Who's Ready for NYE?

For those of you without plans yet for Monday night, here's one random option in each of three non-random cities:

Seattle - Jet City Improv's 5th Annual New Year's Eve Spectacular at the Historical University Theater. Laughing-in the New Year is always a respectable way to go.

Portland - Fir Ball 2008 at Doug Fir. Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven duel for New Year's Eve SUPREMECY! Or something like that. Doors at 8, show at 9. Sold out, but limited amount of tickets at the door.

Boise - When in doubt, go with live music. The Big Easy has Micky & the Motorcars for NYE. Or you could take in Wu-Tang there tonight.

Everyone have a safe New Year's!

Liquor Beer and Wine the flashing sign I see

The Northwest has always been a region with advance tastes for premium products. Oregon and Washington are quickly growing as a premium wine region soon to rival locations such as Napa or Burgundy. Portland has more breweries than any city in the world and not by "per capita", just more breweries. While premium and craft beer are seeing good growth through out the country to an almost 3% share, The Northwest has always been a place for great beer where there is close to a 30% share. That's a lot of good beer.

The new trend, and the Northwest is leading the way, Small Batch Distillers. Through Oregon, Washington, and Idaho, small distillers are popping up and creating small artisan American products. In Idaho, The Bardenay is billed as the the country's first distillery pub and Rogue has one in downtown Portland. Move from the pub and you have small distillers very passionate about what they are doing. Distillers like Clear Creek in Portland use traditional European techniques to produce wonderful brandies and House of Spirits who will soon be releasing a small batch whiskey.

We at Top Left urge you to try some of these small batch local products and ask your favorite bartender or your local store to start offering these selections. The Northwest led the way for the country in Beer and Wine, now let's do it in Spirits.

Hit up the survey!!

Bubba Watson Breaking the (Puget) Sound Barrier

As mentioned in our upcoming Chambers Bay review, the BMW Northwest Skin's Game was held at Chambers Bay in University Place, WA this past October. Here's a video of Ryan Moore and Bubba Watson teeing off during the two-day event. Bubba's drive is right at the end of the video.

Christmas-time Non-Christmas Movie Recommendation

I'm sure over the weekend and the rest of the holiday season, everyone will be watching their favorite holiday films. At some point, though, you can only take so much. So when you're tired of it all after watching It's a Wonderful Life for the 45th time, I'm here to recommend Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. Michelle Monaghan (see above) stars along with Robert Downey, Jr. and Val Kilmer in a quirky, fast-talking, funny film that a lot of people missed, but should make the time to see.

And Happy Holidays from Top Left!

Enter Sandman

Top Left Magazine IS a golf magazine, but that by no means defines us. While this might mean we have content about beer, wine, travel, and nightlife, we also might talk about sports other than golf. Especially if they take place in the Northwest.

Which brings us to sandboarding. In our January issue, Oregon's coastal city of Florence is featured. Florence is a great, little town with a couple of great golf courses, but they are also known for their sand dunes. And with these sand dunes comes the sport of sandboarding. Sand Master Park is a sandboarding park in Lane County, Oregon. It offers all sorts of sandboarding activities worth checking out. First-timers and sandboarding veterans are both welcome, so if anybody out there is looking for a new and exciting activity, this might be your place.

Annika Designs Golf Course Here In The Northwest

Annika Sorenstam has stepped into to the arena of golf course design. In the January issue of Top Left Magazine , we talk about one of her finished projects at Mission Hills in China.

Just to the North of us is Rossland, British Columbia, Annika will start her first North America project here at Red Mountain Resort, due north of Spokane. Annika will break ground in 2009 with architect Thomas McBroom. They will be designing this course from the ground up.

In a recent interview on the grounds of this new course, Annika talks about how much she loves the new work and how lucky she feels to been given these opportunities.

In my opinion, this is just another huge plus for the northwest. I love to play courses that are designed by top pros. I like this because they know exactly what makes a great course. Have you ever been to a skate park that wasn't designed by a skateboarder, same idea here. When some one is as hardcore and passionate about golf the way Annika is, the end result is going to be a great course.

Top Left Magazine would like to welcome Annika to the Northwest and say how excited we are to come play The Golf Club at Red Mountain.

"He has a tap-in"

Peter Jacobsen is one of the Northwest's most charismatic personalities. In our January issue, we have an article and interview with this man of many interests and ideas. He discusses Northwest golf, Payne Stewart, the Trail Blazers, the Simpsons, and a lot more.

Another interesting fact about Peter is that he is a reserve police officer. This was an pertinent aside when golf clubs were stolen from him earlier this year, and it also is of note when looking at the above picture, which was taken at the 1985 British Open. Follow the link to see what happened and (more importantly) what Mr. Jacobsen had to say about it.

How to tackle a streaker [golf.com]

Ms. Anna Rawson

Better late than never. Welcome to the LPGA!
Fanhouse

Winter Warmers

Any beer enthusiast has to love this time of year. Good, strong beer takes center stage and a lot of seasonals that are full of tradition find their way back onto the market. Here's a list of some of our favorite winter beers:

Anchor Christmas Ale
Brewed every year since 1975, Anchor's Christmas Ale is an absolute tradition. The most unique characteristic about this beer is the fact that each year's ale is different. 2007 is an extremely dark ale with a healthy amount of spice.
Anchor Brewing

Samuel Smith's Winter Welcome Ale
The winter offering from this Yorkshire, England brewery is one of the season's most consistent. It's a little on the pricey end, but in the eyes of most, it's worth the money.





Jubelale
Brewed by Deschutes, Jubelale is entering it's 20th year of bottling. Every year, an artist from the Northwest is picked to design the label, and this year Lindy Gruger Hanson has the distinct honor of creating the artwork. Pick up a 6-pack and support your local brewery!
Deschutes Brewery




Snowplow Milk Stout
This stout made by Portland's Widmer Brothers Brewing Company isn't technically a winter warmer, but it's deep stout flavor makes it a great beer for those cold winter nights.
Widmer Brothers

How was your Sunday, Ernie?

Ernie Els - generally thought of as a reasonably cool customer - collapsed on the 18th hole of the final round of the Dunhill Championship, all of this taking place in his home country of South Africa. In a Tin Cup-esque moment, Els had two shots end up in the green-side water on 18, resulting in a triple-bogey eight and a 1-shot defeat. A snowman in December only seems fitting.
In the spirt of epic collapses, here's a link to a list of Seattle sports' contributions for anyone who missed this a few month's ago.