This week the Brain Brew Crew spent some time crafting romance cocktails. Said another way – it was an excuse to put ourselves under the constraint of creating drinks that are red in color :). 

I Bring the Party Mocktail  (left) 

This is mocktail with attitude. It’s a ton of fun with just enough bubble and just enough depth to ignite the mood!  

Add the following to a mixing glass:

• 1/2 Oz Pineapple Juice
• 2 oz  Cranberry Juice
• 1 oz Club Soda
• Squeeze of Lime

Next, stir gently with ice, strain into a glass and garnish with lime. 

I Love You Berry Much (middle) 

This is a romantic version of a whiskey sour crafted by Sue Hogan. The strawberries bring some sweetness and hopes for spring and the lemon juice gets you ready to pucker up. 

Muddle the following ingredients in a cocktail shaker:

• 3 Strawberries
• 1/2 ounce (or one Tablespoon) Vermont Maple Syrup
• 3/4 Ounce of Lemon Juice
• 2 oz Paddle Wheel Bourbon

Next, shake with ice, strain into a glass and garnish with strawberry.

You’re the Zest  (right)  

This is a romantic version of a Belmont from John Ferris. It’s a complex yet clean cocktail that will open you to love.

Add the following ingredients to a cocktail shaker:

• 2 oz Paddle Wheel Bourbon
• 1/2 oz Pomegranate Juice
• 1 oz of Lemonade
• Squeeze of Fresh Lemon & Some Lemon Zest

Next, shake with ice, strain into a glass and garnish with lemon.

If you’re looking for something fun to do at home and enjoy these cocktail recipes, check out the The Raptor Center’s Love is for the Birds Live Program this Friday, February 12th. The event is a fun Valentine’s Day special informational program hosted by the Minnesota Raptor Center and features these fun recipes with bird-themed names.

Enjoy,

Doug

26 years ago in my first book, I wrote about our Eureka! Research findings on the exponential power of diversity to ignite smarter and more innovative ideas. 

Patrick Aylward’s new book, THE COLLABORATIVE PATH, is a must read for anyone who is interested in making diversity and collaboration work. 

The book’s wisdom comes from his deep expertise igniting collaboration during years of work as a lawyer, arbitrator, mediator and conflict management consultant. 

The book is filled with dozens of “nuggets” on how we can all get along better. It’s a practical book with detailed ideas, advice and techniques. 

His discussion on “The Big Three Conversations the BOTTLE, the BLURT, the BLAB” is worth the price of the book alone:

BOTTLE (don’t speak up when frustrated with someone)

BLURT (suddenly blurts out a negative reaction to them )

BLAB (gossip negatively about the person to someone else)

Most importantly, he outlines in detail how to confront and neutralize each of these negative conversations. In a world that sometimes seems to have gone mad – it’s comforting and encouraging to read a book like this. 

I especially love how Patrick defines working together as not a win / lose situation but rather as more of a wholistic endeavor.  His definition is simple….

COLLABORATION = BETTER SOLUTIONS + STRONGER RELATIONSHIPS.     

The book is available to order in print or digital form world wide. 

Here’s a link for Canada

Here’s a link for UK

Here’s a link for USA

Enjoy,

Doug

Sitting beside the fireplace at the Brain Brew Beach Bar I concluded that I should commit myself to learning something new… so that I don’t “waste” the last months of the pandemic.

Before we know it, we will all be busier than ever, leaving no time for learning something new. 

 As adults – we tend to live a life of optimizing what we already know. Learning something new – starting as a raw beginner – failing more than succeeding  – on a new learning journey is something we avoid. 

A few text messages with my cousin John in Winnipeg and it was set. The next day I’d buy a guitar and start to learn it. My goal being to play at least a couple songs with him at our Beach Bar on PEI and on his Beach Cottage in New Brunswick. (Hopefully this summer – fingers crossed).

And thus I now own a guitar and after four days, I have sore finger tips and lots of frustration.  However, the online course I’m using gives me just enough moments of joy – to inspire me to do it again and again. 

I didn’t know it when I started but learning to play the guitar has other benefits to my health. I recently heard an interview with Sanjay Gupta MD about his new book KEEP SHARP – Build a Better Brain at Any Age.  It appears that learning Guitar – or engaging in any new learning – will “Jump Start My Brain.”

So what are you waiting for – get up – get out – learn something new. 

EASY START – Customize The Whiskey Sour:   If you want an easy way to start engaging your brain.   Try experimenting and discovering a your favorite cocktail. I’m going to explore the optimization of one of the classic cocktails – the Whiskey Sour. The whiskey sour is made with the classic 2 – 1 – 1 cocktail ratio. 

 2 parts strong, 1 part sweet and 1 part sour. 

For STRONG – I’m partial to our Paddle Wheel Bourbon or Deckhand Rye

For SWEET – I’m going to Explore Simple Syrup (50/50 sugar and water) & Honey Water (50/50 mix water and honey.

For SOUR – I’m going to explore the juice of fresh Lemons, Limes, Orange, Grapefruit.   

I’m going to engage my brain in creating a testing sequence. I’m also going to do blends of 1/2 Lemon and 1/2 Lime, etc. 

My goal is to craft MY WORLD’S BEST Whiskey Sour! 

For measuring – and to make sure my judgement is good  – I’ll use our Micro Cocktail Ladles to do measuring.  If you don’t have the Brain Brew Custom Cocktail Kit (that includes them) – you can use a Teaspoon:  2 teaspoons of Strong, 1 Teaspoon of Sweet and 1 teaspoon of sour. Then, stir with an ice cube.

