November 13, 2009
I was recently in NYC (you may have heard of the town—nice place), and had lots of drinks I’ve been meaning to blog about (but this silly holiday season keeps getting in the way) with many fine folks (who I should also blog about). But one of the most fun sit-downs was a lunch interview I had with drinks writer Meaghan Dorman at Republic. Really, “interview” sounds a bit formal, cause we mostly just gabbed about everything under the sun (with a slight emphasis on Dark Spirits), a gabfest she’s going to miraculously transcribe into a Penthouse article (which you can pick up I think in March–just for the articles, of course). Meaghan’s not only a dandy freelance drinks-and-spirits writer, but also writes the super-cool-and-packed-with-boozy-goodness blog Spirit Me Away, and (if that wasn’t enough) is the head bartender at the speakeasylicious Raines Law Room. Now, everywhere under the tipsy sun seems speakeasy-esque these days, but Raines has such a lovely sort-of renaissance romance vibe, and such an interesting “bar-without-a-bar” layout that it really stands out. So, go check it out when you’re in the big city, and visit Meaghan on her blog, but first look at her sip this Blood Orange Mojito and think about what a happy bunch drink writers tend to be.
October 23, 2009
Well, some may know this already, and I’m not such a good “blow-my-own-horn” guy, so I’m going to keep this sorta short: my new book Dark Spirits: 200 Classy Concoctions Starring Bourbon, Brandy, Scotch, Whiskey, Rum and More is out, and ready for you to take it home, drink with it, and cuddle with it (well, at least pet it a little). The basic overview of the books is that it’s a bunch of dark-spirit based recipes broken out into seven fun (one hopes, at least) thematic chapters: Dark Classics, Bartender’s Choice, Bubbly Refreshers, Dim the Lights–Chill the Cocktails, Dark Drinks That Go Bump in the Night, Powerful Punches, and Hot Stuff. All the recipes are surrounded by what I like to think of as “party talk,” so histories, stories, quotes, suggestions for specific occasions, facts, further readings, and genial cocktail chatter. Also, as with a few of my other books, it has stunning and wonderful and wondrous photos taken by award-winning genius photographer Melissa Punch. While all that’s good and well, to complete my little sales pitch (see, I’m bad at this), I’ve decided to bulletize a few salient points:
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Has two drinks in it (Sweet Louise, Very Old Fashioned) by bartender-about-town-and-serious-vest-wearer Andrew Bohrer
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Has a host of obscure literary and comic book references (though the Dr. Strange lines were sadly cut during editing–Neilalien will not buy this book), including the most obscure of all, a quote from Fandral from the 1976 issue of Marvel Spotlight, Marvel Spotlight on Warriors Three in the Rob Roy recipe
Okay, maybe that last one’s pushing it, but hey, Dark Spirits just might have you in it. And if not, you can certainly pretend. It’s available now at Amazon, and if you don’t want to buy it there, check out this page for more options. And let me just thank you in advance for the support, and for keeping me well-stocked in booze. And, let me tempt you with one more item below, the fabulous pic for the Crimson Slippers (won’t you be sad if you don’t have a book with that picture in your collection? I think so).
PS: Oh, could you (if you’re a facebook-er, and haven’t yet), also please become a fan of me on my A.J. Rathbun facebook fan page? If not, the PR guy at my publisher is going to beat me with a tape recorder. And I can’t take the scars.
October 16, 2009
Okay, maybe I should have gone with the “Shaking and/or Stirring Writer Alert,” as in the below pic Mr. Regan is making a drink, and not actually drinking a drink. But, I promise you he did, indeed, drink one of the drinks he made. I promise. And, to be honest, I just wanted to have more than one “Drinking Writer Alert” (the first being the happy-go-luckiest poet, Ed Skoog, in this post) and hadn’t yet been sent any other pictures of drinking writers. So there.
