16 American money. Not worth it.

I am absolutely impressed with Italian roads and bridges. All appear in tip top shape. The Italians have also recently constructed a speed train from Milan to I know not where. A new road was built near the railway tracks. The road had to have 72 bridges. So the trains could pass underneath.

Italian roads and bridges are well maintained. There is a reason for it. At some point a law was passed that whoever built or constructed a road, received a contract to maintain the road for 30 years. The money for maintenance comes from tolls. The contractor charges the tolls. The contractor keeps the money and makes repairs as needed.

A good deal for the contractor! Positive cash flow!

The Italians using the roads are not very happy about the 30 year thing however. The tolls are expensive. My two hour drive from Novara to Courmayeur had cost me 25 euros one way. The Italians are an adept society. Their way around the burdensome toll is to drive back roads. They know all the bye ways.

I think the Italian way of building and maintaining roads and bridges is worthy of investigation. Gets the job done! The job we are not and have not been doing for years. Our roadways and bridges are a disgrace. Forget maintenance. A pot hole per family. The cost is not a tax to be imposed. It is paid daily by the users of the roads and bridges.

It is probably a screw job either way. However, worth exploring.

A few words about Chamonix. Lovely! Gorgeous! Exciting! People all over. Summer and winter. Great pedestrian walk ways. Terrific high scale stores. No tee shirt vendors. Very European. I sat several times having a coffee at an outdoor cafe and watched the world go by. It was the world. The whole world. Every nationality walking the streets.

I got to Chamonix through a tunnel. A nine mile tunnel. The Italians and French built it. Runs right under one of the Alp mountains. Cool!

Somewhere in the back of my mind comes a recollection of Mary Shelley and this area. I did not have the time to research it. Forgive me if I am wrong.

Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein’s Wife. A best seller at the time. She lived in the Courmayeur area. Courmayeur provided the background for the book.

Recall that her story took place in a castle. Castles all over the place here. Recall also the fog. Fog frequent here. Recall further the fog I drove through last night. The fog was thick enough not only for Frankenstein, but also Dracula and Wolfman.

Later today, I am driving to the Portofino area. The Italian Riviera. A three hour drive.

I will be staying in Camogli, a town immediately next door to Portofino. Camogli a part of the Italian Riviera also.

The trip should be interesting. It is summer time and the area should be flourishing.

Enough for today. I am going to be thrown out this internet store. It closes from noon to 3 each day. In Chamonix, all the stores closed from 1 to 3. Siesta time.

Enjoy your day!

—

Florida’s Governor DeSantis maintains a fixed place in my mind. Incompetent. Grossly incompetent. Yet he still ranks high on the list of Republican Presidential candidates for 2024.

Vaccine distribution has been a disaster in Florida. Everything COVID has. DeSantis generally the blame. To place my observation in better perspective, Trump considers DeSantis the best Governor in the U.S.

Florida uses Publix as one of the places where vaccine shots can be received. Seventy thousand doses a week are delivered to Publix’s distribution center in Lakeland. From whence Publix distributes the vaccine to various Publix stores throughout the State.

This system has been ongoing for 5 weeks. Three hundred fifty thousand vaccine shots distributed thus far.

One problem. Officials do not know where the vaccine is delivered once in leaves Publix’s distribution center in Lakeland. Florida has not required any such information. Publix has provided none.

Not the way the distribution should be handled. Problems will reveal themselves at some point.

Publix was a major financial supporter of DeSantis.

The 70,000 vaccines received by Publix weekly represents 25 percent of Florida’s available doses.

Most Republican governors are not on the ball when it comes to the virus.

Texas Governor Gregg Abbot an example.

What he has done represents pure insanity.

Abbott announced yesterday that he was opening Texas as of next wednesday. One hundred percent. All businesses. Mask requirement will no longer be in force, also. He is reversing his own pandemic orders imposed several months ago..

Abbott has his reasons. Though not correct.

He claims Texas vaccination numbers are increasing. The State and people generally have more knowledge as to how to manage the spread of the virus. Hospitalization and positivity rates are decreasing.

Abbott’s representations much like Trump’s. Permeated with falsehoods.

Texas is not out of the woods. Masks still needed. COVID-19 continues to be widespread. Following Abbott’s address yesterday, the San Antonio mayor said in response there were still too many cases, Abbott’s decision was a mistake.

Texas likes to dance to its own tune. The recent grid power failure an example. Texas believes it knows better.

Here are the facts. Only 6.5 percent of Texans have been fully vaccinated. Herd immunity has not yet arrived. May never.

What follows is the best. A recent study of U.S. counties having the “worst” of virus conditions has been made public. The 20 worst counties the most interesting. Eleven of those counties are in Texas.

Additionally, not all health case workers have been vaccinated yet. People are told to sign up to get the vaccine shot. They are told no vaccine available when the time comes to receive their shots.

Biden will have to make a decision soon. To save the filibuster or pass his agenda. He cannot have both. The Republicans a long time ago forgot bipartisanship.

The stimulus package will pass. It is not subject to filibuster. However the voting rights bill will fail because it is so subject.

One or the other. Biden’s program will fail unless he gets rid of the filibuster. He will face problems with Democratic Senators Manchin and Sinema who support filibuster.

Biden has his work cut out for him.

In the modern era, it is becoming more frequent for Presidents and former Presidents to be indicted. Israel’s Netanahyu is one.

Another France’s former President Sarkozy. He was charged with forming a “corruption pact.” Tried and convicted. Sentenced to 3 years in jail. Two years suspended. The Court not sure whether he will be jailed or serve home confinement for the third year.

In 2 weeks, Sarkozy faces his second criminal trial. The claim is he violated campaign financing rules in 2012.

Sarkozy’s third problem still under investigation. He remains under investigation for allegedly receiving millions of euros in campaign funds in 2007. From who? Mommar Gadafi.

Trump’s time is next. He has the Manhattan District Attorney investigating him for tax and bank fraud. The Futon County, Georgia District Attorney announced yesterday that she had convened a grand jury to investigate the telephone call between Trump and Georgia’s Secretary of State. Trump wanted the Secretary to find some 11,000 votes that Trump could say were wrongly counted and should have been in Trump’s column. The Secretary refused.

The telephone call was recorded.

Stormy days ahead. Black clouds are assembling.

Pope Francis continues to play out as the best of men.

It is Lent. Catholic Church members give up something. Could be candy, drinking, swearing, food, etc.

Francis says lets be more realistic this year. Give up something of more value. Like gossiping/speaking ill of others. Christians should stop spreading hearsay/false rumors. He also recommends the Bible be read with more frequency. In most instance, a start to reading it. Francis suggests only one verse a day. No big deal.

Great show last night! Tuesday Talk with Key West Lou. Outstanding topics. Everything meshed.

Enjoy your day!

IF YOU DON’T SPEAK FRENCH, BE WARY OF EATING IN CHAMONIX…..THE BOILED HOT DOG CAPITAL OF THE WORLD was originally published on Key West Lou

[isaiahrippinus]

VinePair Podcast: Drinks Projects You Can Make at Home

With Covid-19 keeping many of us at home indefinitely, we’re finding all kinds of new projects to provide creative outlets. While some people are busy deep cleaning their bathrooms and perfecting their sourdough starters, we’ve opted to dial in our home drinking game — and maybe you’d like to join us? From whipping up batches of vermouth and bitters, to making quick infusions and syrups, to becoming a home brewing hobbyist, there are plenty of ways to put your at-home time to good use.

That’s the topic on this week’s VinePair podcast, where Adam, Erica, and Zach discuss their own experiences with DIY beverage projects and offer some suggestions on what to make, and how to turn those projects into great drinks.

Listen on iTunes

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LISTEN ONLINE OR CHECK OUT OUR CONVERSATION HERE:

Adam: Still from my Brooklyn, NY Apartment, I’m Adam Teeter.

Erica: From Jersey City, I’m Erica Duecy.

Zach: And in my house in Seattle, Washington I’m Zach Geballe.

A: And this is the VinePair podcast and guys, I’m excited about our topic today. Which is getting into alcohol projects you can do at home. I know I’ve been taking on a ton of projects myself, not just obviously alcohol- related. I’ve been baking some bread. I’ve been….well, baking a lot. But also doing some projects around the house but, before we jump in to all of that. What have you guys been drinking? What’s been getting you through for the last week? Anything exciting? Erica?

E: Yeah, I have been tasting through a ton of rosés for the big list that we put out every year – our top 25 rosés. And I’ve been excited by some of the really affordable selections that I’ve found. You know, usually when I’m thinking about rosé, I’m thinking [about] the south of France, but actually there were some sneaker hits out of Italy for me. So, I found the Planeta rosé from Sicily, that’s a $16 bottle. And it’s on the bolder side of the rosé flavor spectrum; it’s got strawberry, guava, crushed peach notes; I was totally surprised. And this would be the type of wine that I would pair with like barbecue chicken, tacos, even pizza, it’s got that kind of bolder flavor profile which is gonna be so wonderful with all of the summertime back-yard barbecue foods.

A: Yeah man, Italian rosés.

Z: That’s awesome!

A: That was a big thing last year, in our list last year; I think Planeta made the list, and the number one was Graci. Both from Sicily, ‘cause I think, yeah those wines are surprisingly amazing. Even though you normally think of France, right? Which is nuts!

E: Totally!

Z: And it makes sense in a way ‘cause you’re dealing with a similar climate, right? You’re Mediterranean, obviously if you’re in Sicily you’re IN the middle of the Mediterranean, but we think of all the great French rosé that, in particular that come from Provence and [have a] very Mediterranean sort of influence, so I think it’s definitely the case that you can find some great rosés from […] other wine regions that border the Mediterranean. Because they’re going to have, I think generally speaking, a culture of rosé drinking that goes back, ‘cause those kinds of wines are, sometimes the red grape… or what you wanna do with red grapes in those kind of places is turn ‘em into rosé.

A: Totally. So Zach, what about you, what are you drinking man?

Z: Well as you might have noticed on Instagram yesterday, as we’re recording this on Friday, I took the opportunity, and I have been taking the opportunity, to go in and pull some bottles out of my collection that I wasn’t saving for the most special of occasions, but might have been a little loathe to open under the general mentality of, “Fuck it, I might as well!”. And as Erica might recall I wrote a piece for the site, which now feels like it ran about a million years ago, but it was I think actually just last month, on the joys of aged Italian white wines. So last night I was looking…

A: Yeah, you’ve also talked about this on the podcast multiple times. This is your thing.

Z: I have, It’s true. It’s one of my things, but for good reason! I had the opportunity…

E: I love old Italian white wines.

Z: Yeah, and I had the opportunity to have a ten-year-old bottle of Arneis, which is one of my favorite varieties, and it’s not the kind of thing that I would necessarily have every single night, but I made risotto and roasted a chicken and it’s a wine that both my wife and I love. And you know, it… I mean look, there’s a lot of horrible news and everything going on in the world and we’re gonna try to kind of sort of steer away from that in this podcast, but for me, it’s like every now and then it’s important to really center my own, or our own joy and pleasure when we can, and wines like that are opportunities to do that. So I was really glad that I was like, “OK it’s the last bottle of this I have, it’s a kind of special wine but we’re gonna open it, we’re gonna enjoy it and then I guess we’re gonna talk about it on the podcast the next day as it turns out,” so that is what I have been drinking. Adam, how about you?

A: So you know I’m going through the eight stages of… I don’t know, mourning, drinking, etc. So I have been drinking a lot of rosé for the tasting, but I won’t talk about any of those here ‘cause I think Erica already hit on that. But you know like last week when we were first like “this is happening,” I drank a lot of brown spirits. So, I found a few bourbons that I really enjoyed. I was drinking a Jefferson’s bottling that was really delicious, I was drinking some Lagavulin, so you know Scotch that I really liked. Somebody gifted me a bottle of Whistle Pig, so I enjoyed a little bit of that last week. And also like dirty Martinis for my wife — I don’t take them dirty, but I was drinking just a classic gin Martini, a little dry with a lemon twist. So I was really drinking liquor last week, and then this week I definitely transitioned back to like beer and wine. So I had a few pretty delicious IPAs that I enjoyed earlier in the week. I’m also trying to go back to my normal schedule of not drinking three to four nights a week. So I guess… so if I didn’t drink Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, so Wednesday night I had a really nice New England style IPA from Monday Night Brewing that was pretty cool, and then last night I did enjoy one of the rosé from the round up that I was like, “wow, this is just amazing.” We featured it a bunch before, Kathleen Inman’s wine, so Endless Crush is just a beautiful wine.

