the cocktail circuit

The Jimmy Walker

2011-12-09T23:06:00.000-08:00

Last night I was out with some friends at at least one enemy and I had just ordered the usual when someone ordered a Jimmy Walker.

Thinking that this was a relative of a Johnny Walker, I didn’t give it a second thought. But when our drinks came, the Jimmy Walker was almost the color of Campari in a cocktail glass, I asked, “What the hell’s in that, anyway?”

Here’s what’s in it:

Bourbon (a couple of ounces)
sweet vermouth (half an ounce)
a little lemon juice
a little grenadine

Or, if you like, try the cocktail db’s version.

Second round, I still hadn’t made a move to say, “I got this round,” or anything rash like that. I was still in complete control of my faculties, darlin’. But I did try a Jimmy Walker. I’d call it, no offense, a sturdy lady’s cocktail, but that’s just nodding to taste—definitely, the alcohol is there, and definitely, it demands slow sippin’.

The Champs Elysées Cocktail

2011-12-01T23:07:00.000-08:00

Word comes from the Island of the Manhattoes that the cocktail catering co. Cuff and Buttons serves sturdy drinks. Their latest discovery/uncovery is the The Champs Elysées, a drink we hadn’t tried until yesterday.

This is the way drinks should be: not invented, but uncovered. It’s the distinct words “single-district cognac” that appeal most in Cuff and Buttons version of this Champs Elysées drink recipe, and it’s the idea of flirting with single-district cognac that makes C&B New York’s premiere cocktail catering company. The inclusion of yellow Chartreuse (oxymoron?) puts us in a reverent state sweetly early in the day. You can make a chartreuse Chartreuse one too…as always, click the Doctor’s CocktailDB when in doubt. And even Absolut and Drinkboy have ideas about the drink.

Here’s the Cocktail DB recipe for a Champs Elysées Cocktail:

Shake in iced cocktail shaker & strain
1 oz Cognac (3 cl, 1/4 gills)
1/2 oz Yellow Chartreuse (1.5 cl, 1/8 gills)
1 oz fresh lemon juice (3 cl, 1/4 gills)
1/2 tsp sugar (2 dashes)
1 dash aromatic bitters (optional)
Serve in a cocktail glass (4.5 oz)

C’est de bon goût.

The New Orleans Buck

2011-11-13T05:18:00.000-08:00

What do you do with white rum this time of year? One satisfactory way to plow through a bottle is to make a time-honored one, the New Orleans Buck. Recipe:

Build

1 1/2 oz light rum (4.5 cl, 3/8 gills)
1/2 oz fresh lime juice (1.5 cl, 1/8 gills)
1/2 oz orange juice (1.5 cl, 1/8 gills)
2 dashes Peychaud bitters

Add lime wheel

Serve in a highball glass (9.0 oz)

The concoction comes out the color of a pale coral reef.

The New Orleans Buck appears in many old bartender guides, including Thomas Mario’s Playboy Bartender’s Guide. Other recipes call for ginger ale or club soda, and some even for dark rum. Many call for no bitters at all. We favor the light rum with the orange and the lime and Peychaud’s.

A cocktail primer for Game 7s in St. Louis

2011-10-28T11:14:00.000-07:00

St. Louis is a hallowed baseball town--as you know, The Sporting News is published there, and the local nine have amassed a winning record in the fall classic against American League rivals over the years.

You won't like to hear this I'm sure, but during the Series I'm generally stuck on the Bronx Cocktail, which not only betrays allegiance but is a way to hang on to the flickering embers of the past summer. As for hardcore St. Louis fans, their drink of choice is the one they locally call "Augie beer", alas.

A good primer on St. Louis and baseball-themed ideas about what to drink is here: in a post called The Pitcher's Revenge at a blog that bills itself as "just another wordpress.com site" (but looks like something a little more than that to me). You'll find there a Cooperstown Cocktail and a link to the classic St. Louis mixology tome, The Ideal Bartender, a 1917 work by the fabled Tom Bullock (left), an African American bartender who held court and plied trade at the St. Louis Country Club. The book is entirely online and has about two-hundred WWI recipes. The book is both a joy and a sorrow to thumb through as you see the profound influence of absinthe on the day--perhaps explaining some things about St. Louis we would best not revisit...

At any rate, here is an old cocktail called "Whiskey Punch" served "St. Louis style", which i think is ideal for the situation. It calls for whiskey, Italian vermouth (sweet I expect), pineapple syrup, and a pony of lemon juice.

That might work. It sounds perfect, in fact. If you don't have pineapple syrup, and I wouldn't blame you if you didn't, I might be tempted to substitute pineapple juice. Also know that pineapple syrup is easy to make at home, as my friend Ted Haigh aka the notorious "Dr. Cocktail" lets you know in the link.

"Whiskey Punch-St. Louis style" is found in guide. The book itself served as the template for the first American cocktail party, which happened that year in--St. Louis.

Or you could have a Sazerac, also popular in St. Louis and vurrry sensible always.

Umbrella season

2011-08-17T09:47:00.000-07:00

Summer. Time for the best and worst part of it; the blazing days of August. An article from 1999 notes that the cocktail umbrella actually has a function: to shade a drink from the sun.

"What better way to prevent the ice cubes in a poolside mai tai from melting? What better way to keep that blended chi chi refreshingly slushy? Just as a good Panama hat, which is nothing but intelligently woven straw, can make the hottest tropical day seem pleasant, the cocktail umbrella, a little bit of split bamboo and pretty Japanese-print paper, can fight off solar radiation for a time, ensuring that the icy integrity of a good mixologist's creation remains intact. And look: it actually opens and closes like a real umbrella!--a transcendental feat which places the cocktail umbrella beyond the realm of mere appropriate technology (however brilliant) and into the realm of art alongside Frank Lloyd Wright's louvered window panels."

Which may be why they've seemed so kitsch when presented indoors.

By the way, that particular mai tai in the photo is at Kimo's in Maui. If you want to call it the best mai tai in the world, you'd be in good company, as many others have. But I don't lavish lavish praise so lavishly. Nonetheless, I'm going to admit--that's a boat drink and a half.

La bohème

2011-07-18T15:25:00.000-07:00

There's no question that Bohemia is among Mexico's five top tasting beers. The evidence of this is clear enough: you don't often see people urgently running into 7-Eleven or Rite-Aid to fetch 12 of them at a time. The taste is cleaner, sunnier than Modelo and it's far crispier than any stripe of Dos Equis. The question is: Bohemia every time, or Bohemia once in a while?

Here's what I like to do with Bohemia: I like to serve them at parties and I like to drink them myself one at a time through a given week. I do it this way because the beer remains a little more special to me that way. It goes a little ways towards IPA with its hops content, but only a little, and that's especially what I like about it. In fact, how it manages the hops content even while remaining so clean tasting fairly makes it an engineering marvel.

Even if it was originally brewed by a Czech expat in Mexico, this is a beer that first and foremost has to complement Mexican cuisine. I think marriage of Czech style and Mexican sentiment was an excellent one: Bohemia's slight whiff of hops, which is almost undetectable in other Mexican beers, goes a long way with Mexican food, which is often elaborately spiced. You wouldn't hesitate to order an IPA at an India restaurant; the hops round out the palate as the meal itself is rounded out by the spices.

But I wouldn't hesitate to drink it with Thai food either, and I would certainly serve it at a party at which the featured drink is wine. It's far from overpowering but also far from thin, and it much benefits from a glass pour.

The straight-up Margarita

2011-06-08T12:15:00.000-07:00

You don't see many margaritas served in cocktail glasses, straight up, these days, but many years ago, this was the way they were served.

The practice was interrupted in the late 1960's, when such aberrations as the strawberry margarita, the Midori melonball, and the banana daiquiri introduced the barely-legal (yikes, there's a term I shouldn't use on blogger) drinkers of the baby boom to cocktails. The noble cocktail glass seemed inhospitable to slurpified, day-glo-colored booze; restaurants around the country opted to host this in the faux-champagne glass---you know, not the good champagne glass, the flute, but the saucer-shaped one ascribed to be shaped from Marie Antoinette's sein gauche.

Most adults grew up to enjoy their margaritas served on the rocks. But there is much to recommend taking one in straight up. Here's how to do it.

You'll need:

a cocktail glass
a Boston shaker
ice
tequila
triple sec
a lime

First, squeeze a lime. You're looking for about a jigger of lime juice. Set it aside.

Now put some rocks, maybe five---we like odd numbers---into a Boston shaker.

Pour two jiggers of tequila into the shaker, over the rocks.

Pour approximately 5/8 a jigger of triple sec into the shaker. You can always use a little more if you don't fancy your tequila.

Pour approximately 1 jigger of lime juice into the shaker. If you went up with the triple sec, you should probably go up a little on the lime juice too.

Shake---it's good to shake this one, as ice shavings are favorable for a margarita---and strain through a Hawthorne strainer into the cocktail glass.

If you see any variance on this recipe, it's usually in the triple sec. Some recipes call out Cointreau specifically; we're not going to deny that Cointreau is a dependable triple sec, and you should always remain gracious when guests bring you a bottle, but the amount of people on the planet who can distinguish Cointreau from any other triple sec when served in a margarita are decidedly small. Also, some recipes call for matching the amounts of triple sec and lime juice; this is a matter of taste, which is non disputandum anyway, but if you like to err on the dry side, start with 5/8 the amount of triple sec as lime juice, and work your way higher if that's not tasty enough for you.

~~~

On what tequila to use---well, who are we to tell you? Our favorite tequila for sipping is Corralejo; however, our favorite splurge for a margarita is Don Julio. But there are so many premium tequilas that it's a good idea to try your own, both straight and in a margarita.

And if you have some more time for tequila, you may put aside a few days to ponder Ian Chadwick's ponderous tequila site, which includes a glossary of tequila-specific terminology. Or come back---it'll be in the blogroll here for posterity.

Memorial Day mojito

2011-05-28T12:58:00.001-07:00

As to why more people don't make mojitos on Memorial Day weekend, I have no idea. My father's WWII ships often hit the strategic English port in Bermuda on their way out, mare's tails wispy overhead. Rummies all, they had plenty of mint too, as that was the only thing that grew well on board. Where you find Englishmen you can find club soda, called soda water through the UK, so Bermuda was a good place to have a mojito, long before that notorious sissy Ernest Hemingway discovered them in Cuba in the '50's.

My own key to mojito manufacture is to muddle the lime wedges along with the sugar. This makes the drink a little more muddy, and lime pulp is good--otherwise, I find the presentation far too tame. As usual, we turn to the canonical Cocktail DB for the best recipe:

4 wedges lime (2 oz, 6 cl, 1/2 gills)
2 to 3 teaspoons granulated sugar (1 cl, 1/16 gills)
8 to 10 fresh mint leaves (4 oz, 12 cl, 1 gills)
2 ounces light rum (6 cl, 1/2 gills)
club soda
2 or 3 mint sprigs, for garnish (1 oz, 3 cl, 1/4 gills)

Muddle the lime wedges, sugar, and mint leaves in a mixing glass until the sugar is completely dissolved, all the juice is extracted from the limes, and the mint is thoroughly integrated into the juice. Add ice, and the rum, to the mixing glass, shake briefly, and strain into a collins glass filled with crushed ice. Top with club soda, and add the garnish.

Yes. The resulting drink is very easy to slam--a poet's drink, really, and that's why that notorious sissy Ernest Hemingway favored it. He preferred drinks that could be swilled by the gallon. His devoted yuppie tribalist heirs at Esquire think they are doing something exciting when having two. But really, the honestly macho Canadians of WWII, once in Bermuda, drank mojitos and also dark & stormies, which are about four parts dark rum and one part ginger beer, largely because you get more alcohol in a dark & stormy than in a mojito--unless the mojito is the size of an AM/PM supertanker. Which it should not be, because mojitos like almost all cocktails should be served very cold and drank very cold. A mojito is a polite company drink. As such, it is good for honoring the fallen, whose cause is certainly expressive of wanting the living to live.

Alaska Cocktail

2011-05-16T22:25:00.000-07:00

This is a long and highly errant way to go to get to Alaska, but you may nonetheless feel good about the path.

When we want to experiment with spirits, the word cocktail makes us delighted. Origin of this fancy word is not clear, but there are a number of legends associated with it. the most common story is that of a widow of an American revolutionary officer in the war of American independence BETSY FLANAGAN who stole neighbour's chicken and decorated the glasses in the bar with cockstail feathers and thus it is called "coquetel". The very first book on cocktails was written by Jerry Thomsan in 1860, who invented Martinez or dry martini and tom and jerry.

I'm not sure that you can garble English much more efficiently. But at the end comes the payoff, the Alaska Cocktail, which may have a better pedigree than you might imagine:

Alaska Cocktail

45 ml. Gin

22 ml. yellow chartreuse

several dashes orange bitter

Method- Mix all ingredients with cracked ice in a shaker or blender. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

Again, English is suspect. For clues as to how much fluid 45 and 22 ml. might be, refer to the far sturdier cocktail db for their Alaska Cocktail. (It's 1 1/2 oz and 3/4 oz.) The Alaska Cocktail is actually a very good summer drink.

Thanks to Chander for the reminder.

The Jumper Cable

2011-05-10T17:50:00.000-07:00

COME NOW the binge drinkers known as America’s Youth, long on consumption, short on contrition, but ever resourceful and even inventive when called to duty.

Give them a can of Jolt Cola and you know they’re going to do something useful with it.

Consider it done!

The Jumper Cable

1.0 can Jolt Cola Cola
5.0 cubes Ice
1.0 shot Bacardi Rum

Noted: You must use Jolt. That is, if you want it to be a Jumper Cable. Otherwise, you’ll have a Rum and Coke! Maybe even a Cuba Libre!

Depending on whether or not you feel like flirting with sex (6-1), money (10-1), publicity (2-1) or drunkenness (4-1), we recommend flirting with the rum/Jolt ratio. And squeeze some lime in to pretend you’re approaching civility and to honor the Caribbean’s contribution.

Ah youth. Wasted on the young, again! Do remember to drink less, but better.

Frosty words on mint juleps

2011-05-07T12:52:00.000-07:00

There are a few things you should know about mint juleps.

First off, your mint julep should not be the size of a supertanker or a thirsty-two ouncer. It should be the size of a julep cup (10 oz., 12 max.). The idea is something that will not heat up too much. Like so many drinks, it must stay cold while you're drinking it. That's the top consideration.

It should not be unduly sweet unless you are a southerner. If you're a southerner, feel free to make it as sweet as you like, and even use Southern Comfort, as they do at the Derby (though I'm obliged to say that though the Derby is storied, the julep has been around for even longer---if anything, and the Derby only adopted the julep as a preferred drink in 1938). But if you are from anywhere north of Mason County Pennsylvania, you'd better watch the sugar.

The silver cup is an affectation if it doesn't have a rim at the bottom. There's a rim at the bottom so you don't warm the cup with your hand. A rimless julep cup is an affectation.

Here's the best recipe anywhere---again from Doc's CocktailDB

Build
4 mint sprigs (2 oz)
1 tsp sugar dissolved in water & muddled with mint
Fill with shaved ice
Stir until frosted
Add mint sprigs and/or orange slice, pineapple spear, cherry
2 oz bourbon
(Substitute brandy, gin, rye, applejack, etc)
Serve in a julep cup (10.0 oz)

Ah, 2 oz. bourbon in a mint julep. Yes. That's so you bet the right horse.

If you'd like more info and some good links on the mint julep, check Colleen, she's sort of the mint julep clearing house. The largely historical article at wikipedia is of considerable interest.

And what bourbon whiskey?

For me, dear old Jim Beam works best. For you?

The Guinness Shandy and the Half and Half

2011-03-16T09:45:00.000-07:00

To satisfy the insatiable Margaret et al., here’s not a bad way to start off. Recipes courtesy TheBar.com.

Mostly a Shandy is an ale with ginger ale or lemon-lime soda. But there’s no special reason to restrict it to ale.

Guinness Shandy
• .75 pint Guinness
• .25 pint lemon-lime soda

If you want to stick to your basic Shandy, and feel bound to Eire tomorrow or even tonight, mix half and half Harp and ginger ale.

~~~

A black and tan also goes by the name Half and Half, when the components are all Irish.

