The Fat Boy Summer Road Trip 2014 - Day 2

Breakfast is the one meal with little chance for variety on board a train.  I started my morning just outside of Shelby, MT with pancakes and pork sausage.  The pancakes were cooked through and not undercooked as sometimes can be the case with quick prepared breakfasts, and the sausage while obviously coming from under a heat lamp was still juicy and flavorful.  

Service was quick and easy as you would expect in a small space with many passengers to feed quickly.  A good breakfast and great start to the day.

Today's Lunch Market special was a stir fry chicken but had way more sauce than I consider normal for a stir fry.

Very spicy, with big chunks of peppers and broccoli.  Served over a rice pilaf.  I should have gone with something else, as this was not a good meal.

Service was slow.  Painfully slow, and even more so given how quick it normally is.  A couple who was seated at my table after I had ordered my drink was finished with lunch and ordering dessert by the time my entree arrived.  Hopefully it was an anomaly and service will be up to par for the rest of the trip.

Dinner I decided on the Catch of the Day, which was catfish tonight.  It could have been seasoned better, and while others said it was great mine was a little muddy.  The seasoning is just personal preference and the muddiness is dumb luck with catfish.  I should have had the steak I guess.  Dinner was served with a rice pilaf and green beans, both of which were great.  In all a good but not great day dining aboard the Empire builder.  The service anomaly from lunch thankfully proved itself just that, and dinner was a great time once again meeting new people and harassing the staff.

For my whiskey selection tonight I opened the first of two interesting new whiskeys made from already brewed and DRINKABLE beer.  

Tonight's selection is Pine Barrens Single Malt, distilled from a single malted traditional barley wine by the folks at Long Island Spirits in Baiting Hollow, NY.  They start by brewing from scratch a traditional English Style Barley Wine Ale and then double pot distill the conditioned Ale.

The result is very aromatic, with hints of nutmeg and allspice on the nose.  The first taste gives Pine Barrens it's name, as the very floral note has a pine tar hint that quickly faded to cinnamon and nutmeg giving it a very smooth and sweet finish.  The sharp floral notes make this feel almost more like a cordial or digestif than a whiskey, but from ingredients to process a whiskey it is.  A very nice taste that goes perfect after a meal.

The Fat Boy Summer Road Trip 2014 - Day 1

Day one of the trip had me leaving Portland behind on the train via Amtrak's Empire Builder on route to Chicago where I will have a wait before changing trains.  I love train travel, and have since I discovered it in college.

Crossing the Columbia River Draw Bridge

The train leaving Portland crosses the Columbia river into Vancouver, WA before heading East up the Columbia River Gorge on the Washington side of the river.  There are some great views on this section of the trip, and the first afternoon and evening is one of the most scenic on Amtrak's route.

The Bistro Box served for dinner out of Portland was ok, but needed a little help.

Leaving Portland the Empire builder has a viewing car with a cafe downstairs but no dining car, so dinner the first night was a boxed affair.  The choices available were limited to shrimp or beef, so I selected the Burgandy Beef Tri-tip.  The beef was flavorful and tender, cooked a little farther towards well than I would prefer but when trying to serve a variety of people and keep under refrigeration that is often the case.  The fruit was fresh and tasty, not over ripe as sometimes can be the case with this type of meal, and the dessert was creamy and delightful.  The only thing that didn't really work for me was the veggie selection.  A mushroom and broccoli combination that might have been good warm was decidedly not when served cold and tossed in some type of vinaigrette.

After dinner I decided to open the bottle of Teeling Irish Whiskey the folks at Caskers sent me to review for a first tasting.  Made in Dublin since 1782 The Teeling hasn't been available in the United States since the revolution.  With whiskey making such a resurgence in the Americas they decided to begin export in January of this year.

This is a smooth whiskey for a type normally known as a shot not for sipping.  As a shot it was so smooth with great sweetness and depth on the finish that I decided to try it on the rocks as well.  Over ice it loses what little bite it had on the nose and leaves the sweet aromas derived from its rum cask finish.  The sweet malts hit the palate first, followed by a little spice before a slightly fruity finish.

 In all a very nice close to my first night aboard my favorite train.

