My email box is scorching over my inadvertent libel of bourbon and Kentucky. Several gentlemen (and at least one bellicose pistol-packin' momma) have drawled into their keyboards, "Ah demand satisfaction, suh..."

Well, not that I would hesitate to die on the field of honor, but I fear that, being so well loved down here, it might set off another international incident that could result in a renewal of the tensions of the Recent Unpleasantness, except this time between Caribbean rum partisans and regional bourbon connoisseurs, and I wouldn't want to be responsible for that!

So, I think I'll go off to St. Thomas for the weekend until the passions of my beloved brethren from just below the Mason-Dixon line (instead of waaaaaaay below, like me) have had time to temper and cool.

This is a slightly-hyperbolic and apocryphal way of saying that my posts will be sparse or non-existent for the next three days, after which I'll be back in California, whereupon I can once again become a partisan for wine...