February 16, 2011
Another from Eric Ambler (following up the Coffin for Dimitrios below), from another of his political thrillers. Now, the political thrillers don’t get me all giddy as much as other books that sometimes share the same shelves (no-one says “dame” in a political thriller for one thing), but the Amblers (as I’m affectionately calling them) are written well, and, well, the characters tend to have lots of cocktails, drinks, and booze (in various forms). And the plots are never that bad, either. The Levanter‘s all Middle East terrorist business, and tends to roll heavy on the brandy. Much like this quote, which also demonstrates how to use cocktails to your advantage in serious discussions:
I gave him a champagne cocktail with plenty of brandy in it, which he drank thirstily as if it were water. I gave him a cigar and lit it for him. He sat back in his chair and looked around. Though he was clearly impressed, he seemed perfectly at ease. This suited me. I wanted him relaxed and in as expansive a mood as possible. All the stiffness was going to be on my side. I continued to address him respectfully as Comrade Salah, and fussed a little. As soon as he had finished his first cocktail I immediately gave him another in a fresh glass.
—The Levanter, Eric Ambler
January 14, 2011
People who know me, know that I dig the Trollope (the Anthony Trollope, that is, and not some other author trying to ride the coattails of his last name—and not the trollops this time, though I don’t have anything against a hooker with a heart of gold). I have pretty much (I’m missing one) the complete Trollope collection of novels and sometimes think I could subside on a reading diet of Trollope, Dickens, and Mosley (and maybe a couple pocket books for balance). Especially fine, and worth reading and re-reading, are the Palliser novels, where he takes on a combination of politics and upper crust foibles in the age when everyone had a ladies maid, had tongues sharp as Wustofs, and wore really puffy outfits. The Eustace Diamonds is the third of six Palliser novels, and while not my fav of the bunch is pretty darn fine. Especially fine is this quote where the drink of choice is Negus, the party hit of the late middle 1800s.
‘My dear, Mr. ‘Oward’ he said, ‘this is a pleasure. This is a pleasure. This is a pleasure.’
‘What is it to be?’ asked Gager.
‘Well;–ay, what? Shall I say a little port wine Negus, with the nutmeg in it rather strong?’ This suggestion he made to a young lady from the bar, who had followed him into the room. The Negus was brought and paid for by Gager, who then requested that they might be left their undisturbed for five minutes.
That’s not the only quote, though, cause on the very same page is this gem:
‘Six penn’orth of brandy,–warm if you please, my dear,’ said the pseudo-Howard, as he strolled easily into an inner room, with which he seemed to be quite familiar. He seated himself in an old-fashioned wooden arm-chair, gazed up at the gas lamp, and stirred his liquor slowly.
–Anthony Trollope, The Eustace Diamonds
January 7, 2011
Not too long ago, I was lucky enough to be able to play around with making drinks that feature Washington State cider-maker Tieton’s ciders. Operating out of the Yakima, WA area, Tieton ciders utilize all-natural ingredients, are made with care, and are starting to be more and more widely available. The ingredients and care are evident when drinking them, too, as they boast clear, crisp taste (which is what you want in your ciders—stay away from those overly sugary messes). At first, I was a little unsure about what I’d mix up with them, but after taking a few sips my unsure-ness re-routed straight into excitement. The following are my two favorite Tieton mixes. So, head down to your store and pick up some Tieton cider (or head down to complain that they don’t yet have them) and then cocktail up.
Harmony in C
Ice cubes
1-1/2 ounces dark rum
3/4 ounces Grand Marnier
1 dash Peychauds bitters
2 ounces chilled Tieton Wild Washington apple cider
Apple slice, for garnish
1. Fill a cocktail shaker halfway full with ice cubes. Add the rum, Grand Marnier, and bitters. Shake well.
2. Strain into a cocktail glass. Top with the Tieton Blend apple cider. Stir briefly and carefully. Garnish with the apple slice.
Tieton Highball
Ice cubes
1 ounce applejack or apple brandy
3/4 ounce Benedictine
2 dashes Fee Brother peach bitters
Chilled Tieton Blend apple cider
Mint sprig, for garnish (optional)
Apple slice, for garnish (optional)
1. Fill an Old Fashioned glass three quarters full with ice cubes. Add the applejack, Benedictine, and bitters. Stir briefly.
2. Fill the glass almost to the rim with Tieton Blend apple cider. Stir again, briefly. Garnish with a mint sprig and an apple slice, if desired.
Tags: Benedictine, bitters, Brandy, cocktail recipe, dark rum, Grand Marnier, Tieton Cider, What I Wish I Was Drinking
Posted in: Brandy, cider, Recipes, Rum, What I Wish I Was Drinking
May 28, 2010
After the longish (or just plain long) Tom Waits post below, I thought I’d slip in a short couple of quotes from a book that almost echoes Waits (a book which is definitely the inspiration for the “ethics” scene in the Coen brothers’ film Miller’s Crossing, too), in that there are some shady and weird characters and everyone ends sad, dead, or drunk–a book called Kill and Tell. The first one’s about going into a bar, and the second about drinking at home (cause I wanted to cover the bases).