Half & Half

• .5 pint Harp
• .5 pint Guinness
~~~
Add Harp to pint glass
Add Guinness by pouring it over the back of a spoon

We find that you can now make great ones at home, thanks to the widget. We’d add: a big spoon, maybe a wooden spoon, one that best fits to the contours of your glass.

in the shotglass

2011-03-13T16:21:00.000-07:00

JM, Cazadores

An occasional feature in which we simply pour something outstanding into our favorite shotglass, a gift from a special someone.

Next door lives a doctor, but I take most of my medical advice from Achileo, who helps me with the garden.

"Achileo," I said today. "I'm sick!"

"Oh," he said. "Where's Lynn?"

"In Thai Town, getting some lemon grass. She wants the livia moved to the back."

"Oh. You know where in the back?"

"No."

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"Bronchitis," I said. "A little."

"Oh. Shot of tequila is good," he said.

"Cazadores!" I said.

I shut the door. We have a bottle of Cazadores Reposado on hand. I poured some into the Lesbian Shotglass and sprinkled some salt on the rim. Then I cut a lime wedge and gave it a squeeze and plunked it in the glass.

I feel much better already. Much better.

Rx, late winter bronchitis:

Cazadores Tequila
lime wedge
salt
Lesbian shotglass

Try.

A little cockail bar in Paris

2011-03-13T12:14:00.000-07:00

~
I saw recently that the cocktail guru found a little cocktail bar in Paris, a city in which ordering a cocktail is always an adventure. The New York Times followed suit yesterday.

Since opening in November 2007, the bar, L’Experimental Cocktail Club, has inspired the kind of allegiance normally reserved for French films, politicians, pâtisseries and soccer. Two thousand fans are listed on Facebook. Regulars clock their daily attendance. Inside the 40-seat room, adorned sparsely with a “ghost” chandelier and rustic bricks and beams, everyone truly seems to know your name.

Also, while browsing some old bourbon posts, I came across this one from Chow from two years ago that describes the Kentucky bourbon trail and is a good primer on bourbon. Did you know that only twelve companies make all the bourbon?

Seven Unknown Favorites

2011-03-09T16:31:00.000-08:00

Clancy's, doing the martini right. Photo: me, 1.27.09

You likely already know too much about me. Yet here are seven more things you don't know about me, at the request of Rodger Jacobs.

My favorite sandwich in town is the catfish sandwich at 410 Boyd.
My favorite swim trunks are Billabongs, because they have a bottle opener built into the pocket comb.
My favorite martini in town is a Beefeater martini at Clancy's Crab Broiler in Glendale, complete with enormous water back and gin pony in an ice bath (see above).
My favorite dive bar is Dave's in Glendale. Truly deplorable, situated next to a pawn shop called "Once a Pawn a Time." Conveniently catecorner to the Glendale Police Department.
My favorite bartender in town is Fernando at Taix, and he has been for over twenty years, and I'll bet he still doesn't know my name, and I am sure he is fifty times more friendly towards me than anyone who does.
My favorite drink in town is Fernando's sazerac. It would be perfect with the catfish at 410 Boyd. You'd never need to go to New Orleans in March again.
On at least every other birthday I have a rare New York steak and a martini at Taylor's in La Canada.

Passed along to Colleen Wainwright, Colleen Graham, Rick Lyke, Alexandra Le Tellier, Debbie Lopez, Jason Toney, Eric Richardson.

Some Stout-Hearted Drinks

2011-03-02T11:20:00.000-08:00

For more information on stout, check out this blog carnival on the subject!

Herein, we’re going to go over a few cocktails you can make with stout.

But first up: we don’t ordinarily think of the ordinary Black and Tan, of course, as a cocktail. We think of it as a beer. We think of it as two beers, in fact. But by most definitions, a Black and Tan is indeed a cocktail.

If some of of think we can’t call a Black and Tan a cocktail, most of us are not used to pouring one at home. But whether or not we agree that the Black and Tan is a cocktail, thanks to Guinness rocket widget technology, we can safely pour one at home. To pour a really good one at home, use a pub spoon. Certainly, the Guinness cans and now bottles give good foam. If your goal is to replicate the pub taste of a Black and Tan at home, a drink involving the rocket widget is your very best bet.

But it’s not your only bet. Most think of a Black and Tan as Guinness and Bass. But a Black and Tan can be any stout and any ale. And happily, the experimentation is as good as the discovery of what kind of mashup works best for you.

Turning to the Doctor’s CocktailDB, as we always do, because it’s the best…

Here is a drink called a Black Velvet: fill a big glass halfway with stout, and top it off with champagne. It’s also called a Champagne Velvet. If you do this just once, you’ll wonder why it never occured to you before to do so. Now when you crave stout and your husband craves champagne, you can stay happily wed. It doesn’t hurt to use a champagne flute for this drink also, but you’re going to get so much foam—these two drinks make for an overflow reading of about 9.1 on the seismograph, the highest ever be recorded—you’d better be careful in those cramped confines.

Also, you can combine stout and champagne into a coffee cup. Result? A Velvet Cup. Sometimes you can get away with this one at the computer, and your spouse will think it’s just a cup of coffee. Um, with a peculiar crema.

Oooo, did you ever think of this good use of good stout? A Dog’s Nose is a glass of stout preceded by a jigger of gin. Dust the foam with nutmeg if your stout benefits from a touch of holiday cheer.

Now, a Stout Sangaree is a true cocktail. You serve it in a double rocks glass—a glass that’s shorter than your pint, the kind of glass you’d serve a big tropical tiki drink in. Build 2 oz. of soda and dissolve half a teaspoon of sugar in the soda. Fill the glass with stout and ice, and sprinkle nutmeg, again to taste. When might you favor such a drink? Well, try the Carribean, where Sangarees have been enjoyed since at least 1774.

It’s a pleasure to be part of the first beer blog carnival! Even if you don’t like mixing your stout with anything, we hope you’ll take a chance on one of the cocktails you can concoct with stout.

Introducing the Capitol 75

2009-01-19T11:46:00.000-08:00

~
A cocktail they're serving on this MLK Day at a Presidential Inauguration Gala is a Bombay Sapphire special concoction, the Capitol 75. This is a variant of one of our very favorite cocktails, the French 75.

Here's the recipe as the Sapphire people present it:

3/4 oz Bombay Sapphire gin
1/2 oz lemon juice
1/2 shot of sugar syrup
top with Martini & Rossi Prosecco
Shake the first three ingredients with ice and strain into champagne glass, then top with champagne and lightly stir.
Garnish with a cherry.

If you want my opinion---and I've been flattered to find that some people actually do---this is a fairly sensible drink both for today and tomorrow alike. Bubbly is essential; you can stick to the Prosecco if you like, which is frizzante, that is to say, semi-sparkling, rather than spumante (fully bubbly), an admirable restraint for somber yet festive times. The Martini & Rossi Prosecco, in fact, doesn't pop off overly festively; it comes with a crown cork.

The legacy of the French 75 itself---a middle artillery piece from World War I---does indeed acknowledge the fact of war.

I rarely drink Sapphire straight up or even in a martini, because I'm not a sweet gin guy. But it does make sense in any French 75 drink, which always calls for some sugar anyway, and its fabled botanicals will ensure you taste the gin.

And sure, who doesn't associate the Capitol with cherries? The Capitol 75 is a nicely done by the Bombay gin family, and if it popularizes French 75s a little more, that's a double duty well served.

If you'd like to read more on the French 75, I've done that previously too---quite a bit in fact.

The Amaretto Sour

2008-11-25T20:51:00.000-08:00

Those are today's moonshadow roses at dusk. I'd love to show you my Amaretto Sour. But it disappeared before I could find my cellphone.

It wasn't a particularly good day; no, you couldn't say that by even a Willie McCovey stretch. And the afternoon, and the early evening unfolded no better.

But madamina was baking chocolate cakes with Amaretto, and Amaretto Sour came to mind.

"Can I use this for a Sour?" I asked her, holding the bottle up.

"Two dollars a pour," she said. After I set the bottle down, she added, "It's cheaper than at a bar, that's for sure."

But after dinner she yielded, and I fingered the lemons. Amaretto is sweet, enough so that the sourest lemon in the bunch would have sufficed. But I wanted dessert, so I opted for a Meyer, which runs sweeter than the others.

The ratio is two parts Amaretto to one part lemon juice. Over rocks in a sour glass or even a tumbler. Don't start with a full bottle, because these are exceptionally smooth, and you may not stop.

For ideas on how to garnish appropriately, consult the Doctor's Cocktaildb.

It's a perfect drink for April.

The Whiskey Sour

2008-10-23T16:56:00.000-07:00

It is shockingly bad form to drink whisky at any time at all before noon.
–Alma Whitaker, Bacchus Behave! The Lost Art of Polite Drinking, p. 27

~~~

But never mind that. This is October, and the stretch from waking to noon will hopefully be mercifully short anyway.

We are always reticent to tell others what they should drink. But Joy at The Drawing Room yesterday recommended a parting Whiskey Sour, and we were quite pleased with it. Whiskyish and citrusy, it suited the moment perfectly. The sun shone through the door gently as the day’s final rays do, and there it was: a perfect Jim Beam Whiskey Sour, backlit.

It may have been years since you’ve had a Whiskey Sour. You may even have never had one before. Let us refresh your memory:

Whiskey Sour

Shake in iced cocktail shaker & strain

1 oz fresh lemon juice (3 cl, 1/4 gills)
1/2 tsp sugar (2 dashes)
1 1/2 oz rye or Bourbon whiskey (4.5 cl, 3/8 gills)
1/2 orange juice (optional) (1 1/2 oz, 4.5 cl, 3/8 gills)

Add lemon wedge, cherry
Serve in a sour glass (4.0 oz)

nihil obstat: The Cocktail Database (cocktaildb.com)

Citrus, whiskey….what’s not to love? It will work well with your sleek Bach/Busoni partita on the Bose and the autumn Santa Ana rolling across the sunshine. It is a fitting drink with which to honor the season—the American whiskey makes it so—and yet tangy enough for fall. The sour glass—think half an hourglass—is the essential stemware. And its shape is a good reminder: you should sip your Whiskey Sour over a minimum of half an hour.

Use a good whiskey. And this is a particularly nasty week to drive anywhere, so lose your keys.

Ramos Gin Fizz

2008-10-21T07:38:00.000-07:00

When considering recipes for any drink, the question to ask is, "What are the issues?" The issues with a Ramos Gin Fizz are many, starting with what to call it.

The Ramos Gin Fizz was originally called a New Orleans Fizz; it pops up early on as such. The drink also became known as a Ramos Gin Fizz later on, in deference to its inventor. There's no question that Henry Ramos worked at Meyer's restaurant in New Orleans, and there's no question, unlike with many other eponymous drinks, who the real inventor of this one was.
Jerry Thomas's 1887 guide, which mentions six gin fizzes, is of little help. There is in it a gin fiz recipe, but ironically, the 1887 edition of the guide precedes the invention of the New Orleans Fizz by a year, and three years after the death of Thomas.

Among noted present-day mixologists, you can't find Ramos Gin Fizz in Ted Haigh's Cocktail database; Ted is the ultra-traditionalist, and the drink goes by the earlier name there. But note Chuck Taggart has no problem labelling the drink the Ramos Gin Fizz. And their recipes are different too---slightly, but in critical ways.

Ted wants you to double up on the lemon juice; Chuck wants the lemon and lime to be present in equal measure. Ted calls a half-ounce of cream optional; Chuck calls out two ounces of it. Chuck wants you to shake the drink for over a minute; Ted doesn't specify.

There's also an option often found in bars to use powdered egg instead of egg white. But what makes a fizz a fizz is not an egg white; what makes for a fizz is sugar and lemon juice.

Overall, de gustibus non disputandum est. I like the Ramos without cream, and I wouldn't think of mixing it without egg white, and I too would double up on the lemon juice. In short, I'd follow Ted's New Orleans Fizz recipe to the letter, without the cream. But Chuck's recipe is certainly just as valid as Ted's, and tilted toward a mid-century modern moment, when cream found more favor in drinks than it does today.

The Commodore

2008-09-29T10:22:00.000-07:00

Whenever Indian summer comes (we’ve had a nonstop one in LA this year), you might be thinking of shifting gears a bit, prepping for the richer late-autumn drinks but not quite there. When it’s 79 and clear as the country, a manhattan may feel a little too heavy, even though the calendar says it’s fall.

The limes of late summer are turning yellow, but don’t toss them into the compost pile. They’re perfect now for a Commodore.

Never had a Commodore?

Over at Doc’s Cocktail db, the preferred recipe is:

4/5 rye whisky (2 1/2 oz, 7 cl, 5/8 gills)
1/5 fresh lime juice (1/2 oz, 2 cl, 1/8 gills)
2 dashes orange bitters per cocktail
sugar to taste

Bourbon is OK too. Basically 4 parts whiskey to one part lime, orange bitters and sugar to taste. Tangy!

Here’s a recipe for a more esoteric Commodore, not quite a parasol drink but a little fruitier: the Commodore No. 1.

1 1/2 oz blended whiskey
1/2 oz strawberry liqueur
1/2 oz lime juice
2 oz orange juice
dash orange bitters

No instructions; we figure if you’re at this site you already know how to mix these.

Honestini

2008-04-10T20:31:00.000-07:00

Explaining a lot is this NYT travel article on New York (read: Manhattan) bars that "put the right prefix on the -tini."

Picture your basic barely thirtysomething Madison Avenue account rep for some beverage giant. They go out to a bar after work and ...

"Here, they take your cellphone number and call you when they’re ready."

No, they don't have that kind of a place much in Madison or Baton Rouge. But they make all kinds of silly demands on customers in NYC, and the account rep thinks, "Wow, in this cocktail crazy land, I can say anything and it will work..."

No, you can't. But they do anyway, over and over and over. And there are hundreds of obliging media and bloggers ready to defend the cuketini for a free bottle, or ready to denounce it to demonstrate their integrity.

The truth is that there has never been a better time for new drinks than now; but there has also never been a worse time for new drinks than now. Our only suggestion is not to insist on either Old Skool or flavortini approach, but to try, try, try, and give honest evaluations. Unlike those folk in New York City, you do have to sleep at night, ultimately.

For Old School bars in NYC that put you through hell anyway, click the link and scroll to the bottom.

Absolut Error

2008-04-07T22:18:00.000-07:00

Not often you find an ad agency that deals with a super brand like Absolut stupid enough to make an error like this one:

Absolut Vodka pulls ad showing California in Mexico (Reuters)

The gringo-insensitive ad was devised by a fairly unrepentant Mexico City firm. The boner comes on the heels of Pernod Ricard purchasing Absolut after a couple of flaccid years with Stolichnaya. Absolut's ultimate-legs ad campaign, now nearing the twenty-year mark, is legendary in advertising circles.

Just last week, we expressed concern about the new relationship with Pernod Ricard and the impact on advertising.

Too much debt at Pernod Ricard?

2008-04-01T06:46:00.000-07:00

Diageo was assembled as a super-giant in the 1990's; Pernod Ricard is assembling itself as such in the zeroes. The timing has left the company with more debt than Diageo, which markets niche products and superpremiums better. But what else does today's Pernod acquisition of Swedish Absolut mean for the spirits biz in the US?

The most intriguing element of the acquisition is that Pernod Ricard will have to divest itself of Stolichnaya in order to complete the purchase. The key to Absolut's success in the American market has been its relationship to Saatchi & Saatchi---the agency's historic Absolut campaign is nothing short of the reason Pernod Ricard is obliged to sell off Stolichnaya, which has never been able to gain peer status with Absolut in this country.

Stolichnaya's ad campaigns have fumbled many times, most recently by Pernod Ricard itself in last years ad campaign with Paris-based Marcel Republique. Pernod Ricard has only controled American advertising of Stolichnaya for the past two years, however.

The Absolut relationship with Saatchi may continue under Pernod Ricard; if so, good news for Pernod. But it is more likely that it will not, and if not, there will be more questions for the brand. Most ad agencies don't watch things like Moody's financial ratings, but at this level they do. Pernod's debt load may cause some concern with the new prospective clients.

Little Joy, Yelped

2008-03-24T15:38:00.001-07:00

JM, Very little joy, 3.24.07

I don't know where you go for your bartrending info, but the stuff on Yelp about Little Joy (Sunset & Portia, Echo Park) is divinely inspired.

Internship of a Doctor

2008-03-16T09:21:00.000-07:00

left, Joe Danno, the legend; right, Crème Yvette, the defunct

by Dr. Cocktail / Ted Haigh

I was, I must admit, depressed.

Charlie, had suggested the night before that “It” might be the place for me. I was eager to give it a shot, but good ole Charlie couldn't remember the name or address of This Particular Joint.

“Old stuff, Ted,” he’d said. “He has lots of old bottles, old liqueurs, and I heard he makes some of his own. It’d be just the place for you. I think it’s on Belmont, just east of Cicero....it’s the Blood Bucket....Bucket O’ Blood....Bucket something” he said helpfully, scrawling down that information on a cocktail napkin.

In the old days, I was a constant and enthusiastic habitué of the Ambassador East, home of the Pump Room, where Sinatra held court – or relaxed – as mood dictated, when he was in Chicago. I was a fixture, and Charlie…Charlie was the most celebrated of Pump Room bartenders. Outside of Charlie, though…finding a real cocktail in Chicago in 1988 was no easy task, not even for a guy who would someday be known as Dr.Cocktail.

Now it was midnight a night later and, without exaggeration, I’d been into or past a good twenty little neighborhood bars that could’ve--but didn’t--fit the bill. In the latest incorrect venue, I disconsolately ordered a Martini. The bartender nodded, walked over to the booze selection, and stared at it for a little while. I leaned over the bar. “What are you looking for?” I asked softly.

She gazed at the liquor, and back at me. “mar-tee-nee?” she said, smiling shyly, looking for a bottle that said it on the label.

“I’ll help” I sighed wanly. I leaned over the bar. “Take that bottle of gin and....” but it was no use. There was no dry vermouth in the house – none. It might’ve been the 80s, but dammit if I’d wanted a shot of gin….

I trudged out. Not a one of them was the Bucket anything; not on the street, not in the whole Chicago phone book. I had one more bar, right smack on the corner of Belmont and Cicero. Had you been there that night 20 years ago, you might’ve seen me through the window, slumped like a disaffected refugee from an Edward Hopper painting. I was nursing a gin & tonic with my head in my hands. The bartender and owner of the place were my sole company. They looked quite ready to close, and with that, the best lead I had would snap shut, over and out, like the click of a lock tumbler at my back. I shared my lament with the two, as I had done so many times before that night as I turned to go.

“Oh,” says the owner, “you mean the Bucket O’ Suds. That’s right around the corner, three doors down, just South of Belmont on Cicero.” Charlie had transposed the streets.

I thanked them, skeptically feeling my anticipation level rise again with every step closer to the Bucket’s affirmed address. My reserved reverie was short-lived. The entire block was dark. Nothing looked remotely like a bar in business. I craned my neck and, in the gloom, grimly noted a sign; a rusty pre-neon light bulb production. It read “Bucket O’ Suds” and looked as though it hadn’t been lit in years. Below, the door and windows of the shabby building were dark, covered over with newspapers from the inside. The door was locked.

Ah, rhapsody on a windy night; the last twist of the knife. I turned away, but I paused. There was an eerie sense of motion, of illumination, hazy through a chink in the door’s yellowed news. Hesitating a moment, suddenly sober with unease, I knocked. After interminable seconds, the door creaked open a face-width. An old man peered out at me sharply.

“I’m sorry, you’re closed.” I blurted out.

“No.” he said, as though by suggesting such a thing I was challenging him.

This was going well. I regained my breath. “You were highly recommended to me by Charlie at the Pump Room,” I said. “I’m an aficionado of obscure liqueurs.”

The door swung open wide and the man’s face lit up in unison. There were late ‘50s cool jazz horns leaking out onto the sidewalk.

“Well, well. Come on in” he chuckled.

Hundreds and hundreds of old dusty bottles lined the wall on the right, continuing along the length of a sagging bar that looked to be sixty feet long. Row upon row of cobwebby translucent receptacles were packed into every possible space. Several other people sat at the bar, leaning earnestly over the uneven counter; it was a place for disciples. The old guy owned the place and his name was Joe Danno.

I was utterly beside myself. Now I looked like the subject of some saucer-eyed Keane illo. This was Ali Baba’s treasure-trove. For a time I could do nothing but squint and stare into the murky mysteries behind the bar. I wondered how long some of those bottles had been there. I wondered at their contents. I wondered what he would serve and what he would not. I was somehow certain I would taste things that, before, I had only read of... and dreamed about.

I was afraid to ask.... did he have any.... Parfait Amour? My heart pounded. Joe beamed.

“I have not only have it, I have the rare Garnier RED Parfait Amour!” he said with an almost grateful pride that suggested to me that he didn’t get too many cocktail historians in the Bucket. It was an old, oddly shaped bottle, and at that time, I had never seen another like it. Its contents were indeed red. I inspected it as he poured some out for me. My first taste of Parfait Amour brought associations of muddled fruit, marshmallows, and vanilla. I savored the liqueur and with it, the serendipity that brought me here. I grew bolder and my excitement mounted. People were beginning to notice my ill-concealed intensity.

“How about Crème Yvette; do you have any Crème Yvette?

“You know,” he said seriously, “they don’t make this stuff anymore,” as he pulled out a hidden bottle of transparent lavender liquid. Once again, he poured me a glass.

Crème Yvette was everything I had imagined it could be: delicate, ethereal. It had a floral scent and the violet flavor of pastilles. I shook my head in a sort of out-of-body experience. I viewed myself sitting there in the movie my memory was making.

At my third wish, Joe Danno furrowed his brow discouragingly. The potion that, so many years before, had first kindled my interest in the cocktails of the past was named, appropriately enough, Forbidden Fruit liqueur.

I know from books that Forbidden Fruit had been made from shaddock, honey, and brandy; that shaddock was a kind of grapefruit, that this Victorian cordial was presented in a glass orb with ornate metal filigree. You couldn’t make a Tantalus Cocktail without it (and consequently, I’d never had one.) Forbidden Fruit had ceased production years before. Its demise invalidated seventy-five years of accumulated drinks calling for it. Decades have passed since this unique American cordial last saw the inside of a glass.