Z: Oh yeah!

E: Yeah, that’s great.

A: And so it was submitted again for the tasting this year, and then I was like, “well I’m not gonna dump this,” so I drank it. I have to say, Erica, I’ve been impressed for the past few years actually that there’s some really stellar rosés coming out of other countries. A lot out of California or just the West Coast in general and you know, a lot of bad ones coming out of Provence. A lot of ones that are really trading on that regional name that are getting away with like a true lack of balance or just like really harsh, off flavors, fruit that doesn’t taste super high quality. But [which] are still being [sold] for over $20 bucks because they put Provence on the label. So I thought that was interesting. There was another one that I really liked a lot that surprised me called Seaglass, that was like I think it’s like $10.99. And I remember… so I’ve been tasting with my wife Naomi which has been fun. ‘Cause you know, she loves wine but never gets to come to our office tastings when we have people in, and she turned to me and was like, “What is this wine? This is really good!” And it had come after a string of not a lot of very good wines… and I was like, “Yeah! This is really good.” And so then like we looked at it and we were like holy shit! And then we looked at the price and we were blown away. So yeah, I think it’s been fun, and then I don’t know this weekend… Tonight is pizza night, so I’m gonna make some delicious pizza and pop something good, who knows? And then maybe get back on my spirits wagon, I don’t know.

E: Yeah, I mean I’ve been going the same way too. I think I’m sort of alternating at this point. So I’ll do wine one night or a cider, and then I’ll switch over and have a cocktail but yeah, I think the things we’re gonna talk about today with the cocktail projects that’s actually gotten me pretty excited to start back into my cocktail experimentation land, I definitely went through a phase of that a couple of years ago, but I’m right back on the train now.

A: I know you’re a wine lover but when I was first introduced to you it was through the fact that you have written this cocktail book and really have this expertise in cocktails. Like the things you tell me you’re trying to do at home, like recreate a classic Martini from… I would never do. Like, I can make a really good Negroni, I can make a really good straight-up Martini, but if you ask me to recreate some of my favorite cocktails from some of my favorite cocktail bars in New York I’d be like, “nah, I’m just gonna wait ‘til they re-open.”

E: ‘Nah, I’m good!’ Yeah, I mean I definitely went through a phase like years ago where I was just making bitters all the time, making bitters from like Buddha’s hand and like all sorts of crazy citruses and so forth so I mean that’s… I think that’s one of the nice things right now, is that if we have a little bit extra time where we’re looking for something creative to do, hey start on those holiday gift projects now, you’ve got nothing else to do, [so] you might as well get creative.

A: I mean yeah, so I guess jumping straight into the topic: Zach, what sort of projects do you have in mind that people could be doing now? Or what are you working on, or wish you were working on?

Z: Well I would say that I’ll let Erica talk about things like bitters because that’s something that I don’t have a lot of experience with personally. But what I would say, and I think this is the operative thing here is, for the most part I think most of us in our daily lives, we don’t have time, and really it’s not even just that we don’t have time because a lot of these things don’t take a lot of active time. It’s just we don’t really want to commit to a couple of week-long projects, even if most of that time is spent sitting in a closet or something. And what I have started doing at home, because I anticipate having some time to commit to this, is working on some infusions. That’s something that I started doing as a bartender years ago. Basically, it’s a simple way to add flavor to a spirit. I’m mostly working with clear spirits at the moment because, while you can certainly do cool things with brown spirits, I find that if I kinda just wanna get like a simple flavor, like a fruit flavor, like I’ve got some blueberry gin going on right now, the idea there’s is basically to extract the flavor from the blueberry into the gin, and I imagine that in a couple of weeks, which is about how long these things tend to take, that the weather in Seattle may have turned to the point where sitting outside and having a drink made with blueberry gin is gonna sound really, really delightful as opposed to [how] it sounds now, which is pretty miserable ‘cause it’s pouring rain. [That’s] kinda what I’m aiming at. And then one thing that I’ve mentioned on the podcast before that I’ve done, and I think is another thing to think about doing especially for people who are home more, maybe opening wine more often but aren’t necessarily drinking a lot is vermouth. Which is a little tricky to make in that you kind of have to find the right balance in ingredients and sweetness but I’ve had some success with making vermouth and I find it actually to be more useful as something to kind of sip, a way to kind of preserve that wine – if you’re not interesting in cooking with it – or making vinegar which you can also do. I like to make vermouth and then it’s just something that I’ll pour over ice, maybe add a little bit of soda water to and it’s my afternoon (maybe while I’m cooking) beverage, ‘cause it’s lower in alcohol. And it retains some of the wine flavor but has some spice notes that you expect from vermouth.

A: So Zach, quickly. ‘Cause you know you’re talking about these things, I’m loving it, I’m getting into it, but now I’m like “how do I do it?” So first of all, with your blueberry gin, can you please explain the process, and also tell me what kind of drinks you’d put it in? And then could you please do the same for the vermouth?

Z: Yeah, absolutely!

A: Thank you.

Z: So I would say, with the blueberry gin, it’s basically, the only things you really need are gin – for one. And I like to look at something that’s not… I’m not going for top shelf gin, I’m looking at something that’s probably like a London dry, cause I want something with a relatively neutral palate, so I’m using Gordon’s ’cause it’s kind of a relatively inexpensive…

A: It’s a very… yeah that’s a good one.

Z: Yeah, I find the flavor unobjectionable, but it’s not that expensive so I’m not putting it in my really premium gin. And then you basically just need a jar or other vessel that you can close. It doesn’t have to be air tight, you don’t have to worry because of the alcohol of the gin, it’s not like anything is gonna go bad, in terms of like the fruit rotting, but you just don’t want it spilling and you do wanna be able to capture the flavor. And then, basically what I do is, I have a [container that] you would put a punch in that’s got a spigot. And so I just put the gin in, and I usually do like 2 liters at a time, and then it ends up being about… oh gosh I should probably measure these things, right? It probably ends up being about 2 pounds or so of blueberries. And I throw maybe a bay leaf or two in also ‘cause I like a little bit of that additional herbal flavor, and I let it sit. And I let it sit for about ten days and then I start tasting it. And really what you’re tasting for is, you want there to be a noticeable blueberry flavor. But what I don’t want, is I don’t want it to start tasting like… if you’ve ever had dried blueberries? Or like really concentrated candy blueberry flavor, then I feel like you’ve extracted a little too much. So at that point then you just literally strain the gin off, you throw the blueberries away. I made the mistake once when I was very young in the restaurant industry of eating them and they are miserable, it just tastes like alcohol. But basically yeah, you just dump that out. I think you could theoretically do something with the blueberries, like maybe you could cook them down but there’s really very little flavor left in them…

A: Put em in pancakes and give ‘em to your kids.

Z: God! Yeah, If you want them to take three naps a day….

A: Like, Yo! I need to get some work done, I made you blueberry pancakes, enjoy!

Z: I would worry that the pan might catch on fire with all that alcohol in there. And then as far as cocktails, one of the things I like to use it in, one of my favorite spring cocktails [is] the Aviation, which is typically made with crème de violette: so gin, crème de violette, lemon and Maraschino liqueur. And what I do is, I basically just cut down a little bit on the crème de violette and Maraschino ‘cause with the fruit flavor in there, even though the gin isn’t sweet, I feel like the whole drink can get a little syrupy if you’re not careful. But I basically just do that, you get this even deeper blueberry, kind of blue color than you would get normally from the crème de violette. That’s one thing. I like it…I mean you can make just a simple gin flip. So basically, again just in, lemon juice and an egg white. [A] little bit of simple syrup or sugar if you want, to kind of sweeten it up. But really, I mean I think it’s pretty versatile, and also just as a gin and tonic, frankly. Like if you just want to pour that over some ice with some tonic water, it’s fucking delicious, it’s got a nice little kind of pale blue color, or pale purple color really and it’s great when and if the weather improves, which it will eventually here in Seattle, I promise.

E: Yeah, that sounds great!

A: So we’ll come back to you on the vermouth tip. But Erica what about you? Gimme a project.

E: Yeah, super simple project. So yesterday we launched this article with 5 simple projects that you can do at home to up your cocktail game, and the thing that I made was oleo-saccharum, which… do you guys know about this? It sounds like a crazy Latin thing but it’s actually a super-simple citrus syrup. So, it’s been used since like the 1700’s if you read David Wondrich, in either of his books, you’ll see him refer to it as really the essential ingredient in punches in classic times. You take the peels from citrus, usually you could use lemon or orange or grapefruit, and you just steep it and mix it with some sugar. And then the sugar pulls out all of those wonderful essential oils to create this beautiful syrup that, you know, in Wondrich’s telling, creates the difference between a good punch and a great punch. So it has a lot of uses other than a punch though, [and] my favorite way to use it, and I’m gonna be posting this all up on Instagram because it’s really one of the best cocktails, is an Old Fashioned. So just a rum Old Fashioned with an aged rum like El Dorado 12 year which is my favorite on its own – it’s such an incredible rum, but then I just do one teaspoon of the oleo-saccharum syrup, and bitters over a big ice cube. It’s such a beautiful cocktail. And really the only thing, like I said, to make the oleo-saccharum is that you steep the orange or citrus peels in sugar overnight, you mix it occasionally and then in the morning, anywhere from 3 to 12 hours later you can decide based on the taste. You’ve got a ready-to-go syrup. From a quantity perspective, just get and peel a cup or so worth of the peels and then you just add about a half a cup of sugar, and it creates about a little bit more than a third-cup of syrup. That can be kept in the refrigerator for a week and used in a variety of ways. You can use it in a French 75, you can use it in a whiskey sour, you can use it in a Sidecar, I mean there’s so many different applications for it. And it’s just such a wonderful lifted citrus flavor that you can’t really get any other way.

A: Dude that sounds delicious. Like…

E: It’s pretty good.

A: I also kinda wanna make some pancakes from [Zach’s] blueberries and then put your syrup on top of it, that sounds pretty good. I mean that sounds pretty good.

E: I mean that sounds pretty good.

A: That sounds pretty good.

Z: Adam, are we recording this before you have lunch or something? ‘Cause I feel like all you wanna do is eat our drinks projects.

A: Nah man I had lunch. I actually had lunch with bread I baked myself… So for me one of the things that’s fun to make is bathtub gin. So like, yes I know it’s not real gin, but basically you take a vodka, and you… I like to again, same with you Zach, not an amazing vodka, but a quality vodka, right? So like, we’re not going out here and putting Ketel [One] in this, but I’ll usually do it with something like, honestly it works really well with Smirnoff or Tito’s or something. So take a 750 ml bottle, dump it in a Mason jar – a large enough Mason jar or some sort of vessel and then it’s the same kind of idea, right? You basically flavor it with gin flavorings. So as opposed to distilling those gin flavorings into the gin, you’re just steeping them into the vodka, so I use like, cucumber peel, lemon peel, dill, you have to use…. I think you have to use juniper berry, some people disagree, but I kinda feel like it’s not gin without the juniper berry, so some dried juniper berries, you can get those at a lot of grocery stores so you shouldn’t have a problem even in the quarantine. But you can throw in a lot of other stuff too, right? You could do different kinds of teas, you can do orange….any other kind of citrus peels, I think grapefruit would be really awesome, you could also do like heat if you like it, some sort of spicy you know note to it. And then you let it sit for basically the same idea, 10 days to 14 days, stirring it I think every other day just to make sure it’s still doing its thing, and then you start tasting. And once it tastes good to you, you strain off the liquid, I like to bottle it and then you have your own kind of gin to use in a lot of different cocktails. I use it to make straight-up Martinis, I use it to make Negronis, I use it to make gin Gimlets, like all these things you would normally use regular gin for but now you have your own gin. And it’s also fun to then give to people, it’s like “hey, here’s this like gin I made.” It’s always like a good time, which is a lot of fun. We’ve talked a lot about spirit style projects, but I know Zach, we’re gonna get to your vermouth, but have either of you ever brewed beer?

