Dearest Free Rangers,
There is a heaven and I’ve seen it. In a profoundly vivid visceral dream, I had dinner with my old pal, Jeff Austin, and Anthony Bourdain at some crazy hybrid of bustling bistro and low key music venue. Think 2001 Wetlands Preserve meets 29th Street Les Halles by way of Varick Street City Winery. The horn section was legend. The lobster was excellent. And my hair was perfect. I woke up thinking about my friends and the troubles they had. Having gleefully squandered my twenties writing for magazines, when that was still a thing, I pitched every one of them stories, angles, angles on stories about Warren Zevon. Could never get any of them (the paying ones) to care. Really I just wanted to get paid to go see the guy and talk to him (Zevon’s 1976 self titled album and Life’ll Kill Ya being two of my all-time favorite records). It’s what Hunter Thompson referred to as, ‘getting away with it’. Not getting paid for it would’ve felt whorish, even at 24. The day Warren Zevon died, I got three requests for an obit. I bitched about it, but also took the bylines and the cash. Sometimes that’s how it goes. When Zevon was dying- and making his last record, My Ride’s Here, he sits down with his old pal, David Letterman, who asks if there anything he wished he had known all his life that he knows now, with the end in sight. Warren replied that he wished he had known how much you’re supposed to enjoy every sandwich. So please, enjoy every sandwich.… So, how was your weekend?
You new here? Sometimes it gets like this. Cheers! … also, sometimes the Monday e-mail doesn’t find you until Wednesday. But I’m not gonna fire me just yet.
Now, I hesitate to even to mention this, and am almost certain that one or more of us here will pay for it in some way, but we received a couple of cases more of that delectable Kalin Chardonnay Cuvée LD 2000, directly from the source. It’s the literal stuff of legend and old school CA wine lore. This is a library release with the highest possible provenance, not bottles that have been kicking around the secondary market for a decade or two. Last time we had these, we received multiple phone calls asking, begging, insisting, and in one case pretending we promised him to set a bottle or two aside. To a one (zero had even given their name), we told them that we do not hold bottles that are not paid for, but if they were to purchase them online, we’d be more than happy to hold them in our cellar as long as they like. One guy called three times, I spoke to him first and last. As it was about 20 minutes ’til closing and he said he’d like to come “in the morning” (told him we couldn’t guarantee anyone would be there ’til 1pm), he snarkily chirped, “It’s not like you’ll sell out by then.” If you say so, was my response, having already told him that the system said we only had two bottles left in the cellar. So, I assumed the overnight order was his, now that the computer showed 0 in inventory. Then he called shortly after we opened, and said he was on the way in for the bottle we had said we’d put aside for him (which of course did not happen). When he heard the news, it was everybody’s fault but his. He then went into supposed past bottled infractions we’d levied upon him, to which he was told that if he ever had a corked or damaged bottle from here, and brought it back to us, we would have made it right, and I told him to settle down, which was apparently the worst thing anyone had ever said to him. So please, if you want to get in on these, buy them online to make sure you get what you want. They might be gone tomorrow: FREAKIN’ KALIN CHARDONNAY 2000 IS HERE RIGHT NOW!!! If you call and ask for bottles to be held, we cannot guarantee that you will not be mocked.
This week’s FREE in-store tasting welcomes back to the shop our dear friend, Diana, who will bring with her a bag full of classic Italian reds. Please join us TOMORROW, Thursday, February 26th (5-7pm) for FREE tastes of- and the stories behind- Calcaneus Etna Rosso ‘Nireddu’ 2020, Casavecchia Nebbiolo d’Alba 2019, Le Piane Marggiorina 2022. All three are 10% off in store on tasting day only!
This week’s ONLINE ONLY Sale is with last week’s in-store tasting, Brooklyn’s own Kings County Distillery. Per last week’s in-store tasting, here’s another shot at those best in show local Bourbon(s): Blended, Straight, and Peated (all in both sizes: 750ml and 200ml), as well as the new release Barrel Strength Empire Rye, all available right now at 10% off ONLINE ONLY!
(!) Click Here for Kings County Distillery Sale Page (!)
Cheers,
Jack
Proprietor
Free Range Wine & Spirits
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