- How To: Smoke and Booze of the Week and a Dose of AR-15

Some time ya gotta lighten up a bit. Too much politics will fill up yer bile duct and then what have ya got?
I developed a taste for gin many moons ago. I don't like vodka or what vodka has become. I am not a big drinker. I will drink a six pack a month or even 10 beers a month. Maybe an ounce or three of spirits per week. And wine... well after living in Italy it's not the same over here, but the wife and I have a nice collection. Whiskey and Scotch... maybe twice a year, but that stuff paralyzes the toungue and makes your brain boggle. It is truth serum or Irish fighting potion. I leave that stuff to the pros.
Farmer's Organic Small Batch Gin. This stuff is the real McCoy and it is packaged similar to an old time medicine bottle. I believe it is 93.5 proof! Firewater, but it is the cleanest gin out there (if not Tanqueray Ten is the second choice). Bombay Sapphire is a flavored alcohol. It's hiding something", and if you are not careful that "something" will sneak up on you and bash you in the noggin. A real martini is made with gin, a twist of lemon or lime peel; anything else is not really a martini. A vodka martini is an imposter and dirty martini's are for people that really don't like martinis... like my old boss. He may as well drank bellinis or cosmopolitans for all I cared.
Take jigger & one-half of the aforementioned gin. Pour into a beaker. Take a the cap off of a bottle of dry vermouth - show the cap to the beaker of gin, sort of like doffing your cap to a new aquaintance "howd'ya'do!" Replce the cap and be gone with the vermouth. Next, get a good sharp knife and liberate a lemon (or lime) peel from the fruit. A good thumb length will work. Give it a twist. This will liberate the oils in the peel and will be sufficient to paint the rim of the martini glass. Now look at the beaker. It needs a fistfull of ice. drop em in, get that fancy glass rod that you thought you'd never use, place it in the beaker and give it 3 or 4 vigorous stirs. You are almost there. Wife like to put a lime squeeze in the beaker to keep off the scurvy, that works too, but not too much. Break out the strainer - top it on the beaker and pour into the Martini glass. Cue up some Dave Brubeck, sit back and relax. Be warned one of these is enough. Two and your wife may have a problem with the salty quality of language.

I don't smoke cigrettes, I used to chew tobacco, but quit that a long time ago as it was too addictive and was dominating my waking days. I'll have a cigar or two or 4 per month, and according to some insurance chart, that makes me a hardcore high-risk smoker.

Smoke of the week : La Flor Dominicana Double Claro
I'm not posting a pic, because I want people to forget I mentioned it, thereby keeping the price just right.
Yeah - it's a candela with that green wrapper that most Americans associate with cheap machine rolled cigars. Even the cigar wholesalers and catalogs don't understand the nobility of this smoke. Sure they'll tell ya how JFK instructed Dulles to secure as many Habana Candelas as was possible due to his impending plans for embargo. But candelas have been ignored by the cigar snobs. "Not full bodied...",  "It looks like salad..."
or whatever vulgarity they want to hurl at it. Good! I don't need anymore Cuban knock-offs (yeah - sure they're real...) and I don't need to smoke the hot new cigar that the newbies declare as the Opus X of our millenium. I do my own homework and base it on the qualities and the seasonality.

In Miami this time of year (as well as NJ) It's friggin' hot and humid. A candela - if it's well made - will burn evenly, draw smoothly and have a mild impact on the pallette. It is my summer smoke. The runner -up in the Candela division is Camacho. The candela is the perfect summer smoke.

Yesterday, wife and I went to our public range. No rapid fire, and no multiple targets. We blew-off some .40's and I reminded myself how wonderfully instinctive my USP is out to ten yards. Like throwing a punch and hitting the nose everytime. The GP100 was very cooperative yesterday as well. It ate and spat out an assortment of lead offerings from lead swc's, to bonded jhps in .38 +P (corbon)  up to some heavy .357 mag fmj's. I believe after years of use and a few thousand rounds later, the three-inch GP100 and I have become good friends. No hiccups and that nagging cylander stoppage that occurred because of an unworn internal (dog or pawl or whatever) part has finally subsided. Next we decided to waste some russian .223 ammo with my wife's S&W MP-15. I like this rifle. My wife is petite and athletic. She prefers handy-guns, hates shotguns, and has developed an affinity for the AR-15. Unlike the mall security force squads you see at most ranges, the guys that wait impatiently for the zombie apocolypse, my wife is no BS. Site it in, get it on the paper, know the machine and go home. In the magical land of Florida we are able to purchase our little AR with an adjustable stock so both of us can use it and no civillian was injured or threatened by the LOP adjustment. We are also happy to display our 30 rd mag (magpul came with the rifle) and a steel milspec 40 rd mag. It was a good range day for both of us. It ended back home with the aforementioned booze and smoke. It's a satisfying finish knowing you have an ounce more liberty than was behind the wall of CCCNJ. (I'll leave out the ribs I made, because that became work). Enjoy. Dosvedonia!