The Rum Diaries

Living it up with rum in “La Noche de San Juan”

In Puerto Rico we celebrate “La noche de San Juan”.  It is celebrated in June and basically it is a mega party.  At 12 midnight we all head toward the beach and we throw ourselves backward in the ocean 7 times.  It is supposed to be to wash away negative “vibes”, for good luck.  One time I went with a bunch of friends.  We found a good spot for the tent, which by the way noone used.  With mary Jane and rum I am surprised we got that sucker up.  Hours passed, more rum.  Around eightish the rum started to sexually arouse most of us so we headed towards the ocean.  The real funny part was that at that point others headed for the water as well.  Soon it was like is this you?  “Oh no wait that`s Victor? ” “Sorry dude.” ” Well since we started.”  “Catch up with later Victor”.  More rum.  Time to throw up.  Because it was early.  More rum.  “Did you feel that?”  “Feel what stupid?”  Feel it feel it.  Come here.  “What the hell is wrong with you?”  In a whispered voice and to his ear, “The sand is moving”.  “Really it is moving I can`t feel crap.  “Shh. Stay still feel it.” ”Why don`t you go to the ocean to see if it`s moving?”  “Where is my bottle?”  “In your hand stupid”  “Come one let us make the ocean move”  “Where the hell I am going to leave my bottle?”  “Take it with you” “Ok.”  More rum. 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1.Midnight.  99% of us were totally wasted.  In a hush voice and to the ear, “Did you see that the sky is moving?”  “It is supposed to move stupid”  “I know that but look it is moving fast.  Look.  Who the hell took my bottle.  Damm my cigs got wet.  Anybody have a cigarrette?”  ” I do”  ” Really who the hell are you?  Do you have rum too?”  ” Actually I do”  ” Let me introduce myself…”  More rum…I opened my eyes and see sand all over the place.  The brightness annoys the hell out of me.  Mouth is dry and wait a minute my feet are getting wet.  I laugh  I had half a bottle of rum and a pack of smashed up cigs.  I look around and like fish brought in by the ocean and left to die in the sand near me were about 30 or 40 people laying in the beach.  Everyone sort of passed out in the same area.  The tent?  Right the tent.  We had no idea where it was so we left it.  The funniest part was rol call.  I started yelling for my friends, “Victor” and he raised his arm and in a raspy voice said “here”  “Diane?”  “Here”  All of us accounted for.  I took the bottle and said might as well.

It was an incredible experience.

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How to make moonshine

      As Junior Johnson said “moon shining is something that gets under your skin and you would almost do it for nothing”.  Moonshine is basically homemade liquor that you don’t pay taxes on. And you made it your self.  I in no way condone you trying to do this as it can be very dangerous.  It is illegal to make liquor in the united states and not pay taxes on it.  So if you get arrested I warned you and I am in no way responsible for any reproductions that happen to you as a result of what happens to you. I don’t care if you end up dead, blind or dying and I am releasing myself form any results of your stupidity.  

     With that said this from a recipe I found on the internet somewhere and I really don’t remember I did a write up for it awhile ago. So with that here you go. This is how to make moonshine.

Ingredients:
Corn Meal,White Cane Sugar, Brewer’s Malt ,packet Yeast and Orange Juice

First, Mix the Orange Juice and Yeast in a glass. Set this glass aside. Leave glass at room temperature. Next, Mix the Corn Meal and Sugar in a bowl. Then Fill a pot with 1 gallon of water for each pound of corn/sugar mixture. Heat water to 120 degrees Fahrenheit (use a meat thermometer). Do not let this mixture get hotter than 140 degrees Fahrenheit. Slowly stir in corn/sugar/malt mixture. Cook this mixture called “Mash” about 1 hour on low heat (stirring occasionally to avoid burning the mash). Keep mixture at 120 degrees Fahrenheit, no hotter than 140 degrees. Remove a small amount of the cooking mixture and put in a disposable cup. Add a few drops of tincture of iodine to this mixture in the disposable cup. If the mixture turns a dark purple, the mash hasn’t cooked all the way. If the mixture is only slightly purple, it is fully cooked. Throw out the disposable cup and its contents.

*NOTE* DON’T REUSE THIS MIXTURE OF IODINE AND MASH. IODINE IS POISONOUS. When the mash has cooked all the way, let it cool to room temperature. Then add the orange juice/yeast mixture as soon as it (the orange juice/yeast mixture) is foaming slightly on the top. Put the mash in a suitable container for fermenting. use an old milk jug There should be some room at the top to hold the foam that will be created. DO NOT CAP OFF OR CLOSE THIS CONTAINER SO IT IS AIRTIGHT! THIS PROCESS CREATES LARGE AMOUNTS OF CARBON DIOXIDE GAS WHICH WILL CAUSE A CONTAINER TO EXPLODE WITHOUT WARNING! You can use cheesecloth or a handkerchief to cover the container. Make sure to keep the container at room temperature. After 10 days, taste a few drops of the mixture. If it tastes like alcohol or is slightly sour, it is ready.
Then Strain the mixture through a screen or coffee filter and proceed to the distilling process to do this you need to build a still.

