Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with Spirits

Distilling help

kaseijin — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 13:01:24 -0800

What is involved with starting a distillery? Namely, in Texas. Interested in potentially starting a distillery. I see the TABC license fees, and assume that I would need both a license to produce, and a private warehousing license to store.

What other requirements/costs should I know to expect?

Tell me about creativity as an external anima, please.

Cantdosleepy — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 03:33:59 -0800

Looking for information about creativity as an external force or spirit (or manna or anything even vaguely similar). Things like the Greek Muses, from any cultures. I've the hatchling of a plan for a story that involves a creativity-inducing environment, and am looking for background reading / idea-spawning stuff.*

If you can think of any rituals people perform in other cultures to commune with creative spirits, the names of any sprites or nymphs or kami involved in this, any great speeches by poets declaring opiates to contain idea-giving properties, any of that would be gold.

Famous arguments to the contrary would also be appreciated. I'm not looking for a discussion about the merits of this worldview, particularly (although if you want to hash it out a little in this thread don't let me stop you) but am more interested in historical proponents of both sides. This thread about conceptual blending, for example, was gold. If a moustachioued Edwardian had said something pithy about something similar, even better.

Looking to spend some time filling my brain with this stuff and seeing if anything useful comes out.

(*What's that you say? Using external materials to induce creativity? Good spot, but not exactly what I mean. I'm after external anima-type things that people think they can commune with.)

Where does my spirituality lie?

Anonymous — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 19:33:04 -0800

I don't follow a religion, and my spiritual life feels so empty without one that it bothers me enough to disrupt daily life. I believe in nature spirits, and I have a strong spiritual connection with nature. However, I also feel a connection to Christianity that I can't quite identify. I believe in spirits such as tree, wind, and rain spirits. Not rock, technology, plastic, or any spirits of that sort. I've tried looking into paganism, but I need dogma for a religion to resonate with me.

I find myself spiritually drawn to Christianity, but I'm not sure I believe in God and if I do, I'm not sure I like him. I was raised Christian, and was turned off to it because I never understood why God didn't make everyone happy and also able to appreciate what they had. That, and the vengeful stories.

Despite that feeling, I find myself wanting to rediscover Christianity on a day to basis, and it's usually because I'll come across a Christian whose values resonate with mine.

Does "Christian" and "believes in nature spirits" go together at all? Is there another religion I might be overlooking here?

Liquor in Long Beach

Secret Life of Gravy — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 12:27:38 -0800

Looking for a fabulous Liquor store in the Long Beach, CA area. I'm in Long Beach for a month and my husband is coming out shortly to spend a week. He's lived his whole life in NC which has ABC stores-- meaning the government decides what is for sale. I would like to take him to the biggest, baddest liquor store in the area-- which could include downtown LA since we will be going up to the La Brea Tar pits, and San Diego since we will be going to the zoo.

Shinto Me Timbers... help me find out more about this religion!

tittergrrl — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 08:39:05 -0800

Looking for some recommended books and media about Shinto, especially the history, tenets and practices of it. On my last trip to Japan, I found myself getting very interested in Shinto after taking a walking tour in Kyoto. I'd like to continue learning about it, but don't wanna wander around blindly trying to find the best resources. So, I ask upon the spirits of the MetaFilter shrine... hook me (and maybe others?) up, yo!

Tricks, tips, and recipes for cooking with alcohol?

rossination — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 23:01:40 -0800

Tricks, tips, and recipes for cooking with alcohol? I'm talking about things like Beer-Glazed Black Beans or Penne with Vodka Sauce. I've recently turned 21 and now have a proper array of liqueurs, wines, beers, etc, and would love to work on incorporating those into my cooking.

Other things -- I eat mostly vegetarian: lots of fish, some (very little, really) chicken and red meat, although there's no reason not to give suggestions for those kinds of things. I cook a lot, and tend to prefer simpler recipes that I can expand on (like the Bittman one for the black beans) as opposed to some ridiculous, drawn out America's Test Kitchen style recipe.

But really, it's all good. What are your favorite ways of cooking with booze?

How should I get 170 people good and drunk?

Alison — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 08:38:36 -0800

I'm doing a (semi) limited bar at my wedding reception on a (semi) limited budget. What is the best hard liquor to serve? How much should I buy? We would also love to hear suggestions for wine and champagne that offer the most for our dollar. My reception facility is mercifully BYOB, so we will be stocking both bars. We want to serve beer (at least two kinds), wine (white and red), two or three kinds of hard liquor, and champagne if the budget allows. We're also doing a few signature cocktails, so our hard liquors will definitely include tequila and rum. Our facility will be stocking all of our mixers for us.

