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PaperclipPerfector  26d ago (text post)   2059 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for April 4, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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It's Friday and spring turning into summer soon. Grandads turning 92 today and it's quite fun.

Which brings me to Kanye West. I recently went through his album graduation and it's the single best piece of hip hop I've heard, I dislike rap music in general but he's quite good.

Also likely to get drunk tonight. What is the liquor of choice for mottizens? Here are some things I enjoy though I rarely drink

  1. Sparkling Wine
  2. Shoju, the sparkling flavorful Korean thing
  3. Irish Cream, I usually make it at home, thought about adding fruit to it

In other news, Zvi recently wrote a piece praising the new gemini models, my friend who Co works with me works at a well run startup and he got fed up when all the paid llms he used couldn't generate decent python code, he tried gemini and it failed just as hard. I really like Zvi but I do feel that there's a little unwarranted hype behind models.

Every other month I hear smart successful people tell me that the new model will change the world and make devs obsolete, yet they still struggle with a lot of stuff.

What is the liquor of choice

Scotch that tastes like an ashtray excavated from the entrails of a bog mummy.

Wait, you can make Irish cream at home? Don't tell me how, that's dangerous knowledge.

Blend a tin of condensed milk (400 gms) with two cups of heavy cream, two tablespoons of chocolate syrup, two small teaspoons of instant coffee, dash of vanilla extract, maybe almond extract if you feel experimental and blend it well. Make sure all ingredients are extremely cold. After that pour in half a liter of whiskey.

You can also blend in fruits like mangoes or strawberries. Some blend in chocolate. Never tried these, I stick to the vanilla stuff.

Keep it in the fridge, won't last for more than a few days, week if you're lucky, dairy ages badly. Serve it on really tiny pieces of ice. Best enjoyed with a girl (plural is better) around you in a hottub.

After one attempt at making my own I decided it's cheaper and easier to just buy the ready made stuff. Alternatively add cream, whiskey, optional flavouring and a lot of sugar to coffee. Easy, quick, cheap, versatile, and you can readjust the ratios to your taste every time. No need to mess around with sterilising bottles or using up half a bottle of whiskey each time either.

But if you consume it right away, you're good. I posted the recipe, it's cheaper to make it than buy in Indian I guess, I don't buy liquor so dunno how expensive what even is.

Still worth making, use a good recipe. Condensed milk, cream, but of chocolate, instant coffee, various extracts. Works well.

I can happily drink half a bottle of whiskey, it's the entire can of condensed milk I struggle with.

Cheap Irish cream is ~£7/700ml. Cheap whiskey is £7 for enough to make 700ml of Irish cream.

If you break it down the major taste elements are sugar, whiskey and coffee/chocolate combined with a cream texture. It's easy to put those together and tailor them to taste without the need for condensed milk and the corresponding need to make up a whole bottle.

It's worth making it for the experience, on the other hand for me the experience taught me it's not worth making it. It's like making up a whole bottle of one specific cocktail.

It is amazing if you have friends over, also it costs more here than in the UK I guess but a fun experience regardless.

I found this too -- I don't normally put cream in my coffee anyways, so a bit of Jameson's seems like a strictly superior experience.

My wife and I are oenophiles. But unless we’re in a social setting stick strictly to 1/4 of a bottle each, a night, drinking with dinner. We usually cook dinner to cover two nights, eating leftovers on the second, so one bottle of wine chosen to pair with dinner also covers two nights.

I love white Bordeaux, red Burgundy, and top Riesling from the Rheingau, those are for rare, special occasions given cost.

Among my favorite wines I would not feel irresponsible drinking at home on a weekend evening:

  • Pinot Noir from the Willamette Valley (and in particular its Eola-Amity Hills AVA) in Oregon

  • Chenin Blanc from Jasnières

  • Muscadet from the better producers

  • Tannat from Uruguay

  • Crémant du Jura (cc: sparkling wine for @mrvanillasky)

  • Badisch Spätburgunder

  • Riesling from the Pfalz

  • Barberra from the Piedmont

  • Assyrtiko from Santorini

  • Alsatian Gewürztraminer

  • Austrian Grüner Veltliner

  • Pinot Blanco from the Alto-Adige*

*Used to be part of Austria, so many of these Italian producers have names like Tiefenbrunner.