Review: HydroFlask Insulated Bottles

About a year ago I came across a great 18oz coffee flask from a local Oregon company called Hydro Flask that was insulated well enough to keep coffee hot for up to 12 hours.  I looked into the company and found that they had an expanded line of products ranging up to 64oz Growlers for the MicroBrew Market.  All are insulated to keep beverages cold for up to 24 hours as well as keeping them warm for up to 12.

All Hydro Flask products carry a lifetime warranty

From an idea born out of frustration on the beaches of Hawaii with sweaty water bottles that held tepid water and were caked with sand came one of the best insulated beverage container designs I have ever used.  The result was the first Hydro Flask, incorporating double-wall vacuum insulation, BPA-free materials, food grade stainless steel, a range of fun, durable colors and a charitable arm called 5% Back. And with great quality comes great commitment, so Hydro Flask created its lifetime warranty to stand behind its products.

Available in a wide range of sizes and styles, the one thing the larger bottles have in common is a large flat wide-mouth lid which screws on and off.  While this is normal for large beverage bottles, it makes it harder to drink from because you need both hands to open and close the bottle.  In addition, because of the volume of these bottles many will find them hard to hold with one hand.  A common fix for many is to purchase the optional HydroFlip lid.  While this solves the ease of use problem it introduces another....carrying such a large bottle.  An enterprising gentleman from Hawaii designed a solution and ran a successful KickStarter campaign earlier this year to solve this problem.  Called the JugLug, his product is a hard plastic handle which is held in place by the lid, giving you a safe and easy way to carry your bottle with you wherever you go.

The JugLug solves the problem of how to carry your HydroFlask after replacing the standard flat-cap lid with the HydroFlip lid to make drinking easier.

Now ranging in size from 12oz to the 64oz growlers, Hydro Flask has a product for everyone.  I use the 18oz Coffee and Tea Flask almost every day, as well as the 40oz and 64oz flasks for water.  Some days I even have been known to use the 40oz for coffee if I have had a hard time sleeping the night before.  I love that they never sweat with condensation in addition to the great insulation.  This week I recieved the latest versions of their 40oz and 64oz flasks, and am just as impressed as I have been with the other products I already owned.  

Previously I had the stainless steel version of the 40oz, and I recieved the matte black variation of the newest version.  Aside from color you would be hard pressed to notice a difference between the bottles, but there is a minor change.  They added a small lip at the bottom of the cap.  It appears that this change was made to help improve the seal (although my old one never leaked).  Otherwise the bottle is unchanged.  I must say that I prefer the pebbly texture of the matte finish over the smooth stainless of my old flask.  It feels like I have a better grip and it is less likely to slip out oft hands, especially if it were to get wet.

The other flask I recieved this week was the largest in Hydro Flask's lineup, the 64oz "growler" pictured above.  This thing is HUGE!  The same height as the 40oz, it's larger volume is all accounted for in width.  While I have pretty large hands and can get ahold of this (barely) with one hand, it will clearly be too large for most people to do this. Bend, Oregon is the corporate home of Hydro Flask, and like any other city of moderate size in Oregon is home to several Micro Breweries.  Part of the Micro Brew culture here is the "Growler", allowing visitors to the tasting rooms or restaurants of smaller brewers to take the beers that they often become passionate about home with them.  The traditional size for these "Growlers" is 64oz, or four imperial pints, hence the sizing of this particular flask.  At this point I have only used it to keep larger amounts of water cold when away from the house, but I plan to test it for it's intended purpose soon and will update this review when I do.

64oz Hydro Flask with HydroFlip lid and JugLug handle added.

If you are in the market for a hot or cold beverage container, you can't go wrong with anything in the Hydro Flask lineup.

Hydro Flask

Thrillist Rate's Portland's Best Mac & Cheese options

Woke up today to find a great article in my inbox rating the best Mac & Cheese dishes in PDX.  Some great choices here, but my favorite Lobster Mac & Cheese from Ringside Fish House missed the cut.  You can see how your favorite ranked at the link below.

Whisky Review: Johnny Drum Private Stock

Johnny Drum is one of those elusive bourbons that we hear about on the west coast but never have a chance to taste, so when I came across this bottle I had to pick it up.

The green label is far more common even on the east coast, this Private Stock bottle I had to get directly from the distillery when we visited the folks at Willett in April of last year.  Now that I've taken the time to taste it I only wish I had brought back a case instead of a single bottle.  This bourbon won double gold at the 2010 San Francisco World Spirits Competition, besting the field with good reason. 

Here are my tasting notes: