Stuff

It is said that when our invaluable ally the Marquis de la Fayette visited General George Washington at his estate in Mount Vernon, Washington pleased him by serving Mint Juleps — and let’s be honest, impressing a French aristocrat isn’t a small thing. Washington also was known throughout the war to equip his soldiers  with several helpings of grog every night, and he insisted on this provision as a crucial military necessity. He also kept an ongoing brewery making beer at his estate. In addition, when his friend and ally Alexander Hamilton was facing the greatest distress of his public career, Washington showed his solidarity by sending him a solid silver wine cooler, which the late Ms. Hamilton was proud to show guests long after her husband’s untimely passing. Washington was, in short, pretty good all around. That’s why they put him on the $1 bill and the nickel.

So, here are our top three drinks associated with the esteemed General:

1. the Mint Julep — this is a classy drink

2. Grog — rum and milk are a pretty agreeable combo

3. Chilled wine — it’s better than warm wine

Salut!

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Valentine’s Day is perhaps the most patently manufactured holiday. It is similar to something like the ginned-up-out-of-nothing expectation that a wedding ring be equal to the man’s monthly earnings; a scheme to drum up sales. That’s the world we live in, though, so let’s duly observe the celebration of Saint Valentine’s right actions.

Owing to ancient superstitions, the heart continues to function as the symbol of love — or rather, our stylized cartoon representation of the heart, which is most likely an inverted drawing of buttocks. The heart is red, and so red is the color of passion, and thus pink — the lightened form of red — is the color of tenderness. In accordance with this barbaric vestige, our holiday cocktail will be the Pink Lady.

The Pink Lady is in many ways a mysterious cocktail, just as women, for all their sociability, are ultimately quite mysterious. We can love women because we can know them fairly well. The Pink Lady is so mysterious that we can’t know it that well: it is an enigma. There are numerous references to this cocktail from the period spanning the Roaring Twenties through the Eisenhower presidency, mostly disparaging. It also provided the term that the young Richard Nixon used to imply, ever so subtly, that his opponent in the race for one of California’s senate seats, Helen Gahagan Douglas, was a communist. It was a drink that girls unfamiliar with drinking would order. Its color made it less threatening. It is important that before the 20s, bars were gender-segregated, and women not allowed. So cut the ladies some slack, already. However, no two recipes for the pink lady are the same, and the differences are not minute.

Some recipes use grenadine to achieve the pink color. Others use Angostura. Some call for egg whites, others for cream. I have been unable to satisfy my curiosity as to what the original recipe was. Perhaps the status of women at the time was such that bartenders didn’t think it mattered.

I will give the recipe that seems most consistent with the classical art of mixology.

1 1/2 oz. gin

1/2 oz. grenadine

1/2 oz. fresh lemon juice

1 egg white

Shake vigorously on ice and serve in a champagne flute

Cheers!

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Friend of the blog Travis sent us some Smirnoff ICE Black to try out.

According to the maker of this beverage,

With an ABV of 8%, Smirnoff ICE Black offers a bold flavor in three mouthwatering varieties: Lemon Lime, Fruit Punch, and Watermelon.

 Before I go on, I want to be clear.  If you like Smirnoff Ice, you will like this product.  Don’t continue reading.

The three flavors of Smirnoff ICE Black. Pictured here with John Aniston--Jennifer Aniston's father and the infamous Victor Kiriakis from Days of Our Lives.

We brought the Lemon Lime, Fruit Punch and Watermelon over to a bbq at our great friends Kat and Nick’s house. Julia and Zach were also present. Everyone was stoked to try this new product.

At first glance, Zach noted that he liked the packaging, but also that he’s “a sucker for black shit.” We all agreed that the cans were cool — a marvel of modern packaging with finger-pleasing texture everywhere but the “BLACK”.

A bitter argument followed as we all tried to figure out what to drink it out of. Julia suggested cognac glasses. Nick had some little wine glasses on hand, so that’s what we grabbed.

Note the extreme colors! The can boasts that these are 'certified colors.' Whatever that means!

“Dig in!” I demanded.

Spirits were high.

Opinions rang out…indeed, I could hardly write fast enough.

“It might be good over ice…”

“Tastes like a jolly rancher…”

“This is 8% alcohol??! Old E is only 6!”

“The Sparks for the New Era…”

We all settled on the truth that the drink tastes like a “jolly rancher with hand sanitizer mixed in.” Given that we have a fondness in our hearts for watermelon-flavored Jolly Ranchers, the watermelon-flavored Smirnoff ICE Black was our favorite.

Zach likened the "nose" to "kerosene."

We kept tasting. We tried it out of the can. It was better, but still terrible.

The bottom line:

There’s an audience for this booze…it’s just not people who like drinking. It’s people who like to get drunk.

No, with Smirnoff ICE Black, Smirnoff is masking the taste of the alcohol with artificial flavors and corn syrup, giving you a sugary free-pass to Hangoverville.

Will noted that when mixing cocktails, his goal is to make an appealing mixture that showcases all the ingredients without overpowering any of them, without the burn of alcohol. He noted that this drink simply overpowered the vodka taste with the candy flavors. “Like shandy, but with eight times the booze.”

In a society where kids are known to drink straight ethanol, sugary drinks are a method of delivering alcohol to people whose taste buds aren’t mature enough to enjoy it. Get drunk fast and with a sugar high.

