Category: Uncategorized (Page 5 of 7)

I’ve been closing out the year with a few topical pieces at Inside Hook. First up, evaluating the safety of various outdoor dining set-ups with regard to COVID transmission:

With temperatures dropping and rain and snow on the horizon, many businesses have been putting up more substantial structures to shelter diners from the elements. These range from simple umbrellas and heaters to massive communal tents, the latter often so thoroughly enclosed as to raise the question of whether they meaningfully count as being outdoors at all. Some cities have issued guidance about how to adapt outdoor dining for cold weather, while for others it’s a free-for-all. 

Those of us who love bars and restaurants are thus faced with a dilemma. The seemingly carefree ease of al fresco dining in the summer has been replaced by difficult tradeoffs between comfort and safety. We want to help our favorite places survive the winter, but we’re on our own when it comes to evaluating the risks of various outdoor dining set-ups. Where is one to begin?

Next, a look at how the pandemic is affecting the craft segment of the distilling industry:

The popular perception is that consumers have compensated for lost bar and restaurant sales by purchasing more liquor to drink at home. While there’s some truth to that, aggregate statistics obscure the fact that the gains have not been evenly distributed. Established liquor brands are reaping the benefits of increased retail sales, but craft distillers are getting crushed.

Finally, on a lighter note, a guide to making and aging your own eggnog:

“The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second-best time is now.”

So goes an old proverb that one could adapt for other things that take time to reach maturity. Eggnog, for example. The best time to make your Christmas eggnog is before Thanksgiving. The second-best time is now.

These are some of the items I get the most use of throughout the year. If you’re shopping for someone who’s into cocktails, coffee, cooking, travel, or apparel, you might find something of interest. (NB: If you purchase from Amazon links, I’ll get a referral.)

Bull in China Stirred Cocktail Set — I tested hundreds of cocktail recipes this year for my next book and every stirred cocktail was made in a Bull in China mixing glass. Bull in China is a Portland brand recently relaunched by my friend Matan Steinfeld, selling stylish professional gear to working bars and enthusiastic consumers. Their entire selection is worth checking out, but I particularly like this stirred cocktail set that provides everything you need to make quality stirred drinks like Manhattans, Martinis, and Negronis. It comes with their excellent mixing glass, a jigger with measurements ranging from 1/4 oz to 2 oz, a spiral spoon, and a Hawthorne strainer. Matan has also kindly offered a discount code to readers of this blog. Get $15 off the whole set with code “LIQUIDITYPREF” at checkout, now through December 17.

Chocolate bitters — I wrote a few months ago about my love for chocolate bitters. They’re extremely useful and they’re my go-to addition to a bitters line-up after the big three of Angostura, orange, and Peychaud’s. There are lots of good ones out there, but a couple available online that I recommend are Scrappy’s from Seattle and Pitch Dark from the Portland Bitters Project.

Metal Aeropress filter — Metal Aeropress filters are designed for making coffee, but that’s rarely how I use them. (I prefer the clean profile of a paper filter with that brewing method). So why include these here? I’ve found them to very handy when I need to strain things out of spirits or bitters that are too small to be caught by a fine mesh strainer. When a cork disintegrates in your bottle or a spice infusion kicks off a bunch of sediment, a quick pass through one of these in an Aeropress will take care of it.

Lewis bag and ice mallet — Do you really need a specialized bag and hammer for smashing ice? Probably not, but if you’re anything like me you’ll end up using them far more often than you expect to once you finally bring a set home. A handful of cocktails are just better when they’re served on finely crushed ice, and smashing it yourself is both easy and a form of stress relief. Bull in China makes an extremely attractive and well-made set, but for lower budgets there are less sexy options that still get the job done.

Gammel Dansk — This obscure Danish spirit is hard to find, having just recently been re-imported to the United States, but it’s a great gift for anyone who likes bitter spirits like Fernet-Branca or Campari. It’s intensely bitter without the offsetting sweetness typical of Italian amari, taking it to a different level of challenge drink that’s highly enjoyable for those who like that sort of thing. In Denmark it’s associated with morning coffee and outdoor hikes. (Disclosure: I formerly worked for the company that produces this.)

