December 12th, 2009

The greatest gift of all

liquor-parking-only

Give a man a drink, and he’ll drink for a day. Give a man some quality hooch and cocktail tools, and he’ll drink for a lifetime. I think that’s an ancient Chinese proverb.

In time for the holidays, I have (finally) added to drinkboston a Supplies page listing liquor stores and other retailers who stock the kind of ingredients that today’s classically minded cocktailian demands. Merry Christmas!

Many of us prefer going out to Boston’s best bars for good cocktails, but I know that, especially in this crappy economy, some imbibers are doing more mixing at home. In fact, they are the good people who have helped compile this list of places that stock often hard-to-find ingredients, such as rye whiskies, amari, Haus Alpenz liqueurs, various types of bitters, falernum, Old Tom gin, rum agricole, shrub and good vermouth  — plus, all the equipment and instruction you need to set up your home bar (hello, Boston Shaker). And since we in Massachusetts suffer the curse of being banned from ordering liquor through the mail, these sources are especially helpful.

Just for fun, you may want to revisit some of the posts that inspired the Supplies page:

If there are any Boston-area stores with a good selection of classic-cocktail ingredients and mixing equipment that you think deserve to be included, make your case at drinkboston at comcast dot net.

Here’s a to a pleasantly lubricated holiday season!

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2 Responses to “The greatest gift of all”

  1. kenlac

    A year or so ago Marty himself was behind the register of Marty’s in Newton. I had a brief chat with him about bitters, saying “If you stock something beyond Angostura, I for one will be in here buying them.”

    Low and behold, a few months later nearly the entire Fee Brothers lineup was there on the shelf.

    Alas, on a trip in there this month the stock had been reduced to nothing but about a dozen bottles of grapefruit bitters. (Even the Angostura was out of stock!) But the Fee Brothers falernum and Oregat had been added to the shelf, right there next to the 17 versions of Apple Martini pre-mix. (Remember when that sort of scourge was the only kind of cocktail you could get in this town not so long ago?)

    So… who’s got the recipe for the Absinthe bitters at Employees Only?

  2. Patricia

    The greatest gift of all? Wearing shorts on Dec. 12…yup, that’s always nice! But the links for supplies were nice too.

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