Glibertarians.com 2019 Archive

Author: R C Dean

  • Bacon Booze, an Old-Fashioned, and a Gift Suggestion

    Bacon-Infused Booze.

    Its been too long since I brought the benighted masses a new cocktail recipe.  Given the number of enthusiastic carnivores here (sorry, Old Man and SP, this one won’t work for you), I thought Bacon-Infused Booze would be of interest.  You can also do this with rye, bourbon or other whiskies, or even theoretically Scotch, I suppose.  Since infusing your booze with bacon adds a smoky flavor, I can’t see it being very good with clear liquors, rum, or others that aren’t already smoke-friendly, but who knows?  Scotch typically already has plenty of smoke, so I can’t see infusing bacon into Scotch really adding much, but I haven’t tried it.

    Technically, infusing bacon into your booze is “fat-washing”, and it is dead easy.  You will need bacon, booze, a container, and a freezer. Based on my experience, the smokier the bacon, the better.  Because of the (very) wide variation in bacon, the proportions are also variable. You may have to make multiple batches to land on the right recipe for you.  Darn it.

    (1)        Pour your booze into a container (we’re using home barrel-aged Bulleit rye).  We’ve been doing half a fifth (call it 13 ounces) at a time as we experiment, so a pint mason jar works just fine.  The wider the mouth, the better, so a tupperware container is also a good choice.

    (2)        Cook the bacon.  I find cooking it to quite crispy in a frying pan works a little better in terms of flavor getting transferred to the booze.  Keep the cooked bacon, as it makes a dandy garnish.  I’ve had candied bacon as a garnish in fancier bars, so if that’s your bag, go for it.

    (3)        Measure ½ – 1 ounce of warm bacon grease for 13 ounces of booze, and pour into your booze.  Stir or whisk vigorously to break up and distribute the grease.

    (4)        Place in freezer, and leave for at least 12 hours.  I don’t think there’s any benefit to leaving it more than 24 hours.  The bacon grease will congeal into a nice, hard mass.

    (5)        Remove as much of the fat as you can with a slotted spoon or similar.  This is where the wide-mouthed container comes in handy.  Pour the booze through cheesecloth or a coffee filter to get out rest out.  Do this while the booze is still ice-cold so the filter catches the hard fat bits.  The end result should not have any slick of fat left on the top, or at worst a very minimal amount.

    Don’t expect a pronounced bacon flavor, but you should get some smoke and flavor, and a definite smoother/richer feel.

    An Old-Fashioned.

    Now you’ve got your Bacon Booze.  But you don’t have a cocktail yet.  May I suggest an Old-Fashioned?  Mrs. Dean’s current go-to Old Fashioned is as follows:

    3 oz. Bacon Booze.

    1/3 oz Maple Syrup (I’m liking the darker Grade B, which has more maple flavor).  As ever, adjust the proportions to your taste.

    6 dashes Angostura bitters.

    3 dashes Peychaud bitters.

    3 dashes Fee Bros. Aztec Chocolate bitters.

    Shake over ice (remember, a proper shake is 10 – 15 seconds), pour over rocks.  Or straight up.  Your call.  Garnish with bacon.  Or not.  But if not, why not?

    The bacony booze and maple syrup are a natural.  The bitters combo, which I got from a bartender, blends very nicely and add real depth to a drink which is already pretty damn interesting.  Of course, you can use whatever your preference for bitters is.

    The Gift of Ice.

    Because it’s the holidays, one’s mind naturally turns to gifts (either given or received).  Top-tier cocktailing requires top-tier ice, and I believe I have located the best home ice maker on offer.  Its pricey, but it makes glass-clear ice in a number of shapes.  We have the Wintersmiths Phantom Ice Maker.  They make a couple of smaller ones, as well, and a number of different molds for different shapes of ice.  We have the molds for large spheres (ideal for rocks glasses) and Collins “spears” (long rectangular ice “cubes”, good for tall cold ones).  They also have large cubes, and small cubes and spheres (not in stock at the moment).