The best advice I can give you on this so that you don’t kill yourself is to buy the book The Alaskan Bootlegger’s Bible it is a really good book. Ether get it on amazon or buy it on ebay. I think it costs about 15.00 and is well worth it if just for the plans to make the still. A great review about this book on Amazon states “Book Description How to make beer, wine, liqueurs, cider and moonshine whiskey. The author dusts off over 30 years of experience to tell you how it’s done. He not only tells how to make darned near any kind of beer, wine, liqueur and whiskey you can imagine, he also tells you how to make the equipment to do it with. Ever wondered how a still is made? There are 8 types illustrated in this book and though it’s illegal to build or possess a still, the illustrations are so complete, you could easily do it! This book includes plans and operating instructions from underground moonshiner manuals used in Mid East oil fields. Some are built with components found in most home kitchens. From moonshine, homebrew, wine and liqueur recipes, to stills, make your own cappers, kegs, scales and even a malt factory from an old freezer, it’s all here! “Truth is that this review is true. If you really want to get into homemade moonshine. This is the book to buy! There you have it have fun learning how to make moonshine.

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Sweet Bill Murry was caught in a golf cart dui

Fom the A.p

STOCKHOLM, Sweden - Bill Murray could face a drunken driving charge after cruising through downtown Stockholm in a golf cart and refusing to take a breath test, citing U.S. law.

“He refused to blow in the (breath test) instrument, citing American
legislation,” Holmlund told The Associated Press on Wednesday. “So we
applied the old method — a blood test. It will take 14 days before the
results are in.”

Murray, who had been at a golf tournament in Sweden,
signed a document admitting that he was driving under the influence,
and agreed to let a police officer plead guilty for him if the case
goes to court, Holmlund said.

“Then he was let go. My guess is he went back to America,” Holmlund said.

He said the 56-year-old actor-comedian would only be charged if
tests show his blood alcohol level exceeded the legal limit, which is
quite low in Sweden.

A very high alcohol level could lead to a prison sentence, but Holmlund said fines were more likely.

“There were no obvious signs, like when someone is really tipsy,” he said.

An e-mail to Murray?s lawyer, David Nochimson, seeking comment wasn?t immediately returned.

The golf cart had been on display for a week outside the downtown hotel where Murray and other VIPs attending the Scandinavian Masters golf tournament, were staying, tournament head Fredrik Nilsmark said.

Murray apparently drove the golf cart to the trendy Cafe Opera
nightclub, less than a mile away, and was pulled over on his way back
to the hotel.

Nilsmark said the vehicle wasn’t intended for guests but added: “I don’t hold any grudge against Bill Murray for borrowing our cart for a while.”

Cafe Opera manager Daniel Bodahl confirmed that Murray had visited
the nightclub late Sunday and said “he was a very good guest.”

It isn’t illegal to drive a golf cart in city traffic in Sweden, but Holmlund said it is very unusual.

“I have done this since ‘68 and I’ve never experienced anything like this,” he said.

Murray was among the early cast members on NBC’s “Saturday Night Live.” He was nominated for an Oscar for 2003’s “Lost in Translation.” His screen credits also include “Groundhog Day” and “Rushmore.”

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Broadway Joe

“We were supposed to drink. We were following the heritage of the pro athlete going back to Babe Ruth. You punished your body. It was so ingrained: you played ball until you couldn’t play anymore. After that, you hit the bar.”
—Larry Grantham, linebacker, NY Jets

The late 1960s saw the rise of the superstar athlete, those colorful characters who popped up in gossip columns as much as they did on sports pages.

And few caused a bigger stir or excited more heated debate than New York Jets quarterback Joe Namath.

Joe reinvented himself over and over again. Ad agencies sought his services as a pitchman, and he appeared in dozens of commercials, including the infamous spot for Beautymist, which featured Joe in panty hose. He dated movie stars and rock singers. He starred in movies and Broadway shows. He had his own daytime talk show. And he did it all with a drink in his hand.

It wasn’t just a nickname. He was Broadway Joe.

In a sport that has produced a plethora of epic boozehounds, Joe Namath belongs right at the top of the list. Morning, noon or night, you’d find him with a glass of vodka, Crown on the rocks, or a bottle of beer in his hand. The hand not encumbered with booze was usually filled with an attractive young lady. In Joe’s life, the party ran 24/7.

