Thirsty Thursday Eve - Pepper Vodka

I’ve recently started experimenting with vodka infused with different types of peppers. The flavors have been all over the place, but it’s a really interesting way to spice up (pun intended) a boring spirit.

Spicy drinks are very divisive. My first spicy beer was at an Independence Day party many moons ago. I didn’t hate it, but I also didn’t know if I liked it, either. Over the years, I tried a few other spicy beers, as well as the novel idea of putting hot sauce in a regular beer, and I’ve grown to like them occasionally. I’m not drinking spicy beer all the time, but I’ll drink one every now and then just for something different.

After trying a few spicy beers, it occurred to me that I could infuse a distilled spirit with spicy flavor on my own. I had made Jolly Rancher vodka before, how different could spicy vodka be? I sliced up a jalapeno, threw it in a pint mason jar, and filled it up with Kirkland Signature American vodka.

I let the jar sit for a few days undisturbed. I didn’t know how long the infusion process would take (turns out it takes about an hour), but I figured a couple of days would be adequate to at least taste a difference. I took a sip and it tasted… sweet. Almost like a raw bell pepper, with that fresh almost floral flavor.

It was good, but it wasn’t exactly spicy. I drank a shot here or there, but I was a little disappointed about the heat. I wanted something that I could use in small volumes to spice up a drink, not some floral vodka to mix in place of regular vodka. I could’ve thrown multiple jalapenos in the jar, but how many would it take before it actually got spicy? I let that remain a one-off experiment for a time.

A little while later, one of my wife’s coworkers gave us a couple of peppers from her garden. We had tried to grow bell peppers before with very little success. This lady had jalapenos, cayennes and habaneros in droves. With a little convincing, my wife let me use one of the habaneros for another batch of spicy vodka. I figured that habaneros were spicier than jalapenos, so I might be able to feel the heat a little more.

At the time, I didn’t realize just HOW much hotter habanero peppers are than jalapeno peppers. Where a jalapeno sits somewhere around 5,000-10,000 Scoville units, habanero peppers are typically north of 100,000 and can be as high as 800,000 Scoville units. So, “a little hotter” as my theory went, could be 10x or even 100x hotter. Definitely should have done a little more research there.

Source: https://www.normexgroup.com/blogs/blog-recipes/scoville-scale

Blissfully ignorant of the potential torture I was about to inflict upon myself, I sliced a single orange habanero and added it (seeds and all) to a mason jar. I topped it off with the same American vodka and let it sit. Sure, I knew it would be finished within an hour or so, but I wanted to make sure it was nice and infused before I tasted it.

After a full day, I came back and take a sip. I expected a similar sweet bell pepper flavor with at least a little more heat. What I got was like drinking hot sauce. Mind you, I’m not saying it was unpleasant, just hot. REALLY hot. Drops in the bottom of a shot glass was plenty to experience the full potency.

Admittedly, this is much closer to what I expected with the jalapeno vodka. I wanted something so spicy you wouldn’t dare drink it straight, especially not in large quantities. Instead, I wanted something I could add a few drops or a half shot to a cocktail and easily notice that there was some capsaicin involved. If anything, the habanero vodka should be a rousing success compared to that original jalapeno vodka.

The problem, as I mulled it over, was that I didn’t have a particular use in mind for this super-spicy substance I was brewing. I started down the jalapeno vodka path just seeing where it went. What I got was drinkable on its own, a curious oddity that added a layer of flavor to whatever vodka drink I substituted it in. The habanero vodka was EXACTLY what I was aiming for, but without any idea what to do with the successful product.

I started looking for spicy cocktail ideas. Nothing really struck my fancy. Most of them were those complicated and pretentious drinks with a billion ingredients and too many steps that simply exist to give the bartender a chance to show off. I wanted something I could make relatively easily in the comfort of my own home.

A coworker suggested mixing it with seltzer. That was a curious idea. Add a dash of spicy vodka to a can of hard seltzer; it already had some alcohol in it and I had often added standard vodka to seltzers before to increase the proof. Didn’t seem like a far stretch to add a smaller portion of habanero vodka for a little bit of proof and a whole lot of heat.

