Meeting scheduled, poker points and horse races

If I understand Zack's chicken scratching performed with a pen on a little legal pad, poker points are updated. Looks like DeeBakes and myself are a top of the leader board until a week from Friday. We will be meeting May 20th.

Darrin's post about the Single Oak Project has me intrigued and incredibly thirsty. Not to mention, I still have a post to do about last month's tasty beverage. The Highland Park 15 year needs some attention. Anyone else care to do a review? Tony?

The horse race comes from the fact that our poker points leader board is jam packed at the top. Right now it's anyone's game. Of course, DeeBakes is really the guy to beat. I'd focus on taking him out.

I'm game for any suggestions for whiskeys to try. I'm sure I'll take a trip to Apollo, HyVee and Andys in the next few days doing "research".

In the mean time, I highly recommend reading this article from the Huffington Post entitled "Poker Players Are Nearly As Skilled As Baseball Players, Freakonomics Economist Finds". I've enjoyed reading the other stuff from the Freakonomics guys, their take on stats and research is really quite fascinating. There's some flaws in this one too but you should still find it interesting.

Let me know what you think!

Updated Whiskey List

I updated the whiskey list with everything from March and April. I'm running my first road race this weekend, so I'm not sure if I'll get my review done quickly of the Highland Park 15 year old. I could do a full review of the Jameson and Bushmill's but I can probably just sum it up here. Jameson - decent, standard whiskey. Drinkable. Bushmill's - not so much. Rather harsh and a bit blaach.

Any other reviews, thoughts on the whiskeys of the last two months?

Might this replace Celtic Crossing?

While waiting for the Apple Next Big Thing event, I noticed Arstechnica was sponsored by Red Stag. Morbid curiosity led me to this review on about.com. While Darrin's bacon infusion experiment was in need of refining (Jeremiah Weed was just too sweet to mix with bacon). Anyone have thoughts on trying a classic Bourbon infused with black cherry? My guess is the review is correct in that it's medicinal cherry after taste will be too much but as a mix it might have legs. Could this turn stomachs as quickly as Celtic Crossing?

I open the floor to discussions, gagging sounds and ridicule.

As complete a list of whiskeys as I've got

I've updated the page that lists all of the whiskeys I have record of. I'm quite sure there are more. If you have more, just let me know. In case you haven't seen it, at the top of the first page of this blog it says "Whiskeys we've tried" - that's the permanent link. Also, if you have something online about a particular spirit you'd like to link to, let me know and we'll update it. I think any of us that are listed as contributers can update the list.

Go get thirsty looking at the list.

Cracking the seal

I think it's time to take the lid off of this or some other strange analogy and make the first post. I've invited several members to join me here and tell the story of Bourbonators, our whiskey club.

Tonight is our first meeting of 2011. It's friggin' cold here so some tasty whiskey will probably hit the spot nicely.

Enjoy!