We'll have about 170 drinkers and a budget of $600-$700. However, if this is too little we can raid other areas of the budget to make sure we cover any monetary shortfalls.

My questions:
1) Is about 3 glasses of beer per drinker enough? We can obtain two 1/2 kegs and two 1/4 kegs of two very nice beers for $250. That should yield almost 500 12 ounce glasses of beer.

2) How much red wine should we buy? How much white wine should we buy? What brands/vintages should we look for?

3) Are there any other hard liquors that we should consider stocking? How much should we buy?

4) What are some good budget champagne suggestions? Would it be terribly gauche to buy just a few bottles of the nicer stuff for the lucky few who get to them first?

I'm not much of a drinker, so please let me borrow your refined palettes.

Thank you, Ask Metafilter, for continuing to plan my wedding!

1,000,000 year old single malt

Falconetti — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 17:57:50 -0800

I wanted to buy (at some point) a really, really expensive bottle of liquor or wine (no Champagne). The idea was to hold on to it for a very long time until one day something so important happens in my life that I deem it worthy to drink the alcohol in celebration. Any suggestions on what to get?

How do I mix a drink that tastes like Coke?

moss — Sun, 06 Aug 2006 02:34:51 -0800

BoozeFilter: The flavor of cola drinks, like Coke, is "a mixture, or fantasia, of vanilla, cinnamon, and citrus flavorings". Knowing this, what three kinds of alcohol would you combine if you wanted to make a mixed drink that tasted as much like cola as possible? I could obviously just grab whatever citrus, cinnamon, and vanilla flavored liquor I can find, but I can see a few different pitfalls to avoid: one flavor being too strong or too weak; the ingredients not combining well; some unexpected other flavor appearing too strongly; or (possibly unavoidable) the whole thing combining into one Giant Unstoppable Ball Of Pure Hangover. So, I throw myself on the mercy of the combined alcoholic knowledge of all MetaFilter: what could I use that would have a reasonably high alcohol content, would have relatively similar intensities of flavor, wouldn't clash with each other terribly, and wouldn't make me too sick?

My whack explanation needs refining

greta simone — Mon, 17 Jul 2006 08:21:29 -0800

I have this weird theory involving ghosts (sort of) and I want to know if there are essays or writers out there with similar theories I can use to develop my own... Ok, this is kind of abstract, so pardon if any of this is vague.
This is the short version-- I kind of believe in ghosts, not in the sense that people are coming back from the afterlife to send messages or what have you, but more in this sense: that spaces (homes, buildings, outdoor spaces) themselves have a kind of memory that retains the essence of powerful spirits (and by spirits, I don't mean souls, I just mean spirit as in exhuberance of personality for example). When someone with a powerful spirit dies in some uncommon/unnecessary way that the spirit leaves an imprint on the memory of the space they occupied. And this is what those who see or sense ghosts actually experience.
What I want is not approval or agreement of my theory-- I just want to know if anyone has read or can direct me to sources that similarly reflect what I'm trying to get at that I can use to make the explanation of my idea a little clearer or to expand what I already think. Thanks!

Best $20-$30 Cognac?

jalexei — Wed, 21 Dec 2005 07:20:45 -0800

Cognac Filter! Looking for a reasonably-priced ($20-$30?) but decent bottle of cognac to give as a gift. Not my drink so I don't know where to start.

Recommendations for chocolate, aphrodisiacs, and spirits, please.

docpops — Sat, 05 Feb 2005 10:35:52 -0800

We're throwing a party in a few weeks, loosely themed around fine chocolates, aphrodisiacs, and spirits/wine that would naturally accompany such. Any recommendations, especially for fine chocolates?

Parenting a Visionary Child

putzface_dickman — Thu, 23 Sep 2004 06:45:14 -0800

My 6-year-old daughter sees things other people don't. "Skitter scatters," ghosts, auras. She just started school and there's something in the lunchroom only she can see, and this one makes her nervous. [mi] First, I'm asking for someone who's had them to tell me how he or she dealt with these experiences, and how that turned out.
Second, I want to know what myth/story/magic/cinema might yield to identify this mysterious object.
From my girl:
It's on the ceiling of the cafeteria. It's the size of two adult fists. It's black and white and swirls. It's shiny but not sparkly. It is magical and not mechanical. The one picture she has drawn of it shows an uneven black band swirling around a mostly white center. (I imagine it's motion and appearance are like Jupiter's red spot.) It seems to float against the corrugated metal of the ceiling.

Believe me, I would be no less skeptical than some of you surely are, but I have chosen to respect her experiences and I'm asking for people to respect this query. There are familial precedents that have been that have been used to reassure, but not encourage her. Please don't advise meds, or counseling.