Ginning it up

Quite a few summers ago, when visiting New York, the husband of my father's cousin offered to make a gin-and-lime-juice drink that he said will be refreshing.  I have never been tempted by anything alcoholic, and I politely turned it down.  Had he suggested a cold, chilly "ice coffee" that we used to have during the hot summers of my childhood, now that would have been refreshing.

Gin and the Subcontinent has an interesting medical history as well; recall this post from a while ago about how gin helped the colonizing bastards fight malaria with quinine?

Quinine powder quickly became critical to the health of the empire. By the 1840s British citizens and soldiers in India were using 700 tons of cinchona bark annually for their protective doses of quinine. Quinine powder kept the troops alive, allowed officials to survive in low-lying and wet regions of India, and ultimately permitted a stable (though surprisingly small) British population to prosper in Britain’s tropical colonies. Quinine was so bitter, though, that British officials stationed in India and other tropical posts took to mixing the powder with soda and sugar. “Tonic water,” of a sort, was born. ...
It was only natural that at some point during this time an enterprising colonial official combined his (or her) daily dose of protective quinine tonic with a shot (or two) of gin. Rather than knock back a bitter glass of tonic in the morning, why not enjoy it in the afternoon with a healthy gin ration? The gin and tonic was born—and the cool, crisp concoction could, as Churchill observed, start saving all those English lives.

Gin has, of course, become a huge part of the cocktail culture throughout the world, far above and beyond the gimlet or gin-and-tonic.  And that is the world that Anthony Lane--yes, that same awesome movie critic--writes about in The New Yorker.

I have no idea about the details of gin that Lane describes, but boy is his writing hysterical.  Like this one about the "botanicals" that are often touted in marketing the gin brands:

In most gins, the number of botanicals tends to stay in the single figures, or to hover just above. Not in Monkey 47, though, whose name is a statistical boast. Add three more (bubble gum, manure, and Marlboro Lights, say), and you’d have a nice round number. Personally, I can’t even think of forty-seven botanicals, and, unless the company is selling directly to neurasthenic beagles, I can’t conceive of any customer who will sniff out every aroma. Do some flavors not cancel one another out in the blending?

And, if that does not knock you out, Lane follows up with this:

Often, for reasons of practicality and pride, botanicals are selected with a nod to local produce. Take Calamity Gin, from Texas. Well-trained taste buds, given a slosh, will detect traces of juniper, lavender, bergamot, rose, and cardamom, plus zest of grapefruit, orange, and lime. But those are standard elements, found in varying ratios in innumerable gins. What makes this one special is its secret weapon, bluebonnets. And why? Because the bluebonnet is the state flower of Texas. As yet, nobody in New Hampshire has had the guts to brew a granite gin, with a delicate bouquet of damp stone, but these are early days.

"But these are early days" ;)

The botanicals that are unique to the Philippines are also the marketing angle that Matthew Westfall employs.

Who is Westfall, you ask?

A few days ago, when we were talking about the Philippines because of this talk that we attended, I wondered what ever became of a graduate school mate, Matthew Westfall, who had served in the Peace Corps.  In graduate school, he made a documentary project on Manila's slums--a documentary that was funded by Oliver Stone, among others.

I google his name. Voila!

Matthew founded and operates a gin distillery in the Philippines!  His artisanal gin has "unique range of Philippine botanicals like pomelo, dalandan, calamansi, dayap- the Benguet kind, and the mango."

ARC Botanical Gin and its sister spirits have already garnered international accolades, including two gold medals at the prestigious World Gin Awards in London, two gold medals at the SIP Awards in California, and two silvers at the World Spirits Awards in Austria, the first Philippine entrant in the event’s history.
These accolades come hot on the heels of Full Circle being recognized as “Philippine Distillery of the Year” at the Hong Kong International Spirits Competition in 2018 among other prestigious recognitions in Asia.

What a story!

What's so special about the Filipino botanicals that Matthew uses?

Our flagship ARC Botanical Gin draws on lots of fresh citrus: Davao pomelo, Sagada oranges, Baguio lemons, dalandan and calamansi, and nothing goes to waste—the peels go into the vapor basket and the pulp goes into the pot. We also use fresh Benguet pine buds, handpicked in Sagada, Mountain Province in northern Luzon, which adds a nice piney bit, and organic lemongrass, which is grown on a family farm in the province of Rizal. Lastly, we use fresh mangoes from our family farm in Dasol, Pangasinan, which by every report are the most delicious mangoes on the planet (pardon our bias).

It is a fascinating world that I get to learn about every single day, while always ginned up with coffee ;)

Matthew at his gin distillery
Source

Southern trees bear strange fruit

I like Jill Lepore's narration for many reasons, one of which she herself writes about:

My method is, generally, to let the dead speak for themselves.  I've pressed their words between these pages, like flowers, for their beauty, or like insects, for their hideousness. The work of the historian is not the work of the critic or of the moralist ... the teller of truth.

