San Diego:  dry, sunny, mild; who could ask for a better climate?  Most can't.  Chargers, Trojans, Padres; who could ask for better sports teams?  Well, most can.  

But tonight's not about talent.  It's about the glorious American pastime of baseball.  The usually awkward San Diego Padres play at home in one of the country's (or at least the west coast's) newest and nicest ballparks, Petco Park.  Here's some of the views of the stadium, and one where you can see that some of the older nostalgic SD buildings were preserved, at least on the exterior, and they blend beautifully with the modern construction of the Park.

This ballpark is quite the work of modern architecture.  It also would have never been built if it were up to me.  As I posted on my Facebook page with one of these photos, to build a ballpark of this magnitude and with this level of luxury for a team like the Padres is at best ill-advised.  Maybe Kevin Costner would be proud (google "if you build it they will come") but I wouldn't have bet the California Vineyard on it.  

Obviously my rant means absolutely nothing without any numbers, but this isn't a statistics or analytical blog, so you will get none of that; in fact I'm about to point out all of the fun parts of my visit to Petco.

The bad side of sitting in west-facing seats?  For 3-4 innings you wish you had some sunglasses.  See Below:

I mentioned more beer, and I'm not a liar.  San Diego prides itself for being a Mecca of craft beers, and one is never short on options for a different flavor of brew.  My liquid-bread of choice for this evening was Karl Strauss' Pintail Pale Ale.   It won the 2012 California State Fair Commercial Beer Competition Gold Medal!  It's just a fantastic hybrid of crisp and dry hops and a full-flavored and yet-citrusy ale.  I love Pale Ales, and my favorite previously was Kona Fire Rock, but this one may be the new beer I lust for.  

Oh yea, San Diego actually beat the San Francisco Giants that night (this was Saturday, the 27th of April)!  I guess that didn't really help my case above when I was basically saying "the Padres suck".  Sorry Padres.  I had a great time at your ballpark.  Here are a few more pictures to prove it.

I promised you guys a post this weekend, so I won't disappoint all 3 of my viewers ;).  Where to begin?  I have several different topics to cover, and only so much time to hold your attention...

I'll start with how beautiful a day it was here in sunny San Diego.  I know, it's selfish and annoying that I get this beautiful weather while many of my friends and family  from the south are still dealing with rain and coldish weather before the summer... but that doesn't mean I can't enjoy my beautiful sunshine!

Look right to the left and you'll see my view from my apartment balcony.  It's gorgeous, isn't it?  I'll talk about the pipe in a little bit.  But I woke up this morning and it was cool but bright and mild, so I expected it to warm up significantly, and I was right!  I really haven't taken advantage of my pool at my apartment the way it should be, but today I decided it was about time!  Looking below you will probably want to kick me, since it took me almost a year before I really enjoyed this gorgeous pool patio...

This is a nasty view from my apartment.  I don't really know how to talk about this without bragging, so if you're jealous, just get over it.  But seriously, part of the reason I don't get to enjoy this is that I work all the time.  Yea I know, cry me a river, you guys all work all the time too.  So we all are screwed.

The beauty of this summer-esque weather brings to mind several things, but not the least of which being cold, golden beers.  My local supermarket has good deals on alcohol when bought in large-ish amounts, which means bottles of liquor by the 6 and 6-packs of beer by the fours.  So I got four 6-packs yesterday as follows:

That's Beck's (mentioned in Beerfest!  Watch that movie!), Kona Longboard, a great Hawaiian Lager, Sierra Nevada Kellerweis, a Hefeweizen, (pronounced "Heff-uh-vizen"), and Sam Adams Summer Ale.  Now, I'm open to more suggestions for great summer beers, but if you are looking for great beers to enjoy out in the sun, these are four fantastic choices.  Beck's is very light, a classic German-style, very light and enjoyable.  Kona Longboard is like Budweiser, but they put more effort into it.  That's all I can really describe for it.  It's a full-flavored lager.  Classic.  The 'Hef is light, crisp and citrusy, as are most 'Hefs, but some of them are too sweet, or too bland; Sierra Nevada did a great job creating something light and citrusy while still biting back a bit.  It has a crisp bite while giving you a refreshing flavor and feeling as it goes down in the hot sun.  And Samuel Adams Summer Lager is again light, crisp and citrusy, but it is very specific in that it tastes like an Ale, with a lemony-citrus flavor, and not as cloudy as the Hef.  All of these beers are different in their own right, but similar profiles that compliment the heat and relaxation by the water.  Enjoy!

The picture you see to the left is pretty standard for the employees at Racine and Laramie.  Don't ask me how to pronounce that name.  Also, I don't know if it is a requirement to sport a curled mustache like shown in the picture to work there, but let's just say that when I visited, I saw a similar mustache on an employee that is not featured in the photo to the left.  

This is the smoke shop in Old Town, San Diego, CA.  It is located in an historic district (yea I pronouned "historic" as 'istoric', sue me) which looks like an old western village.  There are lots of old museum-esque buildings as well as refurbished restaurants and modern cigar bars.  This particular establishment, however, is particularly awesome.  The clothing that the man to the left is wearing isn't because his style is queer, it's because the smoke shop is not just a shop, but a sort of museum!