E: No

Z: I have not. But you have?

A: Ahh. Yes, the best! I’ve had a lot of explosions too.

E: Really?

A: Yeah, so… I mean, I think the worst explosion was… Josh and I, the other co-founder of VinePair, we attempted to brew a Belgian tripel, that was a really bad idea. And it started re-fermenting in the bottle ‘cause it was just… it’s so much sugar and so much yeast in a Belgian tripel, and they exploded all in his closet, there was beer everywhere.

E: Oh no!

A: So that was when Naomi told me that we were never allowed to brew beer in our apartment, only in Josh’s. [But] brewing beer is super fun ‘cause I think it’s one of the easiest ways to sort of see how alcohol happens, if that makes sense?

E: Yeah.

A: You know, it’s not that… I think people get really freaked out about it because…like “oh, I read that the kitchen has to be super clean.” Like yes, cleanliness is important, but I mean you have to be clean when you cook, right? Like no one is sitting there being like “Oh, I’m gonna make some cookies and there’s like, dirt everywhere.” So as long as the counter is clean and you’ve washed the equipment with hot water and soap, the way you should wash your hands right now, everything is fine and it’s a fun project that takes, you know, four weeks. So, at the end of this whole bullshit you should emerge with a really good beer that then you can take out in the park and drink and there’s lots of amazing recipes online and you can buy kits which I’m sure are still shipping right now, to make beer and it’s a really fun project. I love doing it, we did it for like 2 years and then just sort of moved to places where we felt like it wasn’t as…we didn’t have as much space. Josh was really lucky in that one of his first apartments in New York was a big loft. So we were able to sort of brew… but you know, I bet your husband’s studio would be a perfect place to brew beer, just saying Erica.

E: I bet he does, we’ve got plenty of space up in his studio.

Z: I was gonna say, you’ve got… you can probably start a whole brewery, let alone just home brew. I have a question for you Adam, about brewing though, at home. Which is, are there styles of beer that are easier for people who’ve never done it to kind of take on? Obviously, it sounds like a Belgian tripel is a bad idea for a first beer, but is there kind of an ideal first beer?

A: Ales are the easiest. It’s very hard to do lagers because of the cold fermentations. So lagers are much more difficult than ales. And then pale ales and IPAs are actually very easy to brew at home, as long as you have the right ingredients, which again you can buy online and I have to say like we definitely brewed a bunch of different batches of IPAs and pale ales that came out really well. We actually have a home brew columnist on VinePair that writes I think monthly, or bi-weekly with different ways to brew.

E: Yep.

A: So there’s a bunch of resources there. But then also, I mean you can go down rabbit holes on Reddit and stuff like that of people who’ve like literally recreated beers. You can brew Heady Topper for yourself at home or someone’s like “Oh, I think I figured out the Pliny recipe,” so you can brew Pliny, which is crazy. So there’s a lot of fun you can have, and then the kits are easy to at least get you started, like the recipe’s there. So like literally “dump into water, boil, strain, you have this style of beer that we’ve already perfected the recipe of,” but it’s just a cool way, again, just to see how fermentation works.

E: Totally, and if you’re looking for the column on our site its BIY, “Brew it yourself,” it’s with national home-brew competition gold medal winner and certified cicerone Mandy Naglich. So that’s where you can check out dozens of articles to get a sense of best practices and projects you might wanna try out yourself.

A: Exactly, so now Zach back to you. How do you make vermouth?

Z: So I think the simplest way to do it, and I’ve mostly done it with red wine, because I find that it’s a little more…. I’ve only talked about making a white vermouth once, and I think I screwed up, so I don’t think that it’s not doable, I [just] think it’s that I didn’t kind of approach it the right way. But I will say that, before we get into the specifics, one I find about making vermouth at home is that, at least so far, I haven’t been able to kind of get the exact texture that you might expect from certain kinds of vermouth. Like if you like a really kind of rich vermouth like Carpano Antica or something like that, without adding a lot of essentially really, really reduced sugar syrup, you’re gonna have a hard time getting that real richness. And I don’t know that I can offer you a suggestion for how to get that at home, I’m not an expert. But otherwise, I mean basically what I’ve done is: I’ll take a certain amount of leftover red wine, in this case usually like you know about, yeah about 2 liters or so. So about two and half bottles, three bottles or something like that. And you take about a third of it and you reduce it over, you know over really low heat. You’re just trying to kind of cook it down a little bit. And then I would say once it’s about reduced in volume by about half, you add about a cup of sugar, and there’s your base syrup. And so at that point that’s had all the alcohol cooked out of it, so you’re not dealing with booze from that. And then basically you let it cool back down to kind of room temp, you add it to the remaining wine along with some…I mean again, you kind of want to use spices. I like to use like there’s certainly black pepper, again bay leaf I throw in there, I like to use things like coriander and cardamom, and a little bit of even cumin seed. Infusion of that along with a little bit of… you want to add some sort of spirit cause you want to bring the alcohol level up a little bit. So I sometimes will use Cognac, it definitely adds more flavor. If you have like… you can use vodka if you’ve got that that you wanna use. If you have… I mean ideally I think you would add a little bit of even higher-proof spirit, but I don’t have moonshine lying around so… that’s not an option for me…

A: What?

Z: I know, right? We haven’t talked about home distilling which is a bad idea. And also illegal most places.

A: I kinda want to do it though, but anyways keep going.

Z: Well we’ll see you at Jono’s studio too. So then… basically again, it’s just a process of waiting. It doesn’t take long. I find that within a week I’m kind of at the place I wanna be flavor-wise. But, you can kind of taste… give it a few days and then taste every day, and then at that point you just again, strain everything off, I put it right in the fridge. I find that it lasts for about a month in a pretty good state, and like I said, you know, my favorite use for it is just drinking it over ice with a little soda water or tonic because it’s kind of the best way to sort of enjoy that flavor. But it works in cocktails… I find that it actually, interestingly, does better in cocktails where you might use a fair bit of vermouth, so it works well in a Negroni. I haven’t loved it in my Manhattans, and maybe that’s just me. Again, I think it’s a texture thing. I think it feels like it waters them down a touch because it doesn’t have the viscosity that a commercially produced vermouth might have.

A: Right

Z: So in a Negroni I don’t mind it as much in part because Campari already has a lot of, you know, kind of richness and body, so it being a little lighter in flavor isn’t such a big deal. Or no, not lighter in flavor but lighter in body. But in something like a Manhattan I do find that I miss it a little bit, I miss that body that you get from vermouth a little bit. But you know you can find it… you can put it in a lot of different things. But like I said, I just like it a thing to sip over ice, with a little bit of soda water or just as is. Which is one of my favorite ways to enjoy vermouth period, so it’s not like I’m only doing that with this. But yeah… and again, if you’ve got open bottles, the nice thing about it is, you can just kind of combine stuff together. I haven’t found any issue with mixing… as long… I mean maybe if you’re mixing Beaujolais and Zinfandel you might find it a little weird but frankly even then I don’t think so. It all kind of comes together in the end. You might find slightly better results or more sort of homogenous results if you use the same wine but I don’t think any of us are at that stage so your leftover bottles… and I’ve used it with wine that’s been open for a week and it’s fine.

E: Wow!

Z: You know, you’re not looking for freshness and brightness in your vermouth for the most part, at least I’m not in the way that I would be in my wine. So you know, I wouldn’t use a three-week-old bottle. You know, another thing you could do is go buy a relatively inexpensive box of wine, you know a three liter and use that and probably end up with a very cost-effective vermouth solution.

E: Sure, sure. Yeah, that sounds like a great idea, I’d try it.

A: I dig.

Z: Well I would share it with you guys but that’s probably not gonna happen for a little while.

A: I think these have been like some really good ideas. I mean, Erica, have you got anything else?

E: Yeah, I mean I do have one more.

A: Yes!

E: I would say that a lot of people don’t realize that bitters is just a pretty simple infusion. So for that…

A: I didn’t.

E: Everyone’s talking about Everclear and how you can make your own hand sanitizer from it, but you can also use Everclear as the base for your bitters. So, really all you do to make bitters is you can take some like zest of lemons or oranges or whatever you want that main flavor base to be. And then you add cardamom, cloves, cinnamon, lemongrass, coriander, pepper, and then kind of the bittering agents that you wanna have in all bitters which are cinchona bark and gentian root, you know you can get those at natural stores or even at some bigger grocery chains. So for those things you just, you really just prepare the ingredients, divide them out into some Mason jars, and fill it up with grain alcohol. And for that you just let it sit there and kind of agitate it maybe once or twice a week for a month. And then portion it out into tiny little dropper bottles, and that’s one of my favorite holiday gifts that I typically make for people. Like to package that up with a cocktail book or something like that. And it’s a fun way to go. Maybe in this case it’s gonna be a post-apocalypse drinking gift that you can give to all your friends once you finally see them this summer.

A: I dig, I dig. Cool, so I guess you know, go home….well stay home, make one of these projects, and if you do shoot us an email at podcast@vinepair.com and let us know that you made one of the things we suggested, take a picture and share it with us, that would be awesome! Agreed?

E: Agreed.

Z: Yeah absolutely! And if you have other projects too. I would love to hear if people are trying other stuff out there that’s not stuff we covered too, cause I need some new projects.

E: Yeah, definitely. And try the sourdough, gotta move on, gotta keep going.

A: Well, as always everyone, thank you so much for listening, we hope you’re also checking out our podcast [Covid-19] Conversations, our corona diaries if you will, that we’re running in the feed three times a week. We’d love to know what you think about those as well. As always if you enjoy the podcast, if you feel like you’re getting a lot of amazing information and we’re helping make your day a little bit better please drop us a review or rating in iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever else you get our podcast. It really helps other people discover the show. And Erica, Zach, I’ll talk to you again right here, next week.

Z: Sounds great

E: See you then.

A: Thanks so much for listening to the VinePair podcast, if you enjoy listening to us every week please leave us a review or rating on iTunes, Stitcher, spotify, or wherever it is you get your podcasts, it really helps everyone else discover the show. And now for the credits:

VinePair is produced and hosted by Zach Geballe, Erica Duecy, and me: Adam Teeter. Our engineer is Nick Patri and Keith Beavers. I’d also like to give a special shout out to my VinePair co-founder Josh Malin and the rest of the VinePair team for their support. Thanks so much for listening and we’ll see you again right here next week.

The article VinePair Podcast: Drinks Projects You Can Make at Home appeared first on VinePair.

source https://vinepair.com/articles/vinepair-podcast-drinks-projects-you-can-make-at-home/ source https://vinology1.tumblr.com/post/614114218482008064

[johnchiarello]

Monday

MONDAY 5-15-17

James 4:1 From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members?

James 4:2 Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not.

James 4:3 Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.

11 And she vowed a vow, and said, O Lord of hosts, if thou wilt indeed look on the affliction of thine handmaid, and remember me, and not forget thine handmaid, but wilt give unto thine handmaid a man child, then I will give him unto the Lord all the days of his life, and there shall no razor come upon his head. Samuel [Past links- verses below]

CCCF- https://youtu.be/MEBISFL6pRg

.Good coffee

.Vatican City

.Switzerland trip

.Prophetic word

.Why did James only write one letter?

.Trinity

.Proclaim the Son

 2 Corinthians 1:20

For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by us.

In Context | Full Chapter | Other Translations

 Travel ban n more- https://youtu.be/UrW4m_b35UY

.Sologamy?

.SNL- news?

.Nick Jimenez editorial

.SB- 4

.Kids in N.J.

.Pastor Don’s message

.9th circuit

.Out of control courts?

.Sanctuary cities

 Isaiah 9:6

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

In Context | Full Chapter | Other Translations

  [Note- I made this post today- one of my ‘roll-outs’ - but I did add some past teachings and verses below]

 NEW- Talked some about the travel ban that is being argued before the 9th circuit court today- and how the courts have become politicized.