The favorite son of Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, grew up a multi-sport athlete, setting high school records in football, baseball and basketball. Before he even graduated, the Chicago Cubs and Baltimore Orioles offered big money for his services as a pitcher, but Joe wanted to play football.

The Meteoric Rise
In 1965 the New York Jets were a struggling young team in the upstart AFL. They were looking for just the right player, someone who could really make a splash, and they set their sights on a cocky, strangely dressed, good-looking quarterback from the University of Alabama. Namath packed his bags and headed for the Big Apple, where his idiosyncratic wardrobe (he once walked the sidelines in a $5,000 tailored mink coat), long hair, goatee and party animal habits lit fires all over the city.

Namath played well for the Jets. He had a bazooka for an arm (before becoming “Broadway Joe” he was “The Hungarian Howitzer”), which enabled him to invent new plays, such as sending his receivers on deep crossing routes and hitting them in stride, something most pro quarterbacks lacked the arm strength to do. He was the first QB in any league to throw for more than 4,000 yards in a single season. He was voted AFL Rookie of the Year and was the AFL All Star game MVP in 1966. In 1969 he was voted the overall AFL MVP. Contrary to his image, Joe Namath was a tough son of a bitch. Friends and foes alike respected Joe’s ability to take brutal hits and come back for more.

The apex of Namath’s career was his eye-popping performance in the Jets’ January 1969 win over the Baltimore Colts in the World Championship Game (now known as Super Bowl III). Namath faced an uphill battle. Sportscasters called the Colts “the greatest football team in history,” and the Jets were 18-point underdogs. This was the final Championship Game before the NFL and AFL merger, and the AFL had not fared well in their previous showdowns with the older NFL, going down in blowouts two years in a row. This game would, according to the naysayers, prove once and for all that the proposed merger should be consigned forever to the history of bad ideas. Celebrated former player Norm Van Brocklin singled Joe out for special abuse, saying, “This will be Namath’s first professional football game.” Yeah, the yucks just kept right on coming.

A few days before the game, a guest at an awards dinner began shouting insults at Namath, suggesting that he and his team were a bunch of losers. Unruffled, Namath took a long pull from his glass of Crown and said, “The Jets will win. I guarantee it.” His “guarantee” would become the stuff of sports legend, but Namath was only getting started. For days leading up to the game, stationed on his customary pool-side lounge chair with a glass of iced vodka in his hand, he talked a never-ending stream of smack aimed at the Colts. They were old. They were slow. They were old-fashioned. His back-up QB, Babe Parilli was better than their starter, Earl Morrall (this in itself was a veiled shot at the Colts’ injured starter Johnny Unitas). Joe delivered these predictions and insults in his lazy drawl while flashing his million-dollar grin, and he drove the Colts batshit. They didn’t know whether to laugh with Namath or mob-up, find him, and beat him so badly his name fell out of the phone book.

Popular legend has it that Namath’s guarantee aroused headlines across the country, on a par with Babe Ruth’s “called shot” in the 1932 World Series, but that isn’t really the case. There was so much about Joe that was bigger than life that his guarantee was seen as just another outburst from his oversized ego. Headlines the morning after the game, however, solidified the legend. The lowly Jets, from the hayseed American Football League, had decisively beaten the unbeatable Read the rest of this entry »

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A man is, ultimately, the sum of his accomplishments.

Each culture, of course, has a different idea as to what rates as an accomplishment. Muslims, for example, put a tremendous amount of stock into making a pilgrimage to Mecca, while generations of Frenchmen have taken great pride in not tripping over their discarded rifles while fleeing the Germans.

The subculture of avid drinkers, living as we do by our own set of rules and priorities, has an entirely different idea altogether, to the degree that our notion of a goal worth achieving may well appear bad behavior or even a criminal offense to the parent culture. Read the rest of this entry »

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Drinking at Check Point Charlie

Try to imagine a bar frequented only by star-crossed lovers. A watering hole inhabited by couples doomed never to share each other’s lives — only a few stolen moments over cocktails. It sounds like a place that could only exist in The Twilight Zone or the imagination of William Shakespeare, right? Wrong. I’ve been there, even bought a round for the house; but to tell my story I must first describe an era in which the Cold War was still very chilly indeed…

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ano sent this one

This story starts like every other one generally, at a bar. Myself and a friend were drinking steadily at the local TAB one fine evening, sticking to jugs of beer. The reason for this is twofold. Firstly, we are both uni students who are poor and barely cover drinking expenses. Secondly, there was a 21st later in the evening, which generally means a couple of grand at the bar and some serious drinking. After a little while, he realised he had to go to work, so he went there while i went home to drain my home bar. He works at a liquor store, and yes we did use that to our advantage when he was working there.

