Category: Super Sweet Shirts

Some trip highlights: Hanger One Vodka Tasting

    For my sister’s birthday my parents took us all to the Hanger One Distillery to taste booze.  Located in an old military base building, in the middle of nowhere, and with an incredible view of the city from the parking lot, this place was truly awesome.  When we entered the building there was this old safe on display that had to have been more than 50 years old.  Inside the door of the safe, in big, old style letters: “Buffalo, NY”.  It was really cool to see and made me miss home.  Now let’s talk about some booze.

The tasting involved the sampling of 9 products:

Aqua Perfecta Pear Eau De Vie:  “Deep buttery pear, hints of spice, 15lbs of Bartlett pears in every bottle.”
Hanger One Straight:  “A blend of wheat and viognier vodka.  Smooth with a touch of sweetness.”
Hanger One Buddha’s Hand:  “Infused with exotic Asian citrus for a vibrant lemon flavor.”
Hanger One Mandarin Blossom:  “Intense floral aromas & delicate flavors make this a lovely mixer.”
Hanger One Kaffir Lime:  “Solid herbal flavors from Kaffir lime leaves pair nicely with tonic.”
St. George Single Malt Whiskey:  “It’s not Scotch!  An ethereal whiskey with hints of cocoa and hazelnut.”
Aqua Perfecta Framboise Liqueur:  “100% Raspberry.  Not too sweet, perfect on pancakes.”
Aqua Perfecta Pear Liqueur:  “Big pear flavor, subtle honeyed richness.  Wonderfully fresh with a lingering deep finish.
St. George Absinthe Verte:  “Deep, rich anise and botanicals make this the perfect way to finish the day.”
    I was never a real Vodka drinker and never knew how to place one Vodka over another in terms of their quality, but after this tasting I have a pretty good sense of what is decent.  Apparently the less alcohol you taste, the better the vodka is.  With that being noted, this was some really good Vodka.  The Pear Vodka was refreshing and smooth with really great flavor.  The others on the list were all decent in terms of quality, most would be better as a main component of other mixed drinks.  In addition to this list was a hot pepper vodka that I was not crazy about, although in a Bloody Mary it would be tasty I’m sure.  My favorite samplings were the Whiskey and the Absinthe.  I am a regular drinker of both and I considered these two hanger one products to be really impressive.  Nicole on the other hand was not a fan of either, particularly the whiskey.
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    One thing I learned about Absinthe while on this tour was the correct procedure for drinking it straight.  I’ve often seen the classic procedure of the sugar cube in the fancy spoon while the water drips down on it from above, mixing it into the Absinthe.  Apparently its all complete nonsense and if you find yourself mixing Absinthe with sugar, its not good absinthe.  The proper way to drink it is to simply put ice in it until the Absinthe gets completely cloudy and there is no oil at the very top.  It usually takes a few minutes but when it is done, it is fantastic.  
The ice was just placed into this glass and you can see the whole process working its way up.
    The male host we had on the tasting was a bit hard to handle sometimes and a bit pretentious.  He had made the statement, “We are tasting the products, not doing shots.  We are very serious about this and if I catch you shooting it, your next round will be skipped.”.   The problem was that some of the pours were so skimpy that often you were trying to get the last drop which ended up appearing like you were shooting it!  So after a friendly confrontation with the host and my stepfather, the pours were jokingly more generous in fact we received extra pours of products that weren’t even on the list.  The male host gradually became pretty cool and very informative in terms of teaching us about certain samples.  Eventually we all got mildly sauced and I lost count.  The girl host was fantastic and a lot of fun.
    Overall, the trip to Hanger One was a blast and I highly recommend stopping down for a tasting.  Reservations are required so call ahead.
2601 Monarch St
(between Midway Ave & Tower Ave)
Alameda, CA 94501
(510) 769-1601 

 
(Right to Left) Nicole, Jody (my mom), me, Henry (my stepfather), Elena (my sister), Sid
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A Garden Vision

    One thing that I noticed in San Francisco was that many of the apartments had unique, lavish gardens in the back.  It was really incredible to see.  Due to the fact that the buildings are on different ground levels, it’s easy to climb a few steps and get a look at many of them at once from above.  The apartment that we stayed at had just the garden we were visioning for our own back yard. 

Not the furniture, but we love all of the green with the red brick. I bet it looks even better when the flowers bloom.

