site banner

Wellness Wednesday for November 16, 2022

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

  • Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.

  • Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.

  • Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.

  • Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).

5
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

OK, now we're talking. I'm also a Chemex guy, grinding with a Baratza Virtuoso plus and tinkering with grind settings depending on what's brewing. I switched over to an electric gooseneck kettle last year (Brewista, with the wood accents) because the heating time is better and I appreciate being able to set it to exact temperatures. I'm typically doing a bloom with 100g of water, second pour to 450g, finishing with 750g with pulse pouring. The amount of beans will vary a bit based on what I'm brewing, but I start with 17:1 ratio, so 44g of beans. Always drink it black, usually out of my favorite mug that I won in a race.

I'm extremely partial to fruity, floral African coffees, particularly Ethiopians. I also enjoy some of the funkier fermentations and experimental stuff though, which tends to come more from South and Central America at the moment. This Wilton Benitez bag is a recent example and it's delightful. My wife prefers more chocolate and spice, so we'll grab a decent number of Guatemalan stuff for her as well. I probably drink more coffee from Rogue Wave than anyone else; they're in Vancouver, often post a 10% discount code on Reddit, we benefit from the exchange rate here in the States, and they're an excellent roaster. I also order from JBC frequently (see the link above) because they're local and very good. Vibrant in Philly is always great too, they tend to have excellent Ethiopian beans.

Whiskey! I am a bourbon guy, through and through, but I actually enjoy pretty much everything. Almost everything is neat, just the occasional couple drops of water for the hazmat-tier proofs. I don't really have one go-to bourbon because I'm a sucker for variety. My favorite thing that I have on the shelf at the moment is EH Taylor Barrel Proof, but among things that aren't obnoxiously hard to find, the New Riff Single Barrel is really nice. I tend to prefer heavy oak and sweet things, less on the spice, but I'm always happy to make an exception for a good rye. My wife absolutely loves whiskey sours, and she's not wrong, but I'd rather just drink them neat. Eagle Rare is the go-to there - kind of blasphemous given what some people pay for those, but it's a $38 bottle here, so whatever.

I hadn't tried Irish whiskeys much until we had a trip to Ireland, and it turns out Irish whiskey is good too! I came home with a bottle of Yellow Spot and Bushmills 16, which were surprisingly good deals at the Dublin Airport Duty Free. I'm still more partial to Redbreast though and keep coming back to Redbreast 12 because of the killer balance of price and quality. I do like Redbreast 15 more, but not $40 more.

Related, I love a good rum on a hot summer day. Foursquare rums are absolutely fantastic.