“Forbidden Fruit?.... I dunno...” Joe muttered, poking around behind a bottle of nineteenth century grenadine. He then deftly pulled out the only full-sized bottle of Forbidden Fruit that I had ever seen. It was a regal orb indeed.... full of transparent golden liquid. Only from research did I know this bottle. Now I knew it personally. At this point, everyone in the bar was rooting for Joe to let me behind the bar to explore. My poker face must’ve slipped, I guess. I finished this, the first of many long wonderful nights inspecting the back bar’s wealth, at Joe’s gracious invitation, at the Bucket. My magic toy store, that’s what The Bucket o' Suds was, an enchanted portal where anything was possible. Of the Forbidden Fruit… I still can’t describe the flavor.

Eventually, Joe made me the owner of that bottle of Forbidden Fruit, just for being such a goofy illustration of boundless rapture.

I was a committed young man with a lot of quirky dreams, some including cocktails. Twenty years is a long time to hold lovingly onto a complex cocktail of wonder and memory. The road from the Bucket to this point was a maze of paths that led apart before twining back together again in a different world. The Bucket is long gone, Joe long dead. In a way, he made me the Doctor I am today.

FURTHER READING:
Parfait Amour cocktail
Tantalus cocktail
Crème Yvette
more remembrances of Joe Danno and the Bucket o' Suds.

Lagavulin 21: a wonderful way not to work

2008-03-05T10:25:00.000-08:00

Scotch and smoke - Lagavulin 21, a superpremium

"Oh my God, it tastes like a Scotch bonfire," Lynn said on her first sip of this superpremium twenty-one-year-old Scotch from the notoriously smoky distillery, Lagavulin. She was sitting on the Japanese chair and the fireplace hadn't been lit anyway since January so there were no untoward environmental influences.

Now I was curious. I saw in her face the surprise; I saw her chew the Scotch a bit, and raise her eyebrows, and look at me as though to say, "This might be a bit powerful for me, but you're going to be at home with it." She passed the vintage etched stem glass with its equally vintage precious liquid over the coffee table and into my hand.

I was sitting on the sofa, facing the sunset through a window; it was already warm enough.

Lagavulin 21 is indeed a powerful Scotch; as with other single-malts from the Islay (please say "ee-luh"), the taste of smoke is dominant, but here the fullness of the peat gives the nose of smoke a run for the money. (And in this case, money is what we're running for: a bottle of this super-premium, only a 1,000 of which make their way to the States, retails in triple digits, and I mean the crooked triple digits, not the straight up-and-down ones.) Sometimes tasters ascribe the salty taste of seaweed to the scotch, but to me not so much, it seems they are simply describing the nexus of strong smoke and strong peat.

Smoky, and no wonder: "...it has perhaps twenty times as much exposure to peat smoke as a typical Speyside, Cragganmore," says Malts.com. And we can imagine that formidable peat derives from a proximate coast that bears the full assault of Atlantic weather.

I sat with my glass for a long time---a very long time. I had a lot of work to do and this was an inordinately successful way not to do it. As I kept sipping, no more than a tip of the tongue sip at a time, I kept waiting for the taste to fade into something less full of impact than the first sip; it never did, not after an hour.

They watch birds quite a bit in Islay, and so do I, so when the sun went down I looked for Sid and Nancy, our two Jays who hang out in the honeysuckle; didn't find them, but did see the mockingbirds nesting again. This is the time of year when birds are coupling and futzing with nests here, and watching them with a glass of fine scotch in hand made for a perfect late-winter crepuscule.

Later on in the evening, after the sun ducked behind the oak and Lynn tripped off to the westside, I found myself still sipping the same glass.

The finish lasts about...oh, twelve hours; maybe longer if you don't sleep; but why wouldn't you? You've found a wonderful way not to work; you might as well go all the way with it.

The Dr. is in

2008-03-03T23:25:00.000-08:00

Our dear old friend Ted Haigh, also known as Dr. Cocktail, has been saddled with the burden of birthing more books. Two contracts in fact, and the hi-jinks behind them are worth a third book alone. But now that the toxic stuff of dealing with publishers is largely behind him, he can set off working on time-killing projects to interfere with his projects of substance.

One such time killer would be this blog, and we'll have a post or twelve from America's most beloved erudite toper soon.

Mimosas formidable.

2008-01-01T06:31:00.000-08:00

Plus formidable.

Last year I reminded you about the virtues of french 75's in a new year. This new year, the topic is mimosas.

But before I get to mimosas, I'll tell you: french 75's made our past year---our past year, which was awful---a little happier.

So now the mimosa, a far gentler subject for the usual post new year's surfeit of champagne.

There are two basic recipes, and one is far more basic than the other:

The one you've probably already had:

1 1/4 oz orange juice (3.5 cl, 5/16 gills)

Fill with Champagne, ice

Serve in a cocktail glass (4.5 oz)

The one you're about to try:

1/2 ounce triple sec (1.5 cl, 1/8 gills)

1 1/2 ounces fresh orange juice (4.5 cl, 3/8 gills)

3 1/2 ounces chilled Champagne (10.5 cl, 7/8 gills)

1 orange slice for garnish (1/2 oz, 1.5 cl, 1/8 gills)

Build in the order given in a Champagne flute. Add the garnish.

Serve in a champagne flute (6.0 oz)

Yes. Triple sec. Surprised? That recipe is from Gary Regan's The Joy of Mixology, a book which is more about process and theory than recipe. Gary Regan is certainly accomplished, and also is a bit of an Internet-as-cottage-industry phenomenon. But so is About.com, and take a look at this awful recipe for the same drink; or maybe you too measure orange juice by the carton. So let's put it to the fire: does Gary know something so many others don't? Why would you add triple sec to something like orange juice, which is so sweet to start? (BTW, Rachel wants you to add triple sec too, but at the end, rather than at the beginning---I guess she wants you to light fire to it too, or something.)

Give up? Well, I'll tell you. It's about alcohol.

Adding triple sec is like infusing what would otherwise be a very fluffy Mother's Day drink with something more formidable. You're bumping your mimosa to actual cocktail level.

Triple sec is made from oranges, so it doesn't rustle your orange juice's feathers, and shouldn't overlay your natural oj sweetness too much---especially if it's high-proof triple sec. Triple sec runs up to 60 proof, and you shouldn't waste time with much less than that. If you're going to put it in a mimosa, putting something that's about 30 proof is not really adding much of anything.

It seems intuitive, and likely need not be said, to not use your favorite champagne for a mimosa. If you're drinking your favorite champagne, drink your favorite champagne---don't sugar coat it. Of course. You're insulted I even mentioned anything. Well, it must be said. It must be said because there are sites that say, "a bottle of favorite champagne" and where orange juice from a carton suffices. I will be very goodly god-damned if I am going to slop a bottle of Bollinger Grand Année into any kind of juice, let alone juice from a carton. In fact, I don't think I've had orange juice from a carton in the new millennium. Or maybe since the Ford administration.

You need a tasty champagne, to be sure, but you can do with an easily acquired one. Prosecco is popular right now and prosecco is excellent for mimosas, in my opinion.

As for glassware---you know, it's really shouldn't be fetishized for this particular drink. You're not going to be noting the size of the bubbles. I like even serving them in tumblers, as demonstrated above, for the guests get more at a time.

Rocks with champagne? If you're using a tumbler, why not? You put champagne in punch, don't you? And what is a cocktail, if not a punch for one?

The mimosa is one rare drink that you can enlarge a bit with considerable impunity. But if you must, the champagne flute makes for handsome presentation. The only problem is, with the flute, you'll be refilling them every seven minutes. Me, I'd look for some good Italian tumblers and clink.

Place names: the place

2007-10-20T05:47:00.000-07:00

A couple of posts over at mainbrace featuring local watering holes:

Dave's and The Roost (Atwater and Glendale)
Taix (Echo Park)
The Roost (Atwater)

These are all within about two miles of Los Feliz.

Silver Lake Wine tasting

2007-08-05T23:02:00.000-07:00

Need to duck a dinner. Silver Lake Wine wine tasting; a nearby scene, Xers drifting in from Glendale Boulevard like good summer weather. Not drinking but there anyway.

Bemused LisaExit, leaning on a tabletop wine display, evaluating shoes more closely than wine. I spot some on a beauty: black halter, black polo pants, black beaded necklace with topaz, brass hoop earrings, touch of vermillion in raven tresses like so many these days. Nude lipstick. Shaved eyebrows, penciled to curve a little more than they actually do. Navy blue patent leather clutch. Now for the shoes: open toe blood orange pumps with a sling back, sturdy heels. Shoes! Nice work.

Someone asks if we're a couple: initially flummoxed, good laughs ultimately emerge.

Ms. Exit discovers a wine blogger, Mike Brosnan, at the bar; I hone in. Serious, takes copious notes. Knew Cinnabar; good sign. Has a wine locker in the building. Like all good bloggers, he arrives in entourage (think: Cathy Seipp, who lived within a tee shot of this place). Orbiting about are Amanda from Kansas and Debbie the writer and a guy who tells me I'm brave for wearing flipflops and wonders where I get my pedicures, which he calls manicures.

The pedicure guy wants me to add polish to one toe; no thank you. He is pleased to learn I don't write television; sporting of him. He also broke a full glass of wine---or maybe even a bottle, I never saw it---but handled it as an insouciant good time. Bottle and all traces of it vanish in seconds. He goes to counter for some reason; Amanda whispers to me: "paranoid streak."

Amanda, a Leo, has retro glasses and a quarter-size heart on her forearm, like a stick-on tattoo; Amanda not in Kansas anymore. I asked her what she's listening to this summer, but forgot.

Merely took sniffs of wine. Favorite scent of mine was I Perazzi---a wine Nancy Silverton or her partner Mario Batali imports for La Mozza. Ms. Exit and I speculate about what perazzi means: I win, it means something like a pear.

Isn't Madamina doing a lot of Tibetan prints for next year? Ornate curlycue Cost Plus elephants are seemingly on every other tee-shirt; one, in fact, on a heroic-looking sandalwoody AA, is so rash as to add "Free Tibet" on the back. Speaking of rash: another woman has a tattoo on her bicep of Picasso's Girl Before a Mirror. It's at least ten inches tall, an honest representation. Girl Before a Mirror! Unrepentant narcissism, good luck with that.

Ms. Exit and I walk off. I show her through the roads of the north edge of Silver Lake, the northwest passage that gets you to Griffith Park. Bye-bye, I had a good time too, as good a time as you can have on water. You're not buckled in, she notes. She means it literally, but it's a good metaphor too.

Red, white and likely new to you

2007-06-27T10:13:00.000-07:00

If you are not sure how you feel about flavored vodka, summer is the time to experiment, before autumn's amber hues and drinks. I come from a place where vodka was indeed flavored at home, but since the big brand's introduction of Peppar and Limon etc. in the 1980's, the flavoring universe has exploded. One American producer, UV Vodka, of Minnesota, has a few flavored vodkas that have pulled increasing favor in the granger states and beyond this decade.

The UV drinks you may find yourself served at the barbeque after the Main Street parade this fourth include:

UV Blue Bombsicle
1 part UV Blue
3 parts lemonade
Serve over ice in a lowball glass.

UV Cherry Firecracker
1 part UV Cherry
2 parts cranberry juice
A squeeze of fresh lime
Shake with ice, strain into high ball glass with ice and garnish with a lime wedge.

UV Vodka Summer Celebration
1 part UV Vodka
1 part grapefruit juice
1 part cranberry juice
Shake with ice, strain into high ball glass with ice and garnish with a lime wedge.

There's not an enormously discernable difference between many vodkas for most palletes, and you may choose to err on the side of affordability on occasion; if so, UV remains a good choice at right around $10 for most 750 ml bottles.

Seagram's, Smirnoff, and Three Olives also offer cherry vodka.

Moscow Mule saved from "some kind of alcoholic wastebasket"

2007-06-19T15:06:00.000-07:00

Cold War footnote: vodka has more of an American pedigree than you likely know. Even the Moscow Mule was first put together down the road a bit, at the Cock 'N Bull. Moscow Mule recipe:

Build

1 1/2 oz vodka (4.5 cl, 3/8 gills)

3/4 oz fresh lime juice (2 cl, 3/16 gills)

Add 1/2 lime shell in glass (1 1/2 oz, 4.5 cl, 3/8 gills)

Fill with ginger beer, ice

Serve in a copper mug (12.0 oz)

Which is all why this vodka news from Europe, though coming as a bit of a relief, also feels inconsequential:

Traditional vodka can be made only from grain or potatoes, the European Parliament decided Tuesday.
Beverages made from other ingredients can use the name "vodka" only if their compositions and origins are clearly indicated on labels, according to new spirit labeling rules approved by the Parliament.

EU members from traditional vodka-producing countries, like Finland, Poland and Sweden, had pushed for stronger rules that would have banned beverages made with other ingredients from using the name vodka.

"We have made vodka out of potato and grain for over 500 years," said the Finnish deputy, Alexander Stubb. "When we became EU members in 1995, we were told that vodka would have a tight definition, just like rum, just like whisky, just like grappa. We don't want vodka to be some kind of alcoholic wastebasket."

The EU vote was conducted by a show of hands. The news doesn't affect this household much; we typically drink Smirnoff, drink of choice of Cold War vets everywhere, grain-based and manufactured in the USA from a Russian recipe. There have been bottles of Ketel One under this roof also, mostly to put the status anxiety of guests into check. For a beverage that is by both American and European fiat does not have any distinctive aroma, character, colour or flavour, there is always quite an extra fuss about vodka.

There is nothing wrong with vodka. Nor with the equally noble American quarter horse; but one will never win the Kentucky Derby, and nor are they bred to. In daily service, you do not use a thoroughbred, you use the plowhorse; and that is the blessing of vodka.

How to--and how not to--make a Sidecar

2007-06-04T08:46:00.000-07:00

I wouldn't suppose that many publications are exactly quaking in their boots with the debut of New Angeles, a free monthly purportedly about downtown from the people who bring you LA CityBeat.

This item from the debut issue on local drink is priceless:

Named for silent film cowboy and erstwhile bartender Tom Mix, the Mixville Bar in Silver Lake serves two important purposes: supplying strong drinks to hungry diners at the fashionable Edendale Grill and educating locals on the origins of cocktails. Armed with a specialty spirits menu replete with a brief history on each of its 20 potent potables, Mixville bartenders have shaken, stirred and poured their way into the hearts of dedicated regulars.

We suggest starting with the Side Car. Combining Presidente Brandy with Cointreau and sweet�and�sour mix, the Side Car is a mellow m�lange with tart, citric overtones. According to the Mixville menu, the drink was created in Paris during WWI, and then �brought to America during the Roaring Twenties and served in many speakeasies.� � votre sant�!

(Don't you just hate the Internet's version of wrong fonts--the dreaded question-mark? These would seem to be a CityBeat specialty at this point.)

Well, that's all about as far as you can go to appease an advertiser, right? From downtown, by bus, it would take over an hour to get to Edendale Grill...four hellish miles away from 7th and Broadway...

But beyond that, you also really have to question the phrase "educating locals on the origins of cocktails" as pure fakery. After all, from Tiki-Ti (which not only serves but has invented many world-renown tiki culture drinks) to the old Michael's (now Louise's/The Derby) to The Dresden (purveyors of classic cocktails---and classic bartenders---for decades) to the hundreds of ancient local service clubs that Taix serves (with its sturdy union bartenders), this is already the most cocktail-savvy area in all of Los Angeles, and has been for years and years.

And maybe I shouldn't neglect to say that yours truly has been here for nearly two decades now too, and not much of that time spent outside of the cocktail research sphere...

~~~

But worst of all---in a SIDECAR! With a big price tag! SWEET&SOUR MIX, of all things, rather than LEMON JUICE.

That's like mixing a margarita with 7-Up rather than lime juice...

If you think you need sweet&sour mix on top of triple sec---you probably should see a doctor.

You probably don't need acquaintance with these things if you're reading this blog, but if you do, here's more.

~~~

How to make a sidecar? The recipe's already likely on the side of your mom's glass shaker, but try the imminently dependable cocktaildb:

Shake in iced cocktail shaker & strain

1 1/2 oz brandy (4.5 cl, 3/8 gills)

1/2 oz triple sec (1.5 cl, 1/8 gills)

1/2 oz fresh lemon juice (1.5 cl, 1/8 gills)

Serve in a cocktail glass (4.5 oz)

Indeed.

Is the public too cowed?

2007-06-02T05:27:00.000-07:00

The latest issue of Bon Appetit, which has so much rehashed wine and spirits information and unusual ads in it that it might as well be called Salut, has me thinking: Can a lot of spirits-oriented writing look like anything at all to a cowed public other than as a way to push brands?

(It also calls LA a "vodka" town, but never mind that for the moment...)

The whole fixation on inventing new and ever more elaborate drinks is lost on me; most of the time it looks like naked commercialism. Worse, there are so few classic cocktails that are poured well that it would seem essential to get these down first before venturing into the unexplored terrain. The narratives surrounding our best drinks are mysterious, even mythical; the idea that a bartender can suddenly discover something venerable, present it to a few patrons, and ultimately say something about alcohol that we don't already know is nearly ludicrous.

I've personally had almost the precise opposite experience when dealing with spirits distributors that most have: I've had the most fruitful and polished dialogs with the diabolically large companies, and found most of the smaller companies stand-offish and aloof. The larger companies are receptive to criticism, even curious to hear it; smaller ones sulk when you give less than wonderful feedback.

