Author Archive
June 24th, 2008
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Whether or not you plan on attending Tales of the Cocktail in New Orleans this year, you should check out what the event’s planners are calling the World’s Largest Collaborative Cocktail Blog. It’s collectively written by a group of bloggers who will be participating in and writing about panels and other events at the World’s Largest Cocktail Convention (or, as Scott likes to call it, Macworld for Drunks).
The Tales bloggers are dishing up previews, commentary, interviews and how-to’s on a riot of boozy subjects that may be helpful and interesting to the drinking public at large (not just those who are heading down to New Orleans). A sampling of recent posts gives you an idea: Death in the Gulfstream — An Underappreciated Hemingway Drink, by Seamus Harris of Bunnyhugs; Artisan Still Design and Construction, by Jonathan Forester of SlashFood; and Getting Your Booze into the News, by some blogger from Boston.
Tags: bloggers, Tales of the Cocktail
Posted in New Orleans | No Comments »
June 23rd, 2008
In my latest Ms. Mug column for Ale Street News, I make the case for Boston as a great beer town. Writers from Philadelphia and New York City have already weighed in on their respective metropoli. I was more than happy to add the Hub to the fray, as anybody who read Three cheers for beer in the Hub knows. And coming up: a review of Boston’s first American Beer Fest, which took place over the weekend at the World Trade Center.
Tags: best beer cities
Posted in Beer | 2 Comments »
June 19th, 2008
One of Boston’s best bartenders, Jackson Cannon, is the subject of an admiring profile in today’s Boston Globe. Congrats, Jackson — well deserved. Careful readers will notice that one of writer Meaghan Agnew’s sources was … moi.
This is a good time to point out that Jackson and his hardworking, talented bar staff are currently doing some recipe testing for drinkboston’s Flowing Bowl Punch Party. The party takes place at Eastern Standard on Monday, June 30. Watch this space for more details as the event’s menu takes shape…
Posted in drinkboston in the news, Events | 1 Comment »
June 18th, 2008
During last month’s drinking spree … oops, I mean research expedition … in San Francisco, I appropriately came across some excellent writing about hangovers. A recent New Yorker article, A few too many: Is there any hope for the hungover?, goes deep into the world of hangover remedies. The two major types are discussed: folk (Russians swear by pickle juice and vodka) and pharmaceutical (preventive pills like RU-21 — get it?).
The body of research on hangover cures is thin, notes the writer, Joan Acocella. That’s basically because no upstanding research institution is willing to do what is required to find a treatment for the effects of overconsumption: bankroll a massive study involving a large population of drunken (read: difficult to control) human test subjects who, most people think, deserve to suffer the consequences of their folly anyway. “Which is curious, because anyone who discovered a widely effective hangover cure would make a great deal of money,” notes Acocella.
In describing the different physiological and psychological facets of a hangover, she quotes the master, British novelist and bon vivant Kingsley Amis. He describes the “metaphysical hangover”: “When that ineffable compound of depression, sadness (these two are not the same), anxiety, self-hatred, sense of failure and fear for the future begins to steal over you, start telling yourself that what you have is a hangover. . . . You have not suffered a minor brain lesion, you are not all that bad at your job, your family and friends are not leagued in a conspiracy of barely maintained silence about what a shit you are, you have not come at last to see life as it really is.”
Brilliant. Doesn’t it make you feel better? Luckily, Amis wrote three books on drinking — On Drink in 1972, Everyday Drinking in 1983 and How’s Your Glass? in 1984 — which have recently been gathered together and reissued as a single volume titled Everyday Drinking: The Distilled Kingsley Amis. Maybe a little eloquence on the pleasures and pains of overconsumption is all the cure we need.
Tags: hangovers, literature
Posted in Books & resources | 5 Comments »
June 10th, 2008
This post also appears on the LUPEC Boston blog as a companion piece to an article I wrote for the LUPEC Boston cocktail column in the latest Weekly Dig, which will be out in print tomorrow.
Which cocktails should be shaken and which ones should be stirred? If you’re a student of classic mixology, you might answer, “That’s easy. Drinks with eggs, dairy or fruit juices should be shaken, and ‘clear’ drinks made with only spirits, vermouth, etc. should be stirred.” OK, the first of those mandates is seldom disputed. Stirring an egg drink? Not gonna work. But shaking a Martini? James Bond has some surprising company here.
Take the respected Savoy Cocktail Book: its mixing instructions for clear drinks are all over the map; some recipes say “stir,” some say “shake.” New York Times restaurant critic William Grimes’ much-consulted book Straight Up or on the Rocks: the Story of the American Cocktail instructs you to shake a Martini. Even the “Professor,” Jerry Thomas, “couldn’t make up his mind whether the Cocktail is shaken or stirred,” writes David Wondrich in Imbibe! “His brandy Cocktail calls for the spoon, his gin and whiskey ones the shaker. Nor are his professional colleagues much help … Judging by the numerous depictions of ‘tossing the foaming cocktail’ back and forth in a huge arc, in the 1860s and 1870s consensus favored this method — or perhaps it was just the more picturesque one and hence was noticed more often.”
That consensus still holds in, like, 99 percent of modern bars. Most drinkers like the theatricality of a shaken drink, and most bartenders are happy to oblige, especially since it’s easier for them to employ only one mixing technique. Sure, your Grey Goose with olives will be cloudy with air bubbles, but it’ll be drinkable.
Is “drinkable” good enough when you’re paying $10-$15 for a cocktail? If you gravitate toward clear mixtures, as I often do, the answer is probably “no.” There’s something about a Martini, a Manhattan, a Saratoga or a Gin and It that has been deftly swirled over ice for a good minute, then strained into a chilled cocktail glass without a trace of agitation. What you get is a shimmeringly transparent drink that looks and tastes that much more elegant than its shaken sibling. And consider this: a bartender who takes the time to stir a cocktail is likely going to get its proportions and temperature right, too. Time to re-think your drink, Bond.
Tags: stirring vs shaking
Posted in Cocktails | 19 Comments »