I added maybe a third of a shot of habanero vodka to a can of mango hard seltzer. The initial flavor is just like the unadulterated seltzer, but a huge spike of heat comes along the middle. By the time the flavor would be fading, the heat is gone right along with it. Honestly, that’s a huge compliment. Too many spicy foods have a heat that dwells long after, and it hits a point where you just can’t do it anymore. The fact that the heat is gone as quickly as it comes, you can continue drinking and not make yourself miserable.

I’m glad I found a recipe that generates a level of heat I was attempting to create. Furthermore, I’m glad it mixes well into a hard seltzer at least. I want to keep playing with recipes to see if some other cocktail can showcase the spicy vodka well. Again, I don’t drink spicy beverages frequently, but it would be really convenient to have something on hand to MAKE a drink spicy without having to buy a whole bottle or pack of something spicy that I may sit on for ages.

If you want to try pepper vodka, it’s super easy to make. Slice a pepper, throw it in a pint mason jar, and top it off with cheap vodka. Don’t add more than one pepper and DEFINITELY don’t touch your eyes without washing your hands first. If you find any tasty cocktails with spicy spirits, PLEASE let me know.

rue21 CJ Black Cologne

My favorite cologne has been discontinued, but I fortunately bought enough that I should be alright for a long time. A very long time.

When I was in high school, I explored a couple of different scents. I wore my friend’s Diesel Fuel for Life when I would go to his house over the weekend. I bought a bottle of Abercrombie Fierce because a girl I had a crush on said it was her favorite scent. But the biggest source of cologne for me was rue21.

I was already in rue21 frequently as is. They had clothing that I liked for cheaper than a lot of the other mainstream apparel retailers. Plus, their cologne was only $10 for a large bottle. I could try out different scents and use way too much without spending a ton. That $60 bottle of Fierce was a Christmas gift, and I couldn’t be spending that much on cologne all the time.

They had several scent options, and I think at one point I had a bottle of each. One of them was themed around being eco-friendly, and it smelled like “clean trees” according to my cousin. Another was a sweeter smell that I liked, but I didn’t want to smell like that all the time. The one that I ended up wearing the most was CJ Black.

Not only did I tend toward it most frequently, but my (now) wife loved it. Obviously, if you’re courting someone with the intent to wed, you want to improve your chances in any way possible. Wearing cologne that they like is an obvious solution. I had found the scent that would come to be a trademark for me.

Since I wore CJ Black so frequently, I went through the bottles faster. Because of this, I would pick up a few whenever I went by rue21 to keep a backup bottle available. They didn’t frequently discount the cologne, but it was cheap enough as is, so it wasn’t a huge lift to keep some on hand.

Several years went by before the bankruptcy scare of 2017 (which was their second bankruptcy, after the first instance in 2003 before I started shopping there) (Weil & McCrory, 2024). I went by a nearby store and bought several bottles of CJ Black. I wasn’t sure if or when they would start closing the locations near me, but I didn’t want to be left empty handed. Four bottles, if I remember correctly, seemed to be enough for the time. I decided I would buy more if I got word of stores near me starting to close.

From 2017 to 2024, there was a period where things seemed to be cautiously stable with rue21. They weren’t doing great, but they seemed to get enough business to stay afloat. I couldn’t fit in their clothes anymore, but I did still love their cologne. I didn’t keep a stockpile of CJ Black, but I would swing by on occasion to pick up an extra bottle, much the same way I did in my youth.

In May of 2024, it was announced that rue21 would be filing for bankruptcy again, and this time it would be closing all of its stores. That became a much bigger problem. If all stores were officially closing permanently, there was no way I would get more cologne after they sold out. The only option would be absurdly overpriced resellers online. I don’t support scalpers, so that wouldn’t even be on the table.

I started by investigating exactly what scent CJ Black had, and whether there were alternatives available from less dire retailers. Even if I had to pay an upcharge for a more premium product, I wouldn’t mind as long as it smelled the same. The box for CJ Black describes the key notes as “grapefruit, bergamot, & sandalwood.” I can’t say I detect grapefruit, and I don’t have a clue what bergamot is, but I definitely recognize the familiar scent of sandalwood.

One of the most ironic comparisons was Hollister Jake, which I haven’t personally smelled, but it would be HILARIOUS if the successor to my main scent was also my name. The good people of reddit recommended Ed Hardy Villain, which seems successful enough that they won’t be going out of business for a while… oh wait. Looks like it was discontinued as well (u/ON3Bot, 2024).

