Perpetual Carouse

A couple of East Bay Events coming up:

This Friday, NovoMetro is celebrating the launch of their new print magazine OakBook at Esteban Sabar Gallery. The party coincides with the Oakland Art Murmur, and I'll be there pouring local wines from Lost Canyon. Details here.

And speaking of local booze, Alameda's Hangar One/St. George Spirits have just announced the upcoming release of their new Absinthe Verte on December 21. This is the first domestically-produced absinthe since it was banned in 1912. At $75 a pop, it's certainly not cheap, but it's sure to be delish, if you're into that whole black licorice thing. Helpfully, Hangar One is offering a free shuttle to their tasting room from West Oakland BART every weekend in December. From noon until six on Saturdays, or noon to five on Sundays, give them a call at 510-864-0635 for a pick-up.

Via The Food Whore, I just discovered what is quite possibly the most useless appliance ever: an electric cocktail shaker.

No, really.

I about died when I saw a Boston shaker (ie, a pint glass + a big metal cup) for sale for $47 at my local Williams Sonoma a while back, but this electric shaker takes the cake for stupid overpriced crap. It's even worse than the bafflingly-popular margarita machines that are nothing more than a cheap blender with a spigot.

Why do people buy this stuff? Is it really that hard to shake a cocktail, or to blend and pour a margarita? Nevermind that good margaritas are served on the rocks anyway.

My Boston shaker cost about $5 at a restaurant supply store, and has outlasted at least four "fancier" (though non-electric) mutli-piece metal shakers (all of which leaked), and provided probably thousands of cocktails over the years. It goes in the dishwasher, doesn't leak, and the glass is just a standard pint glass, which means it can be replaced if I ever manage to break it.

The best part is that the electric shaker is called the "Waring Pro Professional Electric Martini Maker." If you ever go into a bar, and the bartender uses one of these, find yourself another bar. And if your friend buys one? Point, laugh, and mock relentlessly.

Cool time-lapse of this year's ginormous gingerbread house at Disney's Grand Floridian Hotel:

This just in:

A dude at the Nuremberg airport chugged a liter of vodka rather than throw it out or pay to have the bottle checked as cargo. He was later admitted to the hospital for alcohol poisoning.

In not-really-related news, I watched the airplane episode of Mythbusters last night, and unfortunately they did not address the myth of being able to hijack an airplane with a three ounce bottle of liquid that only has an ounce of liquid actually in it. So we're still stuck throwing out nearly everything before getting on a plane.

Sigh.