Temperature-controlled kettle — What do you get for a coffee lover who already has a good brewer, grinder, and scale? There’s a decent chance they could still benefit from a better kettle. A few years ago, I upgraded my basic electric kettle to one that has digital temperature control. A typical kettle takes water to a boil, but you generally want a lower temperature for brewing coffee or tea, so you end up having to guess at a time for the water to cool slightly. Being able to simply set the temperature you want is a worthwhile step up, and if you brew with a pour over method you’ll appreciate the gooseneck spout. (I’ve yet to try the specific model linked here, as I’m currently replacing my old Bonavita that began malfunctioning after a couple years of use, but reviews are very positive.)

Manual coffee grinder — After suffering through too many miserable hotel coffees while traveling for work, I finally invested in a travel coffee set-up. On the road I pack one of these little manual grinders. Is it as consistent as my home grinder? No. Is it kind of annoying to grind by hand? Definitely. But the purpose of this isn’t to make a perfect cup, it’s to brew coffee that’s heads and tails above what you find in most hotels. An added bonus of this model is that it’s designed to fit snugly within the chamber of an Aeropress, minimizing the space it takes up in your luggage. (The other components of my travel set are a compact scale and an electric heating coil.)

Coffee from Proud Mary — I got to know Proud Mary from their amazing cafes in Melbourne. A few years ago they expanded to the United States with a new roastery in Portland, where they consistently make some of my favorite coffees in the city. I particularly like their “wild” coffees made with less common processing methods to bring out unusual flavors, such as their current “Full Noise” offering, but anything you order from them is bound to be good.

Pizza pans from Lloyd — If you’ve followed my recent writing, you know I’ve been obsessed with making pizza this year. There are a ton of gifts you could give a pizza-loving friend or family member, from a baking steel to an outdoor oven, but perhaps the most affordable and easiest is a pan from Lloyd Pans, a small company based in the Pacific Northwest. Pizza makers swear by them, especially the 10 x 14-inch Detroit pizza pan [Amazon; Lloyd]. I’ve also been getting a lot of use out of their 7-inch personal pan, which is great for cooking solo. The pans deliver a great crust yet they release easily and clean up with hardly any effort. If you want to ease into making better pizza at home, there’s no better way to do it.

Tortilla press — Making fresh tortillas is worth the effort. I’m not saying you need to nixtamalize corn from scratch, but if you can find fresh masa (such as from Three Sisters in Oregon, or from your local tortilleria), you can make tortillas that are far better than what you buy at the store with just a little bit of practice. You can get a cast iron press for under $40. Do it. You won’t go back.

Sichuan ingredients from Mala Market — I cook Sichuan food more than anything else at home, and ingredients from Mala Market are a complete gamechanger. This small importer in Nashville brings in hard-to-find ingredients that are far better than what you typically find in US stores. If you’ve never had a really high-quality Sichuan peppercorn, theirs will blow your mind. Their Pixian chili bean paste, flakes for making chili oil, and sesame paste also find frequent use in my kitchen. And if you want to splurge, their Zhongba soy sauce has incredible depth of flavor that makes it excellent for finishing dishes. (Out of stock items are expected to arrive soon.)

Atheist shoes — I picked up a pair of boots from this quirky Berlin shoe brand on my first trip to the city years ago, and they’re still looking great with a little weathering and a more than a few cocktails spilled onto them. I love everything about them, from the soft leather to the unusual design and unique sole. One note: If you need lots of padding and support in the soles, these may not be the best fit for you, although I personally find them comfortable to wear all day. They come in a few styles and a wide range of colors, the Das Petrol shown here being my favorite.

Thursday boots — For everyday wear, Thursday Boots have become my go-to, practically living in their “Captain” boot (on days when I leave the apartment, anyway). They’re not cheap, but they’re more affordable than similar leather boots, and after more than a year of frequent wear they’re still in great shape and very comfortable.

Far Afield “Porter” shirt jacket — I had to include at least one corduroy item. As fall arrived this year, I picked up this corduroy shirt jacket from Far Afield in the UK. It’s casual, comes in multiple colors, and is the perfect weight for slightly chilly weather. And did I mention it’s corduroy?