In this, Lepore provides the raw and emotion-laden sentences of slaveholders and abolitionists, of conservatives and progressives, of Lincoln and Davis, ... All these then provide me the evidence to be the critic and call fouls, which I have done in every post that is about Lepore's book.

A reminder again that we are testing out the question that Lepore laid out:

The American experiment rests on three political ideas--"these truths," Thomas Jefferson called them--political equality, natural rights, and the sovereignty of the people. ...
Does American history prove these truths, or does it belie them?

We know already how much America does not fare well regarding these truths within its ever expanding boundaries.  How about outside its political boundaries?

In the late 1880s, America had an opportunity to demonstrate its commitment to "these truths" when the Spanish-American war began in 1898.  "Cubans had been attempting to throw off Spanish rule since 1868, and Filipinos had been doing the same since 1896."

A glorious opportunity to help Cubans and Filipinos with their natural rights and help them regain their sovereignty, right?  "Under the terms of the peace, Cuba became independent."

Do not celebrate, yet, for there is more: "Spain ceded Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines to the United States, in exchange for $20 million."

Filipinos fought for their independence and were now stuck with the US as their ruler!

A U.S. occupation and American colonial rule were not what the people of Philippines had in mind when they threw off Spanish rule.  The Philippines declared its independence, and Filipino leader Emilio Aguinaldo formed a provisional constitutional government.

American revolutionaries declared their independence from a far away England, and a hundred years later, the Philippines was declaring its independence from a far away US.  A 100 years makes a huge difference about independence.  And, of course, Filipinos not being white folk also mattered!

Aguinaldo worried about "how bitter is slavery."  Yes, "slavery" was the word he used!

The war began.

From its start in 1899, the Philippine-American War was an unusually brutal war, with atrocities on both sides, including the slaughter of Filipino civilians.  U.S. forces deployed on Filipinos a method of torture known as "water cure," forcing a prisoner to drink a vast quantity of water; most of the victims died. ... Eight million people of color in the Pacific and the Caribbean, from the Philippines to Puerto Rico, were now part of the United States, a nation that already, in practice, denied the right to vote to millions of its own people because of the color of their skin.

trump now not caring about Puerto Rico is, therefore, not really new. He is merely practicing good old American politics of white supremacy; at least he tossed the people there a few rolls of paper towels!

Lepore writes that this war "dramatically worsened conditions for people of color in the United States."  The jingoistic war chants "filled with racist venom, only further incited American racial hatreds."

"If it is necessary, every Negro in the state will be lynched," the governor of Mississippi pledged in 1903.

It was now separate-but-equal--and with lynching!

At this stage, do we really need to check for the answer to this?

The American experiment rests on three political ideas--"these truths," Thomas Jefferson called them--political equality, natural rights, and the sovereignty of the people. ...
Does American history prove these truths, or does it belie them?

Get to know MILF. No, not that one!

Any time I read any decent publication--not that I read indecent ones--I am always amazed that students and other faculty have not figured out already that I don't know a damn thing. It is bizarre to be in the knowledge business and to realize on a everyday basis how we peddle the very, very, very little we know in order to make a living.  Yet, knowing whatever very, very, very little is all it takes to lead a "successful" life and it can be a struggle, sometimes, to know even that little bit? This is one tough world!

Wait, don't rush into a judgment that I am way too dumb not to have known about this meaning of MILF. I wasn't porn, er, born yesterday!

Funny story, speaking of MILF in that meaning.  About two years ago, when I blogged about this advice from a famous American personality on why young men should date older women, one student came to class and announced, before we got going, something like "Dr. Khé wants young men to go after MILF."  As one can imagine, it was one heck of a strangely humorous situation, especially when one student innocently asked what MILF meant.  But, hey, he had read my blog post!

Anyway, the ignorance was about this MILF, which I read about in the Economist.  The Moro Islamic Liberation Front in the Philippines:

The southern region of Mindanao is home to most of the predominantly Catholic country’s Muslim minority. The MILF is the most important in a range of armed groups that have been fighting for independence for the majority-Muslim areas. After 18 years of negotiations, often interrupted by heavy fighting, the government and the MILF concluded the last and most crucial part of a four-part peace agreement on January 25th.

Aha, MILF! The Economist adds:

Peace between the MILF and the government is one thing; peace in Mindanao is another.

From a cursory reading of Wikipedia, it appears that the group was in existence before the more familiar MILF got added into the colorful vocabulary.

So, I didn't know about this MILF. Or about the green thingy that I used in the flowers. I don't care. Because, I got a lovely email from an old friend--yes, female, of course!--in which she writes:

looks like you are a renaissance man.  Is there something you do not master?  I knew you were a smart guy but looks like you are too smart Dr. Khe!!!

As long as the ones who care for me think I know, what else matters, right?  Happy I am!

Unless she was being sarcastic and I am too dumb to know the difference between praise and sarcasm ;)