Metaphor doesn't seem like the right word

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Meantime, people are calling Sarah Palin’s six-year rise from part-time mayor to V.P. nominee improbable, but people who say that have a poor understanding of probability. Sarah Palin’s election as governor was improbable: getting hit by lightning. The fact that she might be vice president is more like getting hit by an asteroid and yet surviving because the asteroid has a hole in it shaped exactly like Sarah Palin.

Welcome to the Palindrome by Kevin Guilfoile & John Warner - The Morning News.

At least I didn't cut my ear off.

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I had a bad experience with absinthe once. I was with a bunch of friends and we went to a flatparty somewhere in Manchester. We were greeted at the door by the lovely girl who lived there who offered us a tray of green shots. Apple Sourz? Don't mind if I do... I remember literally nothing else of the night.

In other news, US bartenders vs. the rest of the world in Simon Difford's Cabinet Room, battling for inclusion in La Fée's definitive guide to absinthe cocktails? Might be time to reacquaint myself with some green fairytales.

Absinthe Cocktail Grand Prix.

On vermouth

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So Wednesday is my training day at work - we alternate sessions between spirits and liqueurs, and wine. It was my last seminar on spirits with one of my groups and we were doing cocktail history. I was talking about the development of the cocktail through the ages while making drinks typical of each period for the guys to try. First up, I decided to make a Martinez as an example of a pre-Prohibition cocktail. So, I start with my spiel about how drinks were different back then: for one, vermouth was way more popular than it is now.

"Vermouth?" asks one of the group. "Yup," I say, and before I can continue, she makes a face like I'd answered by saying "Yeah, so your dog? It died."

This, of course, sparks five minutes of everybody saying they don't like vermouth, only old people drink it, so on. And then I remember a conversation with my restaurant manager a couple of days ago, when he'd said that when you first start making cocktails, everything gets berries in it. Strawberries, raspberries, whatever. No recipe is complete without a berry component. And then I'd said "it's like there's an 18 month trial before you're allowed to use vermouth."

What is it about vermouth that the kids don't like? I suspect that it takes a while to get your head around the more complex flavour as an ingredient in your own recipes. But, fortunately, they liked the Martinez. Which is a start.