    Downsides:

    • Cost (not your problem if you can convince somebody to stuff your stocking with it).
    • Size:  It takes some room in the freezer, no question.
    • Time:  24 hours for a batch of ice.

    Upsides:  Perfectly clear ice, that melts slower, dilutes your drink less, and looks uber-classy.

  • The Face of Battle – A Book Review

    On a long drive to an undisclosed location recently, I listened for the second time to British military historian John Keegan’s The Face of Battle, his first book for the more-or-less general public.  I first listened to it probably 15 years ago, so my recollection was pretty fuzzy.  I’ve listened over the years to many of his books, and never been disappointed.  I expect I will revisit all of them in time.

    One of the things I enjoy about John Keegan is the quality of his prose.  It is just wonderful –clear, nuanced, with a dry wit underneath it all.  Very Brit, the kind of writing that reminds you they invented the language.

    The book falls into five parts.  The first is easily skipped, as it is the most academic by far – an extended discussion of the history of battle literature, the various academic fads and literary approaches, etc.  The approach he adopts is to focus (to the extent he can) on what the soldier’s experience of the soldiering and the battle would have been.

    He then examines three battles:  Agincourt, Waterloo, and the Somme (really, the first day of the Somme).  His Brit-centricity shows in his selection of battles that Britain not only fought, but ultimately won (although the first day of the Somme was an archetypal defeat that struck very deeply into British society).

    The accounts of Agincourt and Waterloo are very illuminating, with the account of the Somme being something of a letdown.  In part, I suspect, because the fighting on the first day of the Somme was essentially decided, and not in the Brits’ favor, within the first half hour, although nobody had any idea what was actually happening until the day was over.  Also, the very simplistic tactics of the Brits (an artillery barrage that was both enormous and almost completely ineffective, and then men walk in line across no-man’s land) are quickly comprehended and just don’t carry the interest of the back-and-forth at both Agincourt and Waterloo.  Overall, though, he strikes a nice balance between giving a tactical overview of the fighting and a look at the experience of the common soldier and their officers.

    The final section  is a review of what we have seen and learned and an attempt to generalize.  He addresses two issues.

    The first is why men will actually fight in a battle, going beyond the usual “because their buddies are”.  Historically, desertion and abandonment were always very present (providing a counterpoint to the standard narrative), with harsh penalties and soldiers posted specifically to keep men facing the front (such as Wellington’s positioning of cavalry behind some units of foot soldiers).  At Agincourt and Waterloo, whole units left the battle by the simple expedient of hiding in nearby woods.  In a modern-day battlefield, he concludes, men fight because the battlefield is so huge and deadly that front-line soldiers can’t escape it, except by fighting their way through.

    The second question is whether modern warfare has made “traditional” pitched battles between large opposing armies a thing of the past.  This is where I would have really like to see a post-script, as his answer here bounded by the Cold War face-off in Europe (recall, the book was written in the mid-70s).  Between the insupportable demands on the fighting men of a battle between NATO and the Soviets, and of course the risk of nuclear war, he leans toward the conclusion that large scale battles may be a thing of the past.

    Of course, in the decades since there have been a series of battles, mostly in the Middle East.  I would have liked to read Keegan’s take on these.  Just because they tend to be mostly one-sided probably doesn’t mean they aren’t battles, but much of the fighting I think would not qualify as a battle (which is an interesting question of its own).  The Iraqi wars would have given him a chance to test his thesis that a modern battle could exceed the capacity of men to fight, given the intensity and the doctrine of continuous engagement over long periods of time.

  • Let’s Get Pessimistic About 2020

    Previously, we examined whether the culture war has been lost.  Yes, yes it has, as the commanding heights of our culture have been captured by collectivist/tribalist crypto-Marxists of the Left, who have expanded their reach into the administrative state and into the business world.

    As an aside, I think we can safely count the major Christian denominations (with the possible exception of the Baptists) as having also having been captured by the Left. With the election of the Commie Pope,  even the Catholic Church has fallen.  The Long March through the Catholic Church would be an interesting article in and of itself, if anyone wants to volunteer.

