Hello Free Rangers,
Let me explain. No. There is too much. Let me sum up.
The weather we broke continues to punish us all for our sins, and this seems to be a harbinger of things to come. … Wait. Isn’t “things to come” implied in the definition of ‘harbinger’? So, why does this phrase so often accompany that word? Foreshadow inherently is followed (at some point) by that which cast said shadow. So that sentence would have the exact same meaning with three fewer words. It’s a harbinger of extraneous verbiage. But the rhythm of the prose flows better with three extra beats. Hunter Thompson, as a young man, would type out passages from books he loved to better absorb their rhythm and flow. Of course, he also loved the almost unreadable, The Ginger Man, so never meet your hero’s heroes. As a young man, I typed out many of Thompson’s finest passages, and a few of Kerouac’s. Who was it that said Kerouac was typist, not a writer? Anyway, his rhythm was compelling. Semi-related, I once wrote:
How many ways were there really to tell a decent story in what was left of modern print? There’s the Tom Wolfe thing which is to do painstaking journalistic research on every detail of a story and then write the characters and their truths using the vocabulary and structure of good fiction. There’s the Kerouac thing which is to simply steal the story, really; to tell the romanticized version of the verbatim truth with yourself as the protagonist, but change the names. And then, there was the Thompson thing which was to locate the story, sit next to it on the trip, shoot it up with speedballs to the main vein, hit on its sister, crash its car, do all the research, roll up and smoke all the research, and then tell a completely different, tangentially related, story that’s much truer than what was originally assigned, and fuck the editors if they couldn’t take a joke.
So, we just received our latest exclusive single barrel in the form of a St George Free Range Barrel Aged Gin. You may recall that we did one of these last year which was delicious and sold out (minus a few we squirreled away for the future). Well, more recently we picked two barrels at the same time because they were equally as delicious, but very different, most notably, the one in the shop for the last St George in-store tasting was aged just over two years in second fill cabernet cask. The one who just walked in the door rested for over 4.5 years in second fill CA red blend barrel. And while all 3 of these exclusive barrel aged gins play well as the base spirit in gin and/or whiskey based cocktails, I like them with one ice cube and some seltzer. The level of dilution will drastically impact the flavor and aromatic profiles. These are wonderful and versatile spirits with miles of possibility. Later this year Rob from St George will be back to show off all three side by side by side. But both (of the three) in stock are available for purchase as soon as we transfer the barcode to our our computer overlords… er… our POS. Which is a real POS. Regardless, come get some of these crazy high proof dark gins for your cocktailing enjoyment! Speaking of which, please enjoy 10% off aforementioned St George Free Range Barrel Aged Gin, or 20% off 3+ bottles of the same. Derek reminded me that the last time we did this, we also offered 10% off ALL St. George bottles in stock on the same page. So you can thank him for that one. Check out the sale page ONLINE ONLY, this week only!
(!) Click here for St George sale page (!)
Now, this week’s FREE in-store tasting is with our unreasonably lovely friend, Chelsea, from the bee loving folks at Barr Hill. These delicious, honey-based spirits from Vermont are not new to many of you, and have been staples here in the shop for many moons, but you should come down and drink with us anyway. Please join us this Thursday, July 9th (5-7pm), for FREE tastes of Barr Hill Gin, Barr Hill Tomcat Gin (barrel aged), and Barr Hill Vodka. And enjoy 10% off all Barr Hill bottles in stock, in-store on tasting day only!
Cheers,
Jack
Proprietor
Free Range Wine & Spirits
P.S. Free Range E-mail Archive
