The key words, it seems to me, are "dawg" and "INFIDEL". Are we to guess?

Tim is clearly wrong. The key word is ghee.

I agree. "The ghee" clearly reflects on the earlier threat to clarify butter. How to tell the dancer from the dance?

Don't be fooled by 3. How could it be anyone but Labs?

w/d, what makes you say such things?

The "strongbow" makes available a reading based on self-loathing, though.

3: We don't know "earlier." We were specifically told that the chronology was messed with.

It could just as easily be a typo of "ghee" turned into a joke about clarified butter. My point was just that you have to know what ghee is in order to make that association. Which narrows the field, somewhat.

I dunno; another way to go about this is to think of who would be likely to combine technology and substance-altered-ness. I know drunk-dialing is a cliche, but not all of us reach for our communication devices at such a time.

On rereading, this is way too pedantic. I'm obviously having an attack of o-earnestness. Sorry, folks.

Tom, how do you read "strongbow"? I took it to refer to the cider.

I agree with w/d: it's Labs. The "ghee" is mere confirmation.

5: I'm fairly certain that you, Becks, bitchphd, and w-lfs-n have ogged's contact info. I'm not sure who else among the relevant community does. You're obsessed overly focused on certain fairly crazy wingers including hewitt and lileks. I'm pretty sure you've called Ogged an infidel a goodly number of times. Also, it's a pretty funny series of messages (in whatever order they were actually sent).

∴
Labs

The lifeguard has found your posts about her, read the rest of the archives, and is now messing with your head.

I am reminded of Caliban: you taught me language, and my profit from it was-- I know how to curse. A poem is before you, and you turn to deduction. Truth is beauty, and beauty, truth.

9: I concur. But of course, cider is totally gay.

Unless, that is, the author/drinker is British. In that case I think a geopolitical interpretation playing off the Hewitt/Lileks line may be more appropriate.

Suggested title: Special Relationships

Strongbow cider has severely disappointed me. It has about 1/2500th the taste of nonalcoholic cider, and makes up for it by having a tiny alcohol content and no flavor other than apple.

This is also true for that other British cider, the one they advertise all the time on the televised cricket matches.

that was amazing.

Oh yeah, that should have been "<strike> obsessed</strike>" not "<strikethrough>obsessed</strikethrough>".

Thanks catherine, I can complain about cider some more if you want.

Whoever wrote it, here's the guy who should do the reading at the bookstore.

Alcoholic cider isn't supposed to taste much like American-style apple cider. It's more like apple beer.

I would have bet Labs. Something about threatening to clarify your butter suggests someone celebrating the end of grading.

Also, ogged's probably only going to post the texts of someone reasonably well known, Becks wasn't drunk, and I imagine w-lfs-n's version of the English language probably comes through in text message.

I'm not really a cider-drinker myself, but I've heard that Woodchuck is much better than Strongbow.

If apo owned a cell phone this would be a harder problem.

there is no good cider any more. You might be able to get some in the West Country, but for international consumption, it is a past tense beverage. Basically it got killed off by the invention of alcopops, which cornered the "sweet booze" market. The seminal London Business School MSc case study "The Decline of the Market For Cider" (Davies, Woodall, Muzhkanov) refers.

23: I can't see Apo using "dawg."

I enjoy me some Woodchuck.

There's a shorter route to 11's conclusion.

1. These missives were written, almost certainly, by a man.
2. This man had actually gotten drunk on apple cider.
3. Therefore, Labs.

Having witnessed Labs sending drunken texts to ogged at UnfoggedDCon, there is little doubt in my mind that it was he who sent these missives.

This post should have been titled "A Pome".

Oh, look, I've photographed my dignity.

OT: squirrel school bitings: more or less of a menace to our children than school shootings?

30. aww. We're being mean and he already has an apple cider hangover to deal with.

It's obviously Labs for the reason LeBlanc sites in 28. All I can say is that I'm fucking envious, and I wish someone would send me affectionately profane text messages while drunk.

