If you didn’t read The Old Curiosity Shop, Part I, you might want to, or just check out all Charles Dickens Spiked Punch posts. Cause I don’t want to take a lot of pre-amble, as this post will have a quote from that classic book, as well as a recipe that relates to the quote (cause I like to have Friday Night Cocktail recipes on Fridays, and wanted to somehow tie it all together. Make sense?). So, here’s the Cocktail Talk, Dickens’ style.
Presently he returned, followed by the boy from the public house, who bore in one hand a plate of bread and beef, and in the other a great pot, filled with some very fragrant compound, which sent forth a grateful steam, and was indeed choice Purl, made after a particular recipes which Mr. Swiveller had imparted to the landlord at a period when he was deep in his books and desirous to conciliate his friendship. Relieving the boy of his burden at the door, and charging his little companion to fasten it to prevent surprise, Mr. Swiveller followed her into the kitchen.
Now, to follow that up, here’s a recipe for Purl from Good Spirits, so you can make your own to sip on while reading Dickens on a cold spring night. Or, to have with friends while you’re acting out scenes from your favorite Dickens’ books. This is something you do, right?
Purl
6 ounces porter
6 ounces ale (a pale ale works)
1 ounce gin
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated ginger
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1. Add the porter, ale, and ginger to a small saucepan. Heat over medium-heat, until warm but not boiling.
2. Carefully pour the porter-ale mixture into a pint glass that has been slightly warmed (by running it under warm water).
3. Add the gin. Stir once with a spoon. Sprinkle the freshly grated nutmeg over the top.
So, I’m in Italy. And since it’s springtime, and sunny, I’m sitting outside of Bar Pina (which is outside of Umbertide), one of the finest spots anywhere to sit in the sun and have a beer. I mean, it’s in Italy. Which means that this Friday Night Cocktail isn’t as fancy as others, but I wouldn’t trade it for any of them. And if you want to feel jealous about it all, well, that’s up to you. But a better impulse might be for you to just come on over to Pina your-own-self. It’s pretty darn fun.
PS: Yeah, Dr. Strange drinks with me when I’m at Pina. And you thought it couldn’t get any better.
If you’re a regular reader (and I know that you are) of the Spiked Punch, you know that for a while there we had a fairly consistent column written by a guy named Drew, said columns being all about beer. Drew’s Brews, they were called, and it was nice to give some beer time here. Sadly, Drew’s moving and shaking and such, and while hopefully he’ll do a few more posts in the future, well, I can’t actually predict the future. In his honor though, here’s a short post about beer. Specifically, about a beer I had here in Seattle last week at Chuck’s, which is a crazy beer haven (that used to be a really porny convenience store). The beer was from the Southern Tier Brewing Company, and was a Crème Brûlée. Seriously. I guess the actual varietal would be “Imperial Milk Stout,” but I believe it should fall into a category you don’t hear about a lot: dessert beers. It had an incredible crème brûlée aroma and a whole passel of vanilla, caramel, and burnt sugar flavors. If I remember correctly, at the time I said it was “weirdly tasty” and I stand by that account. If you get a chance, and if you’re an adventuresome drinker, I strongly suggest keeping an eye out for it. And when you get a pint, pair it up with some creamy dessert. Dreamy, man, dreamy.
