Book Fuel: Tuthilltown’s Hudson Baby Bourbon

Upstate pride

I’m going to resist the ubiquitous tendency to write about whiskey like a sex offender (all liquid is “supple,” that’s how you can drink it) and just make the most salient point about Hudson Baby Bourbon. It gets you drunk. In style. It has something for pretty much every demographic. For your mountain man, it’s bourbon. So it’ll make you feel like building things with your hands and referring to a beautiful woman as “handsome.” For hipsters, it’s an exclusive artisan product that looks antique and matches your suspenders and civil war facial hair. For rich people, it’s 35 dollars for a 350mL bottle. For all of them and everyone else,  it evokes a mild caramel sweetness and a puff of smoke that rises quickly to the top of palate, there to stoke its ruminant fire even for us fallen, deviant urbanites. Plus it has a wax seal that makes it feel like you’re cracking into a letter from a medieval king.

One of my favorite things to do after a few drinks besides texting is reading. Drinking simplifies and amplifies pleasure, and the animal joy of putting eyes to words is not to be overshadowed by the derivative joy of thinking about those words. If you’re going to try it, Hudson’s a great companion but you’ll in any contingency want to stick with brown booze. Rum can work in dark n’ stormy form and I’ll extend my approval to Irish and Scotch but if you’re drinking alone you better pray no one catches you with a cosmo in one hand and Yaya Sisterhood in the other. And if you miscalculate and the words on the page are in free-fall just cruise Cabin Porn like a true backwoods bourbonite until your head clears.

Book Fuel: Counter Culture’s La Golondrina

12 ounces uncut Colombian

The great thing about coffee is that you can have a 20 minute conversation about it without anybody suspecting you’re actually talking about drugs. And like the latter industry, though the Columbians have traditionally done it best, the Kenyans and Ethiopians are definitely in heavy contention. In recent years with third wave espresso caffeinating the nation I feel like a lot of bean fiends have moved out of the deep roasty darkness into the brighter, subtler, dare I say fruitier light. I’ve always been on team light n’ bright (if you got blackcurrant in there then damnit I want to taste it) though there will always be a place in my heart for dark and hearty blends (family gatherings, all nighters, hangover medication).

But I have the palate of a golden retriever when it comes to these things. I get into the good graces of baristas by answering all their leading questions in the affirmative (“You getting that coconut?” “Oh fuck yeah it’s coming on real strong now.”) Further, I don’t know if that’s taste that’s sparking pleasure nodes or the drugs fording the blood-brain barrier. Like anything though, it’s more fun when you ruin other people’s fun by being pretentious so I’ve been practicing my coffee nerd spiel. I brew everything in the french press for maximum righteousness and I always drink it black first even if I put a little milk in it later on. The result is that I’m marginally better at picking up flavors and it is now impossible for me to enjoy normal people coffee. Mission accomplished I guess. Let’s take a crack at Counter Culture’s La Golondrina.

What They Say: Sourced directly from Cauca’s most skilled and quality-focused organic farmers, La Golondrina represents the very best of Colombian coffee with layered flavors of caramel, chocolate, cherry, and bright citrus.

What I Taste: Basically none of that. There’s definitely some darker sweetness going on, something like burnt cake (which I assume is on the caramel-cocoa continuum) and a sourness I’ve tracked over land and sea to the cherry notes. Honestly it’s good but not my fave. The flavors seem muddier than CC’s other brews and it doesn’t have the same kind of putting the spurs to Hidalgo energy that I associate with Columbian coffee. But it gets about 75% of your bull running.

The Feeling: Getting dust in your eyes on a mountaintop, but in a good way.