A few years ago Austin [Texas] brought Rico charges against a Republican- and found him guilty!

Yes- for money laundering.

 I remember at the time- the same thing was being done on a regular basis by many Democrats- it simply was a way to get campaign funds- by ‘going around the loopholes’.

 Lots of people did it- but because Austin is a liberal city- they managed to get a Republican on charges that were intended to go after the Mafia.

 So today the 9th circuit court is grilling the justice department lawyers on whether Trump has made any comments to them in the past- about Muslims.

The judges are going back to campaign statements Trump made- all of this is ridiculous.

 Whether you are for the ban or not- this should have never been in the courts.

 I also shared some from the sermon Pastor Don preached Sunday.

How Hannah asked God for a son [Samuel] and when she had a son- she ‘lent him to the Lord’.

It was a good message- a Mothers day theme.

 Often times we ‘have not- because we ask not’.

I covered some of the local news as well- the caller times had a good editorial by Nick Jimenez on why SB 4 is not good.

 And Chief Markle also spoke well about how he will handle the new law.

He shed light on the law that hopefully will put our immigrant community at ease.

 If you are breaking the law- of course the cops will do their job- but the chief explained that local law enforcement always had the right to ask someone their immigration status.

 And the passage of SB 4 does not mandate cops to ask.

So our local cops more than likely will continue to do policing the way they have always done it.

 He tried to put the immigrants- who are not out committing crimes- at ease.

I agree with his approach.

 As of now I made 2 videos- that might be it for today- I’ll try and add some pertinent news links- and a few verses below.

 God bless you all.

 NOTE- I forgot to mention this on video- and I wanted to.

My friend Mike [artist] came by Saturday and gave me a beautiful Cross he bought at the flea market. It has Firefighter stuff on it- and he gave it to me as a gift of appreciation for ‘all that you do’. I thanked Mike- and spent about 3 hours just hanging out- this time at my house. If I remember I’ll post a picture of it on Facebook.

 24 The Lord bless thee, and keep thee:

25 The Lord make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee:

26 The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.

Num. 6

 PAST POSTS- [ Past teaching I did that relates to today’s post-verses below]

https://ccoutreach87.com/1st-2nd-samuel-links-updated-3-17/

https://ccoutreach87.com/james-2015/

https://ccoutreach87.com/house-of-prayer-or-den-of-thieves/

 (882)1ST SAMUEL; INTRO, CHAPTER 1- Originally the books of 1st and 2nd Samuel were one volume. When the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament was made [the Septuagint] they were added with 1st and 2nd Kings and were called ‘The books of the kingdoms’. In order to keep this volume from becoming too big, they were divided into the present divisions. In chapter one we see the family of Elkanah and Hannah [and wife #2 Pininnah!]. They go up to the Tabernacle of the Lord in Shiloh to worship the true God. Hannah has no children while wife # 2 does. This becomes a point of contention and jealousy between the two wives. Hannah pours her heart out to the Lord and makes a vow. She tells the Lord if he gives her a son that she will dedicate him to the Lord. Eli the priest sees Hannah praying silently [her lips moving but hearing no voice] and he assumes she’s drunk! Why? Was she stumbling and acting drunk? No. It was because he thought she was mumbling [speech] like a drunk. In Acts chapter 2 the same thing is assumed. Those who received the outpouring of the Spirit were thought to be drunk. Why? Were they stumbling and falling? No, once again it was a speech thing. They were speaking all types of unknown languages [known to the various groups there that day] and people thought they were acting like drunks when they can’t talk clearly. I emphasized this because it’s common today for renewal movements to associate the Spirit with people actually stumbling and driving in a drunken type state. While I don’t want to be dogmatic and say this can never be of God, yet many of these believers will use the Acts chapter 2 example to justify their belief. Act’s 2 does not teach ‘being drunk in the Spirit’ in this manner. Now the Lord hears Hannah’s request and she gives birth to Samuel. She keeps him until he is weaned [2 or 3 years old] and then she honors her vow and dedicates him to the Lord. She actually gave him up to become a full servant of God at Shiloh. It was not an easy vow to keep. As we go thru this book we will cover lots of interesting history. Samuel will become a mighty prophetic leader in Israel. He will be the one to introduce king Saul as Israel’s first king. The last verse in Judges says ‘there was no king in the land in those days, every man did what he thought was right in his own eyes’. It’s common to think this means God punished Israel for not having a human king. In actuality God will tell Israel that they were rejecting his kingship over them by wanting a ‘king like the other nations’. We will learn that God did not originally intend for Israel to have a singular human king. The description from judges simply shows us that sinful people, who reject God’s law, will go astray. In these instances a king can bring some sort of stability and government. The kings of Israel will serve in this capacity.

 (884)SAMUEL 2- Hannah gives great praise to God for Samuel. This prophetic utterance is a lot like Mary’s ‘Magnificat’ in Luke chapter one. She says ‘God brings low the rich and helps the poor’. This week we had one of the worst financial disasters in U.S. history [9-2008]. It could have been worse, the government took over some major financial [and insurance] institutions. One of them was A.I.G., a major insurer. A day or so before they were taken over I asked my wife ‘did you take out the girls trust money’. We had a lot of money for our girls in the company [lets say between 50 and 100 thousand dollars]. My wife says ‘no, not yet’. I was a little perturbed to say the least. My wife is the trustee for the girl’s accounts, and I have been telling her for about a year to take the money out. So the day she makes the request all the talk on the financial shows is ‘will A.I.G. declare bankruptcy today’? I was upset. Another day went by and they said ‘overnight they will declare’. And we still didn’t get the money. Well the government stepped and basically took the company over and we got our checks. I was talking to my homeless buddies and they were somewhat aware of the crisis, but they could care less. Their lives were not tied up in these systems. They were still going to live the way they were living for most of their lives. Trusting God daily to meet their needs. It made me think of Hannah’s prayer. Also we see the first use of the word ‘Messiah’ [anointed] in the bible. ‘God will strengthen his king and exalt the horn of his anointed’. I read this yesterday and was quoting it all day. It’s appropriate that Mary uses this prophetic utterance while speaking of Jesus, the Messiah. The sons of Eli the priest are wicked. They are robbing the people and sleeping with the women at the tabernacle gate. Scripture says ‘the people abhorred the offering of the Lord’ because of their abuse. For many years I heard ‘if people are offended because the church emphasizes money so much, well let them be offended’. I never really questioned this reasoning. Then I began to see how the majority offence to unbelieving friends and family was the money issue. While most of the pastors were well meaning, they seemed to not realize that we do have a responsibility to not offend in the area of offerings. The apostle Paul adjusted his ministry in such a way that he would not allow the churches to support him while he was with them. [Not just Corinth either, but Thessalonica and Ephesus! Read Thessalonians and the chapter in Acts that deals with the Ephesian elders- 22?] The point being the church bears much responsibility to how the world views us in the area of offerings to God. Eli's sons abused the system to their own benefit and the people began to despise the whole concept of ‘church and money’. A prophet will pronounce judgment on Eli’s household and Samuel will ‘grow in favor with God and men’. Just like Jesus. Samuel is a type of Christ who knew his prophetic/priestly destiny from a young age. Jesus was in the Temple questioning the leaders at the age of 12, Samuel was serving the Lord at an even younger age.

  VERSES-

1 Now there was a certain man of Ramathaimzophim, of mount Ephraim, and his name was Elkanah, the son of Jeroham, the son of Elihu, the son of Tohu, the son of Zuph, an Ephrathite:

2 And he had two wives; the name of the one was Hannah, and the name of the other Peninnah: and Peninnah had children, but Hannah had no children.

3 And this man went up out of his city yearly to worship and to sacrifice unto the Lord of hosts in Shiloh. And the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, the priests of the Lord, were there.

4 And when the time was that Elkanah offered, he gave to Peninnah his wife, and to all her sons and her daughters, portions:

5 But unto Hannah he gave a worthy portion; for he loved Hannah: but the Lord had shut up her womb.

6 And her adversary also provoked her sore, for to make her fret, because the Lord had shut up her womb.

7 And as he did so year by year, when she went up to the house of the Lord, so she provoked her; therefore she wept, and did not eat.

8 Then said Elkanah her husband to her, Hannah, why weepest thou? and why eatest thou not? and why is thy heart grieved? am not I better to thee than ten sons?

9 So Hannah rose up after they had eaten in Shiloh, and after they had drunk. Now Eli the priest sat upon a seat by a post of the temple of the Lord.

10 And she was in bitterness of soul, and prayed unto the Lord, and wept sore.

11 And she vowed a vow, and said, O Lord of hosts, if thou wilt indeed look on the affliction of thine handmaid, and remember me, and not forget thine handmaid, but wilt give unto thine handmaid a man child, then I will give him unto the Lord all the days of his life, and there shall no razor come upon his head.

12 And it came to pass, as she continued praying before the Lord, that Eli marked her mouth.

13 Now Hannah, she spake in her heart; only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard: therefore Eli thought she had been drunken.

14 And Eli said unto her, How long wilt thou be drunken? put away thy wine from thee.

15 And Hannah answered and said, No, my lord, I am a woman of a sorrowful spirit: I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but have poured out my soul before the Lord.

16 Count not thine handmaid for a daughter of Belial: for out of the abundance of my complaint and grief have I spoken hitherto.

17 Then Eli answered and said, Go in peace: and the God of Israel grant thee thy petition that thou hast asked of him.

18 And she said, Let thine handmaid find grace in thy sight. So the woman went her way, and did eat, and her countenance was no more sad.

19 And they rose up in the morning early, and worshipped before the Lord, and returned, and came to their house to Ramah: and Elkanah knew Hannah his wife; and the Lord remembered her.

20 Wherefore it came to pass, when the time was come about after Hannah had conceived, that she bare a son, and called his name Samuel, saying, Because I have asked him of the Lord.

21 And the man Elkanah, and all his house, went up to offer unto the Lord the yearly sacrifice, and his vow.

22 But Hannah went not up; for she said unto her husband, I will not go up until the child be weaned, and then I will bring him, that he may appear before the Lord, and there abide for ever.

23 And Elkanah her husband said unto her, Do what seemeth thee good; tarry until thou have weaned him; only the Lord establish his word. So the woman abode, and gave her son suck until she weaned him.

24 And when she had weaned him, she took him up with her, with three bullocks, and one ephah of flour, and a bottle of wine, and brought him unto the house of the Lord in Shiloh: and the child was young.

25 And they slew a bullock, and brought the child to Eli.

26 And she said, Oh my lord, as thy soul liveth, my lord, I am the woman that stood by thee here, praying unto the Lord.

27 For this child I prayed; and the Lord hath given me my petition which I asked of him:

28 Therefore also I have lent him to the Lord; as long as he liveth he shall be lent to the Lord. And he worshipped the Lord there.

 NEWS-

http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-live-updates-9th-circuit-arguments-9th-circuit-court-of-appeals-says-a-1486678883-htmlstory.html

http://www.charismanews.com/opinion/54869-sologamy-rises-as-the-latest-marriage-perversion-trend

  www.corpuschristioutreachministries.blogspot.com

https://www.facebook.com/john.chiarello.5?ref=bookmarks

https://ccoutreach87.wordpress.com/

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZ4GsqTEVWRm0HxQTLsifvg

https://twitter.com/ccoutreach87

https://plus.google.com/108013627259688810902/posts

https://vimeo.com/user37400385

https://www.pinterest.com/ccoutreach87/

https://www.linkedin.com/home?trk=hb_logo

http://johnchiarello.tumblr.com/

https://medium.com/@johnchiarello

http://ccoutreach.over-blog.com/

 Note- Please do me a favor, those who read/like the posts- re-post them on other sites as well as the site you read them on- Thanks- John.#

[chpatdoorsl3z0a1]

Remarks by President Trump and Vice President Pence at St. Patrick's Day Reception

East Room

6:03 P.M. EDT

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  Well, good evening to you all.  Fellow Americans, Irish friends, distinguished guests.  I'm Mike Pence and I'm the 48th Vice President of the United States of America. (Applause.)  It's my honor, along with my wife, Karen Pence, to welcome you on behalf of the First Family to the White House on this very special occasion.