Even if the alternate search was going poorly, I could at least buy some time if I bought up a few bottles of the real stuff. I ran by the closest location that same day. The fragrance display only had a single bottle of CJ Black, so I snatched it up before someone could dash in and beat me to it. I asked at the counter if they had any more bottles in the back, but they did not. Alas, one bottle was better than none.

Because I’ve got friends (in low places), I put out the word on Facebook. Turns out two of the other nearby stores were completely sold out of all fragrances. I considered buying up what was left of the other scents for the potential option to trade for CJ Black or scalp them on the internet, but again, I hate scalpers. No dice.

A friend from about an hour away went by her local store, and thankfully, they still had plenty. She bought ten (TEN???) bottles. I might be on the hook for a small fortune, but I had some cologne to last a while. When I asked her how much it was, she only quoted me a little over $50. That didn’t seem right, since bottles were priced at $10 each in my store, but I wasn’t going to complain. Turns out, her store had already discounted fragrances even further to unload the rest of the inventory. Winning!

With the bottles I already had and the additional bottles that I was able to source from others, I now have 13 small and a single large. As much as it seems excessive and looks like I might have a problem, I just wanted to make sure I had enough of that particular scent to last for as long as possible. For some people, that might not last all that long. I know plenty of people that almost bathe in cologne, and they wear it every single day. I only wear it maybe once or twice a week, and four sprays is all I need. This is going to last me a WHILE.

I need to start monitoring how long a bottle lasts me. If the math works out, maybe I never have to buy another bottle of cologne in my life. If I do, it’s probably years or even decades into the future (provided they still even have a scent after that long). That should be plenty of time for me to find something similar or something else that my wife likes. And if the obsessive people of the internet are as consistent as they tend to be, someone is going to do the legwork to figure out the absolute closest thing available and make sure others know. I’ll hold out hope for that unsung hero.

References:
u/S_L_U_S_H. (2024, April 2). R/colognes on reddit: Colognes like rue 21 black?. Reddit. https://www.reddit.com/r/Colognes/comments/1bu4qzk/colognes_like_rue_21_black/
Weil, A., & McCrory, C. (2024, May 3). A teen clothing retailer is going out of business and closing all its stores. WNEP. https://www.wnep.com/article/news/nation-world/rue21-bankruptcy-closing-all-stores-full-list-locations/507-19106445-2aa7-4062-b5b7-f0ae040c3da3

Book Report - "The Creative Act: A Way of Being" by Rick Rubin

In this philosophical approach to art, Rubin illustrates an interesting stance where we are all artists in some way, shape, or form, and art comes from an ethereal “source” in the universe.

I’ll be the first to say I don’t consider myself artistic, nor would I say I am an artist. My drawing skills were passable in middle school, and I have neglected those for several years. I’ll occasionally write a poem or come up with lyrics to a song that will never materialize, but that’s usually just to get it out of my head and alleviate the nagging experience of an idea that won’t go away.

Rubin takes the perspective that this is all art, and it is all valuable to express. And even beyond what is traditionally considered art, he goes so far as to suggest that nearly anything we create is art. Furthermore, things can be art without ever being rendered in reality. An experience is art.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized ANYTHING can be art. This blog? Art. A particularly elegant coding algorithm I wrote? Art. The benches that I made for some outdoor seating? Art. It’s all art if you just look at it from a different angle, and perceiving something as art completely changes what it is. People tend to take more pride in what they create if it’s a work of art.

I went into this book expecting one of those hoity-toity rants from aloof artists about how the peasants just don’t understand art or how the creative process is exclusive to those with some unknown ability. In stark contrast, Rubin was very open to everyone making art. Rather than gatekeeping, Rubin is encouraging anyone who will listen to listen to the “source” and make what they feel inspired to make. It doesn’t matter if it’s bad, that’s just the beginning of the process. Work on it until it’s good.

This “source” idea of his was an interesting one that I hadn’t really considered before. My understanding of the “source” is effectively just the universe and our perception of it. We each have unique perspectives and an individual ability to create something that represents what we see and feel. It’s a little fuzzy and undefined, but I think it’s an apt comparison to the human experience. We’re all just here, and we all go through life with our own lens. Sharing our thoughts, feelings, and creative work with each other is a cool way to pull together.

