You know the TrendVue philosophy. We trade to live, not live to trade. After the market, we never think about it much, and turn our attention to things like family, and life.
In our town, the night for going out is never Saturday, or even Friday. From the dawn of my career in the brokerage industry, Thursday was the night for the "in crowd" to hang out.
It's been years since I left the business. I have to admit to getting a little cabin fever, so I resolved to venture outside again on Thursdays. Over time, I should be able to compile a good travel journal for anyone visiting Vancouver, at least when it comes to indoor fun at restaurants!
My first Thursday evening out this year was on January 15, when I drove up to Whistler for dinner. Last night, I had a low key sort of evening, but came face to face with what I have always considered to be a disturbing trend.
I know it's not a big deal compared to things like achieving world peace, but making hard liquor taste like candy seems to me to a big marketing effort to get people to drink more of it, in addition to luring young ones to consider booze to be more like soft drinks with an edge. These days, you can hardly find a person under 40 who knows that a martini used to be a combination of gin, Italian/French vermouth, and angostrura bitters served with a twist or an olive. They've morphed into six-ounce fruit slushies.
As a purist, I've managed to steered clear of these things, but last night, my wine and spirits partner in crime cracked open a new bottle of -- gasp -- Glenmorangie Port Wood Finish! The flavorization craze had even reached the last bastion of decorum and good sense: the single malt scotch whiskey. It's been a few years since Glenmorangie came up with an offering of different "finishes", but I avoided them like the plague, preferring to stick with the 18 -- The Macallan, that is. Visions of the big oak California Chardonnays, huge tannin California Cabernets, and those Absolut-ly fruitty vodkas flashed before my eyes.
I was forced to wrestle with the issue right there. Cocktails or no cocktails? To taste or not to taste? That was the question. But guess what? Surprise! Glenmorangie did it with the perfect touch. Maybe it's just like technical analysis. We can't be permabulls or permabears. Each chart has to be evaluated on it's own merit, and when it comes to that, some of us prefer to look at price and volume bars while others depend on tons of indicators...
04.02.06 13:25 #