The bar was a fine old piece of imitation mahogany, and there was a fine old imitation Irishman in a white coat behind it.
We lifted our glasses to each other; the wine was cool and dry. I kept refilling our glasses while we ate, and when Jake brought the coffee Catherine asked him for some brandy. We were celebrating; each of us understood that.
“I think I’m drunk,” she told me.
“I’m drunk, too,” I said.
—Kill and Tell, Howard Rigsby
May 23, 2010
Okay, right up at the front of the stage, before the curtains go up, let me tell those readers who don’t know, what MxMo is (or at least give out what I know, which isn’t a whole barrelful of knowledge, since I’ve never had the pleasure of taking part before). Basically, it’s a bunch of bar-booze-drunken bloggers making up or bringing out a drink under a particular theme, on a Monday. So, mixology Monday I suppose. A different blog hosts every one (one a month, I believe), and they round up links to the posts about the theme on the day on their site, and send readers out and about and around the interweb to see those other posts about the theme. From what I’ve read when going boozing on the web on Mondays, the themes tend to be a particular spirit, liquor, or ingredient. However, when the really wacky bar blogger hosts, the theme may just be more, let’s say esoteric. Which is the case this month, as drink-slinger Andrew Bohrer who blogs at Cask Strength is hosting the MxMo, and he chose Tom Waits.
Which actually makes fantastically fantastic sense, as Andrew talks about in his top MxMo post (right here), in story fashion, which Waits himself would enjoy, I think. See, at heart, going around the rumbling voice and the at times otherworldly instrumentation and the harlots and hard heads, Waits is a storyteller, a boozy troubadour, a chronicler of the forgotten nights and the railroad yards, of trombone funerals and waking up wearing bruises and regret in a hotel next to the railroad tracks, of lost and long- elapsed love, and of gospel music sung under a blistering sun when all you want is a glass of whiskey and s single ice cube and the time to drink the world down.
Of course, as the above going on and on probably demonstrates, and since I’ve mentioned him in cocktail recipe intros in pretty much every book I’ve written, I’m a Tom Waits fan. I have most CDs, and listen to him on a regular basis, and have sat up singing Tom Waits with pals and bourbon and brandy until 4 am multiple times, have sat in a parked car half drunk singing Tom Waits while the thunder hit the hood like a million fists, and have put Tom Waits songs on jukeboxes with a glass of gin in one hand in more bars, lounges, dives, and hole-in-the-walls then I can remember. But as I haven’t gotten to my drink yet, I’m gonna put a leash on my Waitsean ramblings and start pouring.
Oh, wait, give me another sec, to give a drink backstory. Though I enjoy all the Waits CDs I have (including those Andrew mentions, Closing Time, Small Change, and the rollicking live Nighthawks at the Diner), the one I go back to the most is Rain Dogs. From the opening “We sail tonight for Singapore” to the New Orleans horns playing the funeral out at the record’s end, Rain Dogs matches more moods and moodiness and must-have-a-drink-while-listening-to tracks to me than any other. And while I don’t have a “favorite” song on Rain Dogs (this makes a type of sense, since they go together like egg drinks and mornings), “Tango Till They’re Sore” is the song (don’t take this morbidly, by the way) I want played at my funeral. I just want folks there to have good music, to drink well, and to toast me relentlessly, and this song, which starts “Well ya play that Tarantela and the hounds they start to roar” does just that. Not to mention that the chorus goes:
Let me fall out the window
With confetti in my hair
Deal out jacks or better
On a blanket by the stairs
I’ll tell you all my secrets
But I lie about my past
So send me off to bed forever more.
Rain Dogs also has a dandy song called “Jockey Full of Bourbon” (which has the classic line, a line I can sympathize with, “I’m full of bourbon, I can’t stand up”), so I wanted my drink to have a bourbon base, and bourbon is also mentioned multiple times within the record. The only other spirit dropped in the album is brandy (in “Union Square”), so I decided to double up on base spirits a bit, and then I wanted to bring in some bitters, in honor of the line in “9th & Hennepin” that says “till you’re full of rag water, bitters, and blue ruin.” So, that got me to three, a magic number, but because Tom Waits is also an original, I wanted to bring another ingredient into the drink that isn’t mentioned in one of his songs (four can be a magic number too y’all), but that has at least a tangential connection, and so I went with St. Elizabeth’s Allspice Dram. For one, it tastes great. For two, St. Elizabeth’s could be an insane asylum. For three, it’s based on an older ingredient called “Pimento Dram” which I could see Waits-style sailors drinking on a leaking dingy. When mixed in the following way, these ingredients in honor of Tom Waits and Andrew Bohrer make The Hounds They Start to Roar:
2 ounces bourbon (I used Blanton’s)
¾ ounce St. Elizabeth’s Allspice Dram
½ ounce brandy (I used Grand Duke d’Alba cause I’m walking Spanish down the hall)
2 dashes Peychaud’s Bitters
1. Fill a cocktail shaker, mixing glass, dented top hat, or ladies leather boot halfway full with cracked ice. Add the whole bunch of ingredients. Stir well.