Thousands bike helmet — I spent most of my life biking without a helmet (I know, I know) until a friend finally shamed me into buying one a couple years ago. The problem is that most helmets are rather ugly. Helmets from Thousands are an exception, and now I wear one without even thinking about it. The magnetic fastener and pop-out hole for securing to your bike lock are both smart additions to the design. [Thousands; Amazon.]

Weekenders sunglasses — I lose or scratch my sunglasses too often to spend a lot of money on them. These glasses from Huckberry strike the perfect compromise between price and style. They look good, they’re comfortable, and at just $35 you won’t feel too bad when you inevitably leave them somewhere.

Topo Commuter briefcase — This rugged laptop bag from Topo Designs in Denver traveled all around the country with me, back when travel was a thing. It’s got ample padding for your computer, room for books and other items, and a convenient zippered compartment up front. One of my favorite things about it is that it easily converts from a messenger-style bag to a backpack, so that you can switch it up to whichever is most practical in a given situation. (Available in multiple colors, but this green one is currently on a very good sale.)

My latest piece for Inside Hook examines the increasingly sheltered outdoor structures restaurants and bars are putting up as the weather gets colder:

With temperatures dropping and rain and snow on the horizon, many businesses have been putting up more substantial structures to shelter diners from the elements. These range from simple umbrellas and heaters to massive communal tents, the latter often so thoroughly enclosed as to raise the question of whether they meaningfully count as being outdoors at all. Some cities have issued guidance about how to adapt outdoor dining for cold weather, while for others it’s a free-for-all. 

Those of us who love bars and restaurants are thus faced with a dilemma. The seemingly carefree ease of al fresco dining in the summer has been replaced by difficult tradeoffs between comfort and safety. We want to help our favorite places survive the winter, but we’re on our own when it comes to evaluating the risks of various outdoor dining set-ups. Where is one to begin?

Read it here.

This past summer for me was a summer of pizza. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy pizza before, but someone else always did the cooking. Whether at a restaurant or at a friend’s pizza party, I never did much of the work myself. The pandemic changed all that, sending me down a rabbit hole of how to make better pizza at home. In my latest article at Inside Hook, I cover the options from basic pizza pans to dedicated backyard ovens that reach more than 900° F. It was a very fun piece to write, and if you’ve been curious about making pizza I think you’ll find it worthwhile.

I wrote this a couple months ago, and if I were writing it today there are a couple things I would change. First, the the article implies that you need a baking steel to accompany the pans from Lloyd. I’ve been using both together, but this isn’t necessary; you can make good pizza with just the pans and your home oven. Second, I’d add a recommendation for these personal-sized 7-inch pans. The 10 x 14-inch pans mentioned in the article are great, but they make a big a pie. These smaller pans are perfect for when you’re cooking solo.

If you’re on the fence about upping your home pizza game, here are a few recent pies for inspiration.

As we come up on the final days of the election, I have a couple pieces out on how I’m voting. If you’ve followed this blog from the beginning, you know that I’m a long-time libertarian. This year, however, I’ll be casting my first vote for a Democratic presidential candidate. From my latest in Arc Digital, “A Pox on One of Their Houses“:

This decision has less to do with the Democrats or the Libertarians than it does with the Republicans. The Democrats nominated a moderate centrist with a 50-year career in public service. The Libertarians nominated an obscure psychology lecturer at Clemson. In a normal year, I would vote for the Libertarian.

But this is not a normal year.

In 2020, I cannot in good conscience proclaim, “A pox on both their houses!” and vote third party. One of the major parties has become far more deserving of pox than the other, and not just because of the literal plague it seems intent upon spreading. The GOP has hitched its wagon to an aspiring if not yet actual authoritarian, and as a lover of freedom and liberal democracy, the desire to see him thoroughly defeated has taken precedence over other competing values.

Here in Oregon, I’ve also written on Measure 108, which will drastically raise taxes on cigarettes and impose substantial new taxes on vaping. Every major paper in Portland endorsed the measure, but the Oregonian gave me space to make an argument against it:

If there were a measure on the Oregon ballot to raise taxes on products that help people quit smoking, such as nicotine patches and gums, there would be no doubt that this would be bad for public health. Oregon’s Measure 108, which would impose substantial new taxes on vaping products, is misguided for precisely the same reason. By raising the cost of the most effective smoking cessation devices ever invented, it will unintentionally perpetuate cigarette smoking.

