The Show-Me State recently passed a law creating the specifications for Missouri Bourbon:
According to House Bill 266, signed on Thursday, July 11, any whiskey labeled as Missouri bourbon must not only meet the federal standards for bourbon, but also be mashed, fermented, distilled, aged and bottled in the state; aged in oak barrels manufactured in the state; and—beginning January 1, 2020—made with corn exclusively grown in the state. The law goes into effect on August 28.
The Missouri Craft Distillers Guild, which formed in 2018 and now has 35 members, pushed the measure heavily. “The whole point of the bill was to tie agriculture and tourism together in Missouri,” says Don Gosen, owner of Copper Mule Distillery and a member of the Guild. “Being able to make a high-class bourbon and make it truly a Missouri product—not just made in Missouri, but made from Missouri raw materials.” The bill, which was sponsored by Rep. Jeff Porter of Montgomery City and signed by Gov. Mike Parson, was originally authored by Gosen with later modifications and input provided by the Craft Distillers Guild and other stakeholders.
Well, OK, when the first examples come out in a couple of years, I'll try it.
Queued up a few articles to read after work today:
Now, off to find food, then back to the mines.
Via Bruce Schneier, this is literally* a thing:
The book opens with Massimo working in his combination laboratory and server farm; we know it's ironclad because of the required thumbprint and biometrics scan, but we also know it's classy because it's in an old wine cellar beneath his family villa outside Milan. Plus, he has three screens, so you know he's a serious cybersecurity hacker man.
Nat is a 20-something who lives a poverty-driven boho life. Massimo—who is Mr. Cyber—is, in her eyes, a "sleek, lean, sex-on-legs stud" who looks nothing like the stereotypical tech billionaire. And the chemistry between them ignites as he drags her back to his server room and tells her to do some... penetration testing.
She demurs.
Six chapters in. I am convinced that this book was written by a Harlequin Markov bot.
I may not add this to my book list just now. But at least I know it's out there...
*Yah, sorry. That's "literally" twice.
I had the opportunity yesterday to get some ribs from my favorite vendor at this year's Ribfest. Base Hit BBQ opened their restaurant in March after five years of catering and festival cooking. (They framed their Chicago Defender review.)
Their thermostat showed 33°C inside the small two-table eating area, but that isn't why I was sweating. Their hot sauce lives up to its name, and they use a tasty spicy rub on their bones. Excellent quality meat, good smoke flavor, and all chopped up for easy eating when served.
At Ribfest they had more caramelized sauce than in their brick-and-mortar location, but that's because they leave the sauce off while smoking and grilling the meat. (Ribfest has certain constraints.) They were still so tasty that I managed to eat a full slab and one of the bread slices they added.
My only complaint: they don't have a bathroom and they don't provide wet-wipes. So after stuffing all those ribs into my belly, it took some MacGuyvering with paper napkins and hand sanitizer to get to a point where I felt I could touch any surface of my car.
I'll go back. But I think the next slab I have will be from my second-favorite vendor from this year, Fireside Grill.
In other news, one of Chicago's oldest pizzerias is closing today. Father & Son Pizza in Logan Square will cease operations after 72 years.
The President's properties have fallen on hard times, thanks mostly to the President's politics and his childrens' incompetence:
The PGA Tour pulled out of Doral during the 2016 campaign after the World Golf Championship had trouble finding a sponsor. Cadillac had quit; speculation abounded that no new brand wanted to be associated with a Trump golf course. So the PGA Tour pulled up roots and moved elsewhere: A five-decade tradition of hosting the event at the course, started in 1962, came to an end. NASCAR also pulled out of an event planned for Trump Doral, and business began to dry up at the course.
According to tax documents reported by the Washington Post, the club’s net operating income dropped 69 percent between 2015 and 2017. During a 2017 visit, the Miami Heralds’ sports columnist noted barely any golfers on the course and listened forlornly to crows and the wind whistling. “I went there and it was so empty you could shoot a machine gun,” another golf writer, Rick Reilly, told Rolling Stone.
If Michael Cohen was right when he said Trump ran for president as a “marketing exercise,” then the experiment has massively backfired.
But hey, if you want, you can sign up for the "caddy girl" auction at the Doral's upcoming strip-club event this weekend.
Beloved humor magazine of my childhood and my father's Mad Magazine will effectively end its 67-year run with the August issue:
Sources tell [The Hollywood Reporter] that after issue 9, MAD will no longer be sold on newsstands and will only be available through comic book shops as well as mailed to subscribers. After issue 10, there will no longer be new content in subsequent issues save for the end-of-year specials (those will be all-new). Beginning with issue 11, the magazine will only feature previously published content — classic and best-of nostalgic fare — from its massive fault of the past 67 years. DC, however, will also continue to publish MAD books and special collections.