It is such an honor for the two of us to be able to welcome you here and welcome a special guest to the White House, and of course, our host to this podium for this 55-year-old tradition.  Since Irish Ambassador John Joseph Hearne left a box of Ireland’s most famous symbol at the White House in 1952, the shamrock exchange has grown to become a festive sign of enduring friendship during this memorable week, and an eternal bond between the American people and the people of Ireland.

Now, the Irish are one of the strongest and most beautiful threads in our national fabric here in the United States.  For centuries, the sons and daughters of Ireland have come here from across the Atlantic.  More than 32 million Americans now trace their heritage back to the Emerald Isle.  And I say with a grateful heart and deep humility, I'm one of them.  (Applause.)

My grandfather, Richard Michael Cowley*, stepped off a boat onto Ellis Island in 1023.  And that's how Michael Richard Pence got to serve in the White House.  My grandfather, as the legend of our family says, was told by my great-grandmother that he needed to go to America.  She said, there’s a future there for you.  He wouldn't see his mother for 25 years, and he often spoke of their separation with a heavy heart.

My grandfather came here, like so many generations of Irish-Americans did, with a dream, but with character and with work ethic and a determination to build a family, a good name.  And so he did.

My mother, who is 83 years young, bright red hair and blue eyes, is still with us today, and his memory and her influence continues to define my life,

The truth is my grandfather was very typical of the millions that would come to these shores.  He embodied all that's best about the Irish -- sturdy work ethic, faith in God, love of family, patriotism.  And those are the enduring contributions of people of Irish descent in the history of this country.  It's extraordinary to think of the contributions that the Irish have made.  In every single American conflict since our Revolutionary War, the Irish people have enriched America in incalculable ways, and they always will.

When I speak of those character qualities I know that they apply to the two people that we have the privilege of introducing tonight.  First is our special guest -- it's my high honor to invite him to the podium, along with our host.  So, ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming the Taoiseach of the Republic of Ireland, Enda Kenny; his wife, Fionnuala; and my friend, the 45th President of the United States of America, Donald Trump.  (Applause.) 

THE PRESIDENT:  Thank you very much.  It's a great honor.  

Taoiseach, Mrs. Kenny, Ambassador Anderson, Dr. Lowe, Vice President Pence, and distinguished guests, we gather here today in the White House to take part in the traditional Shamrock Ceremony and to celebrate the strong ties between the United States and a truly great country, Ireland.

I also want to extend a special welcome to a group of distinguished local political and society leaders -- and they are real leaders -- who are with us from Northern Ireland -- great people -- including the Mayor of Belfast and the Head of Northern Ireland Civil Service -- that's a lot of power there.  (Laughter.)  Lord Mayor Kingston and Sir Malcolm McKibbin -- and it's wonderful to have you. Where are you folks?  Where are you? Where are you?  (Applause.)  Thank you.  They’re going to be having a great open championship very soon -- you know that, right?  (Laughter.)  At a great course.  At a great, great course.

St. Patrick’s Day has become a truly important occasion in the United States -- one embraced by Americans of all faiths and of all backgrounds.  I've been to many of them and we love it.  The Shamrock Ceremony is a tradition that symbolizes the bond between our two countries.  It dates back to 1952 when the Irish Ambassador to the United States, John Joseph Hearne, sent a box of shamrocks to a President who did a very good job -- Harry S. Truman.

Our strong ties go back throughout American history.  Irish-Americans played a vital role in preserving our Union during its hour of greatest need.  So true, played a very, very big role.  Many distinguished themselves in the American Civil War with their grit and their bravery and their courage, earning the nickname, the “Fighting Irish.”  And I know a lot about the Irish -- they fight.  They’re tough.  (Laughter.)  I know a lot.  I know more than I'm ever going to tell you.  (Laughter.)

And when American Armed Forces joined the fight in Europe during World War II, 75 years ago, our heroic troops first stepped off ships in Belfast Harbor in Northern Ireland.

Throughout the centuries, hardworking Irish-Americans contributed mightily to America’s innovation and to America’s prosperity.  They often overcame great hardship -- really, I mean, it's like the hardship they overcame for us, for our people, is inspiring and really helped a relatively young nation beyond what anyone really understands or knows.  So we want to thank you -- just an amazing, an amazing history.

President John F. Kennedy, in an address to the Irish Parliament, said that “It is that quality of the Irish -- that remarkable combination of hope, confidence, and imagination -- that is needed more than ever today.”  Now, he said that a long time ago, but it's perhaps even more true today.  The words of America’s first Irish-Catholic President ring just as true. 

We hope confidence -- and I tell you what we want now is a lot of things, but we need that great Irish confidence -- and they are confident people, aren't they, Mike?  (Applause.)  And I tell you what, we all want it together to grow in the 21st century.  And grow we will.  As I say, bigger and better and stronger than ever before.

We must have the hope to believe in a better future, the confidence to pursue it, and the imagination to figure out how to get there.  A new optimism is sweeping across our nation.  You see that when you look at the numbers -- the optimism is at the highest level in many, many years.  And as America gains renewed strength, Ireland will find us to be an ever-faithful partner and an always loyal friend.  We will be there for you, and we will be there for you.  (Applause.) 

So thank you for being here.  I wish you a very, very happy St. Patrick’s Day.  And God bless you and may God bless Ireland, and Northern Ireland, and may God bless America.  Thank you very much.  (Applause.)  Thank you.  Thank you very much.

TAOISEACH KENNY:  Mr. President, Mr. Vice President, ladies and gentlemen.  It's a great honor to be back again in the most famous house in the world to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, the most special of days for Irish men and Irish women and those of Irish descent the world over.

Since I had the privilege of being elected as Taoiseach in 2011, I've had the pleasure of being here in the White House each March to mark the enduring connections between our country and the United States.  Fionnuala and I would like sincerely to thank President Trump for so graciously continuing this great tradition of hospitality which means so much to Irish people everywhere.

I'm proud, sir, to have the opportunity to contribute to maintaining and developing relations between Ireland and the United States, particularly at the beginning of the new era in our country’s relationship following your election, Mr. President.  Let me congratulate you and wish you and your administration the very best as you begin your term of office.  (Applause.)

This job, the job you hold, is exceptionally demanding and exceptionally difficult.  The United States remains the most influential, as well as the most powerful country in the world.  You hold the hopes and the future of America, and indeed, the world in your hands.

But let me thank you for giving so much of your time today to this visit.  We had an excellent meeting, a first-class meeting this morning in the Oval Office, not there very often, where we discussed a variety of important issues of mutual concern.  And I want to assure you, sir, of our commitment to working closely with you and your administration as you face the many challenges up ahead.

The ties that bind our two countries are deep and historic. And Ireland and the United States have a unique relationship that goes back to the earliest days of the original 14 colonies.  Irish foreign military officers assisted George Washington to win that war of independence.  Indeed, they’ve fought in every war for America since then.  And this very house was designed by James Hoban from Kilkenny, modeled in part after the Leinster House in Dublin, where the Irish parliament has met on our own independence since 1922.

It's fitting that we gather here each year to celebrate St. Patrick and his legacy.  He, too, of course, was an immigrant.  And though he is, of course, the patron saint of Ireland, for many people around the globe, he is also a symbol of, indeed, the patron of immigrants.

Here in America, your great country, 35 million people claim Irish heritage, and the Irish have contributed to the economic, social, political and cultural life of this great country over the last 200 years.  Ireland came to America because, deprived of liberty, deprived of opportunity, of safety, of even food itself, the Irish believed, four decades before Lady Liberty lifted her lamp, we were the “wretched refuse on the teeming shore.”  We believed in the shelter of America, and the compassion of America, and the opportunity of America.  We came, and we became Americans.

We lived the words of John F. Kennedy long before we heard them:  We asked not what America could do for us, but what we could do for America.  And we still do.  We want to give, and not to take.  We know the Irish have built the bridges and the roads, protected the public as firefighters and police officers.  We've cared for the sick in hospitals, entertained as poets, as singers and writers, as politicians, as judges and legislators.  And as entrepreneurs, they provided hundreds of thousands of jobs for Americans, including most recently, in exciting technology companies.

Two-way trade in goods is approaching $100 billion a year at the moment.  Irish firms employ 100,000 people across 50 states in the U.S.  And we want to build on this for the future.

Mr. President, as a small island on the edge of Europe, a natural bridge between the United States and Europe, and as a committed member of the European Union and a close friend of the United States, we will work hard with you, Mr. President, and with your administration in pursuit of strong and open relations between the United States and the European Union, including the strong trade relationships for the mutual benefit of millions of people either side of the Atlantic.

I believe that the strong people-to-people links that Ireland and the United States have developed over the generations will help us in this endeavor.  And I wish you and the American people every success and happiness in the future.

To Irish-Americans coast to coast, I say, these days especially, we hold you in our hearts.  And tonight, I thank you again for your warm hospitality.

Mr. President, Mr. Vice President, may I wish you and your lovely families every good wish and blessing on this very special day.  Indeed, I'm reminded in many ways of the dream of another American President -- which Ireland will work with you for -- when he spoke the words and said, “My dream is of a place and a time where America will once again be seen as the last, best hope of Earth.”  Spoken by Abraham Lincoln.

Mr. President, Ireland will help you build on that foundation to achieve the ultimate dream.  Thank you, sir.  And God bless you.  (Applause.)

END 6:23 P.M. EDT

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2m9SruH

[grgedoors02142]

Remarks by President Trump and Vice President Pence at St. Patrick's Day Reception

East Room

6:03 P.M. EDT

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  Well, good evening to you all.  Fellow Americans, Irish friends, distinguished guests.  I'm Mike Pence and I'm the 48th Vice President of the United States of America. (Applause.)  It's my honor, along with my wife, Karen Pence, to welcome you on behalf of the First Family to the White House on this very special occasion.

It is such an honor for the two of us to be able to welcome you here and welcome a special guest to the White House, and of course, our host to this podium for this 55-year-old tradition.  Since Irish Ambassador John Joseph Hearne left a box of Ireland’s most famous symbol at the White House in 1952, the shamrock exchange has grown to become a festive sign of enduring friendship during this memorable week, and an eternal bond between the American people and the people of Ireland.

Now, the Irish are one of the strongest and most beautiful threads in our national fabric here in the United States.  For centuries, the sons and daughters of Ireland have come here from across the Atlantic.  More than 32 million Americans now trace their heritage back to the Emerald Isle.  And I say with a grateful heart and deep humility, I'm one of them.  (Applause.)

My grandfather, Richard Michael Cowley*, stepped off a boat onto Ellis Island in 1023.  And that's how Michael Richard Pence got to serve in the White House.  My grandfather, as the legend of our family says, was told by my great-grandmother that he needed to go to America.  She said, there’s a future there for you.  He wouldn't see his mother for 25 years, and he often spoke of their separation with a heavy heart.

My grandfather came here, like so many generations of Irish-Americans did, with a dream, but with character and with work ethic and a determination to build a family, a good name.  And so he did.

My mother, who is 83 years young, bright red hair and blue eyes, is still with us today, and his memory and her influence continues to define my life,

The truth is my grandfather was very typical of the millions that would come to these shores.  He embodied all that's best about the Irish -- sturdy work ethic, faith in God, love of family, patriotism.  And those are the enduring contributions of people of Irish descent in the history of this country.  It's extraordinary to think of the contributions that the Irish have made.  In every single American conflict since our Revolutionary War, the Irish people have enriched America in incalculable ways, and they always will.

When I speak of those character qualities I know that they apply to the two people that we have the privilege of introducing tonight.  First is our special guest -- it's my high honor to invite him to the podium, along with our host.  So, ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming the Taoiseach of the Republic of Ireland, Enda Kenny; his wife, Fionnuala; and my friend, the 45th President of the United States of America, Donald Trump.  (Applause.) 

THE PRESIDENT:  Thank you very much.  It's a great honor.  

Taoiseach, Mrs. Kenny, Ambassador Anderson, Dr. Lowe, Vice President Pence, and distinguished guests, we gather here today in the White House to take part in the traditional Shamrock Ceremony and to celebrate the strong ties between the United States and a truly great country, Ireland.

