Happy Jefferson Day everyone! Finally, a holiday that celebrates freedom, plain and simple. No more 4th of July for the Backwoods Hipster, except to sit around, make a BBQ and get fat, because that’s about all the bloody thing is worth anymore. I’d say that the people of this great nation today suffer under more [...]

The new e-book by editors of Backwoods Hipster and Duende Publishing entitled The Absinthe Alchemist: How To Make Superior Quality Absinthe is now available from AbsintheAlchemist.com. Based on years of knowledge in the herbal product manufacturing industry and tons of research, this volume is certain to find a place in many an absinthe maker’s research [...]

OK, Let’s set the record straight right now, before we even begin. Alexander Hamilton was a stinker! Thomas Jefferson was cool! In fact, Jefferson was so cool that Backwoods Hipster endorses a new holiday, Jefferson Day, to be celebrated on June 30th each year. The Fouth of July has become an empty holiday. It’s a [...]

We had the good fortune of being turned on to Jason Webley by a mutual friend a few years back. Since then we’ve seen him numerous times when on his West Coast tours. Here is the long awaited interview with JW. He plays the Blacksheep in Ashland on May 10. Also playing are Reverend Peyton’s [...]

By Mark the Butcher This will be a two-part article, designed to take some of the mystery and fear out of processing your own animals. Part one will cover birds, while part two will address the larger animals like deer, cow, and pig. Butchering anything is dirty work, definitely not for those with a weak [...]

I’ve been thinking about the Singularity lately. And I’ve been anticipating the arrival of my favorite strange holiday, Cinco de Mayo. Curiously, the two concepts dovetail more neatly than this conspiranoid mind would care to admit. But first a little background. The Singularity is the theoretical point at which humans create technology that is smarter [...]

Hey, I don’t know about you but I kind of dig the Ides of March. You know, before those kniving, scheming Roman senators ruined in for us, the Ides were pretty special. Based on the old Roman lunar calendar, they marked the full moon. Ain’t nothing wrong with that. But that doesn’t mean that there [...]

Here’s a plant that’s worth having some fun with. Mandrake (Mandragora officinarum) enjoyed a long career with a mixed reputation before falling into obscurity. The old superstition was that it screamed when uprooted and killed or caused to go insane those who heard it. Early records show that mandragora {mandrake} and Indian hemp {hashish} were [...]