Tax Time

If you're wondering where I am...I'm up to my neck in receipts and mileage diaries, doing taxes. I had hoped to be doing posts on whiskey this week, leading up to WhiskyFest Chicago, but as usual, poor planning has put me at the Windy Corner of Taxes.

But it's not all bad. The one thing I like about tax time is that it calls for going back through all my notebooks, where I keep mileages, expenses (you'd be amazed how many bars just aren't set up for receipts, and tips only get recorded if you do them on credit card, which I don't like to do: I was a bartender, and cash is better), and dates.

And so tax time means re-living my year in beer and booze. The trip my dad and I took to western PA last summer, in the frothy ferment of new breweries out there, was all there in little scratches on the paper. The hops trip to A-B's Idaho ranch, with page after page of deep hop research by Dr. Val Peacock (and pint after pint of roaring IPAs at the bar in Couer d'Alene). The fascinating and peaceful visit to Laird's, a little corner of Kentucky quiet in New Jersey. And Monk's dinners, many-splendored and studded with memories of stand-out food, ethereal beers, and laughter with solid friends.

Like I said; it's not all bad. But it does mean that I'm not blogging...so that's where I am. I'll get back to it in Chicago.