9/9/10 - The Greenest City On Earth

I’m really glad I selected a motel with a 19” Magnavox color TV because tonight’s NFL kickoff game is an exciting repeat of the Super Bowl, MN vs. New Orleans, and it just wouldn’t be the same in black and white. The Vikings’ just took the lead, 9 to 7, in the final 34 seconds of the first half on a dramatic series of passes from Favre, but Longwell missed the extra point. Now, if only my motel offered free porn for the halftime show!

I decided to see Milwaukee today and stay here another night before heading-on. After I filled-up Bessy with Regular [I’m still unsure of how she’d react to drinking E85] I rode 5 miles into downtown Milwaukee. One thing that struck me was how green it is here; not green in the sense of solar panels and Priuses, but in the sense that there are so many perfectly manicured trees, flowers and lawns everywhere. No signs of the water conservation Gestapo here. I rode along the shore of Lake Michigan and quickly saw the Milwaukee Art Museum, which my good friend Gene Rech described as similar to the Sidney Opera Hall, with big wings that open-up and flap. It’s an extraordinary building and I pulled-in immediately to snap a few shots. Unfortunately, the wings weren’t flapping when I was there, but it’s a remarkable structure nonetheless.

I drove 15 miles north along the shoreline and saw a mini beach boardwalk [feeble compared to Santa Cruz], a lot of parks, beaches with volleyball courts, and many lovely mansions with immaculate grounds, and the streets thickly lined with trees that nearly formed a tunnel over the roadway. Every home is unique and the architecture ranges from brick and stone Tudors, to Colonial to Cape Cod bungalows with shake roofs, but they all fit together nicely. It’s completely unlike the exclusive neighborhoods in California [say, Pebble Beach] where it’s common to see a faux Tuscan Villa sitting next to an Eichler. Somehow, the luxury neighborhoods here fit my eye better than the ones out west, but I’ll take the Pacific Coast backdrop over Lake Michigan any day. Overall, Milwaukee is a beautiful city and I’m fond of the contrast between the old smokestacks, brick structures and steeples, comingled with a nice river-walk and modern glass towers.

After learning that the Harley museum is closed on Thursday, I stopped at the river-walk and strolled around looking for a good place to have a late lunch. The river itself is an unattractive shade of brown, but it’s lined with hanging flower baskets, quaint lamp posts, bridges, renovated old buildings and eclectic artwork. Overall, it’s very cool. I stopped for lunch at the Bar of the Rock Bottom Brewery. I know it’s a chain, but it’s good and I was hungry and thirsty. The bartender was the first flaming gay person I’ve spoken with since I left California. He was a super nice guy, but he had such a thick lisp that his voice had no traces of a Midwestern accent. He suggested I try the fried chili mac & cheese, made with sharp Wisconsin white cheddar, jalepeno peppers, and sea shell macaroni, breaded in panko bread crumbs and then formed into patties and deep fried. It’s served with a spicy tomatillo sauce and it’s delicious with a White Tail Ale chaser to cool the mild heat of the chilis.

I dashed from lunch to make to the 4:00 tour of Wisconsin’s only craft distillery, called Great Lakes Distillery. GLD is a company of five people who produce the second best hand crafted liquor on earth. Followers of this blog know that top honors go to Clear Creak Distillery in Portland, OR which is the undisputed distiller of God’s best nectars, but GLD is a close second and they make stuff like Gin, Maple Rum, Absinthe, and Honey-citrus Vodka, that you simply can’t get from Clear Creek. Jason Neu, GLD’s “Spirits Ambassador and Chief Mixologist”, led our informative tour of the distillery. There were five of us who took the tour and we all learned a ton about the differences between making shitty mass-produced booze vs. handcrafted premium Nectar of the Gods. Besides the use of choice ingredients, the main difference is that premium distiller’s bottle only ethanol and choice natural flavors, and they throw away the nasty stuff like acetone and methanol.

After the tour, three of us [me, Autumn and Tom] hung around and chatted with Jason for quite awhile and we tasted a flight of 6 premium spirits that were extraordinary. I know what you’re thinking: No, they were very small samples and we didn’t get drunk, except for Autumn, who seemed comfortably buzzed by the end. Jason mixed me an authentic Trader Vic’s Mai Tai utilizing GLD’s gorgeous Maple-Rum that’s made from pure molasses and Wisconsin maple syrup and he adds a house-made orange curacao. For those of you who love my Mai Tai’s, Jason’s version of this classic Tiki drink is truly a cut above. I also experienced my first taste of fantastic absinthe, which was banned in the U.S. until 2007. You can check out GLD at http://www.greatlakesdistillery.com/ and you can buy their delectable nectars online at www.binnys.com . I bought a bottle of Roaring Dan's Maple Rum and I'm enjoying a snort of it as I'm writing this post. Try it, you'll like it.

By the time I got back to my motel with the color TV, it was dark and the lobby was surrounded with police and emergency vehicles. Perhaps I should upgrade my accommodations? More from Chicago tomorrow.