And to 24, I happen to have two large bottles of Blackthorn in the fridge. Also one of some California pear cider I've never heard of, which I hope won't be too sweet.

The good alcoholic cider is Norman, as everyone knows.

The ghee and clarified butter references made me think of alameida, but since she's on the wagon I guess that's unlikely.

I've heard good things about Asturian cider as well.

as everyone knows

I think this takes the Unfogged record for pretentiousness.

33: Also one of some California pear cider I've never heard of, which I hope won't be too sweet.

Is it Ace? If so, probably -- I tried one of their ciders (can't remember if it's apple or pear) and it was bleah.

Hard apple ciders, in descending order of awesomeness: Blackthorn, Woodchuck, Strongbow a distant third. (Comity!)

Woodchuck is carbonated, which makes me question the extent to which brewing is involved in its production.

37: I dunno what it is--I can't find it now. Either Mr. B. drank it all, or else I ended up deciding not to buy it, or else I put it somewhere other than the fridge. Who knows.

There is only alcoholic cider. The other one is called apple juice.
I've been on a bit of a cider jag lately. I drank quite a bit of this last night. A bit too sweet but not bad at all. Tonight it's been the Cox's from Thatchers which is also very quaffable. The Waitrose ciders and perrys are better than you'd expect. And there's more locally produced scrumpy than dsquared might lead one to believe - there's even one made in my village. It is not for the faint-hearted.

It ain't ciderscrumpy without the rat.

It is very easy and tasty to homebrew a hard cider. Just be sure not to start with a pastuerized or sulfated product.

yes, ned, you can wax on about cider to me any time you like.

also: how is it even in doubt *at all* that this is the work of labs? it's classic. also, 27.

I had 3 pints of Strongbow tonight! And one pint of Bass. Sigh.

A poem with pomes.

14: Everyone knows that cider drunks are the meanest drunks. Which would make pear cider drunks the gayest, meanest drunks. Which would make Babycham drunks the gayest, meanest drunks who suffer from a congenital defect that renders them incapable of tasting or smelling anything.

I have no idea what any of this is about, but then I am a n00b.

There's a way to increase the strength of cider by freezing. The result is called "applejack" and can be 80 proof. True applejack is probably prohibitively expensive (you'd need about five pints of cider per pint.)

The Mongols make a fine liqueur from horsemilk called kumiss.

These days applejack is made by distilling and it's not very expensive. The freezing method works with anything, not just cider.

Kumiss is pretty weak, isn't it? Not exactly a liqueur.

I'm pretty sure you can buy a couple of different types of applejack at Surdyk's, our big independent liquor store here. Possibly this kind .

Say something else, Emerson, so that we may nitpick you again!

Well, I was going to say "next time you're in town, let's share a bottle or two", but now you've ruined it, Nakkster.

Laird's is the only kind of applejack on the market anymore, actually.

I know you can get Calvados at Surdyk's, which is also quite nice (although drinking it, like rum, makes me want to bake desserts).

Which were we going to share, the rancid mares' milk, or the appley hooch that makes you blind?

Calvados is delicious.

My extensive research indicates that kumiss contains between 0.7 and 2.5% alcohol. It's not even as strong as the beer you can buy at Super America.

It is also sometimes made with camel milk. Yeesh.

True applejack would be made entirely from cider and would be expensive. The distilled stuff is fortified with grain alcohol, I'm pretty sure (wiki seems to say so). The significance of the freezing method is that you can do it at home, just as you can ferment cider (at room temperature, cider is easier to ferment than not). Just helpful back-to-the-land advice.

Applejack played a significant role in New Jersey history, wiki says. Wiki also says that while freezing doesn't remove the methanol, propanol, etc., as long as there's a preponderance of ethanol you don't metabolize the methanol etc. so it doesn't hurt you. It's the breakdown products of methanol that blind you, and ethanol apparently blocks methanold metabolzation.

Kumiss is a weak liqueur with an almondy taste, they say. My attempted at making it failed because you need to agitate it constantly.