And, Gary (or Gaz, as he’s now known from Tempe to Timbuktu) definitely fits the “Drinking Writer” name, as you probably know. But on the off chance you don’t, he’s one of the foremost drink writers in the world (the universe, even. The multi-verse, even , for you who’ve read a lot of What If? comics). The below picture was actually snapped at an evening celebrating his newest book, the bartender’s GIN compendium. I detail the book in more in-depth fashion on this Al Dente blog post, but in case your finger’s broken and you don’t feel like clicking, let me give you, as they say, the skinny. The bartender’s GIN compendium is a sweet book all about gin: history of gin, 250 recipes (or more) utilizing gin, and tasting notes and information on many, many specific kinds of gin and gin cousins and gin uncles and aunts, and gin pets, even. It’s a book for gin lovers, natch, but also a book for cocktail lovers, history lovers, and genial drunks who know how to read. Mr. Gary/Gaz Regan not only knows his gin (and drinks), but also is a darn witty fellow, and almost as fun to read as it was to meet him in person (but not quite: ain’t nothing like the real thing, as the song reminds us).
Which, to reiterate, I did, recently, at a lovely evening sponsored by the fine folks at Plymouth Gin. Beyond just talking gin, we hit the underground tour in Seattle (prostitute talk a’poppin, as it seems Seattle was once all prostitutes and mud), and then wound up at the Rob Roy. Which is where Gaz made himself and me (and Mr. Robert Hess, too) the drink he’s making below. The only down side? I don’t know exactly what drink it is–and it was darn good. It had gin, for sure. Vermouth? You bet. Bitters? Uh-huh. But what proportions? And did he pour in anything else? It was tasty, but darn it, I didn’t watch closely enough. Now, I’m going to have to track him down and have him make me another. Wait, that doesn’t sound bad at all.
October 12, 2009
“Me & Mint” sorta sounds like a kids book, where you learn about life in a very colorful manner. Mint in that book is either an older relative or a sick friend, or maybe a dog that’s not friendly at first, or a monkey that eats your baseball cards. In a very other sense, it’s one of my favorite herbs, and one that (luckily) is usually available, and so, so delectable in drinks. It’s also profiled in this week’s iSpice column on the Washington Post site, following either the first link in this sentence or this link. In that column, I rhapsodize a bit about mint, along with some others, and also talk about how to use it in drinks (and no, I’m not going to tell you here what I said there–that’s not what the interweb is about, people). They also have my recipe for the Iollas’ Itch in the column, which is from my new book Dark Spirits, a book I’m gonna write more about soon. Here’s the recipe (though this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t click to the column, just that you should have a drink while reading it).
3 fresh mint leaves, plus 1 fresh mint sprig for garnish
Ice cubes
2 ounces rye
3/4 ounce sweet vermouth
3/4 ounce apricot liqueur
1. Rub (carefully but firmly) the 3 mint leaves all around the inside of a cocktail glass. Then discard them.
2. Fill a cocktail shaker halfway full with ice cubes. Add the rye, apricot liqueur, and vermouth. Shake well.
3. Strain into the minty glass from above. Garnish with the mint sprig.
PS: Happy Friday to you, too.
August 25, 2009
If you don’t already know, Wino magazine is not a magazine catering solely to drunken reprobates. Though they probably are okay with that readership, too. It’s really a magazine all about Washington wines. And it’s free, and you should pick up every copy you can, cause the guys that put it out are fine fellows and very devoted to their wines (so devoted they drink about a cask a week. Ba
-dump-bump). After a few glasses with Doug, the editor-in-chief, this summer, I convinced him that wine lovers would also be wine cocktails lovers with the right edging on, and also convinced him that the magazine should highlight a few of the fantastic new Washington spirits distilleries in an upcoming issue, because they’re new and deliver delicious product and need to be more known.
Little did I know that he’d be okay with me writing the article (I was okay with it, because it meant I got to visit the Pacific and Soft Tail distilleries and hang out with Mark and Dennis, the friendly and super knowledgeable distillers) and that he’d put a big review of the new book Wine Cocktails in the same issue as the article. Holy booze-tastico friends, that makes for a heck of an issue. Now, this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have a hard copy (it’s free), but Wino also puts most of the articles on their site, so you can read the Wine Cocktails review and Be Still My Heart (the article about Pacific Distillery and Soft Tail Distillery) right from the safety and comfort of your work desk, or home desk, or couch if you’re all wireless’d up. There is also a recipe using Pacific’s Voyager gin and Absinthe Pacifique and a recipe using Soft Tail’s grappa after the article (forget the recipe header that says “Wine Cocktail recipes”–these aren’t necessarily that, but are necessarily tasty). While at the Wino site, I suggest checking every nook and cranny out, especially the online only A Bottle a Week feature (cause wine is healthy and you need more). But enough of me–head on over to Wino and start swilling.
