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We’ve discussed hipsters’ love of horrendous multi-colored sweaters before, but we haven’t really delved into the source of this fascination. Little to hipsters realize: they are following in the footsteps of the late, great, Notorious BIG.

From Jesus pieces to staying “Gucci down to the socks,” Biggie took his over-the-top fashion seriously and brought flamboyancy in hip hop culture to new levels. One of his most important contributions to 90s fashion was bringing the Coogi sweater into the limelight. Coogi, for the uninitiated, is a high-end clothing line that pre-Biggie was pretty much only found on golf courses. Their multicolored crew-neck sweaters became a necessary component to any fly boy’s wardrobe in the mid-90s. The flashier and more-ridiculous, the better.

Today, hipsters take a similar philosophical approach to their sweater selections. Whether they feature reindeer, robots, or just awkward neon patterns, the more insane the better. It’s about drawing attention and having the balls to pull off something that appallingly ugly.

Now that we’ve drawn the connection, who’s ready to bring back the Coogi?

As you should remember from last week, scotch falls into two main categories – single and blended. The names are pretty self-explanatory – single Scotches are produced from one distillery and blended Scotches are produced from more than one distilleries. Five different types of whiskies fall under these two main categories: single malt whisky, single grain whisky, blended malt, blended grain whisky, and blended Scotch whisky.

Single Malt Whisky

This is really the “good stuff” when you think drinking scotch. Single malt whiskies are made from one type of malted grain in one distillery. Usually the grain is barley, but there are some rye whiskies out there. We are particularly fond of Bowomore and Glenfiddich, but we’ll go into recommendations in another post.

Single Grain Whisky

There are only eight distilleries which make single grain whisky so it’s not very common. Single grain whiskys are whiskies made from one grain distillery. They are usually made with wheat, corn or unmalted barley (the malt is the key difference here).

Blended Malt Whisky

The name is pretty self explanatory, these whiskies are a blend of single malt whiskies that can either come from the same distillery or from different distilleries. These types of whiskies, also called vatted malt whiskies, are pretty rare type of whisky. The are usually blends of differently aged malt whiskies that are precisely blended together to produce a “marriage” of taste. The blended malt whisky you may be most familiar with is Johnnie Walker Green.

Blended Grain Whisky

Blended grain whiskies are simply grain whiskies from more than one distillery that have been blended together. They are not very common since most grain whisky goes toward the production of blended Scotch whisky, but if you see some we recommend trying it.

Blended Scotch Whisky

This is probably what you’re most used to whenever you drink scotch since the majority of whisky produced in Scotland is blended Scotch whisky. The whisky is a blend of single malt and grain whisky that’s been distilled at more than one distillery. The usual malt to grain ratio is 60/40 but sometimes it varies. Brands you may be familiar with include Dewar’s, Johnnie Walker, Cutty Sark, J&B and Chivas Regal.

Tourist season is in full swing in the Edukatorz’ home town of Washington, DC, and we’re pretty sure it’s just as bad in other American urban centers. We’ve already discussed how one should behave on the Metro, but there’s a lot of tourist behavior that’s not just annoying to locals, but when avoided, can ensure that tourists have a much better time on their vacation. So, here are just a few pointers on what to avoid on your spring vacation to the big city.

Be Aware of Your Surroundings

It sounds obvious, but apparently it isn’t. Herds of tourists pack sidewalks across downtown DC to such an extent that it becomes impossible to move around. How is it that tourists are so oblivious to the fact that that doorway they are milling around in front of is, in fact, the entrance to a law office where several hundred people actually work and need to enter.

Dress Like a Normal Person

Why is it that when on vacation, people feel a need to don ridiculous accessories like fanny packs or battery-powered fans? Do you carry these around at home? If so, that’s just weird. You’re in a city, not a jungle. Eschew the cargo shorts-tall white socks-hiking boots combo and the fisherman’s hat. Instead of dressing 100 kids in matching neon yellow shirts proclaiming your church affiliation, travel with enough chaperons to manage the unruly little bastards. And that FBI hat? Doesn’t match the CIA shirt. Just stop.

