Accidental Hedonist

A nice intro to the Pre-Raphaelites from the BBC.  The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was a group of English painters, poets, and critics, founded in 1848 byWilliam Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. I’ll discuss in further detail soon. Episode 1 pt.1 Episode 1 pt.2 Episode 1 pt.3 Episode 2 pt.1 Episode 2 pt.2 Episode 2. pt.3 Episode 3 pt.1 Episode 3 pt.2 [...]

 (As with any post or book dealing with Food History, the typical caveats, dealing with regionalism and incomplete records, apply.) For such a classic cocktail, the history of the Martini is murky, with various stories being thrown about as truths, when in fact most of these are half-truths at best, out and out fabrications at [...]

  Out of the entire catalog of Belgian Beers, there is one category that mystifies me. And being born and bred in the United States, where beer ignorance is part of a national DNA, I hadn’t even heard of this style of beer until I was way past my thirties. I am speaking the Lambics, [...]

John Ruskin goes hand-in-hand with the work of J.M.W Turner, because as critics ravaged Turner’s new, non-traditional approach to art, it was Ruskin who defended him and other artists like him, with the release of the book Modern Painters. The well-reasoned critique within Modern Painters helped set the stage, or at least, provided enough rationale [...]

I’ve been sitting on this decision for two weeks, when I first compared Knickerbocker Gin to Leopold Bros. The problem? They were both quite excellent, and choosing one meant not giving the other its fair due. Let me be clear, these are two very different types of gin, with Knickerbocker eschewing the traditional London Dry recipes, [...]

Take a few moments to look at these paintings by Joseph Mallord William Turner (aka J.M.W. Turner aka William Turner). While the subjects are important, what I wish to point out is the techniques used, and how Turner’s approach to light evolved. When looking at these paintings, focus on the approach the artist took to convey [...]

One of the things that filling a 16-gin-bracket-in-order-to-determine-one’s-favorite accomplishes is that it allows one to see their predilections a more clarity. I’ve already seen this once so far in this endeavor, where I’ve come to terms with the fact that an alcohol-heavy spirit is a bug and not a feature for me. I’ve given my reasons for [...]

  We, or should I say, I have a very specific idea on how non-famous artists get their pieces viewed today. Either they place them on the walls of any business that will have them – say, your local coffee shop or book store – or, the pieces are submitted for review to local galleries. [...]

So now we have a second gin in my final four, namely Plymouth English Gin, whose smoothness and restraint on the botanicals easily beat out the overly-alcoholic and overly-junipered Beefeater. If you’re looking for a great example of what the idea of “balance” is in spirits, Plymouth Gin would be a great place to start. [...]

My plans include an itinerary of sorts, but not one of places to visit, but rather beers to drink.  So, in order to do that, we need a list of what beers we are actually talking about when we talk about “Belgian Beers”. At the bare minimum, we are talking about the following categories, as [...]