Who Was Jeremiah Cunningham?

In light of the theme for the next Quincy coffee house, some might be asking: Who was Jeremiah Cunningham? An excellent question.

According to the prestigious and reputable Wikipedia, Jeremiah Cunningham (1756-1845) came from a colonial family of some means and attended the College of William & Mary. In the summer of 1781 he settled in what would become the District of Columbia, building the first Quincy House (though the house would not receive the name until 1796).

Cunningham was a founding member of the Phi Beta Kappa fraternity, and was a friend to such historical figures as William Short, Dr. William Thornton, Lt. Col. Franklin Wharton and Col. Jehiel Brooks.

Though a professed Anglican, Cunningham was a friend of both the Catholic and Anglican bishops of Maryland, and there were rumors that - like his second cousin, Edmund Burke - he may have been a crypto-Catholic. In any case, we know he was a man of letters and a distiller of scotch whiskey. What about that is not worth celebrating?


I regret the absence of a picture, but I have not yet been able to find one of our esteemed founder.

Projects Underway at the House

So I am feeling a little overwhelmed by all of the projects that myself and other housemates are working on at the moment, so I thought I would take a break from the craziness and enumerate them.

We are at the moment:

Planning a the first off-site Coffee House 1.5 weeks
Planning an American Whiskey Tasting in 2 weeks
Working on 3 separate freelancing web site projects
Trying to start a T-Shirt company
Beginning promotion for our Band
Finishing up creating a new musical instrument
Planning an Easter dinner for 20+
Encoding a DVD for the nun film project
Mixing down 3 live performances from the 24bit multi-track files
Practicing music for 3 gigs

And I'm sure there are some other happenings in there somewhere. At least things aren't getting boring.

The making of a Caucasian

Anyone who has spent any time in the Quincy House dining room will have noticed that two things we are passionate about are fine films and fine alcoholic beverages. One film that I have always enjoyed is the Cohen brother’s, The Big Lebowski, which is not only a classic film, but it also prominently features a classic drink. The Dude’s love for white Russians has certainly made the drink a part of the American vocabulary. One practice that the film has not caused growth in is (at least according to my extensive search of the interwebs) the practice of the dude’s unique recipe, which is using non-dairy creamer to make the drink. In fact, I was not able to find a single mention of anyone who had actually tried doing so. Since we recently screened the film, it seemed incumbent upon us to document and review the process of making a Caucasian.

Ingredients:
Vodka
Kaluha
Ice
Coffee Mate Non-Dairy Creamer

After mixing the drink, the first observation that I had was that the creamer did not immediately mix as evenly as the milk did.


Even after some vigorous stirring the creamer still clumped together in small chunks.


This led to an interesting drinking experience because every once and a while I caught a large bit of creamer crystals. The surprising bit was that the added texture was almost enjoyable. It is almost akin to having the cookie bits in a Krackle bar.


Aside from texture, the flavor of the creamer fit the drink quite well. Indeed after finishing the Caucasian, I moved to a more standard white Russian and I had a hard time discerning much difference in quality, however there may have been other intervening factors.
And of course the drink was best enjoyed while watching the film.

Coffee House Videos!

Here are the first round of coffee house videos from the Lenten Coffee House! There will be more coming soon. (Sorry for the poor lighting, we are still new to this video thing...)