Hard Rock Cafe is Not the Best of Local Cuisine

Instead of going to the classically disgusting tourist traps for your lunch, why don’t you try to find out what the best local restaurants are?* They aren’t necessarily expensive if you do your research, and you’ll get a much better feeling for the local culture – the Edukatorz can’t say for sure, but we’re pretty sure that Hard Rock’s crabcakes are inferior.

*Just remember your table manners, please. Check out this advice on how to behave in restaurants if you need a refresher.

A paternity test is not the most romantic of moments.

Hmm, instead of being all Orwellian, maybe we should’ve titled this post “Tardy Tuesday”? Whatever, this is what happens when the Edukatorz neglect to schedule a post and we know you can’t go much longer with out make out tips.

Today we’re going to talk about a rule very near and dear to our hearts, the Maury Povich rule. For those not in the know, Maury Povich has a daytime talk show called Maury that is known for it’s feature “Who’s the Daddy?” where two (usually) men have to take a paternity test to see if they’re the father of the woman’s child on the show. None of the Edukatorz EVER want to end up on Maury so we created this simple rule.

The Maury Povich Rule: One sexual partner (intercourse only, you can do other things of course) per menstrual cycle so you always know you your baby’s daddy is.

That’s right. Only ONE intercourse partner per menstrual cycle.* If something completely awful happens and the condom breaks or your hormonal birth control doesn’t work and you get pregnant you don’t want to play a game of “who’s the father?”.** NO ONE wants to be on a Maury ESPECIALLY the the “Who’s the Daddy?” segment so if you’ve boned one Dude this cycle, cross your legs until you’ve cycled out. We find this rule not only prevents us from being on Maury, but it also helps us to choose quality over quantity (you don’t want to waste your one Dude on a dud, do you?).

* There are of course exceptions depending on your birth control, but we’ll leave that to your discretion.

** We say pick the more successful one, but that may not always work. Especially if he’s a douche or insists on a paternity test.

Sorry for focusing on the Straights in this one. Let us know in the comments or via email of any GLBT equivalents.

Who knew that Hipsters and Patrick Bateman would have so much in common?* For those of you who have been living underneath a rock forever Patrick Bateman is the main character in Brett Easton Ellis’s masterpiece American Psycho. For those of you who don’t read** there is a pretty good movie adaptation staring Christian Bale. Both the book and the movie are Edukatorz approved for sure and you should check them out post-haste.

For those of you too lazy to click the links above, Patrick Bateman’s character in American Psycho is basically just a yuppie serial killer.***

While there are many differences between Patrick Bateman and hipsters (for instance Patrick Bateman has a real job, hipsters do not), there are an eery number of similarities.

Narcissism

Both Bateman and hipsters are incredibly narcissistic. Bateman has a huge ego and believes that he is better than everyone else in his social circle and believes that others should recognize that. Hipsters also have a delusional belief that they are better than those in their social circle and beyond and believe people should care about their “art” or whatever it is they’re doing. While Bateman manifested his narcissism through killing people, hipsters choose to just whine.

Obsessed With Music

Both hipsters and Bateman are obsessed with music and knowing all of the minutia related to their favorite bands. While Bateman can talk endlessly about Genesis or Huey Lewis and the News, hipsters choose to discuss the latest Pitchfork-crazed band.

Substance Abuse

Both Bateman and hipsters abuse drugs like Xanax and cocaine like it’s their job. The similarities in the types of drugs both use is actually kind of eerie. While hipsters prefer lower grade alcohol to the fancy stuff Bateman usually gets, both also drink like fishes.

Sexual Promiscuity

Bateman loves banging prostitutes and society hussies. While hipsters cannot afford prostitutes and do not (usually) have access to society hussies, they also will bang people at any given opportunity.

And then there’s the video below…hipster meets Patrick Bateman. Whoa. (NSFW)

Check out the rest of Miles Fisher’s work here.

*Actually, this is not that surprising.
** LAME!
*** There is some debate as to whether or not he actually kills anyone in the book.

A Trappist beer is a beer produced by Trappist monks. Yes, monks – doesn’t sound quite as strait-laced as you would expect. And Trappist beers are considered some of the best beers available on the market today.

