General Archive

Friday, June 27, 2014

Whiskey Blind Taste Test

I like whiskey. I don't drink it nearly as often as beer or wine, but I enjoy it when I do. And I've been slowly accumulating a small collection of different types of whiskey - 9 bottles as of right now*. These range from Evan Williams Kentucky Bourbon at the low end, to 15 year old The Macallan Single Highland Malt Scotch Whisky at the top end (price-wise, not necessarily taste-wise, as you're about to read - and yes, it's The Macallan).

My Current Whiskey Collection

With my daughter and I being the nerds we are, we decided to do a blind taste test to see how they all compared. Just how good were the more expensive whiskeys? Were they worth the price and reputation? Granted, these are different varieties of whiskey, so it's not really a straight comparison, but it's still interesting (plus a good excuse to sip on some whiskey).

We weren't super scientific in our methodology, but we tried to be fair. My daughter put a little bit of each whiskey into a shot glass while I was in the other room, writing down which whiskey was in each glass, and then I came back in and tasted them all and ranked them. It was only a little per glass and only taking sips, or else by the end of 9 full shots in a few minutes, I wouldn't have cared about rankings. We repeated the same routine a few nights later for comparison.

It's pretty obvious that all the different whiskeys have their own unique flavors, but it's hard to actually rank them in order of preference (maybe I just have an underdeveloped whiskey palate). There were basically three standouts that were my favorites, one that was a standout in the other direction that I didn't particularly like, and then the rest that were all good but that I had a hard time favoring any over the others.

My top three were Ledaig, Oban, and Evan Williams, in that order. The one I didn't like much at all was Jim Beam. And then in the middle were all the others. And even though my preferences weren't huge, I did my best to rank them in order - 12 year old Glenlivet, The Macallan, Black Velvet, Jack Daniel's Old No. 7, and Jim Beam Devil's Cut. Keep in mind that The Macallan was the most expensive bottle I had, and it ended up in that middle group. And the funny thing is, up till that point I'd been touting The Macallan as so much smoother than the normal whiskeys, and the Evan Williams as rubbing alcohol. It's amazing how much of an influence labels and expectations can have on our perceptions. Though somewhat in my defense, I'd said all along that the Oban and Ledaig were my favorites, so my non-blind perceptions weren't completely off base. But Ledaig and Oban both also have very distinct peaty flavors, so I wonder if they'd still be my favorites if I found cheaper peaty whiskeys.

...

Originally, this entry was going to stop with the above paragraph, but like I said, I'm a nerd. I couldn't just leave it at that, so I decided to plot up these results and see if there were any noticeable trends. So, here are three different graphs. First is each whiskey with the price per bottle, in the order that I ranked them. The three groups are distinguished by color.

Whiskey Prices
Whiskey prices per 750 ml bottle, based on Spec's Texas Superstore - Red: My favorites, Blue: Still taste really good, but hard to rank compared to each other, Grey: Not so good

Next, I did a very simple plot of price vs. rank, and had Excel draw in a trend line.

Whiskey Price Trends

Third, I broke it down by groupd described above, averaged the price per group, and had Excel draw a trend line for that. Group 1 were my 3 favorites. Group 2 included the whiskeys that I liked but didn't have too strong of a preference of any over the others, and Group 3 was really only one whiskey, not a group, the Jim Beam that I didn't particularly like.

Whiskey Prices

So, there does appear to be a trend where I do like more expensive whiskey better than less expensive whiskey on average, but there's a lot of scatter in that plot. In fact, my third favorite whiskey, in my standout group (Group 1), was the second cheapest. Those rankings are also very subjective. I wouldn't be surprised if I did this test on another day and came out with slightly different results. Plus, it's not like a sample size of 9 is particularly big.

Like I said, I like whiskey, but I don't drink it a lot, so take these results for what they are. Still, I found it interesting that even if there was some correlation between cost and my personal preferences, how much variation there was around that trend.

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*I always say that it's not people with large alcohol collections that you have to worry about, but rather the ones who drink it too fast to build up a collection.

Tuesday, June 17, 2014

Updated Casio EX-F1 Review

Okay, it's only a small update, but I've embedded YouTube versions of all the videos in my old entry, Casio EX-F1 - First Impression of the High Speed Video. I added links to all the quicktime files so that readers could still see the original videos, but the YouTube versions make it easier to review. And if you're not really interested in purchasing the camera, I'd still recommend going to that page just to watch the videos, because slow motion is just cool.

I put a comment in my update note that I'll repeat here. I'm shocked that this camera is still the best option out there for budget high speed video 6 years after it was first introduced, and indeed, after it was discontinued by Casio. I would have thought that surely, somebody would have come out with a better $1000 camera by now, or a cheaper camera that does what this one does. But alas, Casio's new high speed options aren't even as good as this, and no other manufacturer has stepped up to the plate. You'd think the fact that people are paying full price and higher for used versions of this camera, or even up to $2500 for new ones still in the box, would be enough evidence of demand that some manufacturer somewhere would start making a camera with this capability.

Actually, to give a taste of what you'll find on that page, here's my favorite of the videos, lighting a match, recorded at 1200 frames per second, slowed down 40 times for playback.

Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Pet Peeve - Articles Aren't Blogs

Angry Penguin, Source: WikimediaI only have a short entry for today, to complain about a pet peeve. It's something I've seen many places, but it was prompted by an e-mail from my Congressman which began with:

Dear Friend:

I want to share with you a blog that I wrote about Tax Day.

The body of the e-mail you shared with me isn't 'a blog'. To quote Wikipedia, "A blog (a truncation of the expression web log) is a discussion or informational site published on the World Wide Web and consisting of discrete entries ("posts") typically displayed in reverse chronological order (the most recent post appears first)." What you shared is one entry or post, or maybe even an article if you want to sound more formal. It was not 'a blog'.

I don't know why it irritates me so much, but it just bothers the hell out of me to see people refer to single blog entries as blogs themselves. Maybe it's because of the word's origin from log, and the silliness of thinking that one entry could constitute a log.

Oh well, his misuse of Internet vocabulary is probably the least irritating thing about this Congressman - far less irritating than the actual content of the message (Do away with income taxes? Really?). I suppose I should just chalk this instance up to an ignorant out of touch politician, but I wish more people would try to understand what words mean before using them.

Image Source: Wikimedia Commons

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

The Car Ride

Here's a stop motion animation my daughter made today. She calls it, The Car Ride.

Tuesday, March 11, 2014

National Essential Tremor Awareness Month 2014

March is National Essential Tremor Awareness Month

March is National Essential Tremor Awareness Month. Essential tremor is also referred to as familial tremor, benign essential tremor, or hereditary tremor. If you are unaware of this disorder, here is a description from a recent press release from the International Essential Tremor Foundation (IETF).

Essential tremor is a neurological condition that causes shaking of the head, hands and voice. An estimated 10 million people in the United States have essential tremor (ET). While not life threatening, ET is a serious and progressive condition that can significantly affect a person's quality of life - socially, professionally and emotionally. People with ET often have difficulty with everyday activities such as getting dressed, eating, drinking, speaking or writing. And despite the large number of people directly affected by ET there is still very little awareness of the disorder.

While ET is most prevalent in people in their 60s and older, it can occur at any age, even in newborns. And despite being the most common movement disorder, existing medications are only effective in about 60% of people who suffer from the disorder.

If you would like to help or learn more about essential tremor, below are several links to more information on the IETF website.

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