December 15, 2015
It’s the time of year when everyone wants to borrow your punch bowl – heck, everyone wants to borrow my punch bowl, too, so I completely get where you’re coming from when you don’t want to let said punch bowl out of your sight. But, it’s also the season when we think most kindly, perhaps, of our friends and family. And those are the exact groups that want to borrow punch bowls! So, you probably have to lend it out. I’ll understand if you can’t exactly smile with the lending. But, I do have two ideas to help alleviate the potential pain. First, read the classic Oliver Wendell Holmes poem, “On Lending a Punch Bowl,” so you can know that others through history have gone the same route. Second, pick up the tipsy poetry collection In Their Cups, which features this very poem (and many other great ones). Actually, pick up two, and give one out when you loan the punch bowl. It seems the borrower should be reading it as well.
This ancient silver bowl of mine, it tells of good old times
Of joyous days, and jolly nights, and merry Christmas chimes
They were a free and jovial race, but honest, brave, and true
That dipped their ladle in the punch when this old bowl was new.
– Oliver Wendell Holmes, On Lending a Punch-Bowl
December 8, 2015
Hey Seattle and WA State residents, drink lovers, and awesome people! It’s the party season, and you’re throwing your parties in the wrong places. You are! You should be throwing them at a local distillery. Cause that’s where the fun is! Don’t believe me? Check out this recent article I wrote for the sweet Seattle magazine, called: Where to Host your Next Party: A Distillery. Then start printing up the invitations.
December 1, 2015
I was lucky enough recently to work on a big bar-and-cocktail-and-distillery issue of the mighty Seattle magazine, and in said issue (which if you missed, you’ll have to deal with the regret for the rest of your life. Sorry), we had some swell interviews with some of the top local shakers . . . wait, strike that. Top shakers anywhere! However, due to magazine restrictions, and such, the interviews had to be edited down somewhat, as interviews are. But they’re now available for reading in fuller fashion online! You are very lucky. So, don’t miss my recent interviews with these cocktail geniuses, including:
Amanda Reed
Bridget Maloney
Nik Virrey
Joshua Batway
Jesse Poole
Kathleen Manley
Bryn Lumsden
Jay Kuehner
*See all Seattle magazine pieces by me
Tags: Amanda Reed, Bars, bartenders, Bridget Maloney, Bryn Lumsden, Cocktail Talk, Interviews with Top Seattle Bartenders, Jay Kuehner, Jesse Poole, Joshua Batway, Kathleen Manley, Nik Virrey, Seattle Bars, Seattle Magazine
Posted in: Bars, Cocktail Talk, Seattle Magazine
November 17, 2015
Hey hey party people from the WA (and any one visiting right now). The November issue of the smashing Seattle magazine is the Bar, Cocktail, Spirit, and Tipsy Awesomeness issue! And I wrote a big chunk of this booze-y beaut, so you don’t want to miss it, do you? DO YOU? Get it now – it’s available at all better stores that carry magazines, and all better magazines stands – and drink up!
November 10, 2015
You know this, because you’re a regular reader: I love books by Anthony Trollope. I believe there are more Trollope Cocktail Talk posts than any other type. So, I’m not going to go in deep into the whys and such here (go read the older posts, if you’ve missed any, which you probably haven’t, because you’re a regular reader). Here, instead, we’re diving in quick to a quote from Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite, a shorter, lesser-known Trollope sparkler. Actually, though it sparkles in some ways, it’s also probably one of the top five most-depressing-ending Trollope books. Still worth a read, but don’t expect it to be all smiles once that last page is turned. Maybe you’ll even need a drink?
Early on the morning after George’s return he was run to ground by Mr. Boltby’s confidential clerk, at the hotel behind the club. It was so early, to George at least, that he was still in bed. But the clerk, who had breakfasted at eight, been at his office by nine, and had worked hard for two hours and a half since, did not think it at all early. George, who knew that his pheasant-shooting pleasure was past, and that immediate trouble was in store for him, had consoled himself over-night with a good deal of curaçoa and seltzer and brandy, and had taken these comforting potations after a bottle of Champagne. He was, consequently, rather out of sorts when he was run to ground in his very bedroom by Boltby’s clerk.
– Anthony Trollope, Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite
October 27, 2015
I’ve had a Cocktail Talk post from John Farris’ Baby Moll before, but recently I was running late for the bus, and had to grab a book (I can’t ride the bus book-less), and well I couldn’t resist the cover here, and it was well worth reading again. Especially because of the below quote:
In the afternoon some of us, including Macy and Evelyn Rinke, put on suits and went swimming. Taggart, Diane, and Charley Rinke didn’t participate. They sat together on the terrace and drank Planter’s Punch and Salty Dogs. She paid no attention to Taggart. Now and then he would look at her over his lifted glass, a hint of pleasure in his eyes.
–John Farris, Baby Moll
October 20, 2015
Well, I may have had more Cocktail Talk posts from Anthony Trollope than any other author. I haven’t, like, counted, or anything, so it’s a guess – but a good one. If you’d like to learn about my Trollopean leanings, then you should go browse those posts. Or, read this one first, then browse them. One way or another, browse them! Hah. An Eye For An Eye isn’t consider in the core top Trollopes, but it’s a good read, and one that moves rapidly. There’s lots of Irish coastline, and lots of characters driven in ways that feel appropriate even today, even if the actual kickoff motivations aren’t. There’s also love, revenge, betrayal, and the below quote about drinking with a priest.
The dinner at the priest’s was very jovial. There was a bottle of sherry and there was a bottle of port, procured, chiefly for the sake of appearance, from a grocer’s shop at Ennistimon;–but the whiskey had come from Cork and had been in the priest’s keeping for the last dozen years. He good-humoredly acknowledged that the wine was nothing, but expressed an opinion that Mr. Neville might find it difficult to beat the “sperrits.” “It’s thrue for you, Father Marty,” said the rival priest from Milltown Malbay, “and it’s you that should know good sperrits from bad if ony man in Ireland does.”
–Anthony Trollope, An Eye For An Eye
October 13, 2015
The most famous novel by William P. McGivern (I think at least), and a book made into a sweet 1953 noir movie gem with all kinds of hardasses, The Big Heat is a classic revenge-and-corruption novel set in Philly and featuring a seriously tough cop-then-not-cop. It’s a good one. Good enough that I recently read it twice, and came across a nice roll of paragraphs that feature both Cognac and a swell Scotch line.
“I’m having a poker game tonight,” Stone told him, smoothing down his thinning hair. “We got plenty to drink?”
“Yes, there’s plenty.”
“Well, see there’s French Cognac. Judge McGraw is coming and he won’t drinks nothing else. You got money?”
Alex said no, smiling nervously.
“What’ll it be?” Larry said.
“Scotch and plain water. Make it a double. I guess I need a lift.”
–William P. McGivern, The Big Heat