But why have a publication at all if you're simply re-printing press releases?

~~~

Here's some crit I hope someone is receptive to: in that same Bon Appetit, I am really stunned that Antinori is using the words "Super Tuscan" in an ad. That seems like a throwaway and an invitation to cynicism. Many people who know Italian wine simply bristle at the term to begin with. Would you see an ad for some wine claiming it was first of the "fruit bombs"? I think even Robert Parker would be embarrassed.

Drinking the Derby

2007-05-03T10:22:00.000-07:00

Colleen at Cocktails.About.Com notes the interplanetary twine of Kentucky Derby Day falling on Cinco de Mayo, which could confuse some topers, but hopefully the experienced will rise to the challenge.

Colleen writes of the Derby's staple, the Julep:

It's common knowledge that the Mint Julep is the drink of choice for watching the Kentucky Derby. The question at hand, however, is which bottle of bourbon to use. As you can see by this list on straightbourbon.com there's a lot of bottlings to choose from, which you choose to use is a matter of personal choice. Maker's Mark, Woodford Reserve, Knob Creek and Jim Beam Black Label are a few of my personal favorites for this minty drink. However, there's no need to stick with the original recipe, you can add a little extra flavor by using other spirits in conjunction with or in place of the bourbon. Go fruity with a Pomegranate-Mint Julep by using equal parts of PAMA Pomegranate Liqueur and bourbon or a Georgia Mint Julep with equal parts of peach brandy and bourbon.

Anything but Southern Comfort, in short, which is, alas, is often what they serve at the Derby itself, although this year Early Times and Woodford Reserve also have deals with the Downs. That all reminds me of a beautiful post on the subject of Derby Day Drinks at Martini Republic from a few years back; way more informative, and destined to be referenced through the ages.

(BTW, did you see that my horse Street Sense drew post position seven yesterday?)

Of Cinco de Mayo, she says:

No matter which tequila cocktails you decide to shake up for your fiesta, do yourself a favor and pass up the cheaper bottles and go with a top shelf tequila. Don Eduardo, Voodoo Tiki and Sauza Tres Generaciones have great blancos with a light agave bouquet that is perfect for your fruitier mixed drinks and gentler tequila shots. Check out the reposado tequilas of Corazon, Cabo Wabo and Casa Noble for a Tequini, Envy or other neat cocktails. Of course, if you're the straight sipping type you'll want to look for the anejos, of which I highly recommend Tezon, Patron and (the ever satisfying) Don Julio.

Here she got a little more endorsement-y; I gotta think the utterly smooth Corralejo, the rare tequila from Guanajuato, should make the list of premiums.

There's also a fight that day, I hear. You can safely drink Bud for that.

More stuff Americans hate

2007-03-05T05:00:00.000-08:00

Following proudly in the footsteps of my mentor and roll model Punxsutawney Phil, Your Doctor once again is making his presence known.

Initially let me say, drinking is getting constantly more exciting and if you’ve been considering taking it on as a hobby, the market is primed. There is an exquisite new Elderflower liqueur named St. Germain from the classy, cocktail-historic folks at Jacquin et Cie. From the freethinking mind of friend and co-conspirator Ted Breaux, there is a– no kidding – tobacco liqueur; Perique, flavored with the so-named leaf variety peculiar to Louisiana. Fee Brothers, the scrappy bitters magnates of Rochester, New York, have placed a tiny selection of their Old Fashion Aromatic Bitters on the market, in a special bottling of the cinnamony stuff substantially aged in charred oak Bourbon casks. I’ll review these products soon enough, but they all deserve mention here and now because they are excellent, all of them, simply excellent.

Now, though, at Joe Mailander’s request, I want to talk about genever: Dutch gin. Hey, it wasn’t a hard sell. I was always a proud iconoclast. When other kids were reading Superman, I was dreaming about Captain Marvel…the similar hero DC sued out of existence in the 1950s. When all of the cocktail elite were tooling around in Rolls Royces, I wanted a Bentley. And when I read about a kind of gin that Americans generally hated for just being what it was…well!

I won’t belabor you with but so much history of genever but what follows are the basics necessary to grasp this really interesting spirit. It was the first gin. It was made in pot stills, a type of distillation largely reserved for brown spirits in the current day, and proudly touted by Cognacs and Armagnacs to flash a little bibulous bling.

Pot stills are what one pictures when one pictures one’s own mental image of a still. Even if the image in your head is of a moonshiner, it is still a pot still you are picturing.

For just a sec, let’s quickly go over the TYPES of gin that there are (or were.) Genever, Old Tom, Plymouth, London Dry, and the new Hendricks model – which would include Aviation Gin. So here is the 30-second history: 1st gin: genever. Low temperature, inefficient distillation that emphasized both the juniper and the maltiness. (Think of a kind of a wine character. Think of a Martini with quite a bit of vermouth.) Add a certain vague smokiness. Think 3 parts gin, 1 part blended Scotch, 1 part vermouth. This is a horrible way to characterize the original genever but, like Latin, we must start somewhere because nobody we know speaks it anymore. So far we are residing in the late 17th century heading into the 1700s. Cut to 1832 and a clever guy named Coffey developed the eponymously named Coffey Still AKA the continuous column rectifying still. You’d lynch me if I made the slightest attempt to explain this still to you, but suffice to say, all the vodka you heathens love (gin too) is made today in such stills. It’s very efficient and it produces extremely clean spirits.

Too clean.

As of the 1830s, the drinking public was used to the slightly sweet, malty-charactered genever (the name of which was a bowdlerization of the French word for juniper) but as of the Coffey still, they could instantly have what we now know as London Dry Gin…and that was just all too strange for them. So then, as now, what do you, Mr. Liquor Producer, do to dumb down the new spirit? Of course. You sweeten it. Thus was born Old Tom Gin. Eventually the public trended into the flavor and feel of dry London gin. The Plymouth differentiation was a difference in technique that originally created a powerful, differently flavored gin. It is now certainly a London Dry. It is still excellent. The newest gin type is what I call the Hendricks model. London Dry gin is supposed to emphasize the juniper as gin lovers and haters all expect it to do, but though they have skated on this point so far, Hendricks does NOT emphasize juniper. Nor does the excellent Aviation Gin made by my buddy Ryan Magarian. Hendricks has a rose petal frontal approach, which itself is astounding since thanks to 20th century “advances” all early hand lotions were scented with rose and most alcohols flavored with rose taste, in a Pavlovian sense, soapy or like lotion. Hendricks (and Aviation – which is superbly flavored with lavender) really create a new and inspired gin category. Oh, before vodka made its late American entry in the early 20th century, the gin guys did do flavored gins. Orange gin. Lemon gin, Mint gin. Sound familiar? They weren’t all that good – much like many of their vodka counterparts, so I am ignoring them.

But in the early days of the cocktail, early to mid 1800s, genever is all there was.

Modern genever is divided into two types: jonge (young) and oulde (I’m sure you can figure it out). Most are in the jonge category. These, these days, are clean, crisp, and quite junipery. They are both dry and weirdly richer than London Dry and they can be as abrupt in a cocktail as Rhum Agricole in a Mai Tai. The oulde is quite mild and a little caramelly – both in flavor and color. It is very pleasant simply sipped neat or on ice. If you’ve ever tried Linie Aquavit, it has a similar character, minus the caraway. If you’ve ever had marc, that sort of flavor, but not as sweet, not as thick. Both varieties are lovely, really. You may have seen them (especially the jonge) in the past: a tall smokestack-like terra cotta bottle. That would be the Bols product, and they’ve been doing it since the beginning, which is to say, hundreds of years.

What of the original genever? Is it still the same as in those pre-column still days? Well, yes and no. If you want to taste gin as gin was originally, the product (and it is Bols) is now called Corenwyn. I asked quite specifically this question of Piet Schreuders, the longtime master distiller for Bols-Netherlands. I proposed this theory of genever and he utterly agreed. So…up for something different? Genever. As far as Corenwyn (which, Bols allows, is made generically in the Netherlands as “korenwyn”) is concerned, if any of you ever entertained asking Dr.Cocktail what his favorite spirit is, that is the answer; the original gin: Corenwyn.

Pink Rum and Tonic

2007-02-21T22:28:00.000-08:00

Maybe yesterday was OK after all. Maybe you found out that you can do at 50 what you did at 20 and still not end up in the hospital, jail, or divorce court. But chances are, you still have some Bacardi left over.

Fret not. Even though you are ready to shelf hurricanes for another year, there’s a fine drink that just might get you through the day, and use up a little more rum as well.

The Pink Rum and Tonic.

As usual, our recipe comes from the empirical CocktailDB.

Shake in iced cocktail shaker & strain:
1 1/2 oz light Bacardi rum (4.5 cl, 3/8 gills)
1/2 oz fresh lime juice (1.5 cl, 1/8 gills)
1/4 oz grenadine (6 dashes, 1/16 gills)
Fill with tonic, ice
Add lime wheel
Serve in a tall glass (14.0 oz)

This drink errs a little on the sweet side, with the rum and the grenadine—if you have a more alcohol-oriented palate, you might want to pare back the grenadine by half. And what is rum, if not a way to deliver spirit itself from sugar? But the tonic in this drink renders it refreshing, and it comes out the color of a watermelon horchata.

And as always, we remind you that you can make your own grenadine.

And now that the festivities are over and the work begins, whether you are commencing Lent or contemplating a coming Seder, we wish you shanti.

The Hurricanes of Mardi Gras

2007-02-20T00:02:00.000-08:00

After the Great San Francisco Quake of 1906, some wag noticed that churches were leveled, but not a noteworthy distillery. And thus a great quatrain was born:

“If, as they say, God spanked the town
For being over-frisky,
Why did He burn His churches down
And spare Hotaling’s whiskey?”

We haven’t seen a similarly optimistic quatrain emerge from Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, even though we did note that the Hurricane was kinder to the French Quarter than to almost all other parts of the Crescent City. But wisdom we have seen emerge especially since that time is the notion that in New Orleans, tourists drink Hurricanes, and locals drink Sazeracs.

Now, we have covered the Sazerac abundantly at this blog. To make a good Sazerac, simply click here. But we haven’t much discussed the virtue of surrendering to a streetcar named Desire and fixing up a plain ol’ Hurricane in honor of the salvation of Rue Royale and Bourbon Street.

~~~

Here is the most straightforward way:

In a cocktail shaker filled with ice, add

3/4 oz Bacardi Superior
3/4 oz Bacardi Select
3/4 oz passion fruit syrup or 1 1/2 oz passion fruit juice and the juice of 1/2 fresh lime

Shake sharply and strain into a hurricane glass filled with crushed ice. Garnish with a slice of lime, and serve.

Now, we can understand you not having a hurricane glass. If you’d like to turn that into something you can serve in a cocktail glass, you can pour the same, strained…

Shake in iced cocktail shaker & strain

1/2 oz fresh lime juice (1.5 cl, 1/8 gills)
1 oz light rum (3 cl, 1/4 gills)
1 oz gold rum (3 cl, 1/4 gills)
1/2 oz passion fruit syrup (1.5 cl, 1/8 gills)
Serve in a cocktail glass (4.5 oz)

~~~

If you’re going to have a Hurricane one day this year, today’s the day. We’ll see you here on the other side of Lent.

Hot Toddy recovery

2007-01-31T13:40:00.000-08:00

Something is going around Los Angeles that is somewhere between cold and flu, between sinusitis and bronchitis, between middle-age torture and the torture of the Middle Ages.

In your moments of wheeze and pain, consider the Hot Toddy.

Type in “toddy” and there are no less than twenty-two toddies listed at our favored cocktail database. Among our favorites:

Apple Toddy (applejack based)
Hot Brandy Toddy
Hot Buttered Toddy (with floating butter pat)
Hot Rum Toddy (very similar to an American Grogg) (rum based)
Hot Whiskey Lemonade

If you simply must have a coffee-based drink and you want a toddy too, you’re in trouble. But consider adding a cinnamon stick and floating some nutmeg on a drink invented by our editor, El Americano Tranquilo. Make it with a shot of espresso, instead of a coffee top-off, and fill the rest with hot water. What you’ll get is the engagingly spurious Espresso Tranquilo, which beats the hell out of your mocha frappucino every day.

Try one. Fire up the Schubert, or maybe Das Lied von Der Erde, sit back, and let nature and antibiotics take their inevitable course.

The French 75

2007-01-05T04:49:00.000-08:00

It looks like lemonade, so you can sip it in front of your husband without much notice. It consists of simple things including gin, which is a part of all households all the time, and champagne, which should be but is not. There may be some of the latter pumped and rubbercorked in just the right quantities in your fridge right now. Or there might even be a gloriously unopened bottle you received as part of the Nationwide Re-gifting Program.

As usual, the CocktailDB has the best recipe:

French 75

1 oz fresh lemon juice (3 cl, 1/4 gills)
2 tsp sugar, stir (1 cl, 1/16 gills)
2 oz gin (6 cl, 1/2 gills)
Fill with ice, Champagne
Add lemon wedge, cherry, orange slice
Serve with straws
Serve in a tall glass (14.0 oz)

What was the name of that cocktail again, and why does it sound so sexy?

A French 75 (the Soixante Quinze) was a middle artillery piece from WWI. One of the earliest print references to the drink is from 1927:

“Here’s How”, Judge Jnr, 1927

This drink is really what won the War for the Allies:

* 2 jiggers Gordon water;
* 1 part lemon juice;
* a spoonful of powdered sugar;
* cracked ice.
* Fill up the rest of a tall glass with champagne!
* (If you use club soda instead of champagne, you have a Tom Collins.)

And you probably have lots of club soda left from New Years Eve too. But try it with champagne first. It will keep the embers glowing.

The Tom & Jerry

2006-12-19T00:01:00.000-08:00

Joseph Barbera, 1911-2006. Wiki entry here. The pencil behind the Tom and Jerry cartoons. Obit: “Hanna, who died in 2001, once said he was never a good artist but his partner could ‘capture mood and expression in a quick sketch better than anyone I’ve ever known.’”

Noted: a line from The Apartment: “The tree is up and the Tom & Jerry mix is in the refrigerator.”

How to make a Tom & Jerry:

Build

1 egg yolk (1/2 oz, 1.5 cl, 1/8 gills)
1 tsp sugar (4 dashes)
1 1/2 oz light rum (4.5 cl, 3/8 gills)
1/4 tsp allspice (1 dash)

Mix vigorously

Fill with hot water

Add nutmeg
1 egg white, beat until stiff & pour into mix (1/2 oz, 1.5 cl, 1/8 gills)
1/2 oz brandy, stirred in (1.5 cl, 1/8 gills)
Serve in a cup (6.0 oz)

As with all cocktails, don’t use any mix but your own.

As with all drink recipes, accept no substitutes: use Dr. Cocktail’s Cocktail DB.

Lest we mislead, let’s clarify: Tom & Jerry the yuletide drink came wayyyy before Tom & Jerry the cartoon.

The St. Louis Blizzard

2006-12-06T14:18:00.000-08:00

The role of whiskey in American history should not be underestimated; whiskey is as large in American life as jazz. (If you want to skip the preamble and get to the drink, scroll down; but our feelings for whiskey is that it should be approached slowly, circuitously, with appreciation for history as well as taste…)

In a would-be show of overwhelming force that would have made even Colin Powell blush, George Washington sent no less than 10,000 troops into western Pennsylvania in 1794 to quell the local distillers who didn’t like Alexander Hamilton’s excise tax on whiskey. And if you’ve ever been to western PA, you know that that was probably just barely enough to quell the Whiskey Rebellion. (And if you missed the previous item, Washington’s very own still was fired up for production recently.)

(Of course you’re aware how some settlers fleeing the long arm of the law moved into Kentucky and Tennessee, then out of American reach, and how the whiskey industry evolved from there going foreward).

We have all but forgotten how our early American forebears distilled whiskey as a way to make grain that they couldn’t get to market useful to them through the winter. Whiskey is a drink for all seasons, but it is friendliest in autumn and winter, when we need extra hope to go about our business.

Who, once hearing of it, can forget the fabled Supreme Court case, The United States v. 43 Gallons of Whiskey, 93 U.S. 188 (1876) (which undoubtably was at one point “43 Gallons of Whiskey v. the United States” in a lower court, and which to the Supreme Court not once but twice). The case is not only important to the evolution of American-Native American relations, but to what constitutes American jurisdiction as well.

And we have before pointed out the fabled “if-by-whiskey” speech of Noah “Soggy” Sweat, Jr., to an awestruck crowd in 1952:

If when you say whiskey you mean the devil’s brew, the poison scourge, the bloody monster, that defiles innocence, dethrones reason, destroys the home, creates misery and poverty, yea, literally takes the bread from the mouths of little children; if you mean the evil drink that topples the Christian man and woman from the pinnacle of righteous, gracious living into the bottomless pit of degradation, and despair, and shame and helplessness, and hopelessness, then certainly I am against it.

But;

If when you say whiskey you mean the oil of conversation, the philosophic wine, the ale that is consumed when good fellows get together, that puts a song in their hearts and laughter on their lips, and the warm glow of contentment in their eyes; if you mean Christmas cheer; if you mean the stimulating drink that puts the spring in the old gentleman’s step on a frosty, crispy morning; if you mean the drink which enables a man to magnify his joy, and his happiness, and to forget, if only for a little while, life’s great tragedies, and heartaches, and sorrows; if you mean that drink, the sale of which pours into our treasuries untold millions of dollars, which are used to provide tender care for our little crippled children, our blind, our deaf, our dumb, our pitiful aged and infirm; to build highways and hospitals and schools, then certainly I am for it.

St. Louis, of course, is more than a fair-to-meddlin’ whiskey town. Tax was again the issue in President Grant’s greatest scandal, the Whiskey Ring, which originated in St. Louis and spread through the midwest. And it was the fabled St. Louis World’s Fair of 1904 from which Jack Daniel of Lynchburg, Tennesse took home his first Gold Medal for “the world’s best whiskey.”

All this is prelude to a drink. One you’ve never probably tried.

[Wait! Yeah! Give me still more whiskey prelude!]

~~~

COMES NOW the Defendant, the ST. LOUIS BLIZZARD, a drink of unknown past and uncertain future, more popular in Italy than in the US, and one of the tastiest ways to take winter whiskey yet devised. We defer to Doctor Cocktail’s Cocktail DB for proper assemblage of the

ST. LOUIS BLIZZARD

Blend with lots of ice

2 oz bourbon (6 cl, 1/2 gills)
3/4 oz cranberry juice (2 cl, 3/16 gills)
1 oz fresh lemon juice (3 cl, 1/4 gills)
1 tbsp sugar (1.5 cl, 1/8 gills)

Serve in a rocks glass (6.0 oz)

These ingredients are so preciously contrary, all of them, that you get every note of every taste in every sip. There is sweet, sour, bitter, tang, and of course the gratifying warmth of bourbon whiskey, all concentrated into one beautiful mix. If you liked our recent featured, venerable whiskey drinks, the Jimmy Walker and the Commodore, or the earlier primaveran Crown of Roses (to which the STL Bliz is cousin), and if you like Manhattans or Old Fashioneds or Whiskey Sours, or even Bourbon Fruitcake, we predict you’ll love this drink. It’s enough to make you forgive the Cards for winning the Series this recent October past.

Don't get your hopes up

2006-10-16T17:39:00.000-07:00

I won’t be here for long. The adventures of balancing the glamorous Hollywood film life with the globe-trotting debonair charms of being Dr.Cocktail frankly leave me a tad weary. I must so very shortly retract my head again into my warren until such time as I again detect a brain cell blinking dimly in my head.

Yet some things just won’t wait, and plagiarism is one of them. Yes, yes, I could simply link to the article in citation, but it’s just so damned good I must reprint the entire thing here.

Great Caesar’s Ghost, how did we ever attain such perspective previous to the intarweb? Junk mail? Perhaps grasshopper, perhaps.

To wit:

Kalimotxo

Kalimotxo is one of the most popular drinks (in the Basque Country at least) to take in industrial quantity and the best drink at all for playing drinking games. It is always present in summer feasts, in bars and taverns and in any place people meet to drink around a table.

It is a cheap drink, to take in great quantity, that causes important headaches.

It has about 5 ~ 6 %Vol alkohol.

Also called “Korea” in other countries.

Ingredients

Kalimotxo is a mix of red wine and Coca Cola.

Wine must fulfil following conditions:

It has to be bad wine and this is fundamental, because kalimotxo with good wine tastes worse and you are wasting a good wine, intended for being drunk alone.
The wine should be bitter, because Coca Cola is sweet enough and the mix has to be compensated.
Packed in brik. It is very confortable and the best wine for kalimotxo is usually in brik, because bad wines are the only ones packed this way. It is also important that the brik contains 1 l. and calculating the mix becomes easier.
You should buy bad wine, but this is not the same as shit-wine. Don’t buy she-ass urine to spare some (euro-)cents.