There are currently seven monasteries of the Trappist order in the Netherlands and Belgium that brew beer. No one else is allowed to label their beers Trappist – you’ll see a lot of “Trappist-style” beers around, which is all well and good, but no monk touched those and the profits probably aren’t supporting monks or charities.

The Trappists are an offshoot of the Cistercians, a Catholic order that emphasizes self-sufficiency and manual labor. Also known as Cistercians of the Strict Observance, the order originated at the abbey of Le Trappe in France in 1664, when the abbot there decided that Cistercians in general were becoming too liberal.

There used to be Trappist breweries all over France and Belgium, but the French Revolution and the two World Wars pretty much took care of all the French breweries. Trappists aren’t the only monks who brew beer, but they’ve definitely been the most active brewers throughout their history.

There are currently seven active Trappist breweries: Chimay, Orval, Westvleteren, Rochefort, Westmalle, Achel and Koningshoeven. They generally produce ales in three different strengths – single, dubbel, and tripel – but the ABV of the different beers isn’t all that precise. While Chimay is probably the most well-known of the Trappist beers in the United States, this author urges you to try pretty much any of the ales from Westmalle if you haven’t already… especially the dubbel… mmmm… Westmalle Dubbel… excuse me I have to find breakfast now…

Scotch, or simply “whisky” in Scotland, is a hundreds-years-old tradition that is delicious. “To Friar John Cor, by order of the King, to make aqua vitae VIII bolls of malt,” Exchequer Rolls 1494-95. Yeah, that’s right, in the year 1494 they were calling Scotch the water of life. How awesome is that?

Scotch is one of the most famous and venerated types of whiskey there is. Ordering a Scotch in America just oozes classy. From Anchorman to How I Met Your Mother, Scotch is the drink of choice for the hardened (and rich) bachelor.

That Exchequer note is the first concrete historical record of Scotch, but legend has it that St. Patrick taught the Irish how to make whiskey in about 500 AD and then the Scottish learned from them. So that’s a seriously long time. Until 1823, it was also a happily illegal tradition, since when England took over they tried to outlaw most of the whiskey producers in Scotland. The response was, obviously, to set up an extensive smuggling network until they finally legalized production with the 1823 Excise Act. Think of it like Prohibition that lasted for a couple hundred years.

So what’s the difference between Scotch and other whiskeys, anyway? Most importantly, Scotch comes from Scotland. Similar style whiskeys are produced all over the place, most notably Japan, but they aren’t Scotch unless they’re from Scotland.

Scotch gained its present position as the classy liquor of choice back in the 1880s due to an unfortunate plague, actually. A nasty little bug called the Phylloxera Beetle, which embeds itself into grapevines to lay eggs and thus kills the vines, was imported to France from the US and nearly destroyed French vineyards, including those that produced brandy. Luckily, winemakers were able to import American vines that were naturally resistant to the beetle and while French wine was nigh-dead for 30 years, it came back with a vengeance. And we can all enjoy a nice Armangnac, thanks to the intelligent response to that crisis.

But back to the issue at hand. During this crisis, Scotch became the drink of choice across Europe, and people got so used it that they kept drinking it to today.

Beyond coming from Scotland, Scotch has some other legal requirements (unlike the Canadians, who are far too loose with their regulations). It has to produced at a Scottish distillery from water and barley. You can add other whole grains to it if they’ve been fermented at that distillery and only by the addition of yeast. It must be distilled to less than ABV 94.8% in order to retain the flavor of the raw materials, be matured in Scotland in oak casks for no less than three years and one day, not contain anything added except water and caramel coloring, and not be bottled at less than ABV 40%.

Scotch comes in single or blended form, and there are five further categories it can fall into. However, since buying a bottle of Scotch is like buying a bottle of French wine, we feel that to properly attend to your very basic Scotch edukation we have to save all that for another post. I hope you were paying attention, there will be a test on this material next week before we delve into more of the intricacies of Scotch.

This dude is clearly high.

Happy holidays stoners (but really, do you need a holiday?). There are a ton of misconceptions about the origin of 420, fortunately we’re here to edukate you.

