Finally, some Sazerac

For a while now, I've been wanting to get my hands on the Sazerac-label rye, a six-year-old item that seems to be a standard-bearer among ryes. Presumably it has something to do with the glorious Sazerac cocktail, made with rye, absinthe, and bitters. I was in the city today, so I dropped by Cask, the spirits store that's an offshoot of Bourbon & Branch, and picked up a bottle.

My usual rye is the Wild Turkey 101, which packs quite a bit more heat than the 90-proof Sazerac does. I'm sipping my way through a bit right now, and it's taken some sips to recalibrate my mouth's expectations. So far, I can say that the Sazerac is a complicated dram: beautiful aroma, astringency in the mouth that becomes tender sweetness, and a pleasant lingering burn down the throat. (Very tsundere.)

I was in the city to see the dentist, got a filling replaced and whatnot, so my cheek was numb for quite a few hours. I walked up to City Lights Books, read through a few things. First time I've been there, but it felt just like other quirky bookstores in the Bay Area. I read a bit of Kenzaburo Oe's A Personal Matter, which I'll have to find some time to read in its entirety. Then I looked through James Gleick's Faster, which had a riveting opening but seemed to run out of steam. Then Ross Duffin's polemic about equal temperament caught my eye, and I flipped through his arguments about how ET is not always the best, and how various other tuning systems have gone in and out of favor through history. I ended up taking home James Gleick's Chaos, and the All Over Coffee book, which I've been meaning to obtain ever since it came out.

If you're ever in the SF Financial District for lunch, you should go to Muracci's, which makes the best tonkatsu I've ever tasted. I had it for lunch today, and just thinking about it makes me salivate for more.