On weeknights, Costco bats about .500 on its Kirkland Signature offerings relative to price. On the very low end, their $5 Italian Pinot Grigio is drinkable when served very cold in the summer, which given its price, is all anyone tethered to reality could ask. We’ve tried most of their offerings and usually stick to the better half of their mass produced white label wines.

Really wholesome situation. I like sparkling wines since they can be quite cheap and still be great.

Does a quarter of a bottle get either of you buzzed in the slightest or is it mostly for the taste? Great list, saving it.

Since we stick to a quarter bottle, each, on the supermajority of evenings, it still does deliver a light buzz. Technically, industry standard is five glasses of wine in the standard 750 ml bottle, so we’re drinking 187.5 ml versus 150 ml.

On the sparkling wine front, there has been a lot of terrible German Sekt produced over the decades but things have improved in recent, so there is now good value to be had as it still has a bit of stigma from the old days in export markets. We recently purchased a very nice bottle and are waiting to open it; we quite like all of our neighbors except one, and their home was just listed. Going to pop the cork once we learn it’s been sold.

And here is a famous sommelier, relative to the wine world, reviewing a bunch of the aforementioned Costco Kirkland Signature wines. The $10 seasonal Old Vine Zinfandel isn’t mentioned but is a favorite of ours.

I don't really drink much, but when I do, I prefer Dos Equis drink fairly sweet drinks where you can't taste the alcohol. My go-to is Malibu and pineapple juice, but even just a screwdriver can be good (cause orange juice is delicious).

Literally me. I never liked the bitter taste, so I drink for the effect, if it cane be sweet, it'll be sweet.

One exception would be tequilas or agaves (for copyright reasons) where they taste pretty good with just some water or clubs soda.

Sugars in liquor fuck you up so if I do pick up liquor, I'll have to either stick to that or use artificial sweeteners in my beverages.

One wierd thing I really enjoyed but never could try again was a popcorn margarita or some beverage made with popcorn syrup, best tasting thing I had that year.

tequilas or agaves (for copyright reasons)

This is closer to trademark, not copyright.

  • Copyright = creative work

  • Patent = useful innovation

  • Trademark = identity

That explains why you see both being used side by side.

How helpful is it to have these trademarks for things though? Beyond the benefits that people in the geographical region of champagne

It's so your competitors can't catch a free ride on your product's reputation. E.g. copying your label and slapping it on a can of lighter fluid. Makes you look bad.

This was probably more important pre-Internet and pre-international-shipping.

Wine is really sensitive and dynamic. Different weather in various years can change how different vintages of the same wine taste, as an example.

Terroir is really significant with regards to wine and the restrictions imposed on labeling are still incredibly helpful to consumers as they inform customers about where a wine’s grapes were grown.

The global standard is that a certain percentage of grapes have to be from whatever appellation is listed on the wine. Most countries set that threshold at 85%. In America it’s 75%.

Using U.S. appellations as examples and drilling down to a single vineyard in the Russian River Valley.

American Wine: Grapes come from multiple states with no state accounting for 75%.

California Wine: Grapes come from multiple counties with no county accounting for 75%.

Sonoma County: At least 75% of the grapes come from this county. Vineyards may not be located in a recognized or highly regarded subregion.

Russian River Valley: 75% of grapes come from this noted AVA subregion of Sonoma County that has excellent growing conditions for specific grape varietals.

Single Vineyard: This will be listed in addition to the appellation. Sold as a premium offering among the vintner’s product range. 100% of grapes will come from a single vineyard within the producer’s estate to maximize the expression of particular soil and climate conditions.