OK – so customizing a whiskey sour may not be what Dr. Gupta is recommending – but at least it’s a step in the right direction. 

Cheers,

Doug

At the Brain Brew Beach Bar we’ve been talking about the differences between Did, Done and Doing. We’ve concluded that the only one that matters is Doing! 

DID – is the past.  It’s nice to reflect on, but it’s no longer alive.

DONE – can be more recent as in “I got it done” but it’s still the past. 

DOING – is the future.  It’s the “juice” of life. 

DOING is about believing in tomorrow. DOING gets us up in the morning. DID and DONE are about living in the past.  

Bruce Springsteen captures the “DID/DONE”mindset in his song “Glory Days” from his 1984 album Born in the USA.  It’s about a formerly great baseball player who is fixated on the Glory Days. 

In the last verse of the song, Bruce warns us about living in the past. In my mind, he’s trying to get us to live in the DOING:

“Now I think I’m going down to the well tonight

And I’m going to drink till I get my fill

And I hope when I get old I don’t sit around thinking about it

But I probably will

Yeah, just sitting back trying to recapture

A little of the glory of, well time slips away

And leaves you with nothing mister but

Boring stories of glory days

Glory days, well, they’ll pass you by

Glory days, in the wink of a young girl’s eye

Glory Days, glory days. “

So what are you waiting for? Get Up! Get Out! Get Going! 

Cheers,

Doug

Every year as we approach Ben Franklin’s birthday on Sunday, January 17th,  I read the Papers of Benjamin Franklin – published by Yale University Press – for what he wrote 253 years ago. 

I go back this number of years as it is the year that he was the same age as I am. I do it early in the year as January 17th is Dr. Franklin’s birthday. It’s also my 62nd birthday and the birthday of my grandmother Hazel and my step sister Janet.   

Note the capitalization in his quotes below – in the middle of sentences – was as Franklin wrote. 

Advice from 1768 – Keep Exploring

As the editor William Willcox writes in the introduction to the 1768 edition, “In his political world almost nothing happened that was to Franklin’s liking.  In his intellectual world he and his associates were enthusiastically asking questions and probing mysteries, with a gusto unfettered by wrong answer and dead ends: they were alive with the spirit of inquiry.” 

Among his interests during the year were encouraging Dr. William Watson’s application of disciplined science on Smallpox Inoculation  – exploring the Gulf Stream, revising the Lord’s Prayer and creating a phonetic alphabet.  

Advice from 1768 – Live and Enjoy THIS MOMENT

On April 16th he wrote to his wife Deborah on his age and aging.  “Amidst all the sickness and misfortunes to our friends what reason have you an I to bless God, that we at these years enjoy with our children so great a Share of health and so much happiness in other respects.  Let us be thankful of what is past and present and not presume too much on a continuance of the same felicity for the future.  

Later that year he also wrote, “I know that according to the Course of Nature that the living even of another Day is uncertain. I therefore now form no Scheme but such as are of immediate Execution. “

Advice from 1768 – Enjoy the Bracing Rejuvenation of Nudity

Franklin believed that the body was revived by a cold shock.  He felt a cold bath was too violent.  So he turned to a different approach as he wrote “I have found it much more agreeable to bathe in another element, I mean cold air. With this view I rise early almost every morning, and sit in my chamber, without any clothes whatever, hall and hour or an hour according to the season, either reading or writing.  This practice is not in the least painful, but on the contrary, agreeable. I call this a bracing or tonic bath.”   

As we travel the adventure of 2021 – Keep Exploring and Live in the Moment.  I’ll leave the cold air nudity to an option :).

Happy Birthday Ben, Hazel, Janet, Michelle Obama , Mohammad Ali, Jim Carey, Andy Kaufman, Al Capone, Betty White, James Earl Jones, Mick Taylor, Kid Rock and the many others born on January 17th .

I’m stopping my WHINING and just going to find a way or make one. 

This week I came to the realization that despite my naturally optimistic mindset – deep inside a part of me was “whining” about what I can’t do during this holiday season.   

This week – as we got a dusting of snow and brisk weather, I was transported to the high arctic where years ago I participated in the Aspiration Expedition. Our journey recreated the last 200 miles of Admiral Peary’s famous trek. Peary with his second in command, Matthew Henson, were the first to reach the North Pole in 1909.  

Admiral Peary, one dark winter during an earlier arctic exploration trip to Greenland, was hobbled with a broken leg.  He famously wrote on the wall of his snow hut in Latin, “Aut viam inveniam aut faciam” or in English “I shall either find a way or make one.”

As I remembered the adventure, I realized that my whining about the fact that I can’t host our annual company Christmas party and other traditional events is just whining.

And frankly, this “Covid inconvenience” is nothing compared to my North Pole challenges: 1) full white out, 2) the day of a dozen stretches of open water and of course 3) the day I fell into the arctic ocean at 40 degrees below.  

In each case, we “found a way or made a way.”  The photo left to right is the amazing Corky Peterson, Arctic Legend Paul Schurke, myself and the amazing Craig Kurz. 

From now forward, I’m going to do as we did in the high arctic. I’m going to Find a Way or Make One. I’m going to reinvent our holiday party and going to invent new holiday traditions.  

Onward! 

Doug

Here’s a great recipe for the holiday season: 

Maple Cider Whiskey Sour

INGREDIENTS

• 2 ounces of Paddle Wheel Bourbon
• 3 ounces of Fresh Apple Cider
• Squeeze of Fresh Lemon
• 1/2 ounce of Maple Syrup

DIRECTIONS

Shake and strain into a rocks glass with fresh ice.