Lastly, on the fun side of things, I have a piece up at Inside Hook on why I love chocolate bitters:

It wasn’t that long ago that even tracking down orange bitters was an ordeal. Now you can probably find them at your local Whole Foods alongside untold other varieties of bitters, tinctures and shrubs to dash into your cocktails. This plenitude is one of the welcome developments of the cocktail renaissance, but it can be hard to know where to begin. Celery? Habanero? Rhubarb? They all have their uses, but if I could add just one bottle of bitters to the holy trinity, it would be chocolate.

One year ago today, I hit publish on my most recent book, The Rediscovery of Tobacco: Smoking, Vaping, and the Creative Destruction of the Cigarette. It was a risky time to release it. Although the book is not about vaping per se — the topic isn’t covered until the penultimate chapter — one of its main arguments is that e-cigarettes, snus, and other less harmful products have the potential to replace the lethal cigarette. The news that summer was dominated by a different take: that a mysterious epidemic of vaping-related lung diseases was killing people throughout the United States. While it’s always good to release a book with a relevant news hook, this was one that appeared to cast the entire project into doubt.

By September, as I was putting the finishing touches on the print manuscript, it seemed clear that the danger was arising from black market cannabis cartridges, not nicotine e-cigarettes. I ended up including this addendum to the chapter on vaping:

As this book goes to press in September of 2019, the United States is gripped by panic over vaping. Mysterious lung illnesses have appeared, teen use rose for another year, and the FDA announced its intent to ban flavored e-cigarettes nationwide. Emerging evidence suggests that the illnesses are mostly linked to cannabis products, though the causes are not yet known with certainty. In the long-run, I suspect that these incidents will reveal more about drug policy than they do about e-cigarettes, although it is a reminder that we do not yet know everything we need to know about vaping. Regardless, the damage has been done. Anti-smoking groups and politicians took advantage of the crisis to push bans through, with the likely effects of driving some vapers back to smoking, creating a black market, exacerbating misperceptions of e-cigarettes, and advantaging products owned by tobacco companies. In the midst of all this, one encouraging fact has been almost completely ignored: Preliminary figures show the youth smoking rate falling to another record low, down from 8.1% to 5.8% in just one year.

Looking back a year later, this paragraph has, for better or worse, held up. If you were looking for reliable information on the lung injuries in the fall of 2019, you were better served by the online cannabis magazine Leafly than by the Centers for Disease Control. Journalist David Downs had correctly identified black market additives to cannabis products as the source of contamination by August of that year. It took months for the CDC to catch up, and even today the agency continues to sow confusion by misleadingly casting blame on nicotine vaping.

As predicted, the result of this was a wave of new restrictions on vaping products, particularly bans on flavored e-cigarettes. Research from the NBER later concluded that misinformation from the CDC, along with associated press reports, did damage by failing to warn consumers away from contaminated cannabis products and by creating long-lasting misperceptions about the relative risks of vaping. Federal regulations taking effect this month are advantaging Big Tobacco over small producers, a topic I covered in-depth recently for Arc Digital. On the positive side, the FDA did partially back away from its plan to ban all flavored e-cigarettes, youth vaping rates declined in 2020, and the youth smoking rate continues falling to record lows.

Unlike my first and forthcoming third books, both produced under contract with a traditional publisher, The Rediscovery of Tobacco is self-published. This was also a risky decision since there was no advance, no sales team, and no PR push beyond my own emails to potentially interested readers. As a contrarian book in a fairly niche area of public policy, it was never going to be the next Harry Potter. So, was it worth it?

From a purely financial perspective, I didn’t expect it to provide a good return for the amount of time spent producing it. Given how long it takes to write a book like this, I’d have been better off working minimum wage. That said, spending long stretches of time in coffee shops reading and writing about topics I care about is how I spend a lot of my free time anyway, so I might as well have gotten a book out of it. The research was also subsidized by freelance pieces I was able to sell along the way: certain chapters draw heavily on articles I published in The Atlantic, Slate, and Reason. Lastly, writing a good book is gratifying, so the rewards aren’t purely financial.