I also want to extend a special welcome to a group of distinguished local political and society leaders -- and they are real leaders -- who are with us from Northern Ireland -- great people -- including the Mayor of Belfast and the Head of Northern Ireland Civil Service -- that's a lot of power there.  (Laughter.)  Lord Mayor Kingston and Sir Malcolm McKibbin -- and it's wonderful to have you. Where are you folks?  Where are you? Where are you?  (Applause.)  Thank you.  They’re going to be having a great open championship very soon -- you know that, right?  (Laughter.)  At a great course.  At a great, great course.

St. Patrick’s Day has become a truly important occasion in the United States -- one embraced by Americans of all faiths and of all backgrounds.  I've been to many of them and we love it.  The Shamrock Ceremony is a tradition that symbolizes the bond between our two countries.  It dates back to 1952 when the Irish Ambassador to the United States, John Joseph Hearne, sent a box of shamrocks to a President who did a very good job -- Harry S. Truman.

Our strong ties go back throughout American history.  Irish-Americans played a vital role in preserving our Union during its hour of greatest need.  So true, played a very, very big role.  Many distinguished themselves in the American Civil War with their grit and their bravery and their courage, earning the nickname, the “Fighting Irish.”  And I know a lot about the Irish -- they fight.  They’re tough.  (Laughter.)  I know a lot.  I know more than I'm ever going to tell you.  (Laughter.)

And when American Armed Forces joined the fight in Europe during World War II, 75 years ago, our heroic troops first stepped off ships in Belfast Harbor in Northern Ireland.

Throughout the centuries, hardworking Irish-Americans contributed mightily to America’s innovation and to America’s prosperity.  They often overcame great hardship -- really, I mean, it's like the hardship they overcame for us, for our people, is inspiring and really helped a relatively young nation beyond what anyone really understands or knows.  So we want to thank you -- just an amazing, an amazing history.

President John F. Kennedy, in an address to the Irish Parliament, said that “It is that quality of the Irish -- that remarkable combination of hope, confidence, and imagination -- that is needed more than ever today.”  Now, he said that a long time ago, but it's perhaps even more true today.  The words of America’s first Irish-Catholic President ring just as true. 

We hope confidence -- and I tell you what we want now is a lot of things, but we need that great Irish confidence -- and they are confident people, aren't they, Mike?  (Applause.)  And I tell you what, we all want it together to grow in the 21st century.  And grow we will.  As I say, bigger and better and stronger than ever before.

We must have the hope to believe in a better future, the confidence to pursue it, and the imagination to figure out how to get there.  A new optimism is sweeping across our nation.  You see that when you look at the numbers -- the optimism is at the highest level in many, many years.  And as America gains renewed strength, Ireland will find us to be an ever-faithful partner and an always loyal friend.  We will be there for you, and we will be there for you.  (Applause.) 

So thank you for being here.  I wish you a very, very happy St. Patrick’s Day.  And God bless you and may God bless Ireland, and Northern Ireland, and may God bless America.  Thank you very much.  (Applause.)  Thank you.  Thank you very much.

TAOISEACH KENNY:  Mr. President, Mr. Vice President, ladies and gentlemen.  It's a great honor to be back again in the most famous house in the world to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, the most special of days for Irish men and Irish women and those of Irish descent the world over.

Since I had the privilege of being elected as Taoiseach in 2011, I've had the pleasure of being here in the White House each March to mark the enduring connections between our country and the United States.  Fionnuala and I would like sincerely to thank President Trump for so graciously continuing this great tradition of hospitality which means so much to Irish people everywhere.

I'm proud, sir, to have the opportunity to contribute to maintaining and developing relations between Ireland and the United States, particularly at the beginning of the new era in our country’s relationship following your election, Mr. President.  Let me congratulate you and wish you and your administration the very best as you begin your term of office.  (Applause.)

This job, the job you hold, is exceptionally demanding and exceptionally difficult.  The United States remains the most influential, as well as the most powerful country in the world.  You hold the hopes and the future of America, and indeed, the world in your hands.

But let me thank you for giving so much of your time today to this visit.  We had an excellent meeting, a first-class meeting this morning in the Oval Office, not there very often, where we discussed a variety of important issues of mutual concern.  And I want to assure you, sir, of our commitment to working closely with you and your administration as you face the many challenges up ahead.

The ties that bind our two countries are deep and historic. And Ireland and the United States have a unique relationship that goes back to the earliest days of the original 14 colonies.  Irish foreign military officers assisted George Washington to win that war of independence.  Indeed, they’ve fought in every war for America since then.  And this very house was designed by James Hoban from Kilkenny, modeled in part after the Leinster House in Dublin, where the Irish parliament has met on our own independence since 1922.

It's fitting that we gather here each year to celebrate St. Patrick and his legacy.  He, too, of course, was an immigrant.  And though he is, of course, the patron saint of Ireland, for many people around the globe, he is also a symbol of, indeed, the patron of immigrants.

Here in America, your great country, 35 million people claim Irish heritage, and the Irish have contributed to the economic, social, political and cultural life of this great country over the last 200 years.  Ireland came to America because, deprived of liberty, deprived of opportunity, of safety, of even food itself, the Irish believed, four decades before Lady Liberty lifted her lamp, we were the “wretched refuse on the teeming shore.”  We believed in the shelter of America, and the compassion of America, and the opportunity of America.  We came, and we became Americans.

We lived the words of John F. Kennedy long before we heard them:  We asked not what America could do for us, but what we could do for America.  And we still do.  We want to give, and not to take.  We know the Irish have built the bridges and the roads, protected the public as firefighters and police officers.  We've cared for the sick in hospitals, entertained as poets, as singers and writers, as politicians, as judges and legislators.  And as entrepreneurs, they provided hundreds of thousands of jobs for Americans, including most recently, in exciting technology companies.

Two-way trade in goods is approaching $100 billion a year at the moment.  Irish firms employ 100,000 people across 50 states in the U.S.  And we want to build on this for the future.

Mr. President, as a small island on the edge of Europe, a natural bridge between the United States and Europe, and as a committed member of the European Union and a close friend of the United States, we will work hard with you, Mr. President, and with your administration in pursuit of strong and open relations between the United States and the European Union, including the strong trade relationships for the mutual benefit of millions of people either side of the Atlantic.

I believe that the strong people-to-people links that Ireland and the United States have developed over the generations will help us in this endeavor.  And I wish you and the American people every success and happiness in the future.

To Irish-Americans coast to coast, I say, these days especially, we hold you in our hearts.  And tonight, I thank you again for your warm hospitality.

Mr. President, Mr. Vice President, may I wish you and your lovely families every good wish and blessing on this very special day.  Indeed, I'm reminded in many ways of the dream of another American President -- which Ireland will work with you for -- when he spoke the words and said, “My dream is of a place and a time where America will once again be seen as the last, best hope of Earth.”  Spoken by Abraham Lincoln.

Mr. President, Ireland will help you build on that foundation to achieve the ultimate dream.  Thank you, sir.  And God bless you.  (Applause.)

END 6:23 P.M. EDT

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2m9SruH

[rtscrndr53704]

Remarks by President Trump and Vice President Pence at St. Patrick's Day Reception

East Room

6:03 P.M. EDT

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  Well, good evening to you all.  Fellow Americans, Irish friends, distinguished guests.  I'm Mike Pence and I'm the 48th Vice President of the United States of America. (Applause.)  It's my honor, along with my wife, Karen Pence, to welcome you on behalf of the First Family to the White House on this very special occasion.

It is such an honor for the two of us to be able to welcome you here and welcome a special guest to the White House, and of course, our host to this podium for this 55-year-old tradition.  Since Irish Ambassador John Joseph Hearne left a box of Ireland’s most famous symbol at the White House in 1952, the shamrock exchange has grown to become a festive sign of enduring friendship during this memorable week, and an eternal bond between the American people and the people of Ireland.

Now, the Irish are one of the strongest and most beautiful threads in our national fabric here in the United States.  For centuries, the sons and daughters of Ireland have come here from across the Atlantic.  More than 32 million Americans now trace their heritage back to the Emerald Isle.  And I say with a grateful heart and deep humility, I'm one of them.  (Applause.)

My grandfather, Richard Michael Cowley*, stepped off a boat onto Ellis Island in 1023.  And that's how Michael Richard Pence got to serve in the White House.  My grandfather, as the legend of our family says, was told by my great-grandmother that he needed to go to America.  She said, there’s a future there for you.  He wouldn't see his mother for 25 years, and he often spoke of their separation with a heavy heart.

My grandfather came here, like so many generations of Irish-Americans did, with a dream, but with character and with work ethic and a determination to build a family, a good name.  And so he did.

My mother, who is 83 years young, bright red hair and blue eyes, is still with us today, and his memory and her influence continues to define my life,

The truth is my grandfather was very typical of the millions that would come to these shores.  He embodied all that's best about the Irish -- sturdy work ethic, faith in God, love of family, patriotism.  And those are the enduring contributions of people of Irish descent in the history of this country.  It's extraordinary to think of the contributions that the Irish have made.  In every single American conflict since our Revolutionary War, the Irish people have enriched America in incalculable ways, and they always will.

When I speak of those character qualities I know that they apply to the two people that we have the privilege of introducing tonight.  First is our special guest -- it's my high honor to invite him to the podium, along with our host.  So, ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming the Taoiseach of the Republic of Ireland, Enda Kenny; his wife, Fionnuala; and my friend, the 45th President of the United States of America, Donald Trump.  (Applause.) 

THE PRESIDENT:  Thank you very much.  It's a great honor.  

Taoiseach, Mrs. Kenny, Ambassador Anderson, Dr. Lowe, Vice President Pence, and distinguished guests, we gather here today in the White House to take part in the traditional Shamrock Ceremony and to celebrate the strong ties between the United States and a truly great country, Ireland.

I also want to extend a special welcome to a group of distinguished local political and society leaders -- and they are real leaders -- who are with us from Northern Ireland -- great people -- including the Mayor of Belfast and the Head of Northern Ireland Civil Service -- that's a lot of power there.  (Laughter.)  Lord Mayor Kingston and Sir Malcolm McKibbin -- and it's wonderful to have you. Where are you folks?  Where are you? Where are you?  (Applause.)  Thank you.  They’re going to be having a great open championship very soon -- you know that, right?  (Laughter.)  At a great course.  At a great, great course.

St. Patrick’s Day has become a truly important occasion in the United States -- one embraced by Americans of all faiths and of all backgrounds.  I've been to many of them and we love it.  The Shamrock Ceremony is a tradition that symbolizes the bond between our two countries.  It dates back to 1952 when the Irish Ambassador to the United States, John Joseph Hearne, sent a box of shamrocks to a President who did a very good job -- Harry S. Truman.

Our strong ties go back throughout American history.  Irish-Americans played a vital role in preserving our Union during its hour of greatest need.  So true, played a very, very big role.  Many distinguished themselves in the American Civil War with their grit and their bravery and their courage, earning the nickname, the “Fighting Irish.”  And I know a lot about the Irish -- they fight.  They’re tough.  (Laughter.)  I know a lot.  I know more than I'm ever going to tell you.  (Laughter.)

And when American Armed Forces joined the fight in Europe during World War II, 75 years ago, our heroic troops first stepped off ships in Belfast Harbor in Northern Ireland.

Throughout the centuries, hardworking Irish-Americans contributed mightily to America’s innovation and to America’s prosperity.  They often overcame great hardship -- really, I mean, it's like the hardship they overcame for us, for our people, is inspiring and really helped a relatively young nation beyond what anyone really understands or knows.  So we want to thank you -- just an amazing, an amazing history.

President John F. Kennedy, in an address to the Irish Parliament, said that “It is that quality of the Irish -- that remarkable combination of hope, confidence, and imagination -- that is needed more than ever today.”  Now, he said that a long time ago, but it's perhaps even more true today.  The words of America’s first Irish-Catholic President ring just as true. 

We hope confidence -- and I tell you what we want now is a lot of things, but we need that great Irish confidence -- and they are confident people, aren't they, Mike?  (Applause.)  And I tell you what, we all want it together to grow in the 21st century.  And grow we will.  As I say, bigger and better and stronger than ever before.