    Leftism requires coercion, which is generally the province of the government.  They cannot complete the desired destruction of  America as we know it without capturing the dominant American institution, the government, by taking the elected branches of government.

    Trump was elected as a backlash candidate against the Left, and there are a number of Republicans (and possibly even a few Democrats) who are still opposed to the Leftists to some degree .  Could Congress and the Presidency keep Leftism in at least some semblance of control?

    First, you could hardly find a weaker reed than elected politicians for, well, just about anything other than the preservation of the perks and opportunities for enrichment of elected politicians.  That aside, elected officialdom as a bulwark against Leftism only works if Leftists don’t win.   So its really a question of when, not if, the Left recaptures Congress and the Presidency.  Which will happen the next time the Democrats win the Presidency and control of both houses of Congress.  Such as, next year.

    At the moment, there is a fair amount of optimism that Trump will win re-election, that the Repubs will hold onto the Senate, and even rumblings that they have a fair chance of winning the House, on the belief that the Democrats, currently fronted by their nutbar Presidential candidates and the odious “Squad”, have gone too far to the Left, too fast.  I’m thinking that optimism is unwarranted.

    The Presidency.  Don’t discount the importance the Leftist major media.  Trump, despite presiding over no new wars and a healthy economy, has yet to break 50% in his approval ratings.  I think you can credit the relentless spew of Trump hatred for that.  And a drag on approval is a drag on votes.

    But, you protest, the last time the Dems ran lefty candidates (McGovern, maybe Mondale), they lost in historic landslides.  That was a generation or more ago, before the Left captured the cultural institutions, many businesses, and had the opportunity to indoctrinate a generation.  I see little reason to believe that past performance in 1972 and 1984 will predict future results in 2020.

    Trump won by swinging a largely uncontested Rust Belt by a narrow margin.  I cannot believe the Dems will make that mistake twice, so in 2020 the Rust Belt will be fought over like the swing states they are.  The voters that will ultimately matter are in the suburban “purple” districts.  You know, the ones that gave Congress back to the Dems last year.

    Congress.  The Repubs lost the House in 2018, and while the Democrats’ ardent embrace of Leftism may be the underlying change in the political dynamic that needed for the Repubs to win it back, the events preceding their loss of the House (the Kavanaugh hearings, the weaponization of the FBI and DOJ) had the ugly side of the Left on full display.  Maybe the optics have gotten somewhat worse, so there may be some chance that the Repubs win the House despite what will certainly be a full court press by the Leftist media and Big Tech.

    The Repubs hold the Senate by a mere two seats, and have nine more seats on the table than the Dems do in 2020.  I have not bothered to prognosticate how many Repub Senators are “at risk”, but on the most basic calculation, the odds don’t seem to favor the Repubs.

    The real danger, though, comes from two places:  the assault by the Left on the machinery of voting, and the determination of the Leftist Big Tech monopolies to push the Left over the finish line.

    The Machinery of Voting.   While this is probably a topic for a post of its own, I suggest you consider the following:

    The Dems absolutely believe its not the votes that count, its who counts the votes.  In most states, elections are run by the Secretary of State, and the Dems have set their sights on capturing this seemingly nondescript office.  And, of course, there is the astonishing win/loss record of the Dems in recounts, often accompanied by the discovery of previously unknown ballots.  You can count on any sufficiently close contest being “won” by the Dems.

    There are over a million more registered voters in California than there are actual eligible voters.  While California is likely the worst on this front, the voter rolls nationwide are notoriously, well, garbage.  There’s a reason why Democrat states are refusing to go along with any attempt to clean up the voter rolls.  I’m not saying its because every “excess” registered voter is an opportunity for fraud . . . well, actually, yes I am saying that.

    Wherever they can, the Dems run “ballot harvesting” operations (for which those excess registered voters come in very handy).  I seriously doubt they have declined to take advantage of the open door these create for fraud.  While Martha McSally ran a pretty nondescript campaign in 2018 for Jeff Flake’s Senate seat, I believe her loss in what had been a pretty safe Red state to the explicitly pro-Left and anti-Arizona Krysten Sinema is due at least in part to the Dems’ ballot harvesting machine in Phoenix.  Mind you, that’s in a state nominally controlled by the Repubs, so its not just Dem-controlled states that are vulnerable to election fraud.