The book has not sold quite as well as I’d hoped it might, but my fear was that it would not sell at all, so I’m happy to say that it’s doing reasonably well. It has sold in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, India, Japan, throughout Europe, and likely some other countries. It led to multiple radio and podcast appearances, a live event at the Cato Institute, some articles reconsidering the extent of smoking bans, and positive reviews at Reason, Spiked, and a variety of trade publications. While sales of many books taper off soon after publication, this one has continued to sell through the summer, with July coming in as the second-best month for sales so far. Feedback from academics who study tobacco harm reduction has been overwhelmingly positive.

In the process of producing the book I learned a ton about self-publishing, from the ease of using Vellum (very worthwhile) to the exorbitant cost of acquiring your own ISBN (perhaps not so much). Amazon as a company gets a lot of bad press, but as an independent author I have to say it’s amazingly empowering. Through their Kindle Direct Publishing platform I can get an e-book or high-quality print-on-demand paperback to readers all over the world with zero inventory or shipping costs on my end. And while I miss the advance that comes with a traditional publishing contract, at the margin I make about three times as much per unit selling through Kindle Direct than I do selling through a publisher. Unlike many books that never generate enough royalties to pay out their advances, every time someone buys The Rediscovery of Tobacco, they’re putting money directly into my pocket. Whatever else you want to say about Amazon, their self-publishing platform is a marvel of communication, and my book probably wouldn’t exist without it.

(That said, I do have some significant complaints about the Kindle publishing interface, including one inexcusable problem that forced me to cancel some of my digital pre-orders. I won’t bore you with those details here. The hardcovers are sold through IngramSpark, which I also recommend for self-publishing. The quality is great and they have international reach for retail bookstores. My return is lower on hardcovers except when selling them in person, but hardcovers are nice and I like having them available for those who prefer them.)

With more than a billion smokers in the world and the ongoing battles over harm reduction and prohibition showing no signs of letting up, The Rediscovery of Tobacco is going to be relevant for years to come. If nothing else, I’m glad that when people look back on this era of of moral panic and bad policy, I’ll have written one of the few books to get things mostly right.

If I’ve learned one thing as an author, it’s to take every opportunity to promote your book, so I’ll end with a pitch: you should read it now! If you want to understand the history of tobacco, how the modern anti-smoking movement lost its way, and how innovation and harm reduction can combat a deadly product that kills more than seven million people every year, this is the book for you. Buy it from any of the following retailers. Or if you’ve purchased and read it already, thank you, and any assistance spreading the word through reviews or social media would be greatly appreciated.

Purchase The Rediscovery of Tobacco from: Amazon | Kindle | Bookshop | Apple | Powell’s | Barnes & Noble

I have a couple new pieces out, one long and one short, both related to smoke. First, the long one. For Arc Digital, I wrote an in-depth feature on the future of tobacco. It covers a lot of ground, drawing on visits to Philip Morris’s research headquarters in Switzerland and the Snus and Matchsticks Museum in Stockholm. It also looks at FDA regulation in the United States, the fate of e-cigarettes, and the cultural dysfunction in professional tobacco control. An excerpt:

The future of tobacco is very much up for grabs. It’s a struggle over not just what kinds of tobacco and nicotine products people consume, but also who is allowed to produce and sell them. As the age of the cigarette comes to an end, corporations that spent the previous century merchandizing that deadly product are politically and financially well-positioned to seize the market for safer alternatives. Ironically, laws and regulations supported by anti-smoking groups have paved the way toward a future that may once again belong to Big Tobacco.

The shorter piece is about the wildfire smoke that’s currently blanketing Portland. We’ve had some of the most hazardous air in the world for the past week, so residents are being urged to avoid being outside as much as possible. But there’s one group that an archaic state law has put in harm’s way:

Parts of Oregon this week achieved the distinction of having the worst air quality in the world. Due to the wildfires, the air quality index rating for Portland exceeded 500, which is literally off the charts. (Anything over 150 is considered “unhealthy” and anything over 300 is “hazardous.”) The Oregon Occupational Safety and Health Administration has urged employers to shut down outdoor work activity when possible. Despite this, there’s still one group of workers needlessly spending their days outdoors: the station attendants who pump drivers’ gasoline because of Oregon’s ban on self-service fueling.