Coca Cola is very important:
First of all, it has to be Coca Cola, Coca Cola. Not Cola Pumba or Super Cola, if you really want to drink the kalimotxo. Other brands’ colas have a too sweet taste that destroys the mix, it is very easy to recognize them.
If you don’t have Coca Cola (I know that it isn’t always there when you need it), there’s Pepsi as the last remedy, it is not the same but also not as bad as other colas. The bigger problem is the great amount of bobbles in the new formula.
Better in 2 l. bottle, very handly. There aren’t 2 1/4 bottles any more, they were very good for mixing.
Coca Cola light is twenty times sweeter as classic one although it hasn’t got sugar. Kalimotxo doesn’t taste good, too sweet.
Pepsi Boom is really bad for mixing with wine.

Preparation

Kalimotxo has to be prepared with care, to avoid loosing gas and to succeed in mantaining full flavor.

At the beginning we have a 2 l. Coca Cola bottle and 2 briks of bad wine as described above, you have to follow these steps:

You need a recipient for mixing, depending on the moment it may be:

A bottle of mineral water, if you have bought the liters in a supermarket for making a little party. It is very important to remember this and not repenting of later.
A jar or empty bottle if you are at home preparing the party.
If you have forgotten to buy the water bottle and you also don’t have a jar, just use your illusion. Plastic bags, empty briks or any other recipient which may be used for putting one liter of cola. Other remedy is to empty 1 l. of cola, but this means 2 l. less of kalimotxo.
First of all you should fill with more than the half of the cola the empty water bottle or the jar. You put the liter of wine of a brik in the cola bottle and fill the rest of this bottle with the cola in the water bottle.
After closing the mix, it has to be turned 4 times, not by shaking it, but with care, so that it get perfectly mixed without loosing the gas. You can open the stopper after turning the bottle to let the bobbles get out, always handling the bottle with care. The kalimotxo shouldn’t flow out if it has been done well.

Now, one of the kalimotxo bottles is ready for drinking.

The second one is prepared similarly, but you have to wait for the first bottle to be emptied, in the case you don’t have any empty bottle.

It is very important to put wine before cola in empty bottles, because in doing it other way all the gas would go out.

Traditions

Kalimotxo is drunken in the Basque Country since immemorial times (I don’t remember) so you have to respect all the traditions associated with it.

Original receipt must be keeped.

In our days is very common to “paint” the kalimotxo with fruit liquors like strawberry, green apple, peach… that give the mix a slightly different flavour. This is only a small fault.

A more important fault is to shake the bottle of kalimotxo instead of turning it with care, until it looses all the gas inside and tastes like a soup, especially if it’s warm.

The tasting of the kalimotxo is important. Everybody can recognize a good mix after practicing a bit:

You have to smell slightly the kali, so that you can apreciate if the wine is bitter enough and in the right quantity.
Then you take a small draught, just to check if the cola is good mixed and to verify that it is CocaCola and that it isn’t a sweet cheaper mark’s cola. Try to appreciate the taste of the whole.

After the tasting you should share your opinion about the mix with your friends, mainly with the one who mixed the kali. This is very good to correct errors in future drinking meetings.

Pitilingorri

This is bitter variant of the kalimotxo explained above. It is bitter and not so popular.

Pitilingorri has 5 ~ 6 %Vol Alkohol.

It is made with bad rose wine and lemonade.

Many times it is bought in the supermarkets because red wine is already sold out and there is no way to make a good kalimotxo. This is very frequent where I live.

You may know that rose wine makes the stomach a little “unstable” ,so notice that pitilingorri also isn’t your stomach’s best friend. Don’t drink too much for the first time, at least until you have felt the effects by yourself.

Sangaree

Dangerous mixing of wine, lemonade, fruit juice and fruits’ pieces without an exact receipt.

Alkohol amount in the mix depends on the wine you have put, in the sodas… but be sure you’ll finish alkoholized if you eat all the pieces of fruit.

Sangaree tastes strangely between sweet and bitter, it can be drunk fast without noticing anything, although its alkohol has quite important effects, maybe because of the fruits.

It is sold in briks, already mixed, prepared for drinking directly, but it doesn’t taste like the real home-made sangaree, although the flavour isn’t bad at all.

I have never suffered the hangover of the sangaree, so tell me about it if you have been more “lucky”.

Rose wine

This is the best drink for the basque tradition called “poteo”. The “poteo” consists in meeting with some friends (this is an only-men tradition) and visiting all the bars and taverns in one or more streets drinking a small glass of rose wine (it can also be red wine) in each bar. You can’t stay for too much because many bars should be visited.

This activity is not bad or reprochably, it is an old tradition of our basque ancestors and it has to be keeped. You have sure been teached that there’s always something to learn from older people, this is one of the things I’ve learnt.

Choose one street with many taverns and go up to the end taken a rose wine in each bar, with calm, chattering with your friends.

At the end of the street you’ll probably feel not right at all, just see your friends and you’ll notice this is totally normal.

Rose wine has more than 10 %Vol alkohol.

Get advised that rose wine is a bomb for the stomach and it also causes great hangovers.

Zurrakapote

Very strange mix, between kalimotxo, sangaree and different kinds of wine.
Normally you don’t know what you’re really drinking, and you shouldn’t ask. If you want to drink more, it’s preferable not to know the receipt.

It is given for free in some summers feasts. Normally drunk in “porrones”, a kind of wine bottle with a long side spout, or in small leather wine bags called “botas”.

Not very defined flavour, noticed it is wine with many sodas and lemonades.

Alkohol rich, of course, about 10% Vol.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ahem. Dr.Cocktail again. Have I made my point? Drinking beyond human ken. Drinking related with such fervent sincerity and neoeloquence….Sir, Ruben P., I personally bow to you.

We all obviously have much to learn.

See you again soon.

–Doc.

Barbados in a Bottle

2006-06-12T19:11:00.000-07:00

Having survived whiskey, punch, cocktails, and pomegranates with me, shall we have a look at another funky syrup? Falernum; it’s a dual darling both of traditional Bajan drinks (and those native to the surrounding tropics) and also of the mythic and lush tiki drinks of the mid century. This spicy syrup is gaining stature in the larger cocktail revival as well.

Falernum is a subject about which I am not exactly an impartial observer, but about which I have done a great deal of research nevertheless. I will admit any potential conflicts of interest as they pop up.

I can tell you that there is disagreement as to when Falernum was “invented” and by whom. It’s easy enough to imagine that it, like orgeat, was once a home made potion - a folk recipe if you will. How it came to be called Falernum is anyone’s guess. The only previous use of the term historically was for a particular growth of the grapes of “falernian” wine, a famed and ancient Roman wine made near Campania. Falernum was the name of the lowest growth grapes – at the foot of the hill. How a flavored sugar syrup of the West Indies assumed this name, hundreds of years later, we just don’t know.

Currently in the United States, there are three competing brands of Falernum, the syrup: John D. Taylor’s Velvet Falernum, Fee Brothers West Indies Style Falernum, and DaVinci Caribbean Falernum. This was not always the case. As recently as 2000, there was none to be had. As to how and when Falernum came to be commercially marketed, there is the Taylor’s stance (disclosure: when Dale DeGroff initially was involved in its importation and marketing, he came out to LA for his book signing in 2002 and presented me with a lovely bottle of Velvet Falernum about which he was justifiably proud - as was I to receive the bottle from his hands) which is as follows: “This famous Bajan ‘Gold Medal’ beverage and mixer, with a uniquely refreshing flavor was developed by John D. Taylor of Bridgetown, Barbados in 1890. Born and bred on the island of Barbados, this slightly alcoholic sugar cane based liqueur is a staple of every Bajan’s bar. Its special taste comes from a refined infusion of lime laced with fine cane syrup and ‘botanicals’ including almonds and cloves.” This was from the product website. By the way, Velvet Falernum is actually made by R.L. Seale & Co. Ltd. of Barbados, makers of some really world-class rum. In the States it is marketed at 11 percent alcohol, or 22 proof.

I spoke to Sir David Seale, the owner and grandson of R.L. Seale by telephone in Barbados. Apparently namesake John D. Taylor was a “provisioner;” a sort of general store keeper and spirits seller. Falernum was his only invention says Sir David, who is 69, and remembers drinking it on crushed ice as a child. Many companies made it, and it was native to Barbados. Both alcoholic and non-alcoholic versions were produced and still are, even under the Taylor brand. I personally have both alcoholic and non-alcoholic bottles of Taylor Falernum. The 1923 and 1980 gold medals depicted on the bottle label were from local Bajan agricultural exhibitions. Sir David describes Velvet Falernum as a lime juice, sugar, spice, and Angostura Bitters cordial which, owing to its low price and alcohol content was termed the “Poor man’s cordial” 60+ years ago. Of the 50/50 rum and Falernum on crushed ice drink, the “Corn n’ Oil,” “going to heaven without dying” was what used to be said of it, in his childhood, by Planters for whom the drink was a favorite. Taylor went out of business many years ago, having sold the recipe and company name to one entity, and it in turn to another, and another as the years passed before being picked up, secret Falernum formula and all, by R.L. Seale, Ltd. in 1993. Whatever original history is left of this ancestry is locked in a safe at the feet of Sir David Seale.

Most cocktail researchers like myself became acquainted with Falernum in the 1980s and ‘90s through a product, labeled “The Genuine Falernum” “…Prepared and bottled from an original Barbados, BWI formula as under the supervision of A.V. Stansfeld…” This is the product that was called for in any tiki drinks requiring Falernum 1940s-1990s and was distributed in the States at some point by the Sazerac Company.

I tracked down the successors to A.V. Stansfeld, Stansfeld-Scott, Inc. now headquartered in Clearwater, Florida, but with a subsidiary in St. Michael, Barbados. I spoke to the owner, Brian Cabral.

Stansfeld Scott, Inc., traces its origins back to the Bajan company, Stansfeld Scott & Co. Ltd. which was founded in 1935 by Arthur V. Stansfeld and Donald V.S. Scott. Stansfeld Scott’s initial trade was in blending and bottling their own rum, Cockade, and what they claim to be the original Falernum. Mr. Cabral’s accountings of the origins (and tribulations) of Falernum differ markedly from those of Sir David Seale.

According to Cabral, Arthur Stansfeld invented Falernum in 1935 to, in his words, “make a buck!” Sazerac became the importer & distributor in the U.S. Subsequently, at some point in the early 1990s, through an oversight, Stansfeld-Scott allowed the Falernum trademark to lapse. Sazerac, Cabral said, quickly registered trademark in the United States for themselves. As of 2002 when I spoke to Mr. Cabral, he believed that Sazerac still held the U.S. trademark for Falernum. He and Sir David concurred about the other companies in Barbados now producing Falernum - but not to the respective recipes each company claims as original. Mr. Cabral asserts he has vintage A.V. Stansfeld documents which list the ingredients in his Falernum formula, but he admits are not strictly a recipe.

My own in-depth research has not turned up a single document before the 1930s regarding the syrup, Falernum. Since Sir David’s earliest memories are 60 years in the past, it could be that Arthur Stansfeld concocted the original. Let us assume in the interests of harmony that both companies are correct, and that Stansfeld’s Falernum may have been the original Falernum made to his own popular formula, and that John Taylor developed the original Falernum, so-named, 45 years earlier. As of the 1940s and the ascendant tiki craze, it appears certain that Stansfeld’s Falernum was the one in use in the States. As it is, the Sazerac-Stansfeld Falernum is no longer produced at all.

The DaVinci product was the result of a Seattle restaurant that had been using the Sazerac-Stansfeld Falernum to make cocktails with, and when they ran out and couldn’t get it anymore, they talked a local coffee syrup company, DaVinci, into making it for them. DaVinci has since become a national force in syrups and they deserve credit for producing a product that, in 2000, could not otherwise be obtained in this country.

This is where Fee Brothers Falernum comes in, and here comes my second disclosure as well: I am one of a very few people still in possession of bottles of the Sazerac-Stansfeld Falernum. The Fee family and I jointly developed the flavor of their Falernum to match as exactly as we could that of the Sazerac-Stansfeld product. Most dyed-in-wool tiki fanatics after much debate came to the determination that Fee Brothers Falernum was truer to the character and balance of their beloved tiki punches, though that debate never truly ends.

This says two things to me: 1) the origin of a thing is different than its heyday. 2) If you can conceive of owning two different Bourbons (or Cognacs, or vodkas) is it such a leap to keep two different brands of the same type of syrup? I don’t think so. I’m intimately acquainted with both products. Heads of both of these companies very amicably spent time with me, divulging historic, product, and company details that, frankly flabbergasted me with their candor. Bottom line: when I make tiki drinks, I use Fee Brothers West Indies Falernum. When I make traditional Swizzles, Slings and recipes genuinely native to the Islands, I insist on John D. Taylor’s Velvet Falernum. Why choose?! –Doc.

Bar advice redux

2006-06-10T16:07:00.000-07:00

The Divine Miss Marleigh has an occasional cocktail blog in which she has stated in a heroic post her advice for a great personal bar. She then made the inexcusable mistake of telling me she posted it. My response (after ignoring the “be gentle” part) is almost as long as the original subject so I thought, why waste this in a comment form? I mean I get paid by the letter at Martini Republic, so why not take the cheap shot where it’ll do the most good?

Read Her post here and then my comments follow below:

OK, I feel entirely empowered to quibble as I have taken you out for said drink, and I may not be the expert I am either, but close.

Quibble #1: Spending money on a bar. Oh, nonsense. One simply requires 4 to 5 old tires (per side, depending on tire size) and several planks of indeterminate wood and/or salvaged laminate. You can hold the planks together with duct tape. You can keep the laminate firm to its particle board (since days and weeks in the alley can promote de-lamination) with duct tape. Then you get some filing cabinets from the alley or behind Goodwill. You’ll store your hooch in them. Top drawer whiskey, next tequila, next grain neutral spirits…get the idea? The genius is the other inhabitants of the flop house would NEVER go anywhere NEAR a filing cabinet. It would remind them of their mothers’ weeping - of who they could have been. Make sure you secure the filing cabinets to the wall - it’s earthquake, hurricane, flood, fire, and civil unrest season. Or you might just stumble, lose your balance, and imagine the mess. I recommend duct tape for this purpose. Some might say a filing cabinet drawer isn’t tall enough for your hooch bottles. Balderdash. Always buy everything in pints. They are easier to transport in case of earthquake, hurricane, flood, fire, or civil unrest. Electric extension cords help supply cozy illumination if your neighbor happens to have electricity.

Quibble #2: Whiskey. Rubbing Alcohol is underrated. Oops, sorry that’s for another section. Bourbon: Regular old 1.5 liter Even Williams is even cheaper and in a blind test is generally thought to be much more thoroughly aged than it really is. It’s good, really. In order of price, my Bourbons always on hand: Evan Williams Black Label, Old Charter 12 year, Woodford Reserve. Rye: Old Overholt rules, you be affirmed. Consider Sazerac 6 year too. Inexpensive and tastes EXACTLY like pre-Prohibition rye. That’s enough unless you get really frisky and track down some of Fritz Maytag’s 120 proof Potrero rye. So smooth you can drink it straight - and at $80+ a pop you’ll want to. Canadian; Bleh. CC, I suppose. You don’t need blended whiskey at all. Just mix cheap vodka and Evan Williams if you get a craving. Irish: I’m a Black Bush feller and I’ll brook no comments. Always have a bottle of good ole skunky John Power too; why? ‘Cause it’s the workin’ man’s Irish wuskeh, whot? Scotch: Pinch, Grouse, Macallan, Balvenie, and Cardu! It really isn’t a quibble at all, just advice.

Quibble #3: Gin. You need 3 different kinds of London Dry if you expect to gain the respect of your world-class alcoholics: Dry and light of juniper (Bombay, Beefeater) dry and heavy of juniper (Boodles,) sweet and heavy juniper (Tanqueray.) Why no sweet and light of juniper? That’s WINO gin, young’n. Then you’ll need Plymouth for total satin, and Hendricks for “look at me I’m dancing around in half a horse costume! It’s the front half!” Then you’ll need Dutch gin. Actually you won’t. It’s like aquavit: unnecessary, but fabulous (UBF). I like to keep Bols Genever (jonge genever) and Bokma (oulde genever) sa-mooth, baby!

Vodka. No quibble there, ya gotta have it. It’s the cheapest, swankest way to clean nasty cuts. Best not to let those things fester. That’s what happened to Jack Daniel and he’s DEAD. You must choose carefully. Avoid Aristocrat vodka. It’s a tad sweet and will attract ants to the wound. Ketel One is especially soothing on abrasions, whereas I prefer 100 proof Smirnoff for lacerations. Stay away from the French Brands: the terrorists clear THEIR cuts with THEM.

Quibble #4: White rum - see vodka. Unless it’s Havana Club Blanco, in which case, see my liver. Mount Gay: Good, try Brugal from the Dominican republic. Amber fabulocity - and cheap! Bacardi 8 is from Bermuda and beriberi nize. You need a Jamaican dark rum, preferably not Myers’s, but lacking any others, Myers’s. Good ole Myers’s. I just like writing s’s.

Huh?: Are you saying it is now legal to produce spirits under the Tequila name that are not Cuervo Gold? Golly.

Liqueurs: You’re right don’t need anisette for much, but it ain’t a pastis anyway: Pernod is, Ricard is, Herbsaint is, etc, etc and Ricard coined the term. Pastis is an absinthe substitute, anisette is a mere anis liqueur.

Benedictine - right ON, and you can make your OWN B&B in like 5 milliseconds with 1\2 shot of Hennessy, 1/2 shot of Benedictine. WAY better than bottled.

Bitters aren’t liqueurs but since we are storing our hooch in filing cabinets I’ll let it go. Add Peychaud to the list, and Fee’s Peach bitters too! Cheap Cognac-Hennessy ok and though in the 30’s they called ‘em liqueur brandies, that didn’t make ‘em liqueurs, same as blow jobs rarely require expelling air forcefully from one’s mouth.

Calvados is a must-Trader Joe’s has it once a year at $10 a pop., applejack, an utter must.

OK, Campari: this is an aperitif bitters: wanna be a sophisticated tosspot? Campari.

Cointreau: what she said.

Cacao: what she said. In the 112 years I’ve been practicing medicine without a license, I don’t think I’ve EVER touched the dark cacao.

Scroll from Creme de Menthe to Grand Marnier: yep, inclusive. Very insightful.

Heering: Yep, or cherry-flavored brandy. No “schnapps” and kirschwasser is a dry distillate of cherries. It is dead clear, completely devoid of sweetness, akin to moonshine and will knock you on your ass. It is NOT a liqueur substitute, but you want it anyway. Eau de vie de woo hoo!

Maraschino: Correctamundo.

Pimm’s: On its own with 7-Up IS a Pimm’s Cup - though it becomes incredible with spicy ginger beer. Mix it with any sparkling non-alcoholic mixer no darker than Scotch and it is STILL a Pimm’s Cup. Mix it with Coca Cola it’s called a Regurgitation.

Sloe Gin: Did you know that there are winos who insist on Slow Gin? It’s true, and if it’s good enough for discriminating winos…well, there I am! Best is Plymouth brand. You can really taste the sweet/tart flavor of the blackthorn plums. Let’s try and force them to export it to Bushrovia!