Many people think that 420 comes from the police code for weed smoking in San Rafael, California during the late 1970′s. Legend has it that some pot-heads heard the cops talking about 420 and decided to appropriate it for themselves. Alas, this is incorrect.

The real beginning of 420 lies with a group of high-schoolers called the Waldos who lived in San Rafael, California in 1971. One day in the Fall of 1971 the Waldos heard about a crop of marijuana plants that was free for the taking so after school they would meet at the statue outside of their school at 4:20 to go looking for the free weed. After a few meet-ups they began using 420 as a code for smoking reefer after school.

San Rafael was a happening place at the time and the Grateful Dead and other counter culture type people were all over Marin County at that point. Some of the Waldos relatives actually knew and worked with the Dead and the Waldos had access to all sorts of Dead practices, parties and concerts. From there the Waldos spread their code word of 420 throughout the Dead community. Since the Dead toured internationally throughout the 70s and 80s the term spread through the entire Dead community and High Times picked it up and helped make it an international phenomena.

Spring time is here and that means excessive amounts of PDA. While the sunshine encourages amorous feelings you don’t want to go too overboard and start grossing people out, likewise you want to make sure you and your partner are completely comfortable while said making out goes on.

Be wary of children

You don’t want to inadvertently end up on a sex-offender registry, do you? Try not to make out too much if there are a ton of children around. You don’t want to deal with the death stares and/or pangs of jealousy from their parents. Also children are totally a mood killer and will detract from the awesome make out session.

Keep it PG (PG-13 MAX)

You’re in public and we know there’s the temptation to let your exhibitionist streak show, but you don’t want to go too far while in public. Not only do you not want to get arrested, you also don’t want to gross out everyone around you with some heavy petting or worst. Stick to first or second base while in the park and save the home run for later.

Be aware of your surroundings

Making out in a park is awesome, but not all parks are made for making out. For instance parks with playground equipment are not suitable for making out because they attract children. Neither are dog parks, parks where people are trying to play sports and any sort of organized bbq or picnic. Not only are these places box-dryers, but you’re going to make others around you uncomfortable.

Make yourself comfortable

While making others around you comfortable while you engage in some PDA is all well and good, there’s no point in making out in the first place if you’re not comfortable. Benches or blankets are ideal for making out on in the park. If you can’t find a bench and have no blanket try to find a tree you can sit down under and lean against. Barring that, make sure there are no sticks/glass/foreign objects on the grass and go at it.

Spring fever and love (or just lust) is in the air and hipsters are no exception. While we get down to the basics for everyone else here on Edukatorz with Make Out Mondays, hipsters have their own unique mating habits. When observing hipsters in the wild you’ll notice that hipsters pair (or more) off in ways that would not work for the world at large.

First thing’s first, hipsters don’t date. Dating implies commitment and hipsters can’t commit to anything. Instead of dating they just “hang out”.

Hanging out implies any situation where the two people in question are interacting. This includes seeing someone at a club, running into them at a coffee shop or bumping into them at the bar. To hang out with someone does not necessarily mean to hang out with said person exclusively or intentionally.

As a hipster starts to court his/her mate the hanging out will progress to a point where it seems like they’re going on a date, but there is no firm commitment and said “date” may or may not happen. For example a hipster may ask someone to go to a concert with him/her with no overt romantic intentions while romance is implied. Hipsters can’t handle rejection at all so by not actually asking someone out on a date they are saving themselves from possible rejection.

As the “relationship” progresses the two people will hang out more and more to the point that you will see them together all the time. The two people will at that point cease having casual sex* with others as they had before and be somewhat monogamous.

You know a hipster “relationship” is real when the two individuals begin participating in each others art forms. This includes mixing beats together, taking pictures together, posing for each other’s paintings, etc.

* A note on sexual relations. Hipsters generally either “hook-up” with random friends that they are hanging out with or go through the above dance when pursuing a “relationship.” The ultimate purpose of a “relationship” for hipsters is not just sexual fulfillment since most hipsters end up getting their fair share of casual sex via social lubricants, but psychic fulfillment as well (yes hipsters are human too). The hipster “hook-up” culture is rife with internal politics and will be discussed at a later date.