We must have the hope to believe in a better future, the confidence to pursue it, and the imagination to figure out how to get there.  A new optimism is sweeping across our nation.  You see that when you look at the numbers -- the optimism is at the highest level in many, many years.  And as America gains renewed strength, Ireland will find us to be an ever-faithful partner and an always loyal friend.  We will be there for you, and we will be there for you.  (Applause.) 

So thank you for being here.  I wish you a very, very happy St. Patrick’s Day.  And God bless you and may God bless Ireland, and Northern Ireland, and may God bless America.  Thank you very much.  (Applause.)  Thank you.  Thank you very much.

TAOISEACH KENNY:  Mr. President, Mr. Vice President, ladies and gentlemen.  It's a great honor to be back again in the most famous house in the world to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, the most special of days for Irish men and Irish women and those of Irish descent the world over.

Since I had the privilege of being elected as Taoiseach in 2011, I've had the pleasure of being here in the White House each March to mark the enduring connections between our country and the United States.  Fionnuala and I would like sincerely to thank President Trump for so graciously continuing this great tradition of hospitality which means so much to Irish people everywhere.

I'm proud, sir, to have the opportunity to contribute to maintaining and developing relations between Ireland and the United States, particularly at the beginning of the new era in our country’s relationship following your election, Mr. President.  Let me congratulate you and wish you and your administration the very best as you begin your term of office.  (Applause.)

This job, the job you hold, is exceptionally demanding and exceptionally difficult.  The United States remains the most influential, as well as the most powerful country in the world.  You hold the hopes and the future of America, and indeed, the world in your hands.

But let me thank you for giving so much of your time today to this visit.  We had an excellent meeting, a first-class meeting this morning in the Oval Office, not there very often, where we discussed a variety of important issues of mutual concern.  And I want to assure you, sir, of our commitment to working closely with you and your administration as you face the many challenges up ahead.

The ties that bind our two countries are deep and historic. And Ireland and the United States have a unique relationship that goes back to the earliest days of the original 14 colonies.  Irish foreign military officers assisted George Washington to win that war of independence.  Indeed, they’ve fought in every war for America since then.  And this very house was designed by James Hoban from Kilkenny, modeled in part after the Leinster House in Dublin, where the Irish parliament has met on our own independence since 1922.

It's fitting that we gather here each year to celebrate St. Patrick and his legacy.  He, too, of course, was an immigrant.  And though he is, of course, the patron saint of Ireland, for many people around the globe, he is also a symbol of, indeed, the patron of immigrants.

Here in America, your great country, 35 million people claim Irish heritage, and the Irish have contributed to the economic, social, political and cultural life of this great country over the last 200 years.  Ireland came to America because, deprived of liberty, deprived of opportunity, of safety, of even food itself, the Irish believed, four decades before Lady Liberty lifted her lamp, we were the “wretched refuse on the teeming shore.”  We believed in the shelter of America, and the compassion of America, and the opportunity of America.  We came, and we became Americans.

We lived the words of John F. Kennedy long before we heard them:  We asked not what America could do for us, but what we could do for America.  And we still do.  We want to give, and not to take.  We know the Irish have built the bridges and the roads, protected the public as firefighters and police officers.  We've cared for the sick in hospitals, entertained as poets, as singers and writers, as politicians, as judges and legislators.  And as entrepreneurs, they provided hundreds of thousands of jobs for Americans, including most recently, in exciting technology companies.

Two-way trade in goods is approaching $100 billion a year at the moment.  Irish firms employ 100,000 people across 50 states in the U.S.  And we want to build on this for the future.

Mr. President, as a small island on the edge of Europe, a natural bridge between the United States and Europe, and as a committed member of the European Union and a close friend of the United States, we will work hard with you, Mr. President, and with your administration in pursuit of strong and open relations between the United States and the European Union, including the strong trade relationships for the mutual benefit of millions of people either side of the Atlantic.

I believe that the strong people-to-people links that Ireland and the United States have developed over the generations will help us in this endeavor.  And I wish you and the American people every success and happiness in the future.

To Irish-Americans coast to coast, I say, these days especially, we hold you in our hearts.  And tonight, I thank you again for your warm hospitality.

Mr. President, Mr. Vice President, may I wish you and your lovely families every good wish and blessing on this very special day.  Indeed, I'm reminded in many ways of the dream of another American President -- which Ireland will work with you for -- when he spoke the words and said, “My dream is of a place and a time where America will once again be seen as the last, best hope of Earth.”  Spoken by Abraham Lincoln.

Mr. President, Ireland will help you build on that foundation to achieve the ultimate dream.  Thank you, sir.  And God bless you.  (Applause.)

END 6:23 P.M. EDT

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2m9SruH

[rtawngs20815]

Remarks by President Trump and Vice President Pence at St. Patrick's Day Reception

East Room

6:03 P.M. EDT

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  Well, good evening to you all.  Fellow Americans, Irish friends, distinguished guests.  I'm Mike Pence and I'm the 48th Vice President of the United States of America. (Applause.)  It's my honor, along with my wife, Karen Pence, to welcome you on behalf of the First Family to the White House on this very special occasion.

It is such an honor for the two of us to be able to welcome you here and welcome a special guest to the White House, and of course, our host to this podium for this 55-year-old tradition.  Since Irish Ambassador John Joseph Hearne left a box of Ireland’s most famous symbol at the White House in 1952, the shamrock exchange has grown to become a festive sign of enduring friendship during this memorable week, and an eternal bond between the American people and the people of Ireland.

Now, the Irish are one of the strongest and most beautiful threads in our national fabric here in the United States.  For centuries, the sons and daughters of Ireland have come here from across the Atlantic.  More than 32 million Americans now trace their heritage back to the Emerald Isle.  And I say with a grateful heart and deep humility, I'm one of them.  (Applause.)

My grandfather, Richard Michael Cowley*, stepped off a boat onto Ellis Island in 1023.  And that's how Michael Richard Pence got to serve in the White House.  My grandfather, as the legend of our family says, was told by my great-grandmother that he needed to go to America.  She said, there’s a future there for you.  He wouldn't see his mother for 25 years, and he often spoke of their separation with a heavy heart.

My grandfather came here, like so many generations of Irish-Americans did, with a dream, but with character and with work ethic and a determination to build a family, a good name.  And so he did.

My mother, who is 83 years young, bright red hair and blue eyes, is still with us today, and his memory and her influence continues to define my life,

The truth is my grandfather was very typical of the millions that would come to these shores.  He embodied all that's best about the Irish -- sturdy work ethic, faith in God, love of family, patriotism.  And those are the enduring contributions of people of Irish descent in the history of this country.  It's extraordinary to think of the contributions that the Irish have made.  In every single American conflict since our Revolutionary War, the Irish people have enriched America in incalculable ways, and they always will.

When I speak of those character qualities I know that they apply to the two people that we have the privilege of introducing tonight.  First is our special guest -- it's my high honor to invite him to the podium, along with our host.  So, ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming the Taoiseach of the Republic of Ireland, Enda Kenny; his wife, Fionnuala; and my friend, the 45th President of the United States of America, Donald Trump.  (Applause.) 

THE PRESIDENT:  Thank you very much.  It's a great honor.  

Taoiseach, Mrs. Kenny, Ambassador Anderson, Dr. Lowe, Vice President Pence, and distinguished guests, we gather here today in the White House to take part in the traditional Shamrock Ceremony and to celebrate the strong ties between the United States and a truly great country, Ireland.

I also want to extend a special welcome to a group of distinguished local political and society leaders -- and they are real leaders -- who are with us from Northern Ireland -- great people -- including the Mayor of Belfast and the Head of Northern Ireland Civil Service -- that's a lot of power there.  (Laughter.)  Lord Mayor Kingston and Sir Malcolm McKibbin -- and it's wonderful to have you. Where are you folks?  Where are you? Where are you?  (Applause.)  Thank you.  They’re going to be having a great open championship very soon -- you know that, right?  (Laughter.)  At a great course.  At a great, great course.

St. Patrick’s Day has become a truly important occasion in the United States -- one embraced by Americans of all faiths and of all backgrounds.  I've been to many of them and we love it.  The Shamrock Ceremony is a tradition that symbolizes the bond between our two countries.  It dates back to 1952 when the Irish Ambassador to the United States, John Joseph Hearne, sent a box of shamrocks to a President who did a very good job -- Harry S. Truman.

Our strong ties go back throughout American history.  Irish-Americans played a vital role in preserving our Union during its hour of greatest need.  So true, played a very, very big role.  Many distinguished themselves in the American Civil War with their grit and their bravery and their courage, earning the nickname, the “Fighting Irish.”  And I know a lot about the Irish -- they fight.  They’re tough.  (Laughter.)  I know a lot.  I know more than I'm ever going to tell you.  (Laughter.)

And when American Armed Forces joined the fight in Europe during World War II, 75 years ago, our heroic troops first stepped off ships in Belfast Harbor in Northern Ireland.

Throughout the centuries, hardworking Irish-Americans contributed mightily to America’s innovation and to America’s prosperity.  They often overcame great hardship -- really, I mean, it's like the hardship they overcame for us, for our people, is inspiring and really helped a relatively young nation beyond what anyone really understands or knows.  So we want to thank you -- just an amazing, an amazing history.

President John F. Kennedy, in an address to the Irish Parliament, said that “It is that quality of the Irish -- that remarkable combination of hope, confidence, and imagination -- that is needed more than ever today.”  Now, he said that a long time ago, but it's perhaps even more true today.  The words of America’s first Irish-Catholic President ring just as true. 

We hope confidence -- and I tell you what we want now is a lot of things, but we need that great Irish confidence -- and they are confident people, aren't they, Mike?  (Applause.)  And I tell you what, we all want it together to grow in the 21st century.  And grow we will.  As I say, bigger and better and stronger than ever before.

We must have the hope to believe in a better future, the confidence to pursue it, and the imagination to figure out how to get there.  A new optimism is sweeping across our nation.  You see that when you look at the numbers -- the optimism is at the highest level in many, many years.  And as America gains renewed strength, Ireland will find us to be an ever-faithful partner and an always loyal friend.  We will be there for you, and we will be there for you.  (Applause.) 

So thank you for being here.  I wish you a very, very happy St. Patrick’s Day.  And God bless you and may God bless Ireland, and Northern Ireland, and may God bless America.  Thank you very much.  (Applause.)  Thank you.  Thank you very much.

TAOISEACH KENNY:  Mr. President, Mr. Vice President, ladies and gentlemen.  It's a great honor to be back again in the most famous house in the world to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, the most special of days for Irish men and Irish women and those of Irish descent the world over.

Since I had the privilege of being elected as Taoiseach in 2011, I've had the pleasure of being here in the White House each March to mark the enduring connections between our country and the United States.  Fionnuala and I would like sincerely to thank President Trump for so graciously continuing this great tradition of hospitality which means so much to Irish people everywhere.

I'm proud, sir, to have the opportunity to contribute to maintaining and developing relations between Ireland and the United States, particularly at the beginning of the new era in our country’s relationship following your election, Mr. President.  Let me congratulate you and wish you and your administration the very best as you begin your term of office.  (Applause.)

This job, the job you hold, is exceptionally demanding and exceptionally difficult.  The United States remains the most influential, as well as the most powerful country in the world.  You hold the hopes and the future of America, and indeed, the world in your hands.

But let me thank you for giving so much of your time today to this visit.  We had an excellent meeting, a first-class meeting this morning in the Oval Office, not there very often, where we discussed a variety of important issues of mutual concern.  And I want to assure you, sir, of our commitment to working closely with you and your administration as you face the many challenges up ahead.

The ties that bind our two countries are deep and historic. And Ireland and the United States have a unique relationship that goes back to the earliest days of the original 14 colonies.  Irish foreign military officers assisted George Washington to win that war of independence.  Indeed, they’ve fought in every war for America since then.  And this very house was designed by James Hoban from Kilkenny, modeled in part after the Leinster House in Dublin, where the Irish parliament has met on our own independence since 1922.