Syrups: Make that POMEGRANATE Grenadine (I know, that’s like saying pomegranate twice, but if you don’t say it you’re getting cherry cough syrup - and not the good kind, either.) Yes, yes, raspberry a must, just as important as grenadine -Smucker’s or Knott’s Berry Farm, please. Simple, orgeat - you bet, add falernum.

OK, we’re down to vermouth so I cry HALT! Here are the other liqueurs you’ll be glad you’ll have: Apricot (flavored) brandy: Marie Brizard Apry is best. Orange Curacao: way orangier than Cointreau or Tripe Sec: I bet you thought that was a typo. Again Brizard is good; I like Bardinet, but then I ordered it from Germany. And you MUST have at least one Chartreuse. If it is new to you, make it the yellow. It isn’t cheap, but it keeps forever, you’ll only use it as a small portion of a bunch of cocktails, so drink by drink it is quite cost effective. These additions are, to my spongy mind more important that creme de menthe. Also you’ll want either Amaretto or creme de noyeau, they are both almond. the former is more expensive and better as a sipper, the latter is cheaper and suited just fine to cocktails. And a coffee liqueur: I haven’t tried the Starbucks entry into the market, but otherwise I prefer Tia Maria to Kahlua - and I like that both are rum-based. Speaking of rum based, my FAVORITE orange liqueur is the rhum-based Clement Creole Shrub. Available in the U.S. after a long hiatus, it is el superbo. That’s Spainish. Sexy No?

Vermouth: Our dear correspondent, Marleigh is again exactly right on again. An additional bottle of Carpano Antigua Sweet Vermouth is ample indication that you are a farce to be reckoned with.

Oh one more thing about the bar. Some may say cinder blocks stolen from a construction site make a far classier bar. I say have you ever tried to ROLL a cinder block? Besides, you need the cinder blocks to crack nuts on. –Doc.

The Art of the Bar

2006-05-25T13:11:00.000-07:00

The Art of the Bar, Jeff Hollinger & Rob Schwartz; Chronicle Books.

The bartenders at Absinthe Brasserie in San Franciso have put together a classic. Carefully interpreting classic cocktails, the book focuses on taste sensibilities while remaining highly sensitive to cocktail history. Like two brilliant architects renovating classic Victorian row houses with touches of sleek postmodern designs that breathe life into classics, Hollinger and Schwartz hit all the right notes. Even the book's bibliography is a delight.

Hey Ho, it's Cocktail200!

2006-05-14T16:09:00.000-07:00

Are you all set to celebrate the 200th Anniversary of the cocktail, defined?

Too bad. So sorry to hear that. You missed it. Well, not the whole year, but if you did not look heavenward as you drained your glass on Saturday, you missed the moment. You see, on May 13th 1806, the cocktail got its first explanation in a New York newspaper. Oh, the word had appeared before, back into the 18th century, usually as a description of a type of horse, and even once in 1803 as a drink, but this use was in a narrative penned by a young callow good-for-nothing reprobate (probably an ancestor of Alex) – exactly the sort that did enjoy cocktails in those days – and he just mentioned it in passing. Unless you too were a miscreant of the period, you’d never know what the hell he was talking about. Again, on May 6th 1806, the Editor of Hudson, New York’s newspaper, the Balance & Columbian Repository, mentioned our fledgling cocktail obliquely in a snarky aside regarding a local politician:

“….a certain candidate has placed in his account of Loss and Gain, the following items: –

LOSS:

720 rum-grogs
17 brandy (ditto)
32 gin-slings
411 glasses bitters
25 (ditto) cock-tail
My Election.

GAIN:

NOTHING.”

Well. One week later (it being a weekly newspaper) the Balance ran this exchange:

To the Editor of the Balance.

Sir,
I observe in your paper… the account of a democratic candidate…under the head of Loss, 25 (ditto) cock-tail. Will you be so obliging as to inform me what is meant by this species of refreshment?”

To which our fearless editor replied:

“ Cock-tail… is a stimulating liquor, composed of spirits of any kind, sugar, water and bitters –it is vulgarly called a bittered sling, and is supposed to be an excellent electioneering potion inasmuch as it renders the heart stout and bold, at the same time that it fuddles the head. It is said also, to be of great use to a democratic candidate: because, a person having swallowed a glass of it, is ready to swallow any thing else.”

No reference to the name of the poor Democrat was ever recorded, or is to this day known.

But there you have it; an etymologist’s wet dream: a new word meaning, defined in print. As I say, cocktails were quite bad form in those days, not only because they were consumed in the morning to stave off the effects of the night before, but also because they contained bitters.

“And what is wrong with bitters?” You might be so unwise to ask me. Well, in 1806, the cocktail was new. No cocktail glasses, no cocktail napkins, no cocktail lounges, no cocktail bitters. Putting bitters in your drink in 1806 was akin to stumbling to your medicine cabinet, grabbing the convenient bottle of Paragoric and dumping it into your hangover drink. Bad show, old chap, bad show indeed.

200 years later to the day, simultaneous celebrations for the now rather more gentrified drink form were held around the world: London, New York, Las Vegas, Sydney (Germany, Holland, Austria and Switzerland)… I attended the Las Vegas event, (at The Museum of the American Cocktail) which was simulcast with the New York one (at a bar with a satellite exhibit – a bar named, oddly, the Balance.) I gave a little speech, conducted tours and interviews, and drank. And ate. And drank. There’ll be more on that later. And drank.

At the event, the first annual The American Cocktail Awards™ (the Olives) were presented by the USBG (the United States Bartenders’ Guild) for the best drink. A little number named the “Wet Spot” won.

–Doc.

Doctor Cocktail's Sabbatical

2006-05-04T10:36:00.000-07:00

Since January, I’ve been on so-called sabbatical from Martini Republic in New Orleans. You may remember, I was last there a week and a day before Katrina swamped the city at the end of August, and January 2nd displayed a city only just coming fitfully to consciousness. Dale DeGroff, Martin Doudoroff, Phil Greene, and I trekked down to pack up The Museum of the American Cocktail exhibit on the second floor of the New Orleans Pharmacy Museum (which, fortuitously, sustained no damage) so to transport it to its new temporary home in Las Vegas, in a banquet room, in the satellite Commander’s Palace Restaurant, in the Desert Passages shopping mall of the Aladdin Casino resort. This was at the invitation of Ti Martin and the Commander’s Palace Group. Ti is still camped out at her Café Adelaide while the original New Orleans Commander’s Palace remains closed, its roof breached by Katrina. Once the Museum artifacts were carefully swaddled, Dale and I drove them to Vegas in a U-Haul truck. I had earlier stated flatly that I wouldn’t trust shipping companies (especially in the January chaos of NOLA basic services infrastructural repair) to safely transport such treasures.

Dale and I had several offers to film the journey, as though we were Thelma & Louise; as though we would pull into towns along the way in tuxes, breeze into swank cocktail venues, wittily tipple Martinis and hit the road again. We declined. As Dale would say, “why ruin a good story with the truth?”

New Orleans has always been a city symbolic to the rest of the country. To many, New Orleans seemed somehow frivolous with its year-round festivities, its embrace of hearty drinking, and its odd culture of accents, sensibilities, and cuisine. Even worse than the artificial, history-faking Sodom and Gomorrah image that has long tarred Las Vegas, New Orleans just seemed silly to a lot of people. Katrina changed that impression but not the judgmental attitude; you either “get” New Orleans or you don’t. Me? I was captivated, from my first visit in 1993, and the love compounded in my heart with every subsequent arrival.

It was emotionally difficult to move the Museum to Las Vegas. I’m less charitable with my impressions of that burg (though I adore its gin-loving Mayor.) That it was Commander’s Palace (my favorite NOLA restaurant, by the way) offering us space gave me the necessary umbilical cord to the Crescent City to curtail despair. As I’ve said in interviews, Vegas IS becoming a more substantial destination for fine dining, drinking, and the arts – for those like me who disdain gambling. There too, the stereotype of the place is both incomplete and out of date.

Having deposited the artifacts into temperature-controlled storage, I headed directly back to New Orleans to assume the position of Graphic Designer for the first movie to be filmed there post-Katrina. This gave me four months to view the city’s progress and tribulations, all while slurping Sazeracs, Vieux Carrés and Milk Punches. Every Friday evening I’d return to Las Vegas to oversee the installation of custom-designed display cases and to mount the new Museum exhibit. Every Sunday I’d return to New Orleans.

There is no need to relate oft-told vignettes of devastation, but the January views of burned out crushed minivans in parking spaces next to the humdrum vehicles of the workaday world is not one I’ll ever forget. The seeming acres of car-husks lined up beneath bridges and overpasses heading from the intact French Quarter and Garden District into the newly minted wasteland were a vacuum of life and spirit. The city rebuilds, slowly, in agonizingly small increments – and the wear was evident in the faces and words of its residents. Yet traffic lights, comatose since the storm, one by one, would go from black to blinking. The telling carcasses of cars would disappear with the debris extending inexorably the living perimeter of the city.

While there I did radio, magazine, and newspaper interviews. I held a seminar entitled “The History of the Cocktail in 7 Drinks & 7 Plates” at Café Adelaide at the behest of dear, dear friend Ti Martin and it was the best calculated pairing of cocktails and food I was ever involved in or, in fact, had ever encountered. I invented several new cocktails on that fertile ground and I’ll be back there in July for the annual weeklong Tales of the Cocktail event to try it again. Comfortable back in Los Angeles after months of hotel life, I miss that fitful, hopeful city already.

I'm very bitter.

2006-01-03T23:30:00.000-08:00

I was asked to be a part of a recent seminar on the subject of cocktail bitters, and it was suggested that I initiate the discourse with the words, “Hi, I’m Ted Haigh, and I’m very, very bitter.” I was only too glad to oblige.

Historically, a cocktail would never have been a cocktail without bitters. I could write a book on the subject, turn your ear to mush, and still have enough hot air left to go around the world in 80 days. So I won’t tackle the whole thing here, but perhaps just a short overview.

Bitters fall into 3 broad categories: Aromatic, fruit, and aperitif bitters. The most famous brand, Angostura (and I’d link to their website if it weren’t so bombastic) is an aromatic bitters. Aromatic bitters could weigh in at up to 100 proof and yet were still sold during Prohibition because they were considered “non-potable alcohol” which in this case meant they were simply too bitter to drink straight – or even in more than scant dashes. The same was (and is) true of fruit bitters.

Dubonnet, Fernet Branca, and Malort (more correctly Malört) are all aperitif bitters. This means that, though bitter to one extent or another, they were dilute or balanced enough with sweetness to be consumed straight – to promote appetite before a meal. Even vermouth falls correctly into this category.

Fruit bitters, the real subject of this column, are by their nature generic and so are identified by the specific fruit that informs the flavor of each. There were mainly just two; peach bitters and orange bitters. I am personally responsible for the fact that we can obtain peach bitters at all, through my collaboration with cocktail mixer producers Fee Brothers over a decade ago. I’m at least partially responsible for the growing popularity of orange bitters too. When half-century old recipes initially piqued my interest in the subject, there were simply none to be found – not in 1991. Having searched far and wide, I ended up on the phone with the chairman of Angostura International in Trinidad and through him was eventually guided to a small century-old family business in Rochester, New York: Fee Brothers. They made products largely for a regional market and one such product was orange bitters. By the time I became the cocktail & spirits maven for AOL four years later, I was all too happy to share this information, resurrect long-fallow drinks that called for the ingredient, and generally extol its many virtues. News spread rapidly among cocktail devotees.

But now I’m bitter. Why? Because the bitters revolution is moving too slowly for my impatient ass. Manhattans, Rob Roys and Old Fashioneds should never be made without bitters, yet often still are. All of you mid-century moderns should be mixing your classic Martinis with a traditional dash of orange bitters, but you aren’t because they remain perplexingly hard to find.

Note well, however, they are much handier now than when I went a-stalking them. Back in the days before, during, and directly after Prohibition, there were dozens of orange bitters brands. No liquor store would be without them. Consumers had their favorites, because even with a product so seemingly simple as orange bitters, different brands had widely varying nuances. Famed author of 1947’s The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks (as well as the basis for my notorious Mixilator,) David Embury endorsed a long-departed British brand, Field’s. When eventually I was able to obtain vintage orange bitters, my favorite became the equally defunct Schiefflin’s Old House Orange Bitters. Just knowing that Fee Brothers still gamely sold the stuff freshly bottled was no small comfort. Interest in orange bitters (and bitters in general) has grown nimbly in the intervening years. There are now not one, but five brands of orange bitters on the market, though not all are available to everyone. Please meet the contestants:

Fee Brothers West Indian Orange Bitters: These, while being thoroughly (and appropriately) bitter, have the flavor of candied orange. They integrate well in sweeter, fruitier drinks that sorely need balancing. Fee’s is the best-known orange bitters brand currently made and is available via the Web, in Los Angeles from Surfa’s Restaurant Supply, and in New York at a store I will reveal shortly.

Regans’ Orange Bitters #6: These are the brainchild of my dear friends Gary and Mardee Regan and are produced by the historic Sazerac Company. I designed the label for this brand. Theirs is the most complexly flavored brand on the market. The subtle orange underlies tones of cardamom and coriander. It works well in aromatic drinks with dark spirits, wines, and vermouths where the orange character needs to bloom incrementally and through other flavors – as crocuses bloom through humus in early spring. Sazerac has excellent distribution and hopefully this brand will be more widespread in the future. It can be ordered via the Web via Sazerac’s subsidiary, Buffalo Trace. It is also available in New York at a store I will reveal shortly.

Hoppe Orange Bitters: This is a Dutch brand in a large bottle. A brand representative promised to send me some a year and a half ago but never did. When I was in England touring with Plymouth Gin, I picked up a bottle and from my taste test, surmised they felt discretion was the better part of valor. While orangey, it is rather dilute and with little concentrated bitterness; almost an orange aperitif bitters. Of these, half an ounce is interesting in tall drinks like a Tom Collins or inventive highballs, but I cannot recommend them to be used in the manner of traditional orange bitters. They are prevalent throughout Europe and England, but not available in the States.

Stirrings Blood Orange Bitters: The authors of these bitters come not from the liquor industry or its adjunct devotees. As such, they take some self-aware liberties with the chemistry that they mightn’t if they had more of a history with alcohol. As they put it, this is “a modern interpretation of a classic.” Flavor-wise (and again as the creators are obviously aware) this is spicier, more overtly orangey, and very diffuse in bitterness. Oh, the slight bitter gentian sneaks up in the aftertaste, but it has largely lost its aperitif effects in classic dash-and-drop bitters doses. It works well, though, as do all aromatic bitters, as a burst of flavor. The opportunities most importantly missed in these bitters are two, and they are interrelated: First, they are nonalcoholic. While this allows bitters use by an alcohol-free audience (a very good thing) it also misunderstands the reason for alcohol as a base. Alcohol adds zing, punch, and kick, true, but so does the citric acid they use instead. The problem is that alcohol is also a preservative, and citrus is not. You can’t keep a bottle of this, unrefrigerated, behind a bar for all too long I suspect. It, like old Rose’s Lime Juice Cordial, will simply go bad. Unfortunately, bitters DO stay behind the bar for quite some time, and a product long comatose like orange bitters, well, it might be back there quite a while. I’ve walked into bars had had ‘em serve me orange bitters in excellent cocktails where the bitters bottle had been behind the bar for 20 years, but they contained alcohol. While no bitters maker wants their product to sit around that long, that’s the way this trend is going to start – slow. These aren’t the first orange bitters without alcohol, just the first since Prohibition. I recommend Stirrings Blood Orange Bitters in nonalcoholic sparkling cider and in true cocktails where bitterness isn’t an issue but a bolt of flavor is. Keep this brand refrigerated. And Nantucket Off Shore? I highly recommend experimenting with (horrors) an alcohol base. I’d requested a line up of brick-and-mortar stores across the country that sold this product, but at this point your best bet is online.

Hermes Orange Bitters: Produced in Japan by Suntory producers of the popular Midori. This brand is the closest on the market to the flavor of 1930s orange bitters. It is overtly orangey with spicy undertones. It would be my choice in a 7 to 1 1950s-style gin Martini. Crank up the Stan Kenton and go. Up to a year ago, this brand might’ve required a trip to Japan to obtain, but for one little store in Brooklyn, New York.

Okay, okay, I’ll tease you no longer. The store is a unique little spirits shop run by an exceedingly charming woman who calls her business and herself LeNell. Tonya (LeNell) Smothers has a formidable knowledge of spirits – especially of bitters. Her website displays as exhaustive a list of currently made bitters as exists outside of my own head. She misses only the Hoppe product. Dear readers, if you live where you cannot obtain the bitters of your desire, I recommend you email or call LeNell. Suddenly, the bitters world just got a lot smaller, by which I mean closer, by which I mean happier.

The amazing dichotomy here is how fast these bitters, all orange bitters, all entirely individual, have created this new market while still being so relatively unknown in the larger world of bars and cocktails. I’m not playing favorites here either. Frankly, a committed Mixologist could stand to have each available brand on hand, so different are they. Your Doctor can personally demonstrate cocktails that show each to its best advantage, for which use of the others would be a compromise. That better drinking establishments can’t manage to stock even one makes me very very bitter. Between you, these forward-looking purveyors, and me that may well soon change.

It's all true.

2005-12-20T14:34:00.000-08:00

It’s true. It’s the multi-belief-system holiday season again. Time to reflect/give gifts/remember/get revenge/blow people up, as one’s personal-yet-codified dogma dictates. One thing is for certain, though, as was so eloquently expressed by our liege, J. Mailander, there’s punch.

One of the best explanations of the overriding importance of punch is in this book: “Mixologist; The Journal of the American Cocktail.” In it, David Wondrich, Esquire Magazine’s drink maven, takes us through what punch was when punch was king, and what punch was, was pretty specific. Punch had (and meant) five ingredients. This would’ve been around, oh, the 1630s. The five ingredients were: citrus fruit, cane sugar, water, spice, and number five: arrack. Of these, in Europe, all were arcane except water. Now, all are common except arrack. Arrack, while strange to Western ears, is a name well known in the Middle East. It’s an anise-flavored spirit, and an acquired taste. In the 17th century, it was mainly just a word for liquor.

A hundred years later, punch was the monarch of drinks, and monarchs drank it – as did everyone, from cups ladled from large bowls just as we’d expect. They even upended the bowls in a traditional round robin toast of greeting and kinship. And punch could be served hot or cold as the season dictated. By now, however, the arrack in the best punches had become more specific, and the best of it was known as Batavia Arrack, an odd combo of rum distilled with fermented Javanese rice. This was obviously close kin to rum but it had a better reputation owing to the Dutch influence (they were instrumental, through their colonizing, in its European introduction) and to it’s use in the trendiest punches. Sophisticates went to great lengths to distinguish their punches from anything containing rumbullion. As with all things, eventually punch’s star declined. This happened as it always does – through the chemical process of bastardization. First, of course, they’d sneak rum in. Just in time for Gin Lane, well looky, it’s a gin punch. And hot whiskey punch was the direct ancestor to the Hot Toddy, Mr. Wondrich posits.

