Category: Lifestyle (Page 214 of 274)

Product Review: Rockport Ledge Hill Wingtip Shoe

rockport

If you or someone you know is shopping for shoes that can look great in both business casual and straight-up casual looks, check out the new Ledge Hill Wingtips from Rockport. We recently tested these fresh offerings from Rockport and the comfort level is really high. The Rockport Ledge Hill Wingtip men’s dress shoe takes the classic, dressy wingtip and makes it work for everyday casual occasions, with handsomely good looks and a wide array of colors and materials. The Ledge Hill Collection is the perfect embodiment of casual attitude that looks as good dressed up as it does dressed down. Full-grain leather is soft and supple with beautiful details that punctuate this lightweight shoe, which combines coziness with chic style.

You might know from checking out these shoes, but top of the line technology is involved here with:

· ADIPRENE that provides shock absorbing heel cushioning
· Full-grain leather that is easy to clean and maintain to extend product life, as well as suede leather which provides a casual look and great comfort
· EVA cushioning that conforms to the shape of the foot for a personalized fit

The bottom line is that the Rockport Ledge Hill wingtip has classic looks with modern technology that your feet will thank you for wearing every time!

Grooms using Pinterest as well

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Free image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Wedding season is around the corner, and this of course makes many women happy. They love weddings, and they get excited for just about all of them. Guys approach it much differently of course. We’re not so interested in dresses and decorations. Instead, we’re thinking about the reception, how it better have an open bar and whether the bridesmaids are hot.

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Drink of the Week: The Vieux Carre

The Vieux Carre.Like most Americans, I’m not exactly a polyglot. Four years of junior high and high school Spanish have been of great assistance in helping me to order  items at taco trucks; three quarters of college French allow me to chuckle knowingly to myself when “merde!” is translated as “damn!” in subtitles. So, I can’t properly pronounce the name of the Vieux Carre, but I can tell you it means “old square.” That square, as it turns out, is off of Bourbon Street in New Orleans, and this is another fine cocktail associated with America’s most intriguing cocktail capital.

Quite obviously, however, this is not in the same category as a Hurricane and it’s not the one of the scary, gigantic green drinks featured on this year’s season premiere of “Bar Rescue.” While, for me, the Vieux Carre doesn’t quite achieve the classic cocktail nirvana of a Sazerac, this is one beverage that actually gets tastier the longer you let it sit. It’s perfect for a long conversation and, by the end of it, even ever-so-justifiably-furious bar rescuer John Taffer might get mellow enough to maybe stop shouting for just a second.

The Vieux Carre

3/4 ounce rye whiskey
3/4 ounce cognac or brandy
3/4 ounce sweet vermouth
1 teaspoon Benedictine
2 dashes Peychaud’s Bitters
2 dashes aromatic  bitters (Angostura or similar)
1 lemon twist (garnish)

Making this drink is about as easy to make as it is to get a buzz going in the French Quarter. Build over some ice cubes in a rock glass, stir, and add the lemon twist. Toast whatever or whomever you like, but do so slowly.

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I’m very sorry to say that this week’s post completes my trilogy of drinks of cocktails featuring Camus’s Ile de Ré Fine Island Cognac. Sadly, that’s the case because I polished off the bottle last night. No disrespect to my value-priced go-to brandy, Reynal, but there’s a reason the Camus people get to charge the big bucks for this stuff. It’s great in a cocktail and remarkably easy and pleasurable to drink neat. Good thing I still have a few airplane bottles of various Ile de Ré expressions in my alcohol laden larder.

My rye for this double-base spirit cocktail was another new freebie favorite we’ve featured here before, the lovely Templeton Rye, previously featured in the Capone.  I usually lean towards higher proof ryes like my old pal, 100 proof Rittenhouse, but that might have been a bit much in this context; Templeton’s more mellow flavor makes it a pretty perfect match for a Vieux Carre.

I experimented quite a bit with the other ingredients. Many recipes call for more booze and somewhat less of the Benedictine — a very sweet herbal liqueur which famously mixes well with brandy. I also tried three different sweet vermouths, all favorites. The lightest was Noilly Pratt, which was very nice, but an even better result was achieved with the greatness that is Carpano Antica. (Yet another freebie previously featured here).

I also tried it with another great product I’ll be featuring later, Punt e Mes. In that instance, it sort of dominated the cocktail but, since I love, love, love me some Punt e Mes, I didn’t really mind.

One final note, apparently to really do the Vieux Carre right, some people suggest you should make it with just one very large ice cube. Sounds cool, but I guess I need to find an ice cube tray that make 3″x 3″ ice cubes.