Sometimes, it doesn’t take long to know you’re gonna like a new book. I’m talking about a completely new book here, by an author you don’t know, and not say the 32nd book in a series by your all-time favorite writer (which I’m guessing is Garth Marenghi). Sometimes, it takes a few pages, but sometimes, rarely, sure, but sometimes by the end of the second sentence you know the book’s gonna snag you. Or at least has serious potential. I recently had this very phenomenon happen, with a book called The Man with a Load of Mischief, by Martha Grimes, who I’d never read word one from before. As this blog isn’t one of serious literary merit (wait, are any?), you probably have guessed that there’s some boozy mention in said second sentence. And you’re right. But what you probably couldn’t guess is that the boozy mention is of an English beer, one that’s not prevalent in the U.S., but one whose distillery I’ve actually been to! Amazing. It was a few years back, and I was traveling the U.K. with wife Nat and pals Markie B and Leslie P and we were in the Yorkshire region tooling around before seeing the Mighty Boosh, and ended up in a village called Masham, where the famous Theakston Brewery resides, which we visited. And, to bring it all full circle, at Theakston they make a renowned beer call Old Peculiar, which we had (and which Markie B has since lobbied to get in Seattle—successfully I might add) and loved, and which is mentioned in the second sentence of the book, which I talked about like an hour ago at the top of this paragraph. But hey, you wouldn’t want me to leave the story unfinished, right? The payoff is the quote itself, which is right here:
Outside the Jack and Hammer, a dog growled. Inside, his view of the High Street obstructed by the window at his shoulder, Melrose Plant sat in the curve of the bay drinking Old Peculiar and reading Rimbaud.
Editor’s Note: Beer-o-matic man Drew is back with another edition of Drew’s Brews, where he sings the beer fantastic.
It is no secret that a phenomenon of disastrous proportions looms over a certain grouping of true believers out there, who seem to believe that the Mayan calendar points to the end of the world or that some grandiose cataclysmic event will unfold when we reach December 21st of 2012—thus reaching the end date of the 5,125 year cycle Mesoamerican calendar system. Whether you are devoted to the numerological and astronomical events that must align for this impending apocalypse or a person who enjoys the camp value of bad Armageddon blockbuster films and marketing to your specific fears, I have a beer for you. The good people at the Elysian Brewing Company are just as excited and/or apprehensive and celebrate and/or reject with you. Perhaps they are exploiting fears and capitalizing on what many refer to as pseudoscience, but it gives them just the excuse they need to countdown with 12 session beers of the apocalypse. Every month as we approach 12/12, Elysian Brewery releases a new beer in the series paired with some inspired artwork. So, here’s what I’m drinking currently as I prepared for the end: “The Rapture” a 7.65% beer with high country heather tips in the mash that are then added again at the end of the boil. It was the second release of the series. The Rapture pours a deep golden color and has a smooth nose and taste with floral honey and piney herbal scents. There is a nice balanced flavor combining sweet fruit and honey with bitter flavors and hops. A nice session series but getting harder to find, as it is a limited release. And although I enjoyed my trip to the Elysian Brewery on Capitol Hill in researching the apocalypse and the beers around it, I much prefer the wild game day atmosphere of the Elysian fields public house or Tangletown’s cozy neighborhood vibe to the actual brewery.
While we play on the darker side I wanted to share a sad note (well, at least sad in the beer-scheme-of-thing). My good friend and local home brewer saved the last bottle of his last session pale ale just to give me for my birthday. He held on to it for nearly 4 months waiting to see me. He gave it to me last weekend and I was delighted. Unfortunately it punched through a damp paper grocery bag on the trip home and shattered at my feet. I stared at it for several minutes as the flip top rolled in a circle among the corpse of broken glass—what a foamy shame. In memory of this fine beer I never had, please, everyone reading this, enjoy your favorite Pale Ale and share a comment of what you had. It’ll be a virtual toast to Luke D. and those lost beers that slip through the cracks.
In case you might have missed it (and I’m sorry for you if you did), I recently wrote up a little post for Seattle Magazine on the healing powers of beer cocktails and the awesome new book by Howard and Ashley Stelzer, Beer Cocktails: 50 Superbly Crafted Cocktails That Liven Up Your Lagers and Ales. If you did miss said post, go read it now (it has four recipes from the book and one from around this here Seattle). If you read it, and still haven’t ordered the beer cocktails book, then let me tell you a bit more about it, in bulleted fashion. It has:
• A great starter section called Beer Basics
• Four swell chapters full of recipes: Lager Than Life, Abbey Road, Beyond the Shadow of a Stout, The Dark at the End of the Tunnel
• A jolly personality that leads to lines like: “But don’t lose your head—it just takes practice,” in their Sleepy Hollow recipe (which is a bit different from the Good Spirits one, but just as tasty. Or, almost)
• Drinks titled with wit and creativity, such as: Joe Pêche, KnickerTwister, The Bishop’s Wife, Phil Collins
• A bubbly ton of beer information, which’ll be handy for newbies and hardened beer-o-philes alike
• Quotes! Such as: “It is a fair wind that blew men to the ale”—Washington Irving
Now, that’s a book, friends, that will make your summer tastier, your weekends more weekendy, and your life fuller.