As punch became old-hat, more than just the ingredients were bowdlerized too. The extended-family conviviality of the punch bowl gave way to the greatest outrage of all: the single serving punch. Oh, flasks of brandy, mugs of beer, spiced mugs of hot beer presented with a fireplace poker, were served singly, but punch…punch was the glue that bound society together, and it was coming apart. Religious reactionaries will speak of the dissolution of the nuclear family and point to liberal, evolutionary, immoral, secular ideas as the culprit. Historians and sociologists who are a little more thoughtful nod toward the Industrial Revolution and the tight packing of human beings into steamy terrariums called “cities.”

In fact, it was punch. The dissolution of the family began when punch ceased, in the main, to be shared. The slow, incremental movement of focus from the communal to the individual began here.

The offspring of the single serving punch was, of course, the cocktail.

By the time the first cocktail recipes saw print in 1862, punch still abounded as an also-ran. It became a thing of events, commemorations, and holidays. It has, today, turned into a chimera, inhabiting the silhouette of punch but really being something else, something less. No one takes punch seriously anymore.

The punch I served lucky guests at Casa de Cocktail was a rum punch from the early 19th century that, with slight variations, was christened “Columbian Punch” in 1893 to honor the quadricentennial-plus-one-year of Columbus’ New World frolic. The year-late World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois was the first World’s Fair. The punch was this:

Columbian Punch*

1 quart of Jamaican rum,
1 pint of brandy,
the juice of 2 lemons and 2 oranges,
1 pint of freshly brewed oolong tea,
2 sherry glasses (4 oz.) of green Chartreuse.
Sweeten this mixture to taste,
pour into a large punch bowl,
add ice (a bag of ice from the store is about right)
and pour in a quart of Champagne (750ml is fine)
Stir and ladle.
(*) From “Beverages And Sandwiches For Your Husband’s Friends”
by One Who Knows. ©1893.

It was a serious punch and a fleeting glimpse at the fine thing punch once was.

Happy multi-belief-system holiday everyone!
The elves are weeping.

The Fruit of the Dead.

2005-12-10T11:45:00.000-08:00

OK, so you’re dead, and Charon is ferrying you across the river Styx to your new digs on the Isle of the Dead,. Kinda thirsty? Have we got the thing for you! It’s pomegranate, the official Olympic Committee-sanctioned Fruit of the Dead, and hoo hah it’s popular.

Pom, the newish juice wunderkind has given good old morbid moribund pomegranates a new lease on death, errr…life. Suddenly the pomegranate is cool, and we see this reflected in products and marketing, thanks to Pom.

What you may not know, if you are woefully undereducated, is that the great classic use of pomegranates for at least the last couple hundred years is in grenadine. In fact, the word “grenadine” is French diminutive for “pomegranate” like “Yo! The Pomster!”

Now, if you feel you are experiencing a cultural disconnect, your Doctor is not surprised. You thought they’d taken all the surplus cheap cough syrup at the bottom of the vat (not the good druggy kind) and bottled it with a grenadine label. .Of course you did. Almost all grenadines of current manufacture contain little if any real pomegranate juice or syrup. Some of the better ones like Fee Brothers American Beauty Grenadine contain a commercially produced pomegranate extract, but the popular-by-default Rose’s Grenadine contains no pomegranate at all; they told me.

Given this state of affairs, there’s little question why grenadine is considered merely a sweet colorant for chick drinks. Of course, with the phoenix-like ascension of Pom, you can just imagine what nifty things are happening in the grenadine industry can’t you? You can’t? That’s because NOTHING is happening. Oh, Sonoma Syrup Company is producing a wonderful “pomegranate simple syrup,” and it and they are definitely up-and-coming. What makes this not a grenadine? Honey doll, you’ve got me. Maybe the grenadine moniker has been so devalued by crap that the name has no value anymore, or maybe Sonoma just wants the name to tie into all their other syrup products. Regardless, theirs is my current choice for quality cocktails calling for grenadine – and these cocktails stand proudest with real tart/sweet pomegranate flavor. To this I might add that Angostura makes a grenadine with real pomegranate flavor which is semi-hard to find, and that Trader Vic’s makes a very passable one also. These and Fee Brothers are all quite acceptable (unlike Rose’s or the local bar brand) but the Sonoma product is a cut above, cowardly naming convention or not.

To test it in a real drink (as opposed to the ones merely requiring a sweet colorant) try a Jack Rose.

1-1/2 oz. Applejack
Juice of 1/2 a lime (say about 3/4 oz.)
And 2 or 3 dashes of Sonoma “don’t call me grenadine” pomegranate simple syrup.
Shake in an iced cocktail shaker
Strain into a chilled, stemmed cocktail glass.

Now that is good.

As I said, despite grenadine’s exile from the party, pomegranate is the new kicky thing, so when I received a liquor company offering of a box set of Pama, a red pomegranate liqueur in a sleek designer bottle nestled in red confetti beside a red cocktail shaker, well, I was excited as one can get over pomegranates. I mean years ago they used to put about 1.5 to 3% alcohol in some grenadines and that’s what you’d call preservative-strength alcohol. Maybe, just maybe they were taking the next logical step and making a grenadine liqueur, as it were. That is, until I read the cover letter. Pomegranate liqueur, blended with “imported Tequila and super-premium Vodka.” I immediately wanted to triangulate my way to any handy vomit bags.

Well. Twas only fair to taste it. It….was good. It was good just like I would hope a grenadine liqueur would be. Note well, marketing staff – note well brand managers…it was good in spite of the Tequila and the vodka (the flavors of which were entirely undetectable.) Ergo, except for bragging rights they could’ve saved their vodka/Tequila money, used grain neutral spirits (which is exactly what vodka is, minus a little charcoal filtration) and sunk their money into a mammoth product launch. It’s 34 proof. Water, and sugar will smooth those rough edges.

Note to brain trust: Look. At. Pom. As is, the money line is and will be: “This pomegranate liqueur is honestly pomegranate-flavored, well balanced, and persuasively packaged. It ought to be a hit and I recommend it as an alternative to grenadine in drinks that call for that.” Mainly, combining winning trends may sound good in a meeting but be wasteful in what you need to accomplish for your product. As is, when it appears in limited release you should try it. You could probably even cut Sonoma Syrup’s Pomegranate Simple Syrup with it for a balance between sweet/thick/strong/thin.

Consider it Your Doctor’s prescription.

A Cocktail Dictionary

2005-12-05T01:27:00.000-08:00

Translations for the Trade

Alcohol: A foul-tasting byproduct of trendy (which see) drink creation.

ATF: John Law with a speech impediment; a mean drunk (which see).

Bartenders are all using….: Barkeeps without pesky scruples being paid by the brand marketing dept. as shills to promote your trendy (which see) product (which see) in a new (which see) beverage.

Blank-blank cocktail news story: (vis: “drug cocktail,” “biodefense cocktail,” “Molotov cocktail.”) Reportage of any mixture of chemicals to create a desired effect for an intended purpose; see trendy and promo.

Champagne: Like spackling compound, a light sanding, and a new coat of paint.

Classic: Served in stemware (which see).

Cocktail bling: See schmuck

Cocktail revival: Served in stemware (which see).

Colorful cocktail(s): Cool (which see) new (which see) classic (which see) yet trendy (which see) drink you’re bound to love (which see).

Cool: Idiotic.

Drinking less but better: You’re raising prices across the board.

Drink responsibly: A benediction at the foot of all product (which see) advertising; (vis: “Have a good day.”).

Drunk: Noun: Valued product (which see) patron. Verb: See drink responsibly.

Enchant, enchanting: Girly drink (which see).

Ewww, I don’t like it: You can taste the alcohol (which see); opposite of new (which see) and trendy (which see).

Exclusive: If you’re reading it/getting into it, it’s over.

Girly drink: Any new, (which see) trendy (which see) drink.

Hip, hippest: You’re a writer who wouldn’t know a trend if it bit you on the ass.

‘Ho: The dignified purveyance of your estimable product (which see).

Kicky: Description of a girly drink (which see).

Latest: If you’re reading it/drinking it, it’s over.

Market coverage: Periodicals and websites created and maintained to ‘ho (which see) your product (which see).

Marketing Department: An orgy, on so many levels.

Marketing Rep.: You have a BA in business, it’s all about the ka-ching, so let’s rev up sales (which see) for the trend-setting (which see) product (which see) to which you’ve been summarily assigned. PS: You’re good-looking and horny but (somewhat) selective.

Mmmmph, mmmph, murph, murph, -gak- huuuawwpp: Office party with trendy cocktails.

New, newest: vodka with a diabetes-inducing dose of trendy (which see) liqueur and juice added to it.

Not for everyone: Ouch! What did you do to get assigned to THIS account?

Not just for Margaritas anymore: Another ephemeral attempt to increase Tequila sales by putting it in cocktails no bartender will make.

Popular: Was trendy (which see) but is now trending off (which see) and bartenders just have to suffer through it.

Press Release: Premature ejaculation.

Pricey cocktail: Another idiot is throwing schmuck (which see) in the bottom of an otherwise mediocre drink.

Product: Cowry shells and mirror bits, traded for gold and virgins.

Promo: What’ll it take?

Return of the cocktail: See cocktail revival.

Rev up sales: Big marketing push on this brand – which you’ll drop like a pump n’ dump stock next season.

Schmuck: German for jewelry; American for anyone who buys a pricey cocktail (which see) containing schmuck.

Sophisticated cocktail: “That’s awful; throw some Champagne (which see) into it.”

Stemware: Instant sophistication; often associated with Champagne (which see).

Style: Old hat.

Taking the brand upmarket: You’re not limiting your advertising to the African American and/or Hispanic consumer anymore (on this product).

This product has legs: 1: TWO seasons of revving up sales (which see).
2: Product (which see) has an unexpectedly addictive component. Also see promo.

Trendiest, trendy, trend-setting: This product/cocktail is so superficial it’ll last a week and a half before everyone realizes how wretched it is. See rev up sales.

Trending off: The public has begun to realize it’s swill; the gig’s up.

Vanilla brandy/”Cognac”: You haven’t taken this brand upmarket yet.

Versatile: A word rarely used when describing trendy (which see) cocktail ingredients because even brand marketing reps feel token shame.

What’s old is new again: Beating a dead horse.

Whiskey, cherry: You haven’t taken this brand upmarket yet.

Wow, that was a GREAT drink!: Not an industry term; perhaps a foreign language?

Yapping, trouble-making curmudgeon: See zealot.

You’re bound to love…: This cocktail/liqueur/spirit is so sweet and candy-like a six year old will like it, and you fit the bill.

Zealot: Nut case whose entire worldview is through a glass. Mea culpa.

As Thanksgiving Hurls

2005-11-21T15:01:00.000-08:00

As Thanksgiving hurls at us like a puritan’s shoe buckle, thoughts turn, in the tradition of the season, to strong drink and plenty of it; brown drink, the kind the kiddies would hide from like a beating. It’s what made our country great, or at least thankful. Having navigated the stormy seas of puppy love with brandy, rum, and applejack, the youthful Uncle Sam and his constituency, only still slightly dyspeptic, grew into strapping and enthusiastic whiskey drinkers. It would remain so well into our pompous years. It took WWII (the War to End All Wars, Part Deux) to finally flog it out of our system. Prohibition gave us a long tender spanking, but World War Two finally made us see that, after war rationing and such, there really wasn’t much superb aged whiskey left to bottle-feed the baby Boomers, and anyway…less flavor is WAY better. Flavor. Ew, gross. And so in our bombastic dotage we are the (vodka) Martini Republic. Happy Thanksgiving!

Ah, but whiskey is the stalker not so easy to restrain with a court order. Like a scrappy Peter Braunstein, whiskey doesn’t care that nobody likes it anymore, that it got fired, that its off-Broadway play got abysmal reviews. No, whiskey knows it can win us back again with its charm and cheery fireman’s suit.

You’d have to say, whiskey began to seriously pitch woo to our alienated affections with Maker’s Mark Bourbon. It was the first new hand-made American whiskey in years. Maker’s was so far ahead of its time in 1958 that no one noticed it until the 1970s. By the mid ‘80s, however, what with all of that grody alcoholism, liquor companies looked at the drippy red wax and hit upon a genius notion: drinking less but drinking better. Sazerac Co. took the next initiative and created the exquisitely-flavored Blanton’s, the first single barrel Bourbon. Single Barrel means all of the whiskey in the bottle came from the same barrel it aged in, adding only water so it didn’t rip your tonsils out. Before, different barrels were always mixed for a potentially boring-if-consistent bottling. Suddenly frisky, American whiskey was innovating!

This was followed by Jim Beam, the 800lb gorilla at the bar, making the whole concept very, very mainstream by releasing 4 delightful “small batch” Bourbons: Booker’s, Baker’s, Knob Creek, and Basil Hayden. “Small batch” means the whiskies are blended, but only between a few carefully culled casks (barrels, actually— but our Nation became great on the back of literary artifice, so shut up) and they swear under oath they don’t spit into the mash. Most all of the other American whiskey makers followed suit with their own meticulous gems. So even though nobody liked it, the whiskey cult was back, setting up a well-armed compound and threatening the townfolk.

Enter Fritz Maytag, the man behind Anchor Steam Beer, whom we know as lovable Old Man Crazy. Fritz just about single-handedly resurrected America’s other whiskey, Barbara. Er, pork. Er…RYE whiskey. While rye need be but a minimum of 51% rye grain to a max of 49% corn to earn the name, Maytag’s Old Potrero (named for Melvin Potrero, inventor of the pot still) is made with 100% rye grain and for a while was bottled at a lovely tonsil-ripping 120 proof but now weighs in at 90. Honestly, even at 120 proof it was magically smooth stuff. In time, other companies began looking longingly at the sexy rye revival and before too long there were all kinds of delicious bouncing boutique ryes on the market. Still, no one liked them.

Not one to rest on his lumpen laurels, lovable Old Man Crazy followed this with an entirely new (meaning old) product. It was a whiskey made as whiskey might’ve been when it crossed George Washington’s balsa wood teeth. He didn’t char the whiskey barrels as do all Bourbons and ryes; he toasted them as one might toast toast in a particularly large toaster. Also made with 100% rye grain, once aged, the whiskey was bottled at barrel proof. Your tonsils will yowl a falsetto aria. Uncle Sammy does not allow this to be called rye whiskey because of the toasting thing. The choices were “Oogy wa wa!” or “18th Century-Style Whiskey” paired with a ponderous explanation. Ponderousness won the day! It was truly a new form of whiskey, but not the last.

This year Heaven Hill debuted Bernheim Original Kentucky Straight Wheat Whiskey. Some Bourbons substitute wheat for rye in the mash, but corn is still of higher percentage as it must be legally to be called Bourbon. This is different. It’s as though the rye in rye whiskey was suddenly transmuted into wheat, and it is an entirely new variety of whiskey. It has a natural lightness with a slightly floral sweet character and superb balance. It is very smooth at 90 proof and entirely drinkable, if one were to like whiskey which no one does.

We today are the patriotic and flavorless land of all-American vodka. History (and whiskey, and flavor) is old, and old is bad. Vodka, conversely, is new. The Pilgrims would’ve drunk vodka if they’d known better and though that sets up a logical paradox, best not to dwell on that. Regardless, it’ll be Thanksgiving soon and thoughts turn to brown liquor and turkeys. For the first time, as of 21st century, we now unquestionably produce the finest, most varied whiskey since this nation was founded. Let us raise our vodka glasses and toast!

Cocktail's bastard stepchild

2005-11-17T19:43:00.000-08:00

The grand (and not-so-grand) giggle water drink resurgence has seen substantial maturation in step with its ongoing human audience. As might be expected, with so many venues, online and off, extolling the virtues of ever-more rarified and specific modes of imbibing, the trendy socialite is finally getting a head on her shoulders. Can she leap the terrifying gulf that now confronts her?

Don’t mistake my meaning; knowing how to hold a glass and muse wistfully at bygone oak is a fine thing, but true continental savoir vivre forces your Doctor to rip the lid off a repressed, ugly secret:

Vermouth.

Yes, both sweet and dry, red and white, Italian and French. Vermouth. Stop covering your ears. Go the last mile (before you go off the deep end, with bitters, as I have.)

My partner in CocktailDB, Martin D. just hosted an homage to vermouth and other aperitif wines. (Vermouth as an aperitif wine; see? It’s sounding better already.) Although the event occurred last Monday in New York, I co-authored a small-but-enlightening guidebook on the topic for the event worth reading. I’d certainly mail it to all of you faithful readers, but the USPS would surely confiscate it and throw me in the hoosegow — it is, after all, vermouth we are talking about here.

So to help you along in your oh-so liberal education, download or view a PDF of the file right here.

And be brave.

A curator's work is never done

2005-06-15T20:12:00.000-07:00

….at least when it involves a fledgling start-up museum, however serious.

My initial curatorial duties on behalf of the Museum of the American Cocktail were to augment the temporary display area in the room designated for us on the second floor of the New Orleans Pharmacy Museum. I turned built in bookshelves into displays and filled low, Victorian-era display cases. I designed freestanding partitions to create more wall graphic display space and to make three areas out of one. I designed all of the graphic captioning that told the major story and I wrote the narrative sequence that WAS the story, 1806 to present. I wrote the scores of little captions that graced specific displays, and I oversaw the printing/cutting/mounting of all of this. I subdivided the real estate and created islands of information, like a timeline, and unpacked and arranged the hundreds of contributed artifacts into their respective areas.

All of this work occurred in December here in Los Angeles and between January 3rd and 12th in New Orleans where the planning and designing gave way to installation. The display is a sort of a preface. It is a temporary exhibit meant to raise awareness of the organization, to convince the Press that it was no silly joke - that the history and our treatment of it was a serious and consequential endeavor, to promote monetary contributions from spirits companies and the memberships of others, to augment seminars given under the Museum banner, and mainly, most urgently, to provide a taste of what might be accomplished given our own homeplace - a bit of real estate finagling needing to be scheduled before the end of September when we lose the space the Pharmacy Museum so kindly provided for us.

We believe we have now found such a space. While the specifics are under wraps as details are hammered out, contracts drawn up, and final negotiations completed, the museum board feels assured enough that it is time once again for me to go into design mode. Unlike the current display, there is no "repurposing" display cases and book shelves. All must be built anew to match the pristine restored space into which all will be installed. While this is additional work, it allows and presumes display areas suited perfectly to the story we are telling. The additional space allows us the luxury of instilling quite a bit more design drama to the presentation as well.

All of this begins Monday when I fly into New Orleans for three days to photograph, measure, and extrapolate the space and its potentials. I’ll be back there in August as an author for Southern Comfort’s Tales of the Cocktail, (a yearly event, also of three days, that celebrates the cocktail by importing those who are celebrated for writing about it - and giving the public access) and then at the end of September when all the artifacts must again be packed up, transported, and arranged in their new home. I’ll update everyone here as plans progress, and suggest checking out museumoftheamericancocktail.org occasionally for additional info.

The Modern Drunkard Convention: not the reportage you were expecting

2005-05-20T20:36:00.000-07:00

It was Friday the 13th. I was slated to speak from stage to sundry drunken throngs on Sunday, but wanted to get the whole experience. I was sitting in row 13 as my flight swooped into Denver. I knew it would be special.