So a few hours later i got a lift from another friend, with the understanding that the first bloke would meet me at the 21st for some serious destruction of the bar. I got there first, as was my intention, to the horrible reality that was a 500 dollar tab on the bar which was restricted to beer and wine. Unfazed, i then started ordering and drinking at a rapid rate, while people streamed into the party. A couple of hours later, i had a good buzz but was nowhere near blackout island, when i found there was nothing left on the bar. Ironically enough, a few moments after this was when my friend arrived, cursing the fact that he had to stay at work for that long.

Now here is where we come to a fork in the road. As a rule, both of us never brought cash to a 21st, thinking wisely that if we didnt have any, it would induce maximum desperation pounding till the tab ran out. This was when i spotted a familiar light come on in my friends eyes, and knew we were heading to trouble. It seemed he had an idea to fix our immediate problem, one that ironically enough only possible because he had decided to go to work that day. Apparently someone had left a credit card when he was at the checkout, and apparently that credit card had somehow found its way into his pockets. From here there was only one possible result, and now we find our way to the chaos part of the story.

After ordering a couple of drinks to find out if this scheme was feasable, it became apparent that no one cared that the card was obviously originally owned by a asian lady, and neither of us are asian or a lady. After this our drink orders became more and more extensive, ending up buying everyone at the party cocktails of various descriptions. Needless to say, by the end of the night we were both completely wasted and had gained a couple of friends. One of the girls agreed to get a lift from us, even though it was clear we were both at about 5 times the legal limit. I was able to fathom that little Ano was in no danger of moving at this point, so i decided to do the right thing and drive so my friend could have a crack in the backseat.

Unfortunately, my good nature only lasts for a few brief minutes, so when i parked it was evident that instead of a house, we were situated in front of a bar. I was followed into the establishment by my friend who was not a happy chappy, although the stream of absinthe shots that were purchased inside placated him nicely. This is when my memory fades out, and the next thing i remember is waking up at home still very drunk, with the credit card still in my pocket. After placing a call to my friend, it was decided we would have a couple of brews to settle the system before he had to go to work again.

After these were ingested and he went to work, i went to the local nandos for a feed. I also placed a call to a few of my buddies, promising a good story and a free feed if they showed up. They did, and so we went from there to the local TAB, story told. On the way i saw two friends at a pancake parlor so i stopped in and ordered 6 scotch and cokes. Unknown to me however, they didnt drink before lunch (yeah not really friends, more acquantances) so i drank them all. I then made it to the TAB and started ordering jugs of scotch and coke and vodka lemon lime because i was the weird state of hungover where i didnt want beer.

3 hours later, me and the only friend left from lunch had a good glow going when we were joined by my friend from the previous night, who had finished his shift. We started drinking hard, and then decided to go out this night. We called around and got a few people to meet us in the city, and went to a different bar in the meantime. This is when we started ordering 25 dollar drinks such as jhonny gold for ourselves and randoms at the bar, and got nicely sloshed. From there it was club hopping time, and we hit about 5 different bars with 2 taxis of people, paying for everything courtesy of the aforementioned credit card. Late in the night my friend had the bright idea of going to the hookers, and i agreed even though i was pretty sure i was again at the point of no return downstairs. When we got there however, we found that the credit card was now not working, so we caught a taxi home.

I woke up the next day and cut up the card and threw it away, and ended up hitting the town that night as well, after which i spent 2 days curled up at home with the hangover from hell.

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Pinchvalve sent this one in

Germany and beer seem to go hand in hand.  I was there on business in Munich once, working at a trade show.  The last day of the show, the guys from the shop arrive to tear down the booth.  They are asking me about my time in Germany, and if I have been to any good “beergardens”.  I tell them that I have been to some very nice restaurants, but they insist that they must take me to “Zee Hoffbrauhaus”.  I defer, as I have an early flight to catch.  At 9:00pm, they are at my hotel door anyway.  All 7 of them.  “get in zee van, we go to party!”
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Good one from seanngrm

Most of my best stories involve Whisky.

As a tradition on St. Patty’s since I was a freshman in undergrad, I boil up a bunch of corn beef and cabbage for my friends and I try to finish off a bottle of Knapogue, people usually bring enough guiness for me to have a chaser. The drinking usually starts after lunch. Usually I tend to give out a few drinks and so don’t end up drinking quite the whole bottle but this particular year I think the vast majority of it was consumed by myself.
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Good one from mental

Way back in 1991 when I just arrived at my first duty station in Germany…

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