December 4, 2012
Hello hello. I’ve been lucky enough to do some fantastic blogs and articles for Seattle Magazine recently (like I’ve mentioned in past Seattle Magazine blog posts here on Spiked Punch), and in case you somehow missed them, now’s your chance to catch up on your reading. Cause you can’t get enough of me, right? Right? Here is a selection of the goods, in bulleted fashion:
• Holiday Spirit: Strega Italian Liqueur
• Holiday Gift Guide: Cocktail Equipment
• Cocktails to Brighten a Winter’s Eve
• Glass Distillery: Best New Distillery in Seattle 2012
• Canon: Best New Bar in Seattle 2012
• 5 Cocktails to Help You Survive the Zombie Apocalypse
• 20 Things Local Bartenders Want You to Know
• Now Available Locally: Five Spirits and Liqueurs You Must Try
PS: Want to see every single Seattle Magazine piece I’ve done? Check out the Seattle Magazine A.J. Rathbun page.
Tags: a drink for every occasion, Bars, Canon, cocktail recipe, Cocktail Recipes, cocktails, Glass Distillery, Seattle Magazine, Strega
Posted in: Bars, Cocktail News, Distillery, Recipes, Seattle Magazine
September 11, 2012
As I mentioned in an earlier post about Seattle Magazine, I’ve been doing some blogging there on the subject of drinks, drinking, drinkers, and pretty much everything bubbly and boozy that you’d expect. And now, for those who don’t read the Seattle Mag (which, by the way, you should even if you don’t live here in Seattle cause it’s all kinds of cool), I’m here to do a little wrap up, in bulleted fashion, of recent pieces, cause I know, I just know, that you don’t want to miss any of them:
• Cocktails for Beginners: Because You Never Forget the First Time
• Five Cocktail Recipes That Bring You Summer All Year Long
• Five Back to School Cocktails
• Essex Opens with a Host of Homemade Ingredients and Craft Cocktails
• Five Olympics-inspired Cocktail Recipes
• Five Refreshing Wine Cocktails
July 27, 2012
Now, don’t get jealous, loyal Spiked Punch readers (or, reader, as the case may be). But I’ve been blogging again for the fine folks at Seattle Magazine. It seemed like a good summer thing to do, spreading around the cheer like one of those sprinklers that spreads cheer around (okay, you may think there’s not a sprinkler that spreads cheer around, and you may be right. But what if you’re wrong? Think of how awesome that would be. Just think of it). In case you are only a reader here, I thought it’d be nice of me–and I am seriously nice, especially if you’re buying me a drink. Or three–to put up a little list of five of the bubbly, stirred, and shaken posts I’ve Seattle-Magazine’d up recently. So, here they are:
• Got a Boozy Sweet Tooth? Five Spiked Desserts
• Local Bars with Great Summer Cocktails and Patios
• Anytime Cocktails: Drinks for Five Different Hours of the Day
• Tap into the World of Beer Cocktails
• 5 Backyard Baseball Cocktails
July 2, 2012
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.
June 3, 2012
Back a bit, I went on and on and on about writing this incredibly awesome (like, Everest-sized) short column I was starting to write for the also incredibly awesome Seattle Magazine. Then I detailed like two of the columns and never mentioned it again. Cause really, I’m like that (and by that, in this case, I mean lame). Here I am, in great position to set you up for a lost weekend of Seattle bars and then I dropped the ball. I should be riding the pine with the second team. But, I now promise to make it up to you by detailing, in easy-to-read bulleted fashion, the three Bar Hop columns you may have missed. A little drum roll, please. Great. Now, here they are:
• Innkeeper (in Belltown)
• Little Water Cantina (in Eastlake)
• Sexton (in Ballard)
Let your drinking commence.
May 25, 2012
Back a bit ago (not so long ago that it was, say, past century, but the recent past, which you probably still at least somewhat remember, unless you were hit on the head by a lead pipe, in which case you probably have deeper problems that the fact that you’ve forgotten what I’m about to remind you of) I wrote an article on Seattle’s Happiest Happy Hour Bartenders. In it, I talked about Bryn at the Rob Roy and how he made the more fantastico fizzes in lands near and far. Well, here’s the photographic evidence (a note: when it came out, I had already slurped off the top 1/2-inch of foamy goodness that was firm above the top of the glass):
Look at the foam on that fizz! Amazing. It was a Fine Point Fizz Fizz, with a wild, I tell you, wild range of ingredients: sherry, Strega, pineapple and lime juice, sparklin’ cava, and egg white. Not for the boring. And luckily, I’m not boring. I’m so un-boring that I wrote a short blog post for the Seattle Mag on poets and drinks and mentioned Bryn again–cause he’s all literary–with some wacky lit-tastic combining of Wallace Stevens himself and the drink (which is on the Rob Roy menu don’t cha know) the Mr. New Yorker. And here’s a pic of it (it’s a darn good drink even though un-fizzy, by the way, with gin, sherry, Cointreau, dry vermouth):
Here’s another un-boring thing: if you see me at the Rob Roy, and Bryn there’s, and you quote Wallace Stevens, I will buy you a drink. And give you a hug. Unless you just want one of the two.
April 26, 2012
Hello young cocktail lovers. I’ve detailed in posts below and then farther below some Seattle Magazine articles that I’ve written. But I’ve not mentioned a number of blog posts I’ve recently being doing as well. And darnit, they need your attention (if you’ve already seen all of them, then of course ignore this and go read your copy of The Essential Doctor Strange Volume 1. While having a drink. Cause the Doc isn’t a teetotaler. Oh no, not at all. He may drink mostly mystical mixes, but he likes to unwind with a cocktail after whipping up Dormammu or Shuma-Gorath. That’s how the Doc rolls people). So, here’s a nice list of recent posts from the Seattle Mag blog, posts that just may change your life:
Spring Cocktails: 4 Aperitifs to Enjoy Before Dinner
5 Sophisticated Spring Break Cocktails
Toast National Poetry Month with Five Cocktail and Poem Pairings
Four Divine After-Dinner Cocktails
Three New Locally-made Spirits
April 13, 2012
Seattle is stocked like a good bar with good bartenders and mixologists and shake-em-up-ers, and ice-crackers, and sturdy stirrers, and bottle-top-twisters, and cocktail cuties, and powerful punchers, and ear-twisting-tipsy-story-telling tippler pourers. Lots of ‘em. I hate to even make a grouping, but if I have to pick a list, let it be one favoring those who both make great drinks and also make the whole bar happier by their presence and person. Which is what I did in my happiest happy hour bartender list (from the new issue of the Seattle Magazine). Because spending a happy hour or six with these five jolly drink slingers is sure to make the day better.