It's a federal requirement that selling something as "applejack" be blended, but Laird's also sells a 100 proof bonded apple brandy that's basically real applejack. No grain spirits.

56: Calvados is indeed delicious. WAY too easy to drink.

58: You milked a horse?

Wiki also says that while freezing doesn't remove the methanol, propanol, etc., as long as there's a preponderance of ethanol you don't metabolize the methanol etc. so it doesn't hurt you.

The freezing method works because water freezes at a lower temperature than does alcohol, so it freezes out and what liquid remains has a higher alcohol proportion than what's frozen. All you're getting rid of is water, not any of the -ols. I've seen the preferential metabolization of ethanol to methanol adduced as a reason to start drinking lots of booze if you find that you've ingested methanol.

Nah, I applied the process to cow milk. You can fortify cow milk with lactose if you want to.

Kumiss is a weak liqueur with an almondy taste, they say. My attempted at making it failed because you need to agitate it constantly.

The no relationship policy strikes again.

63: Oh. I rather liked the idea of you milking a horse to ferment its milk, out of the spirit of scientific inquiry (and into a spiritous liquor full of horsey goodness).

Milking horses isn't that hard if the horse expects to be milked, I'd imagine, but that's not really a practical plan in the modern world in which we live in, since the few horses there are any more aren't milked.

Some apple-tasting boozes.

And 62: if you've drunk methanol and catch it early enough why not just throw up?

I dogpiled "methanol poisoning antidote" and got lots of results. I see from the search results page that one mentions injecting ethanol -- presumably not just Everclear, right?

I read the Mongols (and the Scythians!) made kumiss by carrying milk in leather bags tied to their saddles as they rode. The motion of the horse kept it from solidifying into cheese. That is one type of Adult Beverage I have no inclination to try.

The significance of the freezing method is that you can do it at home

One can also distill at home, or could, if it weren't a felony. One would find, if one weren't prohibited from doing so by John Law, that it's quite simple and, because it allows for the elimination of the fusel alcohols, that it is by far the superior process.

Night Train, the stuff that bums used to drink, used to be "a fine perry wine." Now they call it "citrus wine with natural flavors." WTF is "citrus wine"? And now another link.

30: a few years ago I posted my a jpeg of dignity to a non-binaries newsgroup; I have since lost track of it.

Building a World Class Home Distillation Apparatus.

The applejack process requires no special equipment, training, or attention. It requires only benign neglect. Distillation is for geeks and gearheads.

David: they missed Red Rocket and Rainier Ale ("Green Death").

HA! "no binaries" that takes me back.

What Unfogged needs is more Usenet nostalgia. I suggest an FAQ.

58, 62: Ethanol is actually the clinical treatment for methanol poisoning, I believe. Still, I find it hard to believe that there's no reason to worry about drinking methanol so long as there's ethanol present, too. Also, it may be worth noting that homedistiller.org says pectin is primarily responsible for the creation of methanol during fermentation. Apples have tons of pectin.

So, I donno. I seriously doubt that the amounts of methanol we're talking about would translate into real health problems (fruit juice has measurable levels of the stuff anyway, and aspartame metabolizes into it). But I can easily believe that they would lead to lousier hangovers than those offered by other sources of booze.

Apparently most brown liquors are full of weird shit, rum and brandy above all. Think of the methanol as adding character. You probably are afarid of absinthe too.

According to what I read, ethanol monopolizes the enzyme or whatever, so small proportions of methanol is excreted harmlessly.

73: Yes yes y'all. One of the more embarrassing moments of my life was finding all my old usenet comments from when I was 14. I was a big Mystery Science Theater 3000 fan, as it turns out.

74: I think amounts on the order of a few milliliters have been known to cause blindness, although it takes significantly more to be fatal. I'm pretty sure this is almost impossible to do just by consuming large quantities of otherwise nontoxic liquids.