    In short, there is less reason all the time to believe that the preferences of voters for candidates who are not anti-American Leftists will necessarily determine who actually wins elections.  The margin of fraud has been getting wider and wider over time, and Trump’s margins in key Rust Belt swing states are well within that margin.

    Big Tech.  The power of Big Tech to control the information that is readily available to the voting public is immense, and these quasi-monopolies are overtly Leftist.  Beyond the various deplatforming pogroms of Twitter and Facebook, and Google’s manipulation of search results, there should be no doubt they are planning to put their thumb on the scales as hard as they can.  The information most Americans get is heavily mediated by the Big Tech monopolies via search results, ad placements, and simple visibility and ranking.  As they de-platform, de-monetize, de-rank, and even refuse ads from, anyone not a Leftist, their impact on the election will likely outstrip even the DemOp Media.

    I don’t think any political movement in American history has ever had that kind of backing, and I can’t believe it won’t affect the outcome.

    The Courts.  Ah, you say, but Trump and the Republican Senate are stuffing the federal judiciary full of non-Leftist judges.  Can the courts, which have certainly been expanding their ambit so that any federal district judge can set national policy, stand as some kind of limitation on the Leftist program?

    One reason not to pin too much hope on the federal judiciary is that its jurisdiction is almost completely up to Congress.  While Article III of the Constitution has a seemingly healthy list of cases to which the “judicial power shall extend”, it also states that:

    “In all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, and those in which a state shall be party, the Supreme Court shall have original jurisdiction. In all the other cases before mentioned, the Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with such exceptions, and under such regulations as the Congress shall make.”

    The lower federal courts, I should point out, are creations of statute, and thus their jurisdiction is also subject to Congressional . . . revision.  If the newly Trumpist courts have the temerity to mount any kind of effective resistance to Leftism, a Leftist Congress and President can simply strip them of their power to interfere with the fundamental transformation of the country.  Recall, as well, that judicial review of the Constitutionality of statutes and government action is a creation of the courts and not the Constitution, and if push came to shove I see no reason why Congress could not strip this power from both the Supreme Court and the inferior courts.

    Next Up:  Apres les Deluge, or, what happens when the TWANLOC Left succeeds in their mission of destroying, err, fundamentally transforming, America.

  • A Pessimistic Assessment

    I think libertarians (and normies of all political persuasions) need to admit to themselves that they have lost the culture wars, and that trying to refight battles over freedom of association, color-blind government and institutions, individualism not tribalism/collectivism, even the priority of objective reality over subjective “truth” is worse than pointless, it is counterproductive.  We can wax nostalgic all we want for a Constitution enforced as written, etc., etc., but that’s all it is – nostalgia.

    Face it:  The crypto-Marxist Left’s long march through the institutions is over.  They won.  The commanding cultural heights belong to them – government, academia, media.  The evolution of Marxism from economic class warfare to identity politics has been a smashing success, to the point where the long march has moved on from the cultural heights to the economic heights.  Key infrastructure businesses are now implementing their agenda – banking, the big data and platform quasi-monopolies, ISPs, and misc. other businesses are purging dissenters not only from the public square, but from the marketplace as well.  They are shooting the survivors, and there’s not a damn thing we can do about it, because they have the backing (enthusiastic support?) of the administrative state and judiciary.

    We aren’t going back.  The cultural DNA that formed the foundation of American civil society is being eradicated from the societal gene pool.  The long march has given the Left a massive indoctrination and enforcement regime.  Their hold on the cultural heights is heavily fortified and self-reinforcing.  You can say “oh, its just a small, noisy minority”, but look at the trends: central cultural and government institutions are now under their control, we now have unprecedented support for socialism in this country, agency after agency and business after business are now pushing the Leftist agenda, a major political party is pushing the Leftist agenda, hard, in its Presidential nomination process, and its now non-Leftists, not Leftists, who are reluctant to go public with their beliefs.

