Author Archive
March 20th, 2007
Established: 1985
Specialty: Cocktails, wine, beer
Prices: Moderate
Atmosphere: Serious food in an unserious setting, fresh-juice cocktails adorned with little plastic monkeys.
See Best Boston bars for address and contact info.
For many years, one of my life’s great pleasures has been to sit at the bar at the East Coast Grill, grazing on raw shellfish and drinking margaritas made with fresh citrus juice. The food and drink at this Inman Square institution are so consistently fresh and satisfying that I find myself thanking my lucky stars for the place every time I manage to nab a stool at the always — always — crowded bar.
In the contemporary Boston bar scene, ECG pioneered using fresh-squeezed lemons and limes (instead of powdered sour mix) to make its margaritas, plus fresh pineapple and mango puree for other tropical cocktails. These bright-tasting, not-too-sweet drinks are the liquid counterpart to the kitchen’s equally bright-tasting, equatorial, often fiery dishes. Owner and cookbook author Chris Schlesinger, a member of the nation’s grilling & barbecuing elite, says that the fresh-grapefruit Greyhounds he used to drink at a Key West bar called Pedro’s inspired his own drink-mixing practices. Patrick Sullivan, a bartender at ECG in the mid-’90s, brought the fresh-squeezed philosophy with him when he opened his own pioneering bar, the B-Side Lounge, in 1998.
That’s the other thing about the ECG bar — it has always had cool bartenders. Schlesinger describes his staff’s service as “unpretentious, hardworking and relentlessly friendly.” OK, that’s true, but senior bartender Nick Weinstock pinpoints the crux of the matter: “It’s non-corporate. You’re not dealing with canned personalities here.” Weinstock is a perfect example of this. In addition to being a total professional, he’s brash in a lovable way and amusing without being a suck-up. He and his colleagues genuinely appear to be having a good time behind the bar, and they manage to get the customers in on the fun without monopolizing anyone’s night out. It’s a nifty trick.
Most cocktails here are in the $8 range, and there are always a couple of good New England beers on draught (Buzzard’s Bay, Cambridge Brewing Co., Allagash), not to mention PBR tallboys. A really good, reasonably priced sparkling wine is always available for your oyster-eating pursuits, and the wine list is well tailored to the cuisine.
Posted in Boston bars | 4 Comments »
March 16th, 2007
The man was a saint, and this is how we celebrate him: Last year on St. Patrick’s Day, I went to Bukowski Tavern in Cambridge because I knew it wouldn’t be as crowded as an Irish pub and there would be no deedle-ee-dee music. I just wanted a few beers. As the place started to fill up, a line for the toilets formed. I took my place in the girls’ line, which was face to face with the boys’ line. At one point, the men’s room opened up, and the guy who was next turned to a damsel in drunken distress and made her an offer: “You take the toilet, I’ll take the sink?” In they both went, as the horrified and amused people who remained in line visualized the scenario. The peeing couple came out a minute later, and the men’s room door once again swung open invitingly. Having just witnessed a great new way to impress a lady, the next guy in line turned to the girl facing him and simply gestured as if to say, ‘Well, how ’bout it?’ With an ‘are you kidding’ expression, she answered, “I don’t think so,” thus mercifully nipping this custom in the bud.
Posted in Beer, Boston bars | 3 Comments »
March 15th, 2007
Maine-based journalist Wayne Curtis is an understated and witty writer who can tell a solid yarn about a cocktail’s history. He wrote this article, about “tracking a lost Cuban cocktail to its lair,” for Lost magazine. Here’s the recipe for El Presidente, verbatim from the article:
Over ice in a tall mixing glass, pour:
- 1-1/2 oz. rum
- 3/4 oz. curacao
- 3/4 oz. dry vermouth
- 1/2 tsp of grenadine
Stir well with ice for three or four minutes, then strain into cocktail glass. Garnish with an orange peel twist.
Posted in Booze in the news, Cocktails, Rum, Vermouth | 5 Comments »
March 8th, 2007
Thanks to all you pisco-loving fools who ventured out into the arctic air last night to join drinkboston.com at the Alchemist Lounge for pisco cocktails and Peruvian dance beats. There was a whole lotta shakin’ goin’ on behind the bar as John Byrd and Nicky Poirier whipped up nine(!) different drinks using pisco from Macchu Pisco, a small producer of the grape-based spirit. My fave mixtures were the nicely sweet-n-sour Peruvian Americano (pisco, apple liquor, falernum, lemon), the elegant and refreshing Cucumber Pisco Martini (pisco, cucumbers, simple syrup), and the Pisco Punch (see recipe below), which was as soft and sweet as a spring breeze — something we all longed for last night.
Thanks to DJ Brother Cleve for the excellent tunes and to Alchemist owners Relena Erskine and Lyndon Fuller for offering up their lounge as the evening’s venue. If you want to get on the mailing list for drinkboston.com events, email drinkboston (at) comcast (dot) net.
The Pisco Punch recipe, direct from John Byrd: “We took 2 bottles of pisco, 1 can of pineapple juice, .25c of simple syrup, 1 whole pineapple chopped and one big splash of falernum. We let it sit for 4 hours and shook [each serving] up with an egg white. After the party we added grape halves & some very inexpensive California champagne, and that was very good!” Served in a double rocks glass over ice.
Posted in Events, Pisco | 6 Comments »
March 6th, 2007
When Esquire drinks writer David Wondrich made a guest appearance behind the bar at Eastern Standard a couple of weeks ago, he mixed a drink I’d never had before: the Saratoga. Equal parts cognac, rye and sweet vermouth, the Saratoga is one of those cocktails that flies in the face of the number-one rule you were taught during your formative drinking years: do not mix your spirits. Cognac and rye? Mixed together in the same glass? Run and hide!
No, don’t. Try it. It’s one of those drinks whose seemingly simple ingredients and proportions form something eye-openingly new. Here’s the recipe, along with the brands of liquor Wondrich used that evening. Note: he colored outside the lines with the bitters he used — a Peruvian brand that Eastern Standard happened to have lying around. They were a bit funky.
Saratoga Cocktail
1 oz cognac (Hine)
1 oz rye (Rittenhouse 100-Proof)
1 oz sweet vermouth (Martini & Rossi)
2 dashes Angostura bitters or other aromatic bitters, such as Fee’s Old-Fashioned
Stir well with ice. Strain into chilled cocktail glass and twist a lemon peel over the top.
If you order this in a bar, be sure to specify that it’s the above version you want. There are several other cocktails named Saratoga, and they tend to involve maraschino liqueur and/or pineapple syrup.
Posted in Brandy, Cocktails, Vermouth, Whiskey | 1 Comment »
