Walt's Corner

As is our tradition, we spent a week of Christmas at our favorite location – Big Bend Ranch State Park. The interior main road was worse than usual due to the summer storms of 2025, but we made it to our spot, roughly 12 miles from turning off FM170 just outside Presidio, in an hour and 45 minutes. Those were a slow, grueling 12 miles.

Whenever we are in the interior of the park we have to visit our favorite trail there, Ojito Adentro Trail. It starts as your typical rocky desert trail but then takes you down into a riparian canyon that ends in a fantastic world of vibrant green where there is a spring and waterdrip. Definitely not a waterfall. The part of the trail that transitions from the desert to the lucious greenscape was also hit hard by them storms with large trees uprooted and strewn across the trail.

Our water pump went out on our first night. Fortunately, I had a spare and was an easy swap. Last time it went out was also on a Big Bend Ranch State Park annual trip, 2018 or 19. Once we returned I ordered an other one to have on hand. Just like last time, there were no signs it was about to go out. It just quit while I was brushing my teeth for the night.

This year’s commemorative Zippo I had made from our vacation turned out really well. A picture from one of our quiet evenings next to a campfire, showcasing the Van Winkle Lot B bottle I got from Mary, windmill in the background, and classic kerosene lantern. Every evening was spent just like that.

This was our 250th place (Presidio on December 20) and 251st place at Rancho Viejo in this 2015.5 Lance 1995. No generators allowed, but our 200 LiFe battery and 4 roof-mounted panels keep us up to power. Even enough to run our inverter for the crock pot roast Christmas dinner. Until next year, Big Bend Ranch. Gonna miss you.

I had intended for this to be part of a previous post, New Year New Whiskey, but that was getting a little long in the tooth for a simple article so I branched it off into a this one.

Much like my food, whiskey will fall into one of 3 categories.

Category 1 – I Love This Shit! I’m definitely buying it again! In fact, I may only buy this for the rest of my life.

Category 2 – It didn’t make me gag. It was good. Palatable. But you know what? I’d rather spend equal to less money on that bottle of Weller’s Special Reserve, or that bottle of Evan William’s BiB. I will not be rushing out to buy another bottle but I’m glad I tried it. This is where most bottles that I buy these days fall into. Good stuff, I don’t regret buying it, but I’d enjoy something else just as much or more. I’ve bought enough bottles of these over the last 10 years to stop buying every new brand on the market.

Category 3 – That made me gag. I regret my purchase. Ain’t no way I’m buying that bottle again. Ever. Those bottles end up going to someone else who can appreciate it the way it was meant to be. In all seriousness, I have never gagged on a whiskey. I’m just being a drama queen. But you get the point. Meh. It tasted of whiskey, just not like any whiskey I appreciate.

A Perfect Example

As I’m finishing up this post, I’m sipping on a pour of Jack Daniel’s Single Barrel, Heritage Barrel (100 proof). I’m somewhat of a Jack Daniel’s whore. Love Old No. 7 for when I want that classic Jack flavor without the high octane. Love me some Jack Bonded and my favorite is the Single Barrel, Barrel Proof. I had my first opportunity to buy the Single Barrel, Heritage Barrel today and I did. 100 Proof. Aged 7 years (min) in a special location. Extra toasted barrel. $69.

Category 2. Good stuff. But if I had to choose again and some of my Barrel Proof is sitting there next to it for $55? Or some Bonded for $37? It’s gonna be Barrel Proof or Bonded all night long.

Her first full-length novel, Karma, by Bridgett Nelson (winner of two Splatterpunk Awards!), is a fast-paced story of good old-fashioned, Old Testament, (brown)eye-for-an-eye revenge. If you don’t catch my drift there, you certainly will by the time you finish. A sequel to a shorter story by her, Jynx, you can read it on its own merit without missing a beat. But being the classy author she is, Jynx is included after the story in case you haven’t read it yet.

Bridgett tells her tale of unbridled revenge giving us plenty of characters to love and hate. I would not say there is a twist at the end, but there is an eye opener for sure that will provide extra closure for some of the means that Kali, our protagonist, used in exacting her comeuppance. Plenty of gore to absorb, so read this on an empty stomach!

Forwarded by none other than Jeff Strand, when asked if he read the novel as Bridgett wrote it, and if so did he fear for his life, Jeff replied, “Yes, I read Karma chapter by chapter as she wrote it. I never truly felt I was in danger, but I did improve my behavior, just in case.” Good call, Jeff.

The Moneyquote: “Should we offer her Chianti and fava beans?”

Karma can be had in the usual places. Kindle, paperback, hardcover, and of course you can order them directly from her website signed however you like. I hear the luxury edition hardcovers from her website have almost all been spoken for.