2. Strain into a cocktail glass or goblet. Garnish with a sad song.
PS: Feel this needs a garnish? I suggest an ice pick, a dented fender from a ’54 Ford, or a tattooed tear.
Tags: Andrew Bohrer, bourbon, Brandy, Cask Strength, cocktail recipe, Cocktail Recipes, MxMo, Peychaud's bitters, Rain Dogs, St. Elizabeth's Allspice Dram, The Hounds They Start to Roar, Tom Waits
Posted in: Almost Drinkable Photo, Brandy, Recipes, Whiskey
May 15, 2010
Ohh, that title just makes me shudder: Death at the Bar. Perhaps the worst thing possible (well, okay, that’s a bit much—there are, in life, much worse things, but this is just a drinks blog, so give me some leeway), especially if it was a jolly evening. Which, in this book, by Ngaio Marsh (Ngaio is pronounced /ˈnaɪoʊ/ if you were wondering, and is a lady), isn’t 100% true, as the evening at the bar (a little English town bar called the Plume of Feathers. Which is fantastic, especially as it’s not a disco), is a tad contentious, with old fiesty relationships, and reds (in the commie way), and an arrogant lawyer, and more.
But it’s still a pretty good night (as the below quote points out, though it also has a bit of foreshadowing), until they decide to play darts. Because one of the characters is killed . . . by a dart. Or is he? You’ll have to read the darn book to find out, because I’m no spoiler.
Watchman had already taken three glasses of Treble Extra and, although sober, was willing to be less so. Parish, suddenly flamboyant, offered to bet Able a guinea that the brandy was not Courvoisier ’87, and on Abel shaking his head, said that if it was Courvoisier ’87, damn it, they’d kill a bottle of it there and then.
—Death at the Bar, Ngaio Marsh
April 20, 2010
It’s not often (read that as: never) that I’ll try to shy someone away from trying a new type of booze or liqueur. Especially one that’s as good as Metaxa (which is a blend of brandy and wine and mythology). And I sure don’t want the ghost of Spyros Metaxas (he who created Metaxa) haunting me. But if Metaxa starts causing people to die or instantly pass out at the table, and then carom off of the sip of it into their dining companions, thereby ruining the date, then hey, maybe those sad people should stay away. Or, at least, don’t show up so drunk that you can’t enjoy the Metaxa, but just pass out into someone’s forehead as in the below. At least it’s a happy death/passing out (but why wouldn’t it be–by my count, they’ve emptied at least six different drinks). Looking at the smiles, I’m taking back my earlier warning. We’ve all got to go, so why not go with a grin and a good buzz brought on by intriguing Greek beverages?
March 23, 2010
Okay, I’m just thirsty. So thirsty I don’t have the energy to write the full-on over-the-top legendary journey of cocktails blog post I want to write about the weekend before last, a weekend of amazing cocktails that would leave every other blog post in the dusty dust, that would make you want to stroll in my shoes (or at least borrow my throat and tastebuds for awhile), a blog post that would involve at least 74.5% of the top cocktail creators in Seattle, and me tasting their drinks, a blog that would make you drool like George the Animal Steel before a cage match, a blog that might just have you (if you don’t live in Seattle already) running screaming to your suitcase, packing said suitcase, and getting a ticket here poste haste, a blog that if you already lived in Seattle would make you instantly descend to the floor crying tears of joy in front of your liquor cabinet, shelf, or box, happy that you could follow my footsteps in cocktails, a blog that might just cause the whole internet to go silent as a lonely ice cube due to everyone shaking off the electronic shackles to go on a drinks quest, the blog I want to write but just am too thirsty to write (but write it, someday, I will), so instead I’m just writing this post about how much I’d like to be drinking an Athenian at Cicchetti, a drink made with Metaxa, Martini and Rossi Bianco vermouth, and Scrappy’s grapefruit bitters, the very drink pictured below. Look at it, friends, and dream along with me (and if you’re not on the Scrappy’s bitters wagon, then get on it.)
Tags: Almost Drinkable Photo, bitters, Brandy, Cicchetti, Cocktail Art, Scrappy's Bitters, vermouth, What I Wish I Was Drinking
Posted in: Almost Drinkable Photo, Brandy, Cocktail Art, Dark Spirits, What I Wish I Was Drinking
