January 7th, 2007
Cocktails are prominently featured on lots of vinyl album covers from the ’50s and ’60s, but seldom do they inspire the album title, cover art and entire song list. Good, old Spanish-Cuban bandleader Xavier Cugat took it to the limit with “Cugi’s Cocktails.” Unfortunately, we don’t own this album — Scott found the cover on Retrolounge, and I’m sharing it with you here.
Speaking of sites that satisfy the lounge-o-phile, check out this well-stocked, well-written blog: LoungeTracks — “Rare and out of print vinyl records for your eazy listening pleasure.”
Permalink | 1 Comment | Filed under Cocktails |
January 5th, 2007
Max Toste and Aaron Sanders were still upwrapping stacks of coasters and wiping sawdust off the bar last night when we walked into their brand-new joint, Deep Ellum (477 Cambridge St. in Allston), on opening night. The former management team of Bukowski Tavern in Cambridge, Max and Aaron partnered with Bukowski chef Josh Velasquez to realize the dream of running their own place. I am going to make a bold statement about a bar that’s only been open 24 hours: Deep Ellum is the coolest bar in Allston. Not that there aren’t other good drinking spots in this neighborhood, but these gentlemen made Bukowski one of the Boston area’s best bars, and I fully expect them to do the same with the new place.
Deep Ellum is named after a hip, “urban village” in Dallas, Texas, which is Aaron’s hometown. (We can only hope someone in Deep Ellum opens a bar called Allston.) The place is small — a narrow room with about 10 small tables and about 20 seats at the bar. The wood is dark, the walls are a light, muted green, and the acoustics are favorable (Love played over the nice, new sound system.) “International comfort food” is the theme of the menu: burgers, Hebrew National hotdogs, grubbins (fried cod served between potato pancakes), Moroccan lamb shank, cassoulet. I don’t think there’s anything on here over $18, which is a relief. Not surprisingly to anyone who watched him in action behind the bar at Bukowski, Max has put together a top-notch beer menu. It includes all the finery (Trappist ales) and none of the fluff (Seadog Blueberry Ale) found at Bukowski. The 22 drafts include De Ranke XX Bitter from Belgium, Thomas Hooker’s Liberator Dopplebock (Connecticut), and Mahr’s, a delicious pilsner from Bavaria, Germany that you rarely see in the U.S. Of course, you can get a can of ‘Gansett, too, and there are 100 different bottled beers.
The thing that really makes Deep Ellum a “new style of beer bar,” as Max puts it, is the fact that they’re making classic cocktails in addition to offering great beer. Wow! “I’m making my own grenadine, my own cocktail onions. No bullshit, no Rose’s,” Max says. One of his specialties is the Green Opal — gin, bitters, absinthe and sugar — not to mention a wide selection of good bourbons. Deep Ellum is open seven days a week from 11:30 a.m. – 1:00 a.m. For more information call 617.787.BEER.
Permalink | 1 Comment | Filed under Beer, Boston bars, Cocktails |
January 3rd, 2007
Forgot to tell ya — drinkboston.com got a nice mention on Martini Republic a couple of weeks ago. An L.A.-based, multiple-blog site on drinks, culture and politics, Martini Republic is on our list of wicked good web hangouts.
Permalink | 4 Comments | Filed under drinkboston in the news |
January 3rd, 2007
I discovered a great way to make a resolution: on New Year’s eve, introduce yourself to a cocktail you’ve never tried before, and vow to drink more of it. I was drinking a Green Ghost when the fireworks went off over the Charles at midnight on January 1, 2007. Gin, green Chartreuse and fresh lime, chilled and straight up. Both the color and flavor of the cocktail were otherworldly, sending a chill up my spine while stopping me in my tracks. I promised myself more Green Ghosts in 2007. Then I broadened my scope — more Chartreuse cocktails in 2007. Given that there are 121 recipes for cocktails containing either green or yellow Chartreuse on the Internet Cocktail Database, I’ve already got nearly half the year covered.
Speaking of Chartreuse, have you ever tried the really good stuff, the stuff that’s aged in oak and comes in the bottles with the plain-looking labels? I was at Green Street (do you sense a theme here?) a couple of nights before New Year’s and got to try side-by-side samples of regular (about $45/bottle) and aged ($95 or more) green Chartreuse. Now I get why people spend the big bucks for the latter. Somehow, the herbaceousness and strength of the aged liqueur were both subtler and more intense, giving the sensation of a vapor rather than a liquid. Strange, wonderful stuff.
Permalink | 5 Comments | Filed under Gin, Liqueur |
December 29th, 2006
Every barfly knows that the worst day of the year to go out drinking is New Year’s Eve. “It’s amateur night” is a phrase that has been beaten to death, but that doesn’t make it untrue. With its cutthroat competition for barstools and its glittering expectations, the whole night is designed to make you feel like a failure and a chump. A failure for being unable to find or get into the absolute perfect nightspot on the busiest evening of the year, and a chump for winding up at a place that charges $100 for the privilege of eating some “passed appetizers” and being able to say, ‘Yes, I have New Year’s plans!” Woooo.
One of the best places to be on New Year’s is behind a bar, working. You make a lot of money, and you get to party after hours once all the drunken Todds and Ambers have gone home or hooked up at the Westin. If you’re not a bartender, try to get yourself invited to a party — preferably one you don’t have to drive to.
Often, neither of those options are in the cards, and you think, ‘It’s New Year’s! I can’t just stay home!’ I know. I’ve been there. What I’ve done in those situations is seek out bars that are open on New Year’s but aren’t making a big deal out of it other than passing around some cheap bubbly at midnight. Irish pubs like the Druid and Plough and Stars in Cambridge, the Tir Na Nog in Somerville and J.J. Foley’s in Boston (21 Kingston St.) are generally good for this kind of evening. (The Littlest Bar in Boston was a great place for a New Year’s Guinness or two, but a luxury condo developer killed this treasured spot. Sigh.) The two Bukowski Taverns in Boston and Cambridge throw their annual F*ck New Year’s party, where the first dozen or so people who walk in are handed a dollar — instead of having to pay a ridiculous cover charge. Nice touch.
If you’re looking for a more stylish option, you might want to brave the lines to get into Central Square’s Middlesex Lounge or Enormous Room. Both of these places are charging only $10 and will have plenty of fun-loving hipsters grooving to DJs.
And if you think you might want some decent food to go with your celebratory beverages, for the love of god do not fall into the trap of the mediocre $150 four-course meal. B-Side Lounge does not charge a cover and serves a few special New Year’s dishes on top of its regular menu of superior comfort food. Same format but bigger menu at Eastern Standard, where the dining room is fully booked but the spacious bar area is a free-for-all. You’ll get great cocktails and really good food at both these places without feeling like a penniless chump afterward. And maybe you’ll meet some accommodating soul who’s on his/her way to a good house party.
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