Modern Drunkard Magazine had me picked up at the airport by one of their (almost all) part time staff. "I’d do anything for Frank and Christa" Frank Bell told me cheerfully as we headed downtown. Mr. Bell had been designated the driver of the Drunk Bus which carted the horde of Drunkards from venue to venue to hotels for the 1st convention last year in Las Vegas. In fact he drove the bus there from Denver. It was that sort of unmitigated loyalty that I’d see repeatedly from the MDM staff during my stay.

All my hotel arrangements, likewise, seemed (rather counter-intuitively) to have been performed by a sober person; I was expected, and all was in order. At 7pm I strolled over to the Ogden Theater which turned out to be purely a rock & roll venue, not unlike the Hollywood Palladium. Things were already in full swing. Frank Kelly Rich, the human embodiment of Modern Drunkard Magazine and the brain behind the convention was onstage introducing his staffers to thunderous applause. It looked like the three bars and 2 large kegs were at full steam, as was Frank.

The performances during the three day event were an odd mix of Cirque de Solé, burlesque, lounge, rock, comedy and country thrash. Then there was me, but that comes later.

Frank was somewhat the worse for wear by the time he caught sight of me. "DOCTOR Cocktail, I am soooo glad yrrrr here!" he slurred with a giant grin. And that is really what this is all about; the cult of Frank. Everybody loves Frank Kelly Rich. He’s disarmingly sincere. In this case, a fearsome percentage of attendees wanted a personal drink with the Man. He was not fain to turn any of them down and he’d had a lot more to drink than showed. His stamina was truly awesome. He kept this up all night and, having reached this fairly early plateau of mildly slurred speech maintained that level, juggernaut-like for the unreeling hours of love. Despite the few dander-raising issues in his life (Jack Daniel’s lowering the proof of their whisky without telling anyone and THEN continuing to piously claim tradition is one, Denver Sunday Blue Laws - backed by Big Beer, he says - is another) Frank is a bona fide people lover, and it shows. When, that night, the boozing finally began to take its toll, his wife Christa was by him, head to head stroking his blond hair, and shortly thereafter they disappeared. Though, by special arrangement with various venues (including a former synagogue,) the partying would go literally all night, I also hightailed it back to the hotel full of amusement and Maker’s Mark - both on Frank’s tab.

Denver has a lot of bars, especially down on East Colfax Ave. I mean a LOT of bars. The bars are what pay for Modern Drunkard Magazine through their ads and the magazine repays them in kind with free copies, fresh humor and alcoholic insights monthly. that’s the other thing about Frank…. he’s really very smart. He’s written four novels…. fiction potboilers, and does the best of the writing for the mag and website. He has a new book deal with a major publishing house for Modern Drunkard-branded wisdom. Frank and I share literary agents, so I am bound not to reveal his advance, but if you were there and saw a couple marbles rolling around on the floor, thank you for not stepping on them - they were my eyeballs.

Which brings us to the little teapot tempest between MDM and Martini Republic before my tenure here. Editor Joseph handed MDM a backhanded compliment by directing readers to MDM’s Bill W. (A.A.) story - while opining that the writing from a grammarian point of view was, well, beneath MR’s standards. I suppose he had to say it; MR’s many viperous antagonists would surely have had a field day connecting this blog, which revels in its virtuousness, with the Drunkards’ rabble. And to be fair, when Modern Drunkard interviewed me the transcriptionists turned LA into San Francisco and my word "assuage" into "a sway." When I wrote them about it, Frank quipped, "That’s why we call ‘em the 100-proof readers!" but the website had the corrections in place the next day. That said, while Martini Republic revels in this sort of confrontation, it was a bit of a sucker punch to MDM which exudes boozy good will - and whose readers are as loyal as their staff. How loyal? Loyal like Macintosh computer owners-loyal. So they had the obligatory write in campaign and withering put downs grew like wildflowers. When I told Frank I’d be writing for Martini Republic, he simply said "Better watch out for those guys, Doc, they’re a bunch of commies." At the time I took it as a compliment. Anyway, if Joseph was actually taking issue with the talent on MDM’s staff, he wasn’t looking closely enough - and he had it wrong. If, more likely, it was the 100-proof readers, well… oh, well! The lifeblood of online posting is over-reaction.

So Frank was ensconced most of the second day with reporters as the entertainment continued to unfold. I’m not going to make any effort to further describe the acts. I’m not that kind of a reporter. On this evening, though, I chose to indulge in the one liquor company sponsor brave enough to contribute its name (and booth) to the convention: Fernet Branca. Rockers love Fernet Branca for the same reason Bikers love Malort (or, to be correct, Malørt) - to show how tough they are. Me? I actually like it. I actually like both. I like Ng ka py too, and everyone knows Ng ka py is for really tough bastards. So it was Maker’s and Fernet, though in honor of my first full convention day, I started out a smidge earlier with a three Martini lunch. Mainly the second day was the "Where’s Frank?" day. I was thinking that perhaps the Modern Drunkards’ Convention in Denver was just a little TOO close to home for Frank’s good health.

On the third day (how very biblical) I rested. I arrived an hour before I was to take stage, donned my Dr.Cocktail shirt, a stethoscope, and a 1948 physicians electrical head mirror. Frank was being interviewed by the BBC. The MC "Titsa Galore" introduced me and I spent the next hour talking earnestly about mixed drink history. I explained fermentation, distillation, the first mixed drinks (spiced wine,) the first liquor (brandy,) the main precursor to the cocktail (punch) and the whole history of the cocktail. Every 15 minutes I made a cocktail of the sort I revealed in my book: a forgotten cocktail. I’d take a sip and pass it down to the audience who had, at this point, made an orderly group to receive these sacraments. I told them of the ultimate cocktail (laudanum). I had a heckler - a set of powerful lungs screaming "COCKTAILLLLLLL!!!" repeatedly. I leaned over and said "try laudanum." "LAUDANUMMMM!!!!" "Very good," I said, "but that’s not what I meant." It was really the most harmonious stage experience I’ve ever had. The Drunkards were the dream rapt audience. From the wild applause the moment I said "I’M Dr. Cocktail - and YOU’RE the Modern Drunkards" to the serious questions in the experts seminar (me, Frank, and the MDM staff) that would follow, the whole convention had a kind of warmth of heart that is quite out of style these days, and really has been since the 60s. It felt good. It was the emotional opposite of punditry.

I find myself hoping for a long vital life for Frank and his coterie, and maybe worrying too. We got along very well, he and I. I think he was intellectually fascinated by the doppelgangers that were our mutual - and mutually-different - lives in alcohol, as was I. “You know,” he said, “yours was the longest interview I’ve ever done.” Bless your Kerouac-heart and just be well Frank, if you can’t be good.

Quick notes for serious drinkers

2005-05-10T20:48:00.000-07:00

Jeff "Beachbum" Berry, who wrote the two best tiki drink books yet published: "Beachbum Berry’s Grog Log" and "Intoxica," has finally launched his eponymous website. Given all of the awful Flash-animated color/font/graphic-packed tropical (and other) drink-oriented sites out there, Jeff’s is both a relief and a pleasure.

Since Berry actually plies his trade as a writer, the verbiage (and the humor) are a cut above. Since I am a committed fan of the lengths to which he goes to achieve his conception of perfectly balanced potions, I’ll note that his taste buds do not fail him in the rum review section either. My only complaint is that it is too short. Berry says "I just didn’t want to go on about all the rums I hated." I say…g’wan! We just like to read your writing.

The Bum recently released a third book as well, "The Taboo Table," which didn’t make quite the same media splash as the other two. This is because, while there are drink recipes in it, it’s really a tiki cookbook, a food preparation style cooks and non-cooks alike viscerally consider icky. Ya know what? It’s actually damned good, and he used those enviable gold-plated taste buds of his again to shore up the recipes - which end up being strangely inspiring. CoI disclosure: I wrote the cover blurb. But lookit…rumaki is everyone’s plausibly deniable indulgence. Er, OK - it’s mine.

In other news, I am to be a keynote speaker at the annual Modern Drunkards Convention - this year, in Modern Drunkard Magazine’s hometown of Denver, Colorado this coming Sunday. No driving. All venues involved in the 3 day event are within crawling distance; not that I plan to in any way compete with THOSE topers. I shall report the entire event as it gloriously transpires, dear readers, upon my return.

–Your Doctor.

Cinnabar update

2005-05-09T10:56:00.000-07:00

Over drinks and dinner with Nurse Cocktail, Chuck Taggart, and Wesly Moore, we learned the why and wherefore of Cinnabar’s pending demise. It’s the driving, stupid. But of course, that’s getting off too easy. Weekday business was way down and had been for some time. Alvin, Damon, and Flame had been discussing closing for over a year. They chose their moment with discomfiture but, as we saw them, were obviously at peace with it. Alvin looked tired. I knew he would enjoy kicking back. Flame is always about possibilities.

So, readers from the larger world are puzzled at the fuss. OK, a cocktail venue is gone, but it’s just one joint. Well…

The history speaks. In fact, the voices of Los Angeles history are a cacophony from Cinnabar. Alvin’s inspired take on the Negroni landed them national recognition when famous cocktail scribe Gary Regan published their recipe and cited them in his book "New Classic Cocktails". The drink probably belonged as much to his talented bartender, Jason MacDonald. I followed Jason to the newly-minted Cinnabar when he left the closing Duplex. It was at Duplex I met Jason, who introduced me to Paul Greenstein, band leader of the Radio Ranch Straight Shooters, owner of Millie’s, and co-author of "Bread & Hyacinths" - a riveting book on the Socialist movement in Southern California. Duplex, despite its out of the way location saw a number of celebrities in for the amazing food and drinks. And Cinnabar got Bob Hope. They also had the famed Yee Mee Loo bar. Yee Mee Loo was a Chinatown bar right out of Raymond Chandler. Alvin had an interest. He got the back bar, bartender Richard moved to the Good Luck Bar, and both places co-opted Yee’s signature drink, the TiDeeBowl. Old timers remember the tiny Yee Mee Loo with reverence, and that back bar was originally a Hollywood prop from the 1930s. If we factor in six degrees of separation, Cinnabar was a true Los Angeles nexus point in history. They made damned fine cocktails to boot.

So we didn’t come in on weekdays anymore. Flame looked at me when I showed up Saturday night. "It’s YOUR fault" she said, and maybe so. I moved just about twice the time distance away - but obviously I was not the only one staying home. It’s the driving, stupid - but, even so, I think Walt Kelly said it best: "We have met the enemy and he is us."

–Doc.

The scales tip away from us

2005-05-06T23:24:00.000-07:00

Cocktails have always carried the Scales of Justice. Empyrean flavors, the back story of not merely every libation you’ve ever had, but of all sips in all dark taverns and in the umbrella’d sunlight of bygone days, celebrations, thoughtful ponderings, romances, and euphoria - all on the one side, and taciturn, belligerent, torpor topped with flagging motor control and lonely DUIs weighing down the other. It’s a balance some achieve more successfully than others. In the quest to maintain the healthiest of balances while enjoying sophisticated lifestyles, there is also a certain handicapping going on.

Places like New York, London, San Francisco, Paris, New Orleans support the narrow path to gracious imbibing better than other places, like the one in which I live, Hollywood and environs. Why? It’s the driving, stupid. It’s why those walking mass-transit non-NIMBY cities have proud career bartenders and we have actors between gigs. And we are just about to lose another of the few important venues for the classic cocktail we have.

When the cocktail literati come to town, they inevitably inquire. Who wouldn’t? Where are the good drinks to be had? My answers always came with the same regretful boilerplate caveat: Los Angeles is so big, so sprawling, one must drive and the venues are in no way centralized.

For tropical punches go to the Tiki Ti and Trader Vic’s. For Martinis, Musso & Frank’s. For Singapore Slings, gin fizzes, Le Freres Taix - but only during the day. Old time barkeeps don’t want to stay up late or drive at night - and come the night, lots of joints want Pretty behind the bar. For Mojitos, it’s Ciudad - and for the best of them again, it’s the day shift so you can catch Tony Ramos working his magic - though he remains underutilized and under-appreciated as the best old tropical drink barman alive today. The Ivy still makes a lovely cross between a Gin Gimlet and a Rickey (which they call a Gimlet) and anything you can tell the bartenders at the Polo Lounge how to make, they will, to the very best of their collective ability. They don’t know the odd old drinks, but their customer service is top tier. You might catch Phil at Engine Company 28 downtown - if, indeed, he is still there. He likes to invent things which can be entertaining in that grand venue.

But if I were to tell them the one place that I as Dr.Cocktail knew where they might have a flight of arcane and classic potations, it was always the same. It was one place: Cinnabar in Glendale - and it’s closing.

Alvin weathered several bartenders, some great, some workable, and he put a lot of passion into his bar. I do not yet know why they are closing, but tomorrow night I will find out. It is, sadly, enough that they are. Mea culpa, I didn’t go as often as I used to. I moved and it was a bit further away - and I set up the best cocktail bar in the world (my house), but Cinnabar was always THE place for cocktails when out on the town, and they will be missed.

There have been a few particularly distressing closings in the past 10 years that impacted the availability of great cocktails in Southern California: Duplex and Madam Wu’s top that list. Chadney’s and Pierre’s Los Feliz Inn, also. And there was never a bartender at the Dresden like Evan. Perhaps, as we always hope, some new place of hope and cocktails will rise up. Perhaps. What we have seen more of in the past, however, are the Bar Marmonts, the Gordon Bierches, and the entire Sunset Strip where it’s single malt in a big tumbler, boutique Bourbon, little oddly-named beers and big oddly-named wines. Well prepared classic cocktails are simply MIA.

So let’s drink to Alvin, to Flame, to Cinnabar. Drink to them - and with them, at least until Sunday May 15th.

Good drinkers and good thinkers: Dr. Cocktail takes a barstool

2005-05-05T00:19:00.000-07:00

I don’t blog, I don’t blog, I don’t blog. Oh look, I’m blogging.

~~~

I was an early web adopter. Then it was like, ok, I get that we have all this cyber real estate, but what do you DO with it? Write about yourself? Write a poem? Put up a pretty picture? It all seemed so self indulgent before the big corporations stepped in. And that’s how blogging struck me so many years later…a resurrection of the Web’s proud roots….directionless, self-indulgent crap. Ooh, my private diary…. but if you find it you can read about my every puerile whim!

So what happened? Good writers and good thinkers, that’s what. Day laborers who would never make their money with a pen turned out to have a point of view, but, again, so what? Well, so if they end up writing with articulate humor or passion that is enough. As Joseph Mailander, the host of my first blogging indulgence once said to me, "a good blog is the reader’s dirty secret, it’s his or her secret indulgence." A first-person narrative soap opera is what it is, but again, the writing and the smarts in the blogs we’ve come to know make them persuasive, and having laid down that foundation, we cycle back around to the individual points of view, and then we’re hooked.

Cocktails and politics, or to roll it all up and express it daintily, "cultural issues," have snuggled up before, symbiotic, less as a matter of drawing lines of correspondence than "I like Martinis. I like the ACLU. I will write of these two lovers and my menage e trois with them. Surely, it all preceded blogs and the web, but looking at those venues alone we see cocktails and politics again and again, alone and together. The bulletin boards, of course, now take on the aspect of blogs as well - and vice versa via peanut gallery mutterings from the blog comment forms.

Ever since I became notorious in my little corner of whimsy, (cocktail history,) the blogs have seemed like strangers overheard complimenting me without knowing I was there to hear. It was and had to be a fait accompli that I would one day be among them.

~~~

I met up with MartiniRepublic doing a Google search on Laird’s Applejack. It’s one of those searches I repeat on some kind of a schedule. Partially because applejack was the first spirit distilled in this country — and Laird’s was early to do so commercially (having assented to provide George Washington with their formula just to be nice) — and partially because I look for physical and informational artifacts of that history.

Among the Google results was the website MartiniRepublic.com. My inspection was consequential for the Laird piece, and cursory for the rest of the site… except for ONE OTHER POINT. They were Los Angeles-based. I was Los Angeles-based. This was important. It meant someone new to have Martinis with. I suggested as much. The depth of the whole political discourse aspect only sunk in after Joseph assented to the cocktail and suggested I contribute to the site.

Mulling that over, I proceeded to follow the various trails of bread crumbs left by MartiniRepublic leading hither and thither, and I learned. I learned that LA-affairs blogs are like a pit of vipers. They’re like a pond of piranhas. They’re like apples with razor blades in them. Am I putting too fine a point on it? Brother, walk a mile on my freeway. We have the obligatory national politics, liberal and conservative, but when it dips into the cesspool of local LA "cultural issues" jeez, hose me off. Right now we are readying ourselves for a mayoral election, mercifully now narrowed to two, even though all three still want to win. And all three of these gameshow contestants are putzes. We have the incumbent do-nothing putz, the talk big but don’t have a clue putz, and the golden boy who sold out to win putz. Oh, and the blogs get ALL whupped up over these guys and other nuances of the LA scene dealing with, among other items,… immigration, rights of one sort of another, and, oh yes, themselves. I really learned a thing or two when I saw the degree to which these blogs, mosquito-like, feed off each other. You know what it is? It’s love. They couldn’t live without one another, and for that reason I embrace them in all their nutty confrontational passion. Awwwww.

~~~

I met Joseph at the Tiki Ti bar, a clear indication we both knew our LA joints. My Navy Grog (with my special Pimento Dram additive) was already in hand when he walked in, and I knew him immediately. A strange combo of Hector Elizondo with the wry, dry humor only Satan himself could muster, and perhaps just a dash of antimatter Dennis Miller. We drank and I basically agreed to write for Martini Republic. Why? Didn’t I mention I could drink with him? Also, MartiniRepublic and the other rabid LA blogs out there are genuinely smart. I enjoy reading the ones that I by no means agree with, too. Why not? They too are smart. witty, and acerbic, and I embrace a lively divergency of points of view. But MartiniRepublic offered me a gig, they’ll let me write whatever my suspect brain tells me to, and did I mention we can meet for the occasional LA libation?

I’m Dr. Cocktail and I approved this column.

A Cocktail Companion

2000-01-01T09:49:00.000-08:00

You'll find the following cocktails in our pages. But these aren't only recipes. When discussing cocktails, we like to go beyond what's in the books, sort out fact and myth, and delve deeply into the kind of personal narrative that describes Man and Woman with Cocktail.

If you're interested to learn recipes alone, turn to the guidebook we so often turn to, The Cocktail Database, on which so many of the following recipes rely. But if you would like to explore some of the issues behind why recipes have come to be what they are, as well go beyond what's in the books, sort out fact and myth, and delve deeply into the kind of personal narrative that describes Man and Woman with Cocktail in Hand, the following list may be for you.

Alaska Cocktail

Black Velvet

Champagne Velvet
Champs Elysées Cocktail
Columbian Punch
Commodore

Dog's Nose

French 75

Half and Half
Hot Toddy
Hurricane

Jack Rose
Jimmy Walker
Jumper Cable

New Orleans Buck

Pink Rum & Tonic

St. Louis Blizzard
Shandy
Stout Sangaree

Tom & Jerry

Velvet Cup

Whiskey Sour