I have recently become addicted to a website called Stockholms Källan.

The site is an amazing treasure trove of historical images of Stockholm. You can search by names or locations to find old photos and documents relating to whatever you’re interested in.

This image is from a 1960’s short film called “Ditt Stockholm” (“Your Stockholm”). It is a melodramatic public service film made to discourage people from littering and vandalizing in the city.

I found it wildly entertaining, not just because of the old timey views of the city and the people, but from the perspective of Swedish filmmaking and its characteristic qualities of sparse timing and minimalism.

Here’s the film. Enjoy!
http://stockholmskallan.se/Soksida/Post/?nid=20681

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While putting the finishing
touches on the new“Quick
Guide” video for K Composite’s iPad magazine tonight, I
took a break to fix some dinner. Usually around this time, if I want to have
a drink with dinner, I’ll have a beer or a bourbon and Coke.
However, tonight I found that my supplies of both had been
depleted. This was obviously the work of some phantom drunk who
lives in my apartment. Luckily, I’m moving to a new place in two
weeks, so I won’t have to worry about him haunting me anymore. That
is, unless he follows me wherever I live, which has unfortunately
been the case for the past couple months, I mean years, I mean
decades. Instead of my usual go-to
beverages, I decided to play bartender and whip up a
proper gentleman’s cocktail. (You know, in case a gentleman happens
to stop by.) To accomplish this, I reached for a bottle of
Drambuie’s latest creation, Drambuie 15.I had picked up this
bottle and some other Drambuie supplies recently at a press
event here in Stockholm. As an elite member of the
Stockholm media specializing in food and drinks I’m
the publisher of a magazine that has almost nothing to do with
either I was joined by about twenty of my alleged colleagues while
a Scottish bloke name Bruce from Drambuie walked us through some
quick and dirty recipes. All of them were delicious.
Drambuie is according to my most
reliable anonymous source (Wikipedia) “a sweet, golden colored
40% ABV (80-proof) liqueur made from malt whiskey, honey, herbs,
and spices.” It’s basically a very mixable beverage that is really
easy to drink and results in cocktails that don’t taste too much
like alcohol. Perfect for high school kids. If you’re familiar with
the product, you might not recognize it these days. They recently
redesigned the packaging. If the goal was to take a memorable and unique bottle you
remember from hotel bars and grandparents’ house and make it look
more boring, generic and to blend in with
everything on the shelf, they hit a home run. The newer blend, Drambuie 15, is a stronger,
more whiskey-ish version which was described by Bruce the Scotsman
as “more masculine.” The three cocktails we
mixed were essentially Drambuie versions of famous
drinks that you wouldn’t ordinarily think of as being something in
which you’d use a Scottish whiskey-based liqueur as a main element.
These drinks were variations on the cosmopolitan, the margarita and
(gasp!) the mint julep. As a native of Louisville, home of the
Kentucky Derby which made the mint julep famous, you better believe
I voiced my strong objections to this. Surprisingly, all three
drinks were pretty damn good and they made short work of destroying
my faculties. Yes, even the Drambuie mint julep, sacrilegious as it
may be, was in fact, sacrilicious. Truth be told, they called it a
Honey Apple Julep. Ready to drink! None of the
drinks were purported to be replacements for the
classics upon which they were based, however, all of them were
excellent changes of pace and could be fun substitutions for the
same tired old drinks. That’s kind of what I was thinking tonight
as my bourbon supply was empty.

With that in mind and
the foggy memories of having way too much fun at Snickarbacken 7 where the event was
held I grabbed the Drambuie 15, a lemon, some honey, an egg, a
bottle of ginger beer and a carton of orange juice. What you see
here is the result, my own version of their recipe, the
Extraordinary Fizz. I’m not a fan of grapefruit, that’s why I went
for the orange juice instead. As mentioned, I also used the “more
masculine” Drambuie 15 instead of the normal stuff. Below you’ll
find the recipe for the Extraordinary Fizz and the Apple Mint
Julep. Have fun. But don’t let me catch you with Drambuie on Derby
Day.

Drambuie Extraordinary Fizz

Here’s what you’ll need to make one cocktail:
50ml Drambuie (I used Drambuie 15 instead) 20ml
Honey 30ml Lemon juice (about half a squeezed lemon) 20ml
Grapefruit Juice (I used orange juice instead) 1 Egg White Ginger
beer Emma, Bruce and a bunch
of writers and drinkersIce (I believe this is the same
as frozen water) A shaker Here’s how to make
it: Pour the juices, honey and egg white into the
shaker. Fill it up with as much ice as it can fit. Shake the crap
out of it and pour into a tall Collins glass or tumbler. Top with
ginger beer. Drink it up.

Honey Apple Julep

Here’s what you’ll need to make one
cocktail: 40ml Drambuie 50ml juice 10 ml honey 12
mint leaves Ice A shaker Throw everything in the shaker, shake it
up, then pour it in a glass and drink it.

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Today I entered a contest to win a chance to a trip into space. I desperately need your help to make it happen.

All you have to do is follow THIS LINK and click on the “rösta” button next to my picture.

If you’re a truly wonderful person, you might even share this with all your friends on Facebook and Twitter. Thanks!

I’ve written about my love of space exploration a few times here on The Local. After you vote, come back and enjoy some of those articles.

Thirty and Forty Years Ago, 20 July 2009

Sweden: Not So Far Away After All, 21 April 2009

James B. Irwin Was the Eighth Man to Walk On the Moon, 26 January 2010

All In One Lifetime, 21 September 2012

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The scaffolding across the street has completely surrounded the building and is now going over the top.

This is a sequel to my previous action-packed report: Scaffolding.

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I thought it was a MacBook Pro, but it was a MacBook Air in disguise. The mustache made it look more powerful. Like Stalin.

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Here’s cozy evening scene at the kitchen “table” (a board on top of a box) with a view out the window. I’m taking a few steps to speed things up in my iPhoto library of 50,000+ images that date back more than ten years.

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I decided I’d rather have a bigger desk than a kitchen door.

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Saturday night I spent having some fun in the recording studio with my friends Iida Hellström (The Sorted) and Erik Welén (Torpedo, Tiger Lou).

We were working on a recording of an old song by Iida’s band, based on a reworking of it I recently put together. Erik can be seen playing a bass borrowed from one of my favorite Swedish bands Hello Saferide.

Our project doesn’t have name or even a plan, but it was fun to be in the studio again and to make some music.

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1: Shit. Do all of these have alarm tags on them?

2: Why are we leaving notes for criminals on specific items? Everybody knows you might get caught if you steal things, so does this sticker mean “run faster because they’re gonna know you took something”?

3: Why are razor blades so damn expensive in the first place? Yeah, I know the Gillette story – give away the razors and make your money on the blades – but this is worse than printer ink.

4: I’m not gonna buy these, I mean the last think I want is another alarm going off in the morning.

5: I’d like to speak with the manager, please. I tried to steal this memory card which was clearly not labeled as having an alarm tag, then the sirens went off and I had to act like I was just looking at those shitty wreaths and i didn’t realize I was so close to the door.

Add your own caption in the comments below.

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