Russell's Reserve, 10 yr old

The current bourbon in my home bar is Russell's Reserve, the super-fine small-batch 10-yr-old stuff. Though still not as flawless a fluid as Four Roses Single Barrel, this bourbon, which I'm just trying for the first time, is definitely top-shelf stuff. No ice needed here.

Russell's Reserve gets its name from its creators, Master Distiller Jimmy Russell and his son Eddie. Both are from the Austin Nichols Distillery in Lawrenceburg, KY.

- - JSH

Revelation Awaits An Appointed Time...

Oh good lord, another JSH blog? Afraid so. My new secret Kentucky retro-culture organization (so secret that it doesn't even have a public name, yet so secret that it also has a blog) presents daily disassociated fragments of the big puzzle each day. In essence, we're a Steampunk/Dieselpunk group that refuses to be bound by the definitions of those terms.

Although we are interested in the entire span of Earth's existence from the primordial soup to the present, we regard the two hundred year period from 1766 to 1966 as Earth's last (and probably final) "Golden Age". Between the era of Mozart and the era of "Man from UNCLE" falls the shadow.

Click here to read the blog.


- - JSH

Jucifer Rising

You know, many people come to me and they say, "Hey, Jeffrey Scott Holland, you sure eat a lot of unhealthy food, how come you aren't fatter than you already are?" Okay, no one's actually said that to me, but I sense that sometimes they want to.

Well, the answer is this: when not gobbling down barbecued brisket, chicken-fried-chicken, deep-fried Twinkies, buttered bacon, and Starbucks frappucinos (as Bill Maher put it, "since when did a morning cup of coffee become a giant milkshake covered in whipped cream and chocolate syrup?"), I simply fire up the juicer.

The juicer? The juicer.

I consume equal parts junk food and health food, and I believe they mostly balance each other out. I'm not a big fan of vegetables in general, but I will consume anything if you reduce it to liquid. So I constantly run the juicer and fill it with tomatoes, carrots, spinach, lettuce, cabbage, lemons, limes, oranges, apples, radishes, turnips, onions, grapefruit, watermelon, honeydew, canteloupe, guava, papaya, pears, strawberries, ginger root, pineapple, grapes, kiwi, celery, etc., all in one big witch's brew of plant-based goodness.

If, like me, you're a big kid at heart that doesn't like to eat your veggies, trust me, the juicer makes it more than bearable. (Makes for great martinis too - A radish-ginger martini may not sound too palatable to you, but I assure you of its awesomeness.) And after you've already had 9000 percent of your recommended daily allowance of everything for lunch, you're all freed up to feast on buffalo wings, ice cream, and beer for din-din.

- - JSH