July 10, 2009
I’m sure you’ve had a night like this: you get home, you know you should make dinner (to save money, and to use up what’s going bad in your fridge at this very moment, right now) but you’re having a hard time getting the energy going to get started, and so instead you make a deal with yourself (and maybe your wife or husband too): I/we will go out to dinner, but then I’ll/we’ll fold the unbelievably-large mountain of laundry when I/we get home from said dinner out. That happened to me (and Nat) last night, and the restaurant we ended up going to, to balance out that part of the “deal” was La Casa Azul. We’d never been before, but our pals, tattooed-Nicole and photographer-Josh, had recently A: told us about it, and B: told us it was darn tasty. Well, they’re believable folks, so we figured we’d give it a whirl, even though it’s in a strip mall kind-of a spot. It ended up being just what they said: darn tasty. And cute and cozy too, with both a Frieda Kahlo style and décor focus (and food, in a way) and super nice waiter and chef/waiter (these two guys do it all). If you live in Seattle, take my advice, and make the trip up or over to 14419 Greenwood Ave North. If you don’t live in Seattle, then move here for gawd’s sake. Sadly, our camera ran low on batteries, so I don’t have food pics, but this blog’s about booze anyway. And, luckily, I got some snaps of the lush sangrias before said batteries blew:
The sangria was a touch sweeter than my venerable family recipe (which you can find in about half of my books), but had a great clean and bright taste backed by some fruity but firm red wine, and a full array of fresh garnishes. Nat loved it, and I drank two, so I must have thought it fine as well. We also ate like hogs (or hog-like humans, ala the Island of Dr. Moreau, the book and not either of the movie versions), which is understandable, because the food was done so right, from the spicy salsa to the onion-and-pepper packed queso fundido (which they were nice enough to make for us veggies without chorizo) to the Tlayudes which I had (which was like a giant super thin tortilla–more a tortilla-Italian-style-pizza-combo–topped with black beans, cheese, cabbage, veggies), and the Plato Vegetarianos which Nat had (which was sautéed slabs of squash and nopales, sautéed mushrooms and spinach, and lots of smashed seasoned potatoes with an avocado-tomatillo sauce). Dang, now I’m hungry. Thanks Nicole and Josh for pointing us in the right direction (North, for us).
June 5, 2009
Not that I’d want to tee off any polar bears (does anyone say “tee off” anymore, outside of the obvious golfers? That’s a good phrase. You should use it this weekend). Anyway, I finally got a copy of an interview I did that was printed in Onion’s NY edition about a billion years ago. Or last fall. It was when Luscious Liqueurs came out, so there is some liqueurs talk, but also just general drinking talk, talk about the Replacements, talk that could get me retroactive tickets, and more, all rolled up in an article that I now have as an incredibly-difficult-to-read pdf. It’s probably my favorite interview (even better than the one that starts “A.J. Rathbun, we’d kill to have a drink with you” if you can believe it), so you should read it! Right now. And if Andy Battaglia is out there, thanks pal. If you see Andy, buy him a drink for me, too.
March 27, 2009
Sorry, I had to drop a little Frankenstein (from the original movie, of course, which rocks, and not the later version, which sucks) in, not because my newest book Wine Cocktails is monstrous (well, maybe, if I can be so bold, full of monstrously tasty drinks), or because it has bolts around the neck area, or because it’s shot in black and white or something (it’s shot in color by genius photographer Melissa Punch), but no, because the monster would have loved the world a little better, and vice versa, I think, if they would have shared some wine cocktails together. Cause the cocktails in the book are all about sharing, and all about wine cuddled up with other delish ingredients, and all about goodness, darnit. I plan to put up more about the book, including some recipes, and notes about a release party, when I get back from Italy–but I wanted to let you know that the book is available now, cause I feel I should. And maybe you’re interested. Oh, yeah, if you missed it in that last sentence, I leave for Italy in about 24 hours, so my irregular blogging will become more irregular. But I’ll be thinking of you (yes, you) while over there eating and drinking and living la dolce vita. So, for at least a couple days, ciao bellas. Oh, before I go, here’s a pic from the new book, and, as a teaser, here’s the first phrase in the first headnote to the first recipe, “By Jack Lord, this should transport you.” That says it all folks.
