Labor Day Weekend is upon us which means, more importantly, Oktoberfest is almost here. Accordingly, the 2nd annual Oktoberfest 10% off coupon is kicking in Today. Use the code “EINPROSIT” to enjoy a discount on all your Stein of Science or weapons grade coffee needs. The coupon will run through the end of the Oktoberfest, on October 3rd.

Speaking of weapons grade coffee, when I shared my plight of the loss of the Panama BBotE, my light roast & Americas entry all in one, a roaster at Ritual Coffee in San Francisco rose to the challenge and said he had just the thing. In particular, he wanted to best my favorite and challenge Caffe Vita‘s Guatemalan Mundo Nuvo with their Guatemalan Retiro de Quisaya.

The Retiro had a fascinating smell of bread dough in the air when I was preparing it and hooboy was it a long oily extraction. Cold and straight, to me, it had an interesting sweet-tart metallic flavor. My guaranteed oddball Test Subject declared “it’s a molasses cookie through and through”. The general consensus settled upon “citric and meat” with frequent comparisons to cherry or rhubarb pie. Vodka addition blended the flavor up a bit which, actually, was a bit of a disappointment as I was enjoying the evolving flavor on the tongue of the cold and straight.

The Retiro receives the very special distinction of My Lovely Assistant asking if I had anymore of the first test batch laying around, because she wanted some. My Lovely Assistant is an inveterate tea drinker and even the tastiest of BBotE has not cracked her until now. Ne’er has she asked for a BBotE before and that may be the highest recommendation I can give to the Retiro. She’s finds the addition of the Retiro to milk to be the best course of action. There’s a couple bottles of it available in the Prototypes & Clearance section if you want to take a stab at it.

On the topic of BBotE and milk, Test Subject Chu has created a recipe in pictures for you to make your own BBotE Ice Cream. I can’t help but note how often he states that you don’t need much BBotE to make some ice cream with zing. I feel that perhaps he may have experimented with high doses and worked his way back down…possibly off the ceiling.

For those of you have been waiting for more Death Wish and Guatemala Mundo Nuvo BBotE production, fresh pre-order slots for the early September runs are now up.

BBotE Jerky - Caffeinated Meat. What more do you want in life, Conan?

The Pimpstress of Greater LA is currently off doing her Thing In The Desert, but before she left, she dropped a little something something in the mail for me. On Monday, an envelope with BBotE buffalo jerky arrived at more door. If you are out on the Playa and can find her, I know that she brought some with her to share. I recommend that you start thinking now about what you will barter with her to get a taste of it as it is delicious.

And as for my travel schedule, the next leg of the Scientific Drinking Tour 2011, takes me up to Oregon for the Portland Pirate Festival this Labor Day weekend. There will also be a trip out to Tillamook for delicious cheeses and the Air Museum because, well, it’s a zeppelin hangar and I need to Collect ‘Em All.

The past couple weeks have been rather exciting what with the travel and even more travel coming, with no sign of letting up. That said, I’ve had time to do a little bit of BBotE tinkering that I’d like to share with the collective.

Speaking of more travel, the next leg of Scientific Drinking Tour 2011 is coming up very soon, next week in fact. So, get your orders in by Friday at the latest so I can ship on Monday. After that, my Lovely Assistant and I will be on our way to the reclaimed malarial swamp that is our fair nation’s capital.

Herr Direktor Funranium, Growler & Stein In Hand at Silver Gulch Brewery

From the previous trip on the tour, Fairbanks AK, I give you the Silver Gulch Brewery, America’s northernmost legal brewery (I would be very surprised if there weren’t some small clandestine operations in Point Barrow). Pay no mind to the several miles of what looks like heavy equipment junkyard on the Richardson Highway as you drive from Fairbanks out to them, that’s just the scenic town of Fox. The beer was delicious, particularly the Epicenter Ale, so much so that I had to grab a growler to go for home enjoyment.

With regards to BBotE experimentation, I have begun tinkering with a new medium roast from a small farm in El Salvador. I have to say the flavor has been all over the map and, as always, everyone thinks my nose and tongue are broken. I swear the BBotE made from the Salvadoran has a grape Bubble Yum aroma to it. This got me strange stares as everyone else declared a salty, bacon-y aroma and flavor. On tasting, I agreed with the collective’s assessment, in so much as that I thought it was smoky. Except my smoky made me think of black powder smoke from a Civil War Re-enactment, something I’m quite fond of. In terms of mouthfeel, there was a strange sensation of a pat of flavor/butter sitting in the middle of the tongue, melting off to the sides and letting the whole tongue taste it.

No, that last sentence doesn’t make sense to me either. Describing flavor is hard.

In other news, my samples of Death Wish Coffee are now in process and I hope to have news on how they turned out by the end of the week. The guys at Death Wish have actively pursued one of my earliest questions: we know robusta strains are more hardy and higher caffeine content than arabica coffees, but taste awful. Have we tried to make good tasting robusta? I look forward to seeing the result.

Oh, some discussion with the folks at Caffe Vita seems to indicate that the Guatemala Mundo Nuvo will be returning. I have been lusting for this for nearly nine months now, as has everyone else I let taste the BBotE made from it. It will still be a limited run of BBotE, but there will be quite a bit more than last year. Probably will happen some time in late summer.

Buddies - A 665ml Shiny Brass & A Growler of Epicenter Ale

Right, with that, I should probably go play with x-rays again. I leave you with this picture of joy.

Sitting here in Fairbanks, AK on the latest leg of Scientific Drinking Tour 2011 while drinking a stein worth Silver Gulch Brewery‘s Epicenter Ale (took a growler home today), I realized that the next leg in DC and NY is going to be unhelpful to people looking for presents for Father’s Day. This year Father’s Day is on June19th and if you wanted to get a stein for day so he can drink his cares away in a properly cooled style or hep’d up on BBotE, you’ll need to order very soon to get it there in time.

We depart for DC on June 2nd, so all orders will need to be in by the June 1st to get orders in the mail to you. Possibly your father will be understanding about a late gift.

If so, your dad is more forgiving than mine. That’s why my vacation ends on the 18th…