Misc. Bull$h!t

For those of you keeping score at home -- and in this case I hope you aren't -- my bourbon supplier of choice was out of the Evan Williams mentioned by Matt that I was planning on using for our annual Mint Julepalooza on Derby Day.  So I tried some Elijah Craig Single Barrel 1789, a brand I had not previously purchased.  It had two key elements I was looking for -- it was moderately priced (we had ten people over and I was not going to lay in a couple of bottles of 23-year-old Pappy Van Winkle for these freeloaders) and it was 94 Proof, ensuring everyone would enjoy their juleps after a sip or two.  It made a solid Julep -- it wouldn't draw me away from Woodford Reserve or Buffalo Trace having it neat, but it did the job very well, similar to a mid-shelf Old Forester, and that's all we wanted.  I stick with the proportions of 2 ounces of bourbon, 1/4 ounce of simple syrup, gently muddled with about eight mint leaves and plenty of crushed ice, all served in frosted pewter mugs.  Nobody ever complains.

Sorry I wasn't around much to complain about our heroes this weekend.  Derby weekend is always busy for us -- beside the Julep Fest, on Sunday there is a major steeplechase race about three miles from where we live, the Winterthur Point to Point, and we usually make the scene there.  My wife and I both are lifelong lovers of the ponies -- the whole ambience of equestrianism from the silver trophies to mucking the stables and everything in between.  Which usually includes healthy doses of fine spirits.  I'm guessing there aren't too many other horse enthusiasts on here, but it's admittedly a minority taste these days.

Let me tag desousa so he sees it.

Whistle Pig is pretty high-end Rizz.  I hear you on the sweet stuff.  The more you drink, the less you like sweetness.  I remember in college I used to make a drink out of the Mr. Boston guide called a Louis Special.  It was equal parts Peach Brandy and Rock and Rye.  I thought I was being unutterably cosmopolitan when in fact I was being a callow fool.  It was the cocktail equivalent of Cream Soda.  And I loved Cream Soda when I was like ten years old.

I love Rye in a Manhattan, but in an Old Fashioned I prefer the smoothness of Bourbon.

Your equestrian history is great!  Yeah, they will worship you if you give them snacks.  Especially sweet snacks.  Last year when we were visiting a bunch of horse farms in Kentucky at one of the very best, Claiborne Farm, they let us feed mints to their million dollar studs.  We were all good buddies real fast.  Although as I am sure you found out they can give you a pretty good bite if you aren't careful.  Well into our second Juleps yesterday, we took a challenge to name our ten favorite horses of all time.  Here is my list as recalled through the haze.

Secretariat
Smarty Jones
Silver (Lone Ranger's horse)
Mr. Ed
Man O' War
Quick Draw McGraw
Trigger (Roy Rogers' horse)
Champion (Gene Autry's horse)
Misty of Chincoteague
Nickawampus (my great uncle's harness racing horse on whom I won about 100 bucks in 1965.)

You are in good company with Secretariat.  No less than Jack Nicklaus said he had the same reaction watching that race.  It was an other-worldly experience, almost incomprehensible.  That photo of jockey Ron Turcotte looking back over his shoulder to find the rest of the field has to be in the top ten sports photographs ever.  Winning by 31 lengths is still easily the widest margin of any Triple Crown race in history.  I'm sure you know that when they did a necropsy on Secretariat they found his heart weighed between 21-22 pounds, nearly three times the size of a typical thoroughbred.  We visited his grave (and his paddock where he stood at stud) at Claiborne Farm -- he's one of six Triple Crown winners buried there -- he is one of the few horses who was ever buried intact, and along with the perhaps equally great Man O' War the only ones embalmed.

Good points on Sham, who was edged out by Big Red by 2 1/2 lengths at both the Derby and the Preakness.  In fact Secretariat and Sham became the first two horses to break 2 minutes at the Derby, and it's only been done one other time since, by Monarchos in 2001.  Sham was a beautiful horse, almost black, and would surely have won the first two legs of the Crown had Secretariat been born a year sooner or later.  Unlike human race records, horse speed records are not constantly being broken.  They trended mostly, albeit erratically, downward from the mid-nineteeth century to the mid-twentieth century, but average thoroughbred race speeds have actually declined a bit over the past fifty years.  Average winning times at the Kentucky Derby are a full second slower since 1981 than they were between 1962-1981.  Naturally Secretariat still holds the record for each of the Triple Crown races.

To my shame I was not aware that the name of Matt Dillon's (and Ben Cartwright's) horse was Buck or he would have made my list instead of Misty, who was a deliberately quirky pick anyway.  I don't recall his name being used on the show, but that doesn't mean it wasn't.  What a beautiful buckskin he was.  I did some research on him and found that Lorne Greene loved the horse so much that he bought him after "Bonanza" went off the air out of concern that he might meet the fate of many horses who are no longer economically viable.  Greene donated Buck to an organization that used therapy horses for mentally handicapped kids.  He lived until 1992 when he died at the impossibly old age of 45.

Little Joe had a Paint called Cochise, another great horse.  Tonto's Paint Scout was in my honorable mention, as was TV Zorro's amazing black Quarterhorse Tornado.  Quarterhorses are used often in film because they are more docile than Thoroughbreds.  They are like the drag racers of horses -- it's unreal watching them race because they move so quickly over a short track.  Almost cartoonish.  In the movie version of Zorro, Antonio Banderas was given a black Friesian horse because it wasn't very large and neither was Banderas, who would have looked like a little kid riding the horse used in the TV show.

Of course Mr. Ed was the only one who could talk, buddy boy.  They got his lips to move by placing a nylon thread in his mouth and manipulating it off-screen.  Loved that show.

Glad you tried EC 1789 and I agree about not replacing what I usually drink. I hope someday we can have mint juleps together. They sound great.

Yes, this helps enormously Matt. Since the guy saved me almost two grand on engine work over the initial estimate, I don't mind sharing some of the savings with him.

Don’t worry fellas. Those ain’t “boos” your hearing. They’re saying “booze”…