I was afraid that “The Creative Act” would appeal to those elitist artists and critics that consider you an idiot if you can’t appreciate Rothko’s stupid red boxes (sorry, Rothko fans). I couldn’t have been more wrong. Rubin’s take is super refreshing, and it gives me hope that not ALL artists are pretentious douchebags. It’s fine if you just don’t GET certain pieces of art.

Source: https://www.markrothko.org/untitled-red/

If you like traditional art such as canvas paintings and sculpture, you’ll probably enjoy the book. More mainstream, if you just dabble in occasional drawing or made that one mixtape back in college, that’s probably the target audience. Even if you just listen to music, I think you can get something from it. Rubin takes the idea of art and makes it more accessible to the masses. In my opinion, that’s a great thing, and I think it gives us the opportunity to share our creative side without fearing repercussions for making something bad. It just isn’t finished yet.

Carolina Code Conference 2024

The Carolina Code Conference was the first developer conference I attended as well as my first time speaking at a developer conference. It was new and exciting, if a little scary. Now that I’m on the far side of it, I wanted to look back at the experience and the weeks leading up to it.

My first foray into the conference scene was submitting a talk for Carolina Code Conference 2023. At the time, I was pretty heavy into MuleSoft (for work, definitely not because I wanted to be). A coworker mentioned the conference to me and suggested that I should submit a talk for it. With MuleSoft taking the lion’s share of my current work responsibilities, I figured that low-code/no-code solutions were probably the thing I was most qualified to talk about.

Looking into the submission process, I couldn’t figure out exactly what a “good” submission would look like. The only required details were a title and description. I decided to put together what I WOULD present as a talk, record a video of it, and include a link to that video in the talk description. Was it overkill? Maybe. But I wanted to give myself the best chance at being selected.

I ended up not making the cut for the inaugural Carolina Code Conference, but the organizer of the conference Barry reached out to me to see if I would be interested in speaking on the Carolina Code Cast. I figured that it was still an opportunity to formally step into the Greenville software engineering community, so I accepted. We discussed that original idea about MuleSoft, as well as quite a few other topics in a more long-form layout. It was really cool to be actively contributing to the tech scene, but without the pressure of speaking physically in front of so many people. I was just talking shop with someone else in the field.

When the call for speakers opened up for the 2024 conference, I had to throw in my lot. Although I could’ve resubmitted my same talk about no-code/low-code solutions, that ship had sailed. We were actively trying to migrate off of MuleSoft for work, and I personally hated the platform. There was no way I was going to speak at a conference for a service that I thought was garbage.

My first submission was titled “Working Through Impostor Syndrome,” which I submitted as soon as the call for speakers opened. It’s a subject that is very important to me, both as someone who has gone through impostor syndrome myself, but also seeing other people in the industry go through the same thing and not yet know how to grapple with that. I wanted to share in a public forum just why impostor syndrome fears are so rarely based on fact and give some of my tips for how to get past that way of thinking.

After a few months of thinking on it, my second submission was “The Value of Prototypes.” Having worked with businesses enough to see a creation of mine get critiqued and reworked an annoying amount, I’m very supportive of anything that gets an example to users before we actually build the software so I can figure out what you actually need, versus what you’re asking for.

On the final day of talk submissions, I dropped a last minute entry on “The Case Against Bleeding Edge.” Call me conservative, but I don’t want to adopt some “latest and greatest” technology that’s trending in Silicon Valley. If it’s good enough to still be used in the industry after a few years, THEN maybe we should consider using it. I will not be swayed by buzzwords and flashy demos.

The afternoon of April 25, I got news that “The Value of Prototypes” was selected for the conference. I was ecstatic. Especially in the wake of that previously mentioned impostor syndrome, it was so validating to know that I was specifically selected to speak in front of an audience of my peers. I just had to make sure I didn’t bomb it.

I started throwing together a few slides with ideas about prototypes, but nothing really came together as a cohesive product. Summer arrived and I didn’t get back to working on the presentation for months. About two weeks before the conference, I decided that I really needed to get a presentation together while I still had time to work on it.