77: Usenet has many incredibly embarrassing posts I wrote as a young teenager, linked to my real name. Given how often people get to my work web page by Googling me, I really hope they don't ever click over to Google Groups.

The phrase above, "the elimination of the fusel alcohols," should have read "the elimination of acetone, methanol and the fusel alcohols." We regret the error.

I can't speak to the relative toxicity of the various compounds you concentrate by freeze distillation, but many are foul to smell and taste. It's all about the quality, John.

Also: Absinthe!

I bet there's a Usenet group along the lines of alt.hobbies.brewing.scrumpy or something. If not, it would almost certainly pass muster as an addition to the alt.* tree. Go ahead, post to news.groups about it; let the magic of internet communications help you build a better tomorrow.

If that fails, post some really creepy Wesley Crusher fan-fic pr0n as an act of self-flagellation.

77: IIRC, most of my usenet trail consists of advice I gave on comp.sys.mac.system. So the worst that could be concluded about me is that 1. I may have given some bad advice and 2. I'm a big dork who would give computer advice to strangers on usenet.

I believe if there's something you really don't want in the Google Groups archives, though, you can ask them to remove it and they'll likely comply.

Last summer I was at a wedding and my cousin's cousin, whom I see once every few years, sat in the pew behind me. One of the first things he said to me was, "Hey, was that you posting about 64-bit Matlab on the Matlab newsgroup? How did that turn out?" So I thought it was nice that usenet can bring relatives of relatives together.

Doesn't this post count as violating the sanctity of off-blog communication?

calvados is jet fuel. it is produced by distiklling bad decisions and unborn regrets. up in nothern spain, rounds aboiut asturias, they make sime mean cider, but that shite ain't carbonated. they pour it from up hihg, zand yiu get bubbles in yiuor glass.

my former housemates in dc are cooking moonshine even as i type, and liekly as poorly . they've blown two stills in soufeas already.

also, congrats to washerdreyer on no more lawyer school.

Wiki is never wrong: Some beverages, such as whiskey, Siwucha and traditional ales and ciders, are expected to have relatively high concentrations of fusel alcohols as part of the flavour profile.

Rum and brandy are especially high in congeners including fusel oil.

Applejack just doesn't have the advertising campaign of whiskey, brandy, and rum.

If it's on the internet it's true:

* Vodka has less congeners than gin.
* Most scotch whiskey has about four times more congeners than gin.
* Brandy, rum and single-malt scotch have about six times more than gin.
* Bourbon drinkers ingest eight times the amount of congeners as do gin drinkers, and 30 times as much as vodka.

w-lfs-n is entirely right about Normandy cider, though. There is a shop about 200m from me that sells the stuff, and very delicious it is too. Not even particularly alcoholic.

"Cider" is also a non-alcoholic drink in Sweden, which causes a lot of Swedes to end up a whole lot drunker than they had planned when they take a school trip to England.

Don't be fooled, Nworb. Swedes plan all their foreign travel around alcohol tax rates. For them, if you get drunk enough, a trip pays for itself. To a Swede, England is just another Estonia, a third-world country with cheap booze. (And who is to say that they're wrong?)

78: Thank God I didn't know about Usenet until college. If my teenage BBS posts were preserved for all time like some of the Usenet stuff, I'm sure I'd just want to die.

One problem with getting Google to delete from its Groups archive is all the quotes with the identifying info in that. Especially the jokers whose entire post consisted of quoting your entire post, whether or not that added "Har dee har!" at the bottom. It's not your words you can make go away, only your own posts containing them. Therefore I am never going to get a high security clearance. In fact I'm surprised they let me walk to buy milk, let alone fly in a plane.

Cogeners are good: they're what give booze flavor. I drink what I drink for the taste; if all I want's sedation I have a very small co-pay.

On the other hand, bitchphd is now FAMOUS. (See the link after "Some say..." at the end.)

Ha, now I see Ms. Bitch made Metafilter first. I can't wait till I see somebody bring up this AutoAdmit "controversy" on Usenet, I won't have to think up any so-called wit of my own!