I didn’t intend to cover the protests in Portland, but as they consumed national attention, friends convinced me to write about them as a local observer. The resulting piece for Arc Digital ended up as one of my most popular and controversial recent articles. It explores what’s going on at the protests, why they offer a lot for a libertarian to love, and how our first reality TV president is using Portland as a prop for his re-election campaign. Read it here:

For a city under siege, things are surprisingly tranquil. The latest figures from the police bureau suggest that most crime is actually down. Yet the proud weirdness of our mid-sized city has long invited outside observers to read into it what they want to. Not long after I moved here in 2008, Portlandia cemented our role as national hipster punchline, a place where chickens have names, where you can put a bird on something and call it art, where young people go to retire. Now it’s where young people go to light fires, at least in the right-wing imagination. Both depictions are highly fictionalized, but even in bleak 2020, Portlandia remains the truer approximation.

Though it received less attention, my other piece for Arc Digital is my favorite thing I’ve written this year. It’s about a visit to a tiny tobacco farm on a remote island in Denmark where a woman named Janni Bidstrup keeps the tradition of Danish cigarmaking alive:

The morning starts a little later here in Ærøskøbing, a historic trading outpost of fewer than a thousand people that’s so picturesque, so abundantly hygge, that even Danes describe it as a “fairytale town.” I have it to myself as I wander the cobblestone streets waiting for breakfast. Colorful houses exude Scandinavian charm in the bright morning sun, and many of them leave homemade foods and crafts out for sale to passersby: packages of biscotti, knit socks, jars of marmalade made from foraged apriplums. Although the marmalade is tempting, I’ve traveled here for a different kind of produce. Ærø is the unexpected home to one of the world’s rarest cigars, the tobacco planted, harvested, cured, and rolled by hand in a labor of love by one of the last cigarmakers in Denmark.

I also have the cover story for the latest issue of Reason magazine, now free to read online. A lot has been written about bars and restaurants closing due to the pandemic. I focus instead on how some are finding innovative ways to survive and how the virus will change the hospitality industry for years to come:

When we think of things going back to “normal,” we really mean back to what we may eventually regard as a golden age of restaurant culture. The flourishing of the last decade or so was enabled by travel, immigration, international trade, intricately connected local suppliers, traditional food media, internet communities, and smartphones capable of taking professional quality photographs. Most of all, it was enabled by increasing prosperity and an openness to new experiences.

Prosperity and openness are both threatened now, the former by the economic crash and the latter by the fear that social gatherings will transmit an invisible and potentially deadly virus. The dream is that an effective vaccine will be developed in record time and we can hit a reset button on this year; the restaurant and bar economy, emerging from its deep sleep, will come back to life and pick up right where it left off. The reality is likely to be far more difficult.

I was also happy to contribute to this Esquire collection of home recipes from people laid off from work in bars and restaurants. It’s part of a larger package covering the business. My own suggestion for making drinks at home is the Honeysuckle, a lesser-known relative of the Daiquiri:

Springtime in Portland arrived about a week into our shutdown, and aside from my daily bike ride, I’ve been experiencing it mostly from my window. With everything in bloom, I associate honey cocktails with the season. Honey syrup is easy to make and brings an extra dimension of flavor that you don’t get with standard simple syrup. It’s also extremely versatile in basic three-ingredient cocktails, by combining it with citrus and a base spirit. The most well-known of these is the Bee’s Knees, which mixes gin, honey, and lemon, but it can work with just about any bottle you have on hand. Substitute bourbon for gin and you have a Gold Rush; rum, lime or lemon, and honey makes a Honeysuckle.

Lastly, for Inside Hook, I revisited the topic of my first book, how to make cocktails with beer, with three contemporary ways of using it in cocktails:

Does beer belong in a cocktail? Purists may recoil at the idea, thinking it sounds like a way to ruin a perfectly good beer, or perhaps recalling cheap “beergaritas” and other haphazard concoctions aimed more at maximizing alcohol content than at the harmonious commingling of ingredients. If that sounds like you, I’d urge you to reconsider. Beer is a surprisingly versatile addition to your mixology arsenal, and the secret ingredient for your next favorite summer cocktail may already be lurking in your refrigerator.