The above photos shoe the smoke shop, Racine and Laramie (I still have to read it every time in order to spell it, and I can't even feel confident while saying the name out loud, so don't feel bad if you can't either...)

The shop is amazing for smokers; they have a walk-in humidor and cigar section where one can smoke a delicious cigar in-house.  They have glass cases where they display not only gorgeous ancient artifact-type pipes that aren't for sale, but also expensive-to-cheap pipes for purchase and smoking.  The best and most customer-friendly aspect, is the in-shop blends of pipe tobacco.  One of the photos above shows some jars with labels; these are filled with said tobacco for pipes.  The shop allows a customer to walk in, pull out his own pipe, and grab tobacco from the jars and sample a smoke!  They provide matches, ashtrays and everything!  It's a really great shop and a great experience if you like cigars or pipes!

Knob Creek.  I've talked about it before.  Tonight I am drinking it after coming in from the heat and those delicious beers above.  It's just a classic bourbon.  Smoke and vanilla, oak and just a hint of cinnamon, this is a whiskey man's whiskey.  From Kentucky.  I find myself listening to a combo of country (Alan Jackson, Kenny Chesney, Brooks and Dunn, Eric Church, etc) and Rock, such as Third Eye Blind and Mission South.  My taste in music is sorta eclectic, but my favorites are similar styles.  Where are your favorite smoke shops?  Do you have favorite bands or musicians to listen to while smoking or drinking?  Do you have a favorite bourbon or whiskey that I haven't mentioned yet in my short tenure?  Do you have suggestions for music?  Post, share, talk, anything!

Above is the lead guitarist of a new band out of San Diego called "The Tilt."  Here he's playing a Fender Stratocaster, the classic rock n' roll guitar (he also played a Fender Telecaster and a mandolin throughout the night).  In my humble opinion he's very good.  This little solo above is only one style he played in one of the songs.  I've got a few more throughout the post!  They were celebrating their first album at a concert and beer fest at a nice little venue called "Belly Up," about 20 minutes north of San Diego, in Solana Beach.  Here's some pics of Belly Up:

The beer fest was a neat little marketing opportunity for different brewers, and the cost of my $15 ticket got me in the tavern the whole night with ten free samples of these local and around the country micro brews (my favorite one being this one, called "Hazed and Infused."  It was actually a delicious fusion of an IPA and an ale out of Boulder, Colorado.  When it came time for the music, though, I got ordered up Maker's Mark straight, with some ice on the side (can't do it room temp, I do need a little bit of ice!).

This little bit has a great outlaw country sound with the deep twangy guitar.  Unfortunately they don't have a huge playlist, so they played plenty of songs that weren't on their album.  Two good ones I like are "Oil Man"and  "The Flood" (not shown on this post).  I can't emphasize enough that this girl actually sounds really great live and on the album, but my phone can't pick up these loud noises very well...  Below I would describe the left video as blues and the right as some classic rock; these guys are super versatile and it was great getting to hear them live!

Finally, here's some really nice string music; the lead guitarist is playing a mandolin and they sound great.  They remind me of Yonder Mountain String Band in this one.  I get excited listening to good string music, and so if you listen to the beginning here you can hear my dorky mouth yell "Aww hell yea!"

So this is my first post!  I know the name is "guitarsandbourbon.com" so I really expected my first post would be mainly about music, but since the BAMA vs ND game was last night I couldn't pass up on a good topic.  So here we go!

As any man should, I love football and, as were most football fans, I was looking forward to watching the game with some friends and family.  We decided on the Mellow Mushroom, which by now is a pretty large pizza chain.  If you haven't heard of it, I would look up a locator (okay here I did it for you) to try some southern style pizza.

It began in 1974 in Atlanta and has since expanded.  As my brother-in-law described it, "they do a great job of NOT making it feel like a chain restaurant."  Obviously they have lots of different pizzas, and I tried what was called the "Mellowterranean", a pizza complete with olives, feta cheese and a side of tzatziki sauce (it didn't disappoint!).  From what I could gather out of one visit, they have a plethora of other options, such as calzones, quality sandwiches, and a popular appetizer involving pretzels and a cheese made with Abita Turbodog beer (why are you still reading this?)  Some items are certainly regional, so expect to see some variations; which brings me to the beer.  In my home state of Kentucky and the relatively new location in Louisville on Shelbyville Road, they offer some of Kentucky's little-known but up and coming beers, including multiple beers finished in bourbon barrels (such as Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Ale).   All-in-all, I recommend it to all beer, sports and pizza lovers.  Here's a shot of the inside:

So anyway, back to football:  I would be lying if I said I've never been anywhere better to watch sports, but this is still way above average.  The large beer selection, varied tables with high-and-low tops, elbow room throughout and a generous helping of TVs all form a great atmosphere for sports, and we were there to watch football after all.  I love my SEC so you can bet who I was rooting for, and I wasn't disappointed!