Grab your eye patches, peg legs and hornpipes, International “Talk Like a Pirate” Day is Sept. 19 and Clipper City Brewing Co. is celebrating the holiday at the brewery by forcing people to look ridiculous in exchange for alcohol.

Featuring music from — of course — The Salty Dog Band, the shindig will debut the release of this year’s batch of Clipper City’s Winter Storm ale…but the catch is it’s only available to attendees dressed in pirate garb, so get cracking now on your costume.

If you don’t want to look like a bilge rat (and if you don’t know what that means you really need to keep reading) luckily there are a plethora of Web sites devoted to the topic of walking and talking like a pirate.

Talklikeapirate.com promises to give “your conversation a swagger, an elán, denied to landlocked lubbers.” If you want to go all-out, Dresslikeapirate.com offers everything from French coats to treasure chests. And if you want to impress your pirate friends by dropping some knowledge, the Golden Age of Piracy would be a good resource to check out.

So have fun shivering your timbers and “arrr”ing ‘til your throat is sore but be careful not to hornswaggle your bartender out of her tips or ye won’t be welcome back. Tickets, which include a Heavy Seas Pint Glass and beer samples, are $15 in advance or $20 at the door.

LIZ FARMER, Business Writer 

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When you’re enjoying your nice glass of chardonnay, pinot noir or maybe merlot this summer, names like Napa Valley, Bordeaux and Alsace may cross your mind. Now you can add J.O. to that list of grape-crushing gurus.

Though Baltimore Ravens offensive lineman Jonathan Ogden’s days of mashing defensive linemen into the ground are over, he’s now part of a different gridiron – Gridiron Cellars.

As part of Charity Wines, which has also teamed with O’s legends Brooks Robinson and Eddie Murray, Gridiron Cellars will debut Ogden Cabernet in stores and online Oct. 1. Retailers can pre-order the limited edition wine beginning this Monday, Aug. 18.

A bottle will only cost you $14, and for it’s a good cause. All the proceeds will go to the Jonathan Ogden Foundation.

FRANCIS SMITH, Special Publications Assistant Editor

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Assistant Business Editor Ben Mook uncovered an alarming story yesterday when the U.S. District Court for Maryland ordered Discovery Communications, of Silver Spring, to turn over footage to help the defense of an animal rights group that’s being sued in China.

A civil lawsuit filed in Beijing claims The International Fund for Animal Welfare impugned the reputation of a Chinese business through a web article claiming a wine it makes uses tiger skeletons as an ingredient.

The subpoenaed footage, which has not aired in the U.S., is from an episode of Animal Planet‘s Crime Scene Wild series, and examines the Guilin Xiongsen Bear & Tiger Mountain Villa Entertainment Center and its making of “bone fortified wine.” Guilin Xiongsen runs a tiger farm, villa, restaurant and winemaking operation at Bear & Tiger Mountain.

The villa’s defense? They’ve got the wrong bones.

“The main ingredients of the ‘animal bone medicated wine’ produced by [Guilin Xiongsen] are rice wine, papayas and African lion bones, and do not include any ‘tiger bone’ ingredients at all,” the company said in the lawsuit.

Read Ben’s online-only story at our main Web site.

JACKIE SAUTER, Web Editor

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As a whiskey drinker, and more specifically, an enthusiastic drinker of Maryland whiskeys (which means, in effect, rye whiskeys), I was thrilled when a friend linked me to whiskipedia, launched on the first of the year.

It’s pretty self-explanatory: an online, open-source encyclopedia of whiskey. But unfortunately, whiskipedia, even though it’s mostly written by “well-known whisky author” Gavin Smith, falls way too short.

I typed in “Maryland,” expecting to read a treatise on Maryland’s glorious history as the rye whiskey capital of the world, but instead found only one reference to the tidewater state, shamefully after Pennsylvania, in the entry about rye.

Baltimore yields 0 results, and Pikesville, the glorious, once-Baltimore-based rye that is my cheap whiskey of choice, is mentioned only once, in the rye article. Absurdly, there is no entry at all for the Whiskey Rebellion, a turning point in whiskey history, as all good hooch-swillers know, that took place in no small part in Maryland.

Frustrated, I typed in the name of my favorite scotch, an Orkney Isles poison called Highland Park, figuring hey, maybe rye just isn’t their thing!

No results.

Until whiskipedia gets it together, I’ll stick to wikipedia, which actually lists the brands of rye available under an extensive rye whiskey entry, and whiskygrotto.com.

ROBBIE WHELAN, Business Writer

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Our Maryland Business Friday feature story today highlights The Leffler Agency‘s 400-person holiday soiree – one of Baltimore’s annual traditions.

I was struck by a quote from one attendee:

“I literally changed my vacation plans because I’ve missed the party for the last three years,” said Roy Deutschman, an account executive for WERQ–FM 92.3 and WOLB-AM 1010 in Baltimore who rescheduled a trip to Italy just so he could party down with Leffler and friends.

Now, I’m sure the party spared no expense – but rescheduling a trip to Italy? It’s hard for me to imagine that. If I hadn’t attended The Daily Record’s, I would have missed out on a great buffet, an open bar, and a few memorable karaoke performances. But I don’t think it could hold a candle to a trip to Italy.

Did your holiday party offer up a truly can’t-miss opportunity? (Remember, you don’t need to provide your name to comment here).

Maybe something as regrettable as this YouTube clip?

Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Flash video.

JACKIE SAUTER, Multimedia Editor

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Well, it could have been better, but it could have been worse. Baltimore is the 46th safest drunken city in a recent survey by Men’s Health magazine. Not bad out of 100.

The survey, which is being reported by KNBC in Los Angeles, looked at drunken driving, liver disease, and other alcohol-induced crimes. But seriously folks, I have never felt that Baltimore is a city that drinks to excess, though we are prone to a certain type of brew.

However, some of our neighbors are more extreme examples from the survey. Richmond, Va. was the ninth best, while Washington was the eighth-worst.

So what do you think? Is Baltimore really that much safer than Washington when it comes to alcohol consumption?

ANDY ROSEN, Business Writer

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