    Our back yard is really small, and we basically wanted to turn it into a back patio area like this.  The patio at the apartment we stayed in was just as small as our backyard so it will be perfect.  The red bricks looked fantastic after probably years of weathering.

Too bad we couldn’t just get our bricks “aged”.

   The plans for the patio won’t be in place until next season but it will give us plenty of time to brainstorm.  Right now the backyard looks like a jungle, all overgrown.  It’s nerve-racking because we don’t close on the house until June 3.  How ridiculous will the lawn look by then? Hopefully it gets somehow maintained.

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Back from San Fran! Beer Review: Pliny The Elder

   Nicole and I have finally returned home from our vacation with my family over to San Francisco to visit my sister.  The trip was full of laughs, good food, and amazing beers.  I didn’t get to blog as much as I wanted because the 3G coverage was terrible in the city and the wireless internet in the apartment that we stayed at was not working at all.  San Francisco was a beautiful city full of incredible scenery (minus the hippies and the homeless) but I am glad we are finally home. It was definitely a city that is great to visit but I could never live there.  Lets get to the review that I have been eager to do!
   Pliny The Elder is regarded by many as being one of the 10 best beers in the world.  My stepfather hyped this beer to me for months leading up to our trip to the point that I started to worry a bit.  Would I still be able to give this a fair review with all of this hype or would I be hit with that mild disappointment that often accompanies heavily hyped things?  It’s sort of like years ago when the “Blair Witch Project” came out.  I was fortunate enough to see this movie without knowing anything about it.  It was the first of its kind to do what it did so it was hard not to praise it however I know many that thought it was stupid and lame, all of which went to see it after hearing the hype.  When we arrived at our apartment in San Francisco, my sister had 2 chilled bottles waiting for us, and the beer was even more impressive than I ever thought.  This was the perfect double I.P.A., no question about it.  The beer pours a hazy golden color with not much head.  I found it to have more carbonation that some of the other double I.P.A.’s I’ve had.  Pliny gives off an incredible aroma of pine with barely a hint of fruit.  It was a little too cold for our first few tastes so the hop explosion was very intense, but as the beer dropped in temperature you could taste every element to this beer perfectly.  An initial hop explosion that leaves a citrus, grapefruit, taste lingering behind with absolutely no undesirable aftertaste.  The only thing that I can find wrong with this beer is that it is incredibly difficult to find.  Places were sold out of it or had limited quantities.  My stepfather was able to come across two stores that had a few bottles left and in each store he took the remaining beers.  If you are ever on the west coast, this beer is a must!


Rating: 10/10
ABV:  8.0

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On my way…

I’m writing this from the airport in Philly.  The initial plain ride from Rochester to Philly was pretty bad and made Nicole and my mother a little sick but once we got off the plane we all started feeling better and grabbed some food.  I was able to wash my burger down with a Dogfish 60 minute which quickly got me back into working order. San Francisco here we come.

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Happy Friday Beer Review: Victory Baltic Thunder Porter

    I leave for California tomorrow for a week so blogging may be sporadic but I fully intend to document my trip and the beers I have while I am there regularly with the blogger mobile app.  I am looking forward to it but I’m also looking forward to getting back to shirt business and reopening my shops.
    Last night I sat down after a long day in the office with the Victory Baltic Thunder Porter.  I decided to take a break from reviewing I.P.A.’s and to try something that I don’t normally drink.  Victory has come a long way with their beers.  I remember attending a Victory tap takeover maybe 5 years ago in Rochester, NY and not being very impressed.  A little less than a year ago I had attended another Victory tap takeover and the beer was very good, particularly the Hop Devil.

    
    When I opened the bottle there was a definite, delicious, smokey aroma. When pouring into a glass, it’s color was a deep, dark, brown with a nice darker thick head that quickly dwindled to nothing after a few minutes.  I tasted hints of fruits, but was mostly a roasted malty flavor.  The alcohol percentage of this beer is 8.5% which was surprising because it didn’t at all have a taste that would have indicated this. It was a very smooth and filling beer.  Overall, while this wouldn’t be something I would seek out, it was a beer that I did enjoy but would not be at the top of my list of Porters.

Rating:  7.5/10
ABV: 8.5%
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Super Sweet Shirt Co, News

  At 5pm we will be closing the etsy and ebay stores for 7 days because I am going out of town starting Friday.  We will reopen those two shops on Wednesday, May 11.  The website itself will have an alert on the main page and I will be answering emails while I am away so any questions will be answered as always.  Thanks!