I abandoned the slides and started working on a tentative script. It seemed easier to think through what I would want to say and then come up with a presentation to support it. I knocked out the script in probably an hour or less and ran it by some peers. Then, I made a new slideshow and made diagrams and slides to support my points. The process went way faster in that order.

Finally, I had to make sure I would fit within the “5 to 10 minute” time allowance for a lightning talk. I made a video performing the talk with just the slides and audio. It seemed like the best starting point, as I could get a quick bead on the duration, plus I could check if the cadence or delivery felt weird and adjust it. I sent the recording to a few people and asked for feedback. Technical peers, I wanted an opinion on whether the content seemed sound. Non-technical friends would be a better source for if the talk was delivered well.

Everyone seemed to like the talk well enough, but I was concerned about the time duration. My video came out to over 9 minutes, which would leave me very little room for error. Barry was very explicit that the window was not flexible. Any overage on one talk could potentially delay subsequent talks and throw off the entire schedule. I decided not to re-record, but simply note that I would need to deliver faster during the actual presentation.

The morning of the conference, I was super excited. My talk was right before lunch on the first day, so I got a couple of talks to acclimate and there would be plenty of conference after my talk to enjoy as a spectator. For the first three talks, I just sat and savored the experience. After the third talk, my time was getting closer and I wanted to be fully prepared and ready to go on stage. I repositioned near the setup desk and made sure my slideshow was ready to begin.

Knowing that the talks were being recorded, I told my wife that the talk would either go fine or it would be terrible. If it went particularly bad, I would live forever in infamy on YouTube. No pressure.

When my time had come, I got mic’d up and brought up my presentation as the MC introduced me. The common theme was to deliver a dad joke between talks. When my time began, I opened with my own joke. “How do you catch a unique rabbit? Unique up on it.” It fell flat, but there was nothing to be done about that. I got started with explaining the value of prototypes.

The previous lightning talks had been delivered at appropriately lightning pace. They hit the ground running and didn’t pause until they were finished. I adopted the same method and ended up a few minutes under estimate. My biggest concern was going over and throwing off the schedule, so I considered it a huge success to get in before the buzzer.

With my talk finished, I considered the weekend properly started. The rest of the talks on the first day were really interesting, especially one talk about the algorithms used by different dating sites. After the pressure of my own talk was removed, it was a cool experience to hear experts talk about their particular niches of the field.

Once the conference talks were finished, we met up at New Realm Brewing for the Happy Hour networking event. A serendipitous exchange with a waiter informed us of their “speakeasy” back room. It was convenient, because my peers and I get a little loud when we’re excited, so we didn’t have to worry about bothering the other patrons. We made small talk with speakers, exchanged business cards, and made plans to link up and discuss projects later.

The second day was much more about networking for me. I sat in for a few talks, but I wanted to make sure that I shook some hands and made some connections. My crew made a pass around the vendor tables and picked up some cool swag. We stopped at the Blue Ridge Consultants table because they had HOT SAUCE. Who has hot sauce freebies? Ended up talking to them about making mead and the SC laws around making and selling moonshine. They were cool guys.

There was also a vendor that had a contest for a Raspberry Pi 5 kit. The way they pulled you in was a set of locks and lockpicking kits at the table, but the full contest included things like trivia questions and a multi-user dungeon or MUD challenge. We tried our hands at lockpicking. I ended up getting two of them, but certainly not enough to justify spending time on the whole contest. Still, it was a neat idea.

After plenty of networking, a few more free bottle openers, and one final talk on lambda calculus and JavaScript, I was done. My social battery was depleted, my pockets were full of swag, and my brain was so bombarded with different ideas and architectures, I knew I wasn’t good for anything else. I said my farewells to the team, fist bumped a few speakers on the way out, and left Carolina Code Conference 2024 with cool souvenirs and good memories.

When professional photos were finally published, I had to see how bad mine were. In contrast to professional speakers, I realized just how animated I am. Between exaggerated shrugs and gestures that look almost like a dab, I look like a lunatic. Fortunately, it’s pretty representative of me.

I’m so thankful for the opportunity to speak at the conference and make a lot of new friends at the same time. It was really fun and I can’t wait for next year’s conference. Even if I don’t get selected to talk, I at least want to attend and link up with people there. It was a crazy experience and I can guarantee you I won’t ever forget my first tech conference.