    There is no marginal, gradual, incremental reform that can be brought about through rational discourse that will end Leftism.  They ruthlessly police entry into their institutions, so they can’t be subverted from within or even, increasingly, communicated with.  Leftist institutions will have to collapse of their own weight and inherent flaws.   There is no upside, no good reason to engage with the Left and their useful idiots.

    Worse, engaging with the Left only reinforces their tribalist/collectivist mindset. By engaging with them, you confirm to them that there are still dissenters, so that, in their minds, they have enemies, there is an “other” that needs opposing.  This is a key component of their group and individual identities.  They define themselves by who they oppose; their identity is largely negative, not positive.  Engaging with Leftists leads only to escalation and reinforcement of their beliefs.

    Naturally, a form of the NAP applies here.  If attacked by the Left, by all means defend yourself, if the attack merits a response.  If not attacked by the Left, just ignore them.  Disengage.

    We aren’t going to retake the commanding cultural heights until these Leftist institutions collapse on their own.  Unfortunately the damage they will inflict on society when this happens cannot be avoided.  I think you can see the early symptoms of this collapse, at least in academia and the media, but these are old, powerful, wealthy institutions that will persist for a long time.  There’s a lot of ruin in a nation, as they say, and I fear we may just see how much ruin there is in the wealthiest, most powerful nation to ever exist.

    I think non-Leftists have three tasks before them:

    (1)        Figure out how we lost, and how the Left won.  We won’t get anywhere fighting with strategy and tactics that are proven losers.

    (2)        Prepare for the damage the inevitable collapse the Leftist institutions will bring.  They won’t go down easy, and because the Left is inherently negative and oppositional, they will lash out.  Figure out how to avoid/mitigate the damage.  Disengagement, where possible, seems like a no brainer.  Scrubbing your social media (if you don’t just leave), minimizing your participation  in the data cattle industry, avoiding anything to do with academia all seem like good defensive measures.

    Of course, the administrative state is much harder to disengage from.  But make no mistake, the odds are that in most of our lifetimes, the current US government will suffer a catastrophic failure and will be, what’s the phrase?  Oh, yeah, “fundamentally transformed”.

    The cultural glue that held the United States together is being systematically removed, and no replacement is on offer.  Why do you think there is a relentless push for a fragmented, tribalistic, “diverse”, “multicultural” country?  Because the Total State will fill the vacuum left by the absence of a shared culture.  The fundamental transformation may initially be “Everything for the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State.”  But I believe their Total State is doomed, that the United States is ungovernable without a significant degree of consent from its citizens.

    (3)        Start developing what will replace the collapsed institutions.  What stands a chance of replacing the collapsed institutions that will be more resistant to the Left’s tribalist/collectivist virus?  What kind of fundamentally transformed society do you want to live in?  Because you will live in one, like it or not.

    As the title says, this is a pessimistic assessment, which comes easily to me.  If anyone wants to put up an optimistic assessment, I would love to have my mind changed.

  • Keto Cocktailing

    Keto cocktail supplies. Dean tested, Dean approved.

     

    For health reasons that I won’t bore you with, the Dean household has been on a dietary journey that has taken us through low-carb, keto, and paleo, all of which share an aversion to sugar.  Sadly, sugar is a fundamental ingredient in a great many cocktails.  Being strict on sugar will take a lot of traditional cocktails off the table.  Now, I’m not going to take that lying down, so I have rolled up my sleeves and done the hard work of testing many low- or no-sugar cocktail recipes.  Strictly for scientific purposes, of course.

    Fruit juice:  Lemon, lime, grapefruit, and orange juice have between maybe one gram (lemons and limes) to 2.5 grams (orange juice) of sugar per ounce .  There is no substitute for fruit juice, and so we just take the (small) sugar hit on fruit juice.