Editor’s Note: In this episode of Drew’s Brews, Drew visits the windy city and blows right into a brewery. Who would have guessed that would happen?
When thinking of the mid-west beer culture, usually the first thought is of gallons of mass produced lager being guzzled in losing efforts at Cubs games. I wasn’t aware of any craft breweries when I planned my inaugural visit to CHI Town, so I decided to do some research. My buddy from college was getting married and luckily has good taste in beer; the rehearsal dinner and meet up were planned in a brewery (I knew we were friends for a reason). He took us to Goose Island Brewery in the heart of downtown Chicago. The mission this company was built on is the idea that changing what the mid-west drank would require the patron to be a part of the experience. Opened in 1988, the concept was for the people to see the process to gain an appreciation for it and grow their palate in the process–and it worked. Goose Island cranks out some serious beers: in addition to their standards and seasonals they offer a vintage collection, sours, and bourbon-aged beers. They have blown up in Chicago and the demand is great; they’ve just opened a second location right next to Wrigley Field. I tasted the gauntlet of what they had to offer and enjoyed them all. At the end of the night, to answer the Spiked Punch age old question, Honkers is what I’m drinking. This is Goose Island’s take on English style ale. Somewhere between an ESB and an Amber you find some nice Honkers. Pours a rusty copper with a thick beige head resting on top. Scents of warm fresh bread, some mild hops, and a bit of a tart citrus twang. The body is crisp with a moderate carbonation backing, but still retains a smooth, creamy feel. Nice bitter backing from a good hop presence–overall, a very balanced beer. This is my style of beer CHI Town, well done. I wish I had access to this locally. With the low ABV, I could see this being a regular in my house.
Last summer I decided to add some of my favorite breweries to my West coast camping road trip. My squeeze and I were leaving Seattle and headed south to see what we could see as well as drink what we could drink. Collectively visiting Elysian, Hales, Fremont, 7 Seas, Silver City, and Pyramid Brewing in a two month stretch, we became determined to see how many different breweries we could conquer. We plotted a map that navigated us past some well-known camping areas and brew pubs. One last pint at Maritime then we filled our growlers and headed south. We drove through Oregon tasting Ninkasi, Deschutes, and Rogue beers. From there we conquered many of the fine ales California has to offer from 21st Amendment, Russian River, Anchor Steam, Magnolia, and North Coast breweries. It is fun to see and taste the different styles and varieties of a region. Every brewery had its flagships and standouts from fresh hops to aged in barrels, simple solutions, and complex concoctions. This brew tour has now become a past time of mine and a must when I visit new cities. I like to experience a place through food and drink rather than your typical site seeing. What better way to experience a new town than eating and drinking with the locals? Beer people open their doors and soon their conversation to you. A few pints in and you have access to the past, present, and future. You also get the true feeling of a place. There is a certain passion in craft beer from the brew master who is often perched at the bar to the consumers sat all around you. Hunter S. Thompson said, “Good people drink good beer, no shit. Just look around any public barroom and you will see: Bad people drink bad beer. Think about it.” I formed bonds sipping suds in different villages from East to West. This year I have experienced tastings in New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, and Chicago. And as I continue to visit breweries and taste their fare I will share, best I can through the internet anyway. Suggestions welcome.
If you didn’t read The Old Curiosity Shop, Part I, you might want to, or just check out all Charles Dickens Spiked Punch posts. Cause I don’t want to take a lot of pre-amble, as this post will have a quote from that classic book, as well as a recipe that relates to the quote (cause I like to have Friday Night Cocktail recipes on Fridays, and wanted to somehow tie it all together. Make sense?). So, here’s the Cocktail Talk, Dickens’ style.