I’ve heard of this despicable trend starting – Dry January. Fuck. That. I’ve also heard of Bender ‘til December. That’s more in line with my way of thinking.

I really appreciate the opportunity to try a sampling of fine whiskey without the attached price tags. That’s why I recently participated in a top tier whiskey sampling opportunity. I’ll leave the fine art of swirling, exposing it to oxygen, adding water, and trying it with ice cubes/rocks etc for those who are just getting into this or who are seasoned aficionados and continue to enjoy participating in these various ways of sampling whiskey. That’s the purpose of this – enjoy the whiskey in whatever manner you desire.

Me? Not so fun anymore. I quit doing that about 10 years ago. Already know what I like and how I like it. Trying to manipulate the drink to find its many aromas and flavors is not my goal anymore. I just want to relax, enjoy the sip, include a fine cigar, and enjoy some tunes from my jukebox for an hour and a half every night. Once I’ve sampled all 13 bottles, I’ll post what they all were and where they fall in my rating scheme.

To that end, I provide some additional advice to those still experimenting.

Some Advice to Add

1. Buy an aerator. Run your pour through it, which will expose greater amounts of your whiskey to oxygen at a much faster rate. Either replace your 5-10 minute wait with that or combine it. Try both ways. I won’t tell you what kind to get. You can google that shit yourself and buy one from Amazon.
2. Adding water is great. To up that a level, try to get yourself some branch water. That is, water from the same source that the distillery in question uses to produce their whiskey.
3. Make ice cubes from branch water.

Lessons Learned

Taste is a preferential sense. Subjective to the individual. Therefore, anything I have learned does not apply to you. You must go out there and discover your own tastes and preferences. That’s the really fun part! These are the lessons that I have learned.

I like my whiskey neat. No added water. No ice cubes. Room temperature. Definitely not in an old-fashioned.

I’ve learned that spending $80 on a bottle of Blanton’s is going to taste pretty much the same to me as buying a $24-50 bottle of any Weller’s. So why waste my money. I’m enjoying that pour of Weller’s just as much as I enjoyed the Blanton’s but I saved myself $60 to spend on – yep! You guessed it. Another bottle of Weller’s. I’ll never buy another bottle of Blanton’s again but I’m glad I tried it. Same goes for COL Taylor. Eagle Rare, on the other hand provides me with a different expression from the same origin, that I can appreciate enough to pick up a bottle when I see it. Same goes for Van Winkle.

I’ve learned that I prefer the higher proof version when offered. That’s why Jack Daniel’s Single Barrel, Barrel Proof is my go-to Friday whiskey night sip-n-smoke. The octane usually clocks in between 128-134 proof at my base Class Six. This is also why I generally like all Bottled-In-Bonds. Guaranteed to be 100 proof.

What I’ve Settled On

For me, the following will cover all flavors that I enjoy and are usually in Casa Basil Cigar & Whiskey Lounge’s inventory, from least to most favorite:

1. Maker’s Mark
2. Buffalo Trace
3. Wild Turkey 101
4. Evan Williams BiB
5. Jack Daniel’s Bonded (BiB)
6. Weller’s Special Reserve
7. Weller’s 12 Year or Antique
8. Jack Daniel’s Single Barrel, Barrel Proof

Additional Notes About Me

My usual pour size is 4 oz.

I buy a bottle to drink, not collect. I’ll never buy a bottle to flip and make money.

You won’t find a bottle in my bar that is over a year old. If I don’t care for it too much, I’ll give it away. If I like it, I drink it. I will not die with a full bottle of Pappy in my bar. I didn’t spend that money to watch it collect dust.

Happy New Year and happy sipping!

This was a secret feature, at least for me. I figured it out on my own because it practically reach out and slapped me in the face.

For those who don’t know, an iPad can magnetically attach to an Apple Magic Keyboard and you get the full “laptop” experience of keyboard and trackpad. At least I can. My computing power requirements are quite low. The most computer intensive thing I do these days is this blog. Matter of fact I haven’t owned or used a real personal computer or laptop in over 10 years. Feels kind of liberating.

Which brings me to the subject of today’s post. The mouse – or trackpad pointer, whatever you want to call it – can be easy to lose for my aging eyesight. Where is that thing? So you know what you do – you shake the finger back and forth real quick-like so your eyes might pick up that movement and reveal the secret location of your pointer.

There I was moving my finger back and forth over the trackpad, when lo and behold IT GREW! Faster than a 20 year old’s penis on boner pills. In the picture above, I took a screenshot of the large pointer and held my current regular pointer just underneath for size comparison.

Well done, Apple.