I have a new op/ed for the Oregonian up this week on the unexpected success of the Black Lives Matter protests shifting public opinion and the failure of anti-“big government” conservatives to contend with police brutality:

Despite some progress on the right, Republicans still lag far behind other groups in support for Black Lives Matter, the Pew survey notes. This is a conspicuous failing for a party that styles itself in opposition to “big government.” The videos of police brutality that have flooded social media document big government in action. No-knock warrants of the type that led to the killing of Breonna Taylor in Louisville, part of a drug war that, according to the Drug Policy Alliance, costs the United States nearly $50 billion every year, are big government in action. The predatory policing of Ferguson, where the police department treated black residents as a source of revenue rather than as equal citizens, is big government in action. The left-leaning politics of Black Lives Matter is no excuse for conservatives to avert their eyes from these flagrant abuses.

From the June print issue of Reason, now online, I review the new Dr. Oz-endorsed book Quit Vaping, which doubles as a look at how the media skews perceptions of e-cigarettes:

One shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but in this case the text lives up to expectations. The opening section, “Lies and Facts,” offers a preponderance of the former. Initially I attempted to keep track of misleading statements and critical omissions by marking them with Post-its. By page 30, such a thicket had accumulated that I gave up. Adequately critiquing Lamm’s selective reading of the scientific literature would be like trying to perform a live fact-check of a Trump campaign rally; the torrent of error is too much for any one person to handle. This section is a greatest hits collection of anti-vaping stories, recounting every possible danger and dismissing every possible benefit. In that sense, it provides a useful look at how coverage of the topic has become increasingly fear-based.

I also have a couple of recent lifestyle pieces for Inside Hook. First up, the case for making your own tortillas at home:

Baking sourdough bread has become the de rigueur culinary endeavor for food lovers stuck at home during the coronavirus shutdown. Perhaps you’re tempted to join in on the activity, but there are a few obstacles. The spike in demand has made flour a scarce commodity. More importantly, making sourdough looks hard.

 If, like me, you’d like to take on a slightly less daunting but nonetheless immensely satisfying cooking project, I suggest switching grains from wheat to corn, and making your own tortillas.

And next, an article about Irish Coffee, both how to make it the classic way and how to change things up:

As a coffee purist, I generally don’t like adding anything to my coffee — not even booze, despite my career in cocktails. My routine is typically several cups of black coffee throughout the day, spirits and cocktails at night, and never the twain shall meet. But I can’t deny that coffee cocktails do have their place, and as coronavirus shutdowns and social distancing have thrown schedules into disarray, I’ve been enjoying them more often.

Lastly, I’m continuing to send out my semi-weekly Substack newsletter. It’s free to subscribe and features my own writing, links to topical stories, and tips for making social distancing more bearable (i.e. cocktail recipes). Subscribe here.

Those are the topics of my two most recent articles. First, the coffee. I spoke with Peter Giuliano of the Specialty Coffee Association about making better coffee at home:

“In our research we’ve been quantifying how much different interventions affect the quality of the beverage,” he says. “What’s really clear is that the biggest impact is the coffee itself. There’s nothing that you can do that will have as big an effect as the quality of the coffee in the first place.”

Then at Slate, I look into the current state of the science on smoking, vaping, and COVID-19:

Are smokers and vapers more likely to die of COVID-19? To judge by news coverage of the topic, the answer is an unequivocal yes. The New York Times, Wired, CNN, Bloomberg, and numerous other publications have run stories warning that smokers and vapers are at higher risk. Anti-tobacco groups are using the pandemic as an opportunity to push for new restrictions on nicotine, ranging from bans on vapor products to the complete prohibition of cigarettes. At least one senator, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, is citing the disease as justification for a national ban on flavored e-cigarettes, while House Democrats are urging the FDA to temporarily ban e-cigarettes entirely. Amid all this alarm, one complication has received relatively little notice: Emerging evidence on the risk factors for COVID-19 is ambiguous with regard to smoking and virtually nonexistent for its relationship to vaping.

Lastly, I moved my newsletter over to Substack. If you’d like to subscribe, click on over here.