The venerable humor magazine was founded in 1952 by a group of editors led by Harvey Kurtzman. Although it began as a comic book, bimonthly issues were published and became the norm for the satirical content. MAD, with it's always memorable covers featuring the gap-toothed Alfred E. Neuman, has been highly influential on successive generations of comedians, artists, writers and performers.
Fweep. So long, and thanks for all the jokes.
This is my official post, with photos, of the penultimate park in the 30-Park Geas.
Friday I attended the Kansas City Royals–Toronto Blue Jays game at the Rogers Centre in downtown Toronto. As mentioned, I arrived well into the 5th inning and didn't get my seat until the beginning of the 6th. No matter; the Jays got all 4 of their runs in the last 3 innings.
The park did not inspire me. It's a big dome, covering a meh field, with surrounding meh stands and meh food and drink concessions. It had more character than Tropicana Field, more fans than Marlins Park, more connection with the city than Kaufmann Stadium, and felt less like a prison than the Oakland Coliseum, so I can say it wasn't the worst of them. But I feel no strong urge to go back there. (And I write this on Canada Day, yet.)
And I'm glad the home team won.
My plan for an 8-hour drive from Chicago to Toronto yesterday did not survived contact with the GTA (Greater Toronto Area). It turns out, coming into Toronto from the west during rush hour on Friday before a three-day weekend may involve traffic. So it was, in fact, a 10½-hour drive.
So the secondary plan of wandering around the Rogers Centre, getting a bunch of photos, hearing both "The Star-Spangled Banner" and "O Canada," and then watching the Blue Jays beat the Royals, didn't quite work out. I arrived at my seat during the top of the 6th inning, well after both national anthems, with the Royals up by two, and didn't get any of the shots or wandering that I'd planned.
The Blue Jays did win, though, thanks to four Toronto home runs in the last three innings. And this is in a dome; it's not like the wind was blowing out.
Today: breakfast in Toronto, dinner in Sawyer, Mich., and probably straight to bed when I get home. Tomorrow: photos from the game, a new NuGet package from Inner Drive Technology, and maybe some Pride Parade viewing. Or fleeing the area. Haven't decided yet.
I have a dilemma.
Under the rules I set up for the 30-Park Geas back in 2008, if a park got torn down before I completed the Geas, I would have to go to the replacement park in order to call it "done." Call it an acceptance criterion.
Two years ago, Atlanta repurposed Turner Field and opened SunTrust Park well outside their public transit service area.
Then, after Brian Kemp created a very real fear that his election may have been illegitimate, he signed an abortion law that clearly runs afoul of Roe v Wade and reminded us why it's hard to think of the state as a modern democracy.
So, I really don't want to give any money to Georgia, now or in the foreseeable future. Maybe if the white male establishment there accepts they're in the minority and stops trying to steal elections, kill women, and put baseball parks so far away from the cities they "serve" that only rich white people can even get to them.
Obviously none of this will matter to anyone in Georgia's white-supremacist government. They're not going to repeal onerous legislation because a blogger from Chicago doesn't want to go to their new ballpark.
But to me, I'm going to strike SunTrust from the Geas. Call it a moral exception to the rules of the Geas. This coming Friday, I'll go to my penultimate park in Toronto, and then at the end of September, I'll see the Cubs play the Cardinals in what was always going to be the last park on the tour.
A religious group has petitioned Netflix to cancel Amazon Prime's miniseries Good Omens:
The six-part series was released last month, starring David Tennant as the demon Crowley and Michael Sheen as the angel Aziraphale, who collaborate to prevent the coming of the antichrist and an imminent apocalypse. Pratchett’s last request to Gaiman before he died was that he adapt the novel they wrote together; Gaiman wrote the screenplay andworked as showrunner on the BBC/Amazon co-production, which the Radio Times called “a devilishly funny love letter to the book”.
But Christians marshalled by the Return to Order campaign, an offshoot of the US Foundation for a Christian Civilisation, disagree. More than 20,000 supporters have signed a petition in which they say that Good Omens is “another step to make satanism appear normal, light and acceptable”, and “mocks God’s wisdom”. God, they complain, is “voiced by a woman” – Frances McDormand – the antichrist is a “normal kid” and, most importantly, “this type of video makes light of Truth, Error, Good and Evil, and destroys the barriers of horror that society still has for the devil”. They are calling on Netflix to cancel the show.
Actually, McDormand is technically not God but the voice of God, otherwise known as the Metatron. Pity Alan Rickman wasn't around to reprise his role from Dogma.
Also a pity none of the religious nutters involved watched the show. On Amazon. Because it's a much better adaptation than I thought possible, probably because the novel's co-author Neil Gaiman wrote the screenplay and is one of the executive producers.
But the crazies will crazy, even if they haven't figured out how to stream video online.