 

‘Spirit of the King’ debuts in Palm Springs

‘Spirit of the King

The growth of Palm Springs as a gambling destination has been very impressive, and now we’re starting to see premium shows there as well that remind us of the glory days of Las Vegas. Veteran Las Vegas performer Steve Connolly will reprise his award-winning role as the legendary Elvis Presley in the stage production of “Spirit of the King” in the Cascade Lounge of the Spa Resort Casino. The show kicked off on Wednesday and a red carpet premiere is scheduled for next week on the 27th and Bullz-Eye.com’s Paul Miller will be on location to cover the festivities. Paul took the photos above of the Marilyn Monroe impersonator who joins Connolly on stage for the show.

Veteran producer Dennis Levinson is bringing the show to Palm Springs, and he brings years of experience working with a wide variety of performers, including Johnny Cash, James Brown, Smokey Robinson, Mickey Gilley, Jose Feliciano, Sam Kinison, Starship, Air Supply, B.J. Thomas, The Mamas & The Papas, Marshal Tucker, Gallagher, Wayne Newton, Eddie Fisher, and Rita Rudner.

“Connolly takes his considerable skills as a recording artist, composer, writer, TV personality, musician, singer, humorist, and fine artist, to craft a totally unique show,” explains Dennis Levinson, producer of Spirit of the King. “The new show will focus on the glory days of 1960 when Elvis lived in Palm Springs. Connolly has always wanted to create a special show for Palm Springs, and this is the central theme of ‘Spirit of the King.’”

Dubbed “The hardest working KING in show biz,” Steve Connolly has performed as Elvis Presley more than 4,000 times in his career. He remains the only entertainer depicting Elvis to be chosen by the Las Vegas Review Journal’s staff as “Best Elvis in Las Vegas” in 2006 and 2007. Connolly also devotes a small portion of his 75-minute performance to creating a speed-painted ‘portrait of the King’ which is then sold to the highest bidder at the end of the show. Check out the video below for a preview.

Located just over an hour from Los Angeles, Palm Springs has been a popular destination spot for decades. But with the growth of the casinos and now regular entertainment like this show, it’s becoming a real alternative for many who don’t want the much longer drive to Vegas.

Show times for “Spirit of the King” are Saturday-Wednesday nightly at 6:30 p.m. with Sunday matinees at 2 p.m. Tickets for this unforgettable performance start at $35 and are available at the show website or by calling 800-585-3737.

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Drink of the Week: The Egg Sour

Image ALT text goes here.A coworker of mine pointed out to me recently that  a good chunk of my post on eggnog from Christmas of 2011 consisted of warnings, provisos, and disclaimers about the use of raw egg. Well, I included no such warning on my post on the amazing Pisco Sour a couple of weeks back, although that used only a pretty small amount of egg white. Today, I’m throwing all caution to the proverbial wind with a drink featuring an entire egg — yolk and all. The fact that I had about 9 bird ova in the fridge threatening to go to waste earlier this week is entirely coincidental.

The Egg Sour appears to have originated in print via Jerry Thomas’s classic bartending guide from 1887 — back in the days when refrigeration was rare and penicillin was nonexistent but people knew a tasty and seriously refreshing libation when they tasted one. This drink would also fall easily into the category of a breakfast drink. While I don’t usually go in for that sort of thing, this is certainly a first-rate, and more potent, mimosa alternative.

The Egg Sour

1 ounce cognac or brandy
1 ounce orange curaçao
1/2 ounce fresh squeezed lemon juice
1 teaspoon superfine sugar
1 large egg

Combine your cognac, curaçao, lemon juice, whole egg, and sugar, in a cocktail shaker. It’s not entirely necessary but, if you like, you can beat the egg into the rest of the ingredients to aid in the blending process. (It might be more important to observe this step if you’re attempting two Egg Sours at a time.) Next, shake all of your ingredients vigorously without ice in order to ensure a good mix. When you take off the top of your shaker, you should see a nice orangey-white froth. Add ice, shake again very vigorously, and strain into a well-chilled rocks glass. Toast the chicken, or the egg, whichever you think comes first.

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Very observant readers may notice that a couple of ingredients are similar to last week’s drink, the East India House Cocktail, and that’s no coincidence. I took advantage of my newish bottle of curaçao and the lovely, and very free, fifth of Camus Ile de Ré Fine Island Cognac for this drink and it’s a lovely combination. I’m sure other brands of cognac or brandy, such as my value-priced fall back brandy, Reynal, will work extremely nicely here as well, though they may lack a certain touch of class.

As I said above, this is one seriously refreshing but, thanks to the lemon, not quite super-sweet drink. I tried doubling the sugar up to two teaspoons for people with stronger sweettooths, but the result actually tasted less sweet and pleasing to the tongue and had similar results with an entire teaspoon of simple syrup. Interesting.

This is the point in the blog when I usually comment on some cultural or personal aspect of a given beverage, but today’s drink is just tasty in a way that’s totally out of context with much of anything else. Maybe I should have spent more time defending my use of a raw egg.

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