It's fitting that we gather here each year to celebrate St. Patrick and his legacy.  He, too, of course, was an immigrant.  And though he is, of course, the patron saint of Ireland, for many people around the globe, he is also a symbol of, indeed, the patron of immigrants.

Here in America, your great country, 35 million people claim Irish heritage, and the Irish have contributed to the economic, social, political and cultural life of this great country over the last 200 years.  Ireland came to America because, deprived of liberty, deprived of opportunity, of safety, of even food itself, the Irish believed, four decades before Lady Liberty lifted her lamp, we were the “wretched refuse on the teeming shore.”  We believed in the shelter of America, and the compassion of America, and the opportunity of America.  We came, and we became Americans.

We lived the words of John F. Kennedy long before we heard them:  We asked not what America could do for us, but what we could do for America.  And we still do.  We want to give, and not to take.  We know the Irish have built the bridges and the roads, protected the public as firefighters and police officers.  We've cared for the sick in hospitals, entertained as poets, as singers and writers, as politicians, as judges and legislators.  And as entrepreneurs, they provided hundreds of thousands of jobs for Americans, including most recently, in exciting technology companies.

Two-way trade in goods is approaching $100 billion a year at the moment.  Irish firms employ 100,000 people across 50 states in the U.S.  And we want to build on this for the future.

Mr. President, as a small island on the edge of Europe, a natural bridge between the United States and Europe, and as a committed member of the European Union and a close friend of the United States, we will work hard with you, Mr. President, and with your administration in pursuit of strong and open relations between the United States and the European Union, including the strong trade relationships for the mutual benefit of millions of people either side of the Atlantic.

I believe that the strong people-to-people links that Ireland and the United States have developed over the generations will help us in this endeavor.  And I wish you and the American people every success and happiness in the future.

To Irish-Americans coast to coast, I say, these days especially, we hold you in our hearts.  And tonight, I thank you again for your warm hospitality.

Mr. President, Mr. Vice President, may I wish you and your lovely families every good wish and blessing on this very special day.  Indeed, I'm reminded in many ways of the dream of another American President -- which Ireland will work with you for -- when he spoke the words and said, “My dream is of a place and a time where America will once again be seen as the last, best hope of Earth.”  Spoken by Abraham Lincoln.

Mr. President, Ireland will help you build on that foundation to achieve the ultimate dream.  Thank you, sir.  And God bless you.  (Applause.)

END 6:23 P.M. EDT

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2m9SruH

[exfrenchdorsl4p0a1]

Remarks by President Trump and Vice President Pence at St. Patrick's Day Reception

East Room

6:03 P.M. EDT

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  Well, good evening to you all.  Fellow Americans, Irish friends, distinguished guests.  I'm Mike Pence and I'm the 48th Vice President of the United States of America. (Applause.)  It's my honor, along with my wife, Karen Pence, to welcome you on behalf of the First Family to the White House on this very special occasion.

It is such an honor for the two of us to be able to welcome you here and welcome a special guest to the White House, and of course, our host to this podium for this 55-year-old tradition.  Since Irish Ambassador John Joseph Hearne left a box of Ireland’s most famous symbol at the White House in 1952, the shamrock exchange has grown to become a festive sign of enduring friendship during this memorable week, and an eternal bond between the American people and the people of Ireland.

Now, the Irish are one of the strongest and most beautiful threads in our national fabric here in the United States.  For centuries, the sons and daughters of Ireland have come here from across the Atlantic.  More than 32 million Americans now trace their heritage back to the Emerald Isle.  And I say with a grateful heart and deep humility, I'm one of them.  (Applause.)

My grandfather, Richard Michael Cowley*, stepped off a boat onto Ellis Island in 1023.  And that's how Michael Richard Pence got to serve in the White House.  My grandfather, as the legend of our family says, was told by my great-grandmother that he needed to go to America.  She said, there’s a future there for you.  He wouldn't see his mother for 25 years, and he often spoke of their separation with a heavy heart.

My grandfather came here, like so many generations of Irish-Americans did, with a dream, but with character and with work ethic and a determination to build a family, a good name.  And so he did.

My mother, who is 83 years young, bright red hair and blue eyes, is still with us today, and his memory and her influence continues to define my life,

The truth is my grandfather was very typical of the millions that would come to these shores.  He embodied all that's best about the Irish -- sturdy work ethic, faith in God, love of family, patriotism.  And those are the enduring contributions of people of Irish descent in the history of this country.  It's extraordinary to think of the contributions that the Irish have made.  In every single American conflict since our Revolutionary War, the Irish people have enriched America in incalculable ways, and they always will.

When I speak of those character qualities I know that they apply to the two people that we have the privilege of introducing tonight.  First is our special guest -- it's my high honor to invite him to the podium, along with our host.  So, ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming the Taoiseach of the Republic of Ireland, Enda Kenny; his wife, Fionnuala; and my friend, the 45th President of the United States of America, Donald Trump.  (Applause.) 

THE PRESIDENT:  Thank you very much.  It's a great honor.  

Taoiseach, Mrs. Kenny, Ambassador Anderson, Dr. Lowe, Vice President Pence, and distinguished guests, we gather here today in the White House to take part in the traditional Shamrock Ceremony and to celebrate the strong ties between the United States and a truly great country, Ireland.

I also want to extend a special welcome to a group of distinguished local political and society leaders -- and they are real leaders -- who are with us from Northern Ireland -- great people -- including the Mayor of Belfast and the Head of Northern Ireland Civil Service -- that's a lot of power there.  (Laughter.)  Lord Mayor Kingston and Sir Malcolm McKibbin -- and it's wonderful to have you. Where are you folks?  Where are you? Where are you?  (Applause.)  Thank you.  They’re going to be having a great open championship very soon -- you know that, right?  (Laughter.)  At a great course.  At a great, great course.

St. Patrick’s Day has become a truly important occasion in the United States -- one embraced by Americans of all faiths and of all backgrounds.  I've been to many of them and we love it.  The Shamrock Ceremony is a tradition that symbolizes the bond between our two countries.  It dates back to 1952 when the Irish Ambassador to the United States, John Joseph Hearne, sent a box of shamrocks to a President who did a very good job -- Harry S. Truman.

Our strong ties go back throughout American history.  Irish-Americans played a vital role in preserving our Union during its hour of greatest need.  So true, played a very, very big role.  Many distinguished themselves in the American Civil War with their grit and their bravery and their courage, earning the nickname, the “Fighting Irish.”  And I know a lot about the Irish -- they fight.  They’re tough.  (Laughter.)  I know a lot.  I know more than I'm ever going to tell you.  (Laughter.)

And when American Armed Forces joined the fight in Europe during World War II, 75 years ago, our heroic troops first stepped off ships in Belfast Harbor in Northern Ireland.

Throughout the centuries, hardworking Irish-Americans contributed mightily to America’s innovation and to America’s prosperity.  They often overcame great hardship -- really, I mean, it's like the hardship they overcame for us, for our people, is inspiring and really helped a relatively young nation beyond what anyone really understands or knows.  So we want to thank you -- just an amazing, an amazing history.

President John F. Kennedy, in an address to the Irish Parliament, said that “It is that quality of the Irish -- that remarkable combination of hope, confidence, and imagination -- that is needed more than ever today.”  Now, he said that a long time ago, but it's perhaps even more true today.  The words of America’s first Irish-Catholic President ring just as true. 

We hope confidence -- and I tell you what we want now is a lot of things, but we need that great Irish confidence -- and they are confident people, aren't they, Mike?  (Applause.)  And I tell you what, we all want it together to grow in the 21st century.  And grow we will.  As I say, bigger and better and stronger than ever before.

We must have the hope to believe in a better future, the confidence to pursue it, and the imagination to figure out how to get there.  A new optimism is sweeping across our nation.  You see that when you look at the numbers -- the optimism is at the highest level in many, many years.  And as America gains renewed strength, Ireland will find us to be an ever-faithful partner and an always loyal friend.  We will be there for you, and we will be there for you.  (Applause.) 

So thank you for being here.  I wish you a very, very happy St. Patrick’s Day.  And God bless you and may God bless Ireland, and Northern Ireland, and may God bless America.  Thank you very much.  (Applause.)  Thank you.  Thank you very much.

TAOISEACH KENNY:  Mr. President, Mr. Vice President, ladies and gentlemen.  It's a great honor to be back again in the most famous house in the world to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, the most special of days for Irish men and Irish women and those of Irish descent the world over.

Since I had the privilege of being elected as Taoiseach in 2011, I've had the pleasure of being here in the White House each March to mark the enduring connections between our country and the United States.  Fionnuala and I would like sincerely to thank President Trump for so graciously continuing this great tradition of hospitality which means so much to Irish people everywhere.

I'm proud, sir, to have the opportunity to contribute to maintaining and developing relations between Ireland and the United States, particularly at the beginning of the new era in our country’s relationship following your election, Mr. President.  Let me congratulate you and wish you and your administration the very best as you begin your term of office.  (Applause.)

This job, the job you hold, is exceptionally demanding and exceptionally difficult.  The United States remains the most influential, as well as the most powerful country in the world.  You hold the hopes and the future of America, and indeed, the world in your hands.

But let me thank you for giving so much of your time today to this visit.  We had an excellent meeting, a first-class meeting this morning in the Oval Office, not there very often, where we discussed a variety of important issues of mutual concern.  And I want to assure you, sir, of our commitment to working closely with you and your administration as you face the many challenges up ahead.

The ties that bind our two countries are deep and historic. And Ireland and the United States have a unique relationship that goes back to the earliest days of the original 14 colonies.  Irish foreign military officers assisted George Washington to win that war of independence.  Indeed, they’ve fought in every war for America since then.  And this very house was designed by James Hoban from Kilkenny, modeled in part after the Leinster House in Dublin, where the Irish parliament has met on our own independence since 1922.

It's fitting that we gather here each year to celebrate St. Patrick and his legacy.  He, too, of course, was an immigrant.  And though he is, of course, the patron saint of Ireland, for many people around the globe, he is also a symbol of, indeed, the patron of immigrants.

Here in America, your great country, 35 million people claim Irish heritage, and the Irish have contributed to the economic, social, political and cultural life of this great country over the last 200 years.  Ireland came to America because, deprived of liberty, deprived of opportunity, of safety, of even food itself, the Irish believed, four decades before Lady Liberty lifted her lamp, we were the “wretched refuse on the teeming shore.”  We believed in the shelter of America, and the compassion of America, and the opportunity of America.  We came, and we became Americans.

We lived the words of John F. Kennedy long before we heard them:  We asked not what America could do for us, but what we could do for America.  And we still do.  We want to give, and not to take.  We know the Irish have built the bridges and the roads, protected the public as firefighters and police officers.  We've cared for the sick in hospitals, entertained as poets, as singers and writers, as politicians, as judges and legislators.  And as entrepreneurs, they provided hundreds of thousands of jobs for Americans, including most recently, in exciting technology companies.

Two-way trade in goods is approaching $100 billion a year at the moment.  Irish firms employ 100,000 people across 50 states in the U.S.  And we want to build on this for the future.

Mr. President, as a small island on the edge of Europe, a natural bridge between the United States and Europe, and as a committed member of the European Union and a close friend of the United States, we will work hard with you, Mr. President, and with your administration in pursuit of strong and open relations between the United States and the European Union, including the strong trade relationships for the mutual benefit of millions of people either side of the Atlantic.

I believe that the strong people-to-people links that Ireland and the United States have developed over the generations will help us in this endeavor.  And I wish you and the American people every success and happiness in the future.

To Irish-Americans coast to coast, I say, these days especially, we hold you in our hearts.  And tonight, I thank you again for your warm hospitality.

Mr. President, Mr. Vice President, may I wish you and your lovely families every good wish and blessing on this very special day.  Indeed, I'm reminded in many ways of the dream of another American President -- which Ireland will work with you for -- when he spoke the words and said, “My dream is of a place and a time where America will once again be seen as the last, best hope of Earth.”  Spoken by Abraham Lincoln.

Mr. President, Ireland will help you build on that foundation to achieve the ultimate dream.  Thank you, sir.  And God bless you.  (Applause.)

END 6:23 P.M. EDT

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2m9SruH