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Wednesday Beer Review: Elysian The Immortal IPA


   Last night’s beverage of choice was the Elysian “The Immortal” I.P.A. from the Elysian Brewing Company out of Seattle, Washington.   I picked this up with a few other bottles at the Village Beer Merchant here in Buffalo.  I’ve decided that I’m going to review up to four beers a week.  Next week I’m off to San Fransisco where I will be taking note of plenty incredible beers that I will be encountering on the west coast.
   I had passed by this beer numerous times at the beer store and it had always caught my eye.  After reading some mediocre reviews that delayed previous impulse purchase attempts, today I caved in and decided to give it a try.  The beer poured a nice hazy, golden amber and had a really impressive thick, clingy, eggshell colored head on it that remained constant for most of the beer.

  This wasn’t as hoppy as I normally prefer my I.P.A.’s but it was rich in honey citrus flavors without being too sweet.  What impressed me the most was the incredible balance of flavor.  It wasn’t  too sweet but it had just the perfect blend of pine, grapefruit, and sweet fruits.

Rating: 8/10

22 oz Bottle
ABV: 6.3%
IBU:  54

Availability: Year Round  1/2Bbl Kegs and 22oz bottles.

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Enjoying the Weekend.

    The weekend has been nice so far.  We got our closing date on the house which will be June 3rd.  So basically we will sign the papers, get the keys, and we will run right over and start doing things.  I can’t wait to clean that back yard out, I’m totally ready.  Friday night we went to our friends house to play some board games.  One game in particular was probably the best/worst game I have ever seen.  The game was called “Heartthrob” and was totally ridiculous.  Three cards are drawn with three dudes, all insanely attractive.  They are presented on the table so that everyone can see how hot they are.

Pictured here are Peter, Dex, and Chip.  We knew it was going to be tough with how hot these dudes were.

Each of us is handed a paper where we write down which dude we think is the hottest.  Then we write down which dudes we think the other players think are the hottest.  The object is to guess who everyone is going to choose and for each one that you guess correctly you get one point.

The picture is a bit blurry but clearly you can see that Dex is by far the most awesome.  I mean come on, he has a duster.

In the second round we are to lay out some of the personality traits which are random cards placed onto the board with really amazing facts about each dude.

Again, after this round of personality traits, Dex was by far the coolest.  Lets think for a second.  A duster, nicknamed “Tiger”, really wants to dogsled across the Arctic, signed up for cooking classes to meet women, and dyes his hair a new color every month?  Is there really any doubt who the best is. Clearly its Dex.

We only played one round of this game for the simple fact that all of us except one chose Dex and at the end of the game all of us had the same amount of points so there was no winner.  A terrible game, but it was good for a laugh.  Why didn’t we at least give it a second chance?  Well if Trevor was one of the dudes in the next round, I’m pretty sure it would have been the same result.

Trevor.
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Slow week…

    Business has been good here at supersweetshirts.com but I have been slowing any new designs, etc until after my trip from California.  The Dirty Harry shirt is defiantly next on my list and have already started working on the image.  In the mean time, here are some trailers for some things that I want to see coming out!

   Its been a while since we have seen Zach Braff in anything.  He looks pretty rough in this but the film looks pretty good.  
This movie looks decent also.  “Hanna” is a 14 year old trained killer raised by her father and is sent on a mission across Europe while being tracked by a ruthless intelligence agent.
    And now for a terrible movie that I will need to see:
This movie looks so bad that I have to see it.  The groundbreaking premise of this film is that this kid is bullied in school.  Stone Cold Steve Austin plays a Janitor that saves the kid from being picked on one day.  He notices that the kid is carrying a boxing magazine and from there they pretty much seem to recreate “The Karate Kid”.  Amazing.
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Bolo

    Last night I had a vision.  Anyone who knows action films will know who this man is.  When the idea came to me I rushed online to see if it had been done before.  I could not find a single shirt.  Nobody had paid tribute to one of the greatest martial arts villains of all time, Bolo Yeung.

   I rushed to my computer when I got home and started to design the shirt I wanted.  This wasn’t going to be something I was going to draw free hand, I basically took a closeup of his face and pulled out the color.  I placed the symbol for warrior up in the corner and then simply placed Bolo at the bottom.  I wanted to keep it simple.  I smoothed out the picture by hand with some black ink, scanned it and then prepared it for my transparency.  I can’t wait to print this shirt, I love the design.

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