    Liqueurs:  Some liqueurs are sweet, but good luck finding the sugar content for them.  If you are seriously avoiding sugar, I think more than a small dose (1/3 of an ounce?) of sweet liqueur like Grand Marnier, Drambuie or Amaretto is going to deliver more sugar than you want.  This presents a particular problem for this margarita fan, as orange liqueurs are pretty damn sweet and I don’t think you can make a margarita without a decent dose.

    Soft Drinks:  Sadly, my real sugar Mexican Cokes are verboten, as are full-sugar soft drinks of any kind.  The good news is, there are some pretty damn good sugarless or low(ish) sugar soft drinks out there.  The Zevia branded cola isn’t bad at all, but for sugar-free colas we prefer the Blue Sky cola.  For ginger beer, we have found that the sugar-free Cock and Bull is excellent.  There doesn’t seem to be a sugar-free tonic water, but the Q Tonic Light is an excellent low-sugar option, but still delivers 8 grams of sugar.

     Sweeteners:  Sugar and simple syrup are right out, which leaves you with the myriad of substitutes, none of which are entirely satisfactory.  In our experience, stevia drops are the best substitute for a keto cocktail; you’ll have to experiment to find the right level for you, but we settled on about 1 – 2 drops per ounce of drink (liquor, mixers, and all), with an extra splash of water.  If the cocktail has lemon or lime, you might want a drop or two more stevia to offset the sour fruit juice.

    You have some options if you are willing to tolerate some sugar but want a low-glycemic sweetener.  Honey and agave nectar aren’t on that list, despite the claim of some sellers that agave nectar is low-glycemic.  Agave nectar is basically the same as honey, as near as I can tell.  Warning: there are a number of alternative sweeteners out there, some of which you may not like the taste of, and some of which your digestive tract may object to.  Be prepared to do some experimentation.

    The two low-glycemic sweeteners that seem to work the best are yacon syrup and Dolcedi, an apple-derived sweetener.  The Dolcedi is clear, has a very clean taste, and comes close to the right mouthfeel.  Yacon syrup is dark, has more of a molasses flavor, and also has a good mouthfeel.  These are spendy, but the good news is you should be able to use around half as much, give or take, compared to simple syrup.

    We have noticed something else, as well:  Since really cutting down on sugar, a lot, we are “resensitized” to sweet flavors – it takes less sweetener for things to taste sweet enough/not too sweet.

    With this in hand, you should be able to take a fair amount of sugar out of your cocktails.  Probably the highest-sugar cocktail still on our menu is Margaritas (made with tequila, Salerno, lime juice, and yacon syrup or Dolcedi).

    But what’s an R C Dean post without a cocktail recipe or two?

    Barrel-Aged Old Fashioned

    Your typical old-fashioned has a dose of simple syrup (often one part simple syrup to two parts booze).  This recipe is kind of cheating, because it relies on home barrel-aged rye to provide the sweetness.

    • 3 oz. Barrel-Aged Bulleit Rye
    • 6 dashes Angostura Bitters
    • 3 dashes Peychaud’s Bitters
    • 3 dashes Fee’s Aztec Chocolate Bitters

    Stir, pour over rocks.

    A variation on this, if for some reason you don’t have any barrel-aged Bulleit rye on hand, is to add 1/3 oz of maple syrup.  Which kinda blows the strict keto thing (you’re looking at 5 – 6 grams of sugar), but the maple flavor blends right in with the rest.  And, of course, sweetens the drink.  There are some low-glycemic maple syrup substitutes, but we weren’t all that impressed.  You can also dose with the Dolcedi or yacon syrup if you need a little more sweetener

    Keto Whiskey Sour

     This is pretty much a straight substitution of stevia drops for simple syrup.  The result is not as sweet and a little drier than a classic whiskey sour.  Using stevia, there seems to be a limit; its fine to a point, and then, one drop too many makes it taste kinda weird.

    • 3 oz. rye (or whatever your whiskey of choice is)
    • 1 ¼ oz. lemon juice
    • Splash of water
    • 5 – 8 drops stevia

    Shake over ice, pour over rocks.  Again, if stevia isn’t your bag, you can try to the Dolcedi or yacon syrup.