I think people are most commonly aware of the restrictions around what can be called Champagne, and a meme exists around it. But it isn’t snobbishness. Crémant is French white sparkling wine made in the same method, and the same restrictions apply. If you’re making Crémant du Jura, Crémant d’Alsace, Crémant du Bourgogne, etc. then your grapes need to come from the applicable region.

They don’t make too much else in Champagne other than sparkling white wine, so there isn’t really the same need for a Crémant designation. Whereas the regions that use the Crémant designation also make many more flat wines.

I dislike it. Sparkling wine and agave based beverages shouldn't have to resort to wierd names despite being better, cheaper and widely available in many cases.

  • Old Fashioned
  • A biiiiiiig strawberry margarita
  • Plum sake
  • Boulevard Tank 7
  • Guinness
  • Peach blackberry cider

College dropout and graduation were both outstanding albums.

If you're getting drink my advice is stick to clear liquor, and drink some water with each drink.

Yeah, I'm currently a little tipsy, I don't drink regularly at all and since I take Concerta, it's not a good idea.

I had some mojitos which had vodka and a few glasses of red wine. Played some graduation. Fun day.

A friend tried Gemini for work and said it was awful: code took endless regens to work successfully (Claude did it in 2 tries) and if you ask it to explain/summarize foreign language documentation it will produce the summary in the foreign language.

I'm unsure how quickly software devs would be obsolete, though I'll still try to become a good one as fast as possible.

Claret is the liquor for boys, port for men; but he who aspires to be a hero must drink brandy.

I drink none of those. Give me a good dark beer (Ayinger's Celebrator doppelbock is my all-time favorite), or an ice wine (Reif is my go-to winery). Mixed drinks? Pimm's Cup or a Southern Comfort Collins. I learned the latter as my grandfather's drink of choice at weddings; I don't know if it is actually a real drink... it seems impossible to find the recipe anywhere online, but I remember a decade or two ago no bartenders questioned it or how to make it. So it must have existed at some point?

Some drinks are that way. My grandfather liked this white Jamaican rum that you just can't find nowadays no matter what.

The west has a great drinking culture in terms of availability.

Are there any cocktails that you make at home regularly or would recommend I try making. Irish cream is the only one I can make since it's quite simple.

I mean, rum & coke (or black/spiced rum and Dr. Pepper) is easy and simple, as is a gin & tonic, or coffee with whiskey/sambucca/irish cream. Hot toddies and hot buttered rum are excellent on a cold day or when you've got a cold. I'm a madman and enjoy a warm milk with sambucca or brandy. On a hot day, you can also got for a radler (hard cider or beer and lemonade) or a half beer half root beer.

I don't really do the fancy cocktails, although I should probably learn at some point. At least a few of the stand bys.

Toddies are great even without liquor. I had it once with some Danish tourists in during polo and ended up drinking 5 glasses. Warm milk with brandy? What's that like

Beer here in India is terrible. The best sparkling beverage I've had has to be shoju or whatever the sparkling Korean flavored liquor is?

I had a few of those on the night I met those two Danish chicks that later unfortunately passed away in Laos. There were some people in our group and we downed that and some whiskey in front of the liquor shop in Pai. Sweet memory.

Southern Comfort Collins

If I were a bartender I'd probably assume that the customer wants a Tom Collins with Southern Comfort instead of gin?

Being from Wisconsin, Brandy is my #1 liquor. Most frequently to fortify hot tea, nog, mulled wine, or even just hot water and bitters. But also brandy, bitters, ice and soda for a refreshing sort of an old fashioned. In the dog days of summer though I'm more likely to reach for a G&T as a cocktail.

But overall, good light lager is just the best. You can drink it at a reasonable pace almost indefinitely while maintaining a warm, good-feeling buzz. Just about my favorite way to spend a summer afternoon is at the park beer garden under the oaks, with a book and a block of cheese, drinking a couple of liters of Spaten or Hofbrau helles for several hours.

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