We started daydreaming of serving this in a fine restaurant, along side the dessert wine. Picture your waiter, dressed to the nines…”Dessert wine, sir? Or would you prefer a dessert malt beverage? We have watermelon tonight.”

The conversation didn’t stop. I began recalling my days working as an intern for Clorox Technical Center. I was on the fourth floor experimenting with different options for dry bleach, while a floor below they were perfecting the perfect new salad dressing. Imagine the hours food chemists had spent coming up with this travesty!

At one point Nick proclaimed that he “kinda liked it.” “Finish it!” the party chimed in. “I’ll throw up!” he protested.

Don't stab the can Nick! The consequences aren't worth it.

Smirnoff ICE Black comes in 16 ounce cans. All of us combined, we only managed to consume about two ounces of each. The conversation — and cirticisms — did not stop until I poured the remaining concoction down the drain.

Did I mention that the green one looks like nuclear waste?

Nuclear waste...or poisonous mushrooms!

Smirnoff Ice sells. I’m sure this one will as well. For anyone who enjoys fruity, high-fructose-syrup-saturated, get-drunk-as-quickly-as-possible beverages, this one is for you.

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UPDATED

Chartreuse is a bit of an obsession around here. A persistent question is whether there is any mixed drink with Chartreuse that is as good as taking the elixir straight. I have found the Alaska Cocktail and the Last Word both to be very good. This is another recipe, created by mixologist Marco Dionysis, that I recently happened upon. It is of the family of tropical drinks, such as were made popular by the Trader Vic’s bar chain in the post-war era. The sort of thing that you’d presumably have at an island resort. This is a family with which I have but little acquainted myself.

The Chartreuse Swizzle:

1 1/4 oz. Chartreuse

1/2 oz. Falernum

1 oz. Pineapple juice

3/4 oz. lime juice

Stir on ice with a swizzle stick, serve on ice in a tall glass.

The result was pleasing. But I don’t know if it justifies the use of so much precious Chartreuse!*

Cheers!

P.S.: Thanks to Mr. Dionysis for notifying us that this recipe was his creation. Why couldn’t I have a last name like that?

*Chartreuse is much cheaper in Germany. Go figure.

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One of my favorite series of plays is the Fanny trilogy by Marcel Pagnol, who was one of the most popular French writers and filmmakers of the 20th century. It is also a series of 1930s movies. Even though some of Pagnol’s other movies have been popular in the US (Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources, most notably), the Fanny trilogy has been out of print for a long time. It is only available on VHS, and good luck finding a rare VHS title. There is an American adaptation that was made in the 50s, removing much of the dialogue and altering the story, but it is not as good.

(It would appear that Alice Waters is also partial to this series, as she named restaurants after three of its characters: Cesar, Fanny, and Panisse.)

The trilogy also has never been published in English. Or rather, there exists one manuscript translation of it, in a university library in Utah. I tried producing a translation myself, but found it too time-consuming to attempt without remuneration.

Consequently, I have not been able to share it with my girlfriend. We watched the 50s adaptation together and she liked it, but I’ve never been able to show her the real deal.

What I can share with her is the Pernod Cocktail. Because the characters of the Fanny trilogy spend their time at a bar on the Vieux Port of Marseilles, drinking Pernod and Ricard, I have a certain affection for the stuff. However, neither my girlfriend nor I enjoys drinking it straight. Even in France, it is usually served with water to dilute it. But I find the Pernod Cocktail is an even better vehicle for it.

The Pernod Cocktail:

1 1/2 oz. Pernod

One cube of sugar

1/2 oz. water

4 dashes Angostura bitters

Stir on ice and serve straight up.

Cheers!

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We made a number of disturbing discoveries while traveling abroad. One was that people in Europe take their Campari neat or else mixed with tonic water. Another is that young people, even those of the greatest refinement and most unimpeachable grooming, can be relied upon to purloin all the cans of tonic water from the refrigerator, and to drink them as if they were soda. Consequently, we found ourselves more than once in possession of gin but lacking any mixer for it.

We remembered that in the classic film The African Queen, Humphrey Bogart’s character takes his Gordon’s gin without tonic. He prefers to have it mixed with African river water. Katharine Hepburn’s character doesn’t like this one bit, but the sentiment doesn’t seem to be on account of the water.

Anyhow, we found that a half-and-half mix of gin and water, on ice, was reasonably refreshing. That is not to say that we’ve repeated the experiment since the scarcity of tonic water has abated.

The Gin and Water:

1 1/2 oz. gin

1 1/2 water

Serve on ice, with a lime wedge

Salut!

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The people at the Lagunitas Brewing Company want us to know that there is little if any holiday cheer warming their hearts or glowing in their faces this holiday season. It seems that this year they were unable to produce any of their famed Brown Shugga’ seasonal ale. They have instead had to make do with a stopgap seasonal ale, the “Lagunitas Sucks Holiday Ale Brown Shugga’ Substitute”. The copy on the bottom of the package takes an interesting approach to promoting the product:

This sad holiday season we didn’t have the brewing capacity to make our favorite seasonal brew, the widely feared Brown Shugga’ Ale. You see, we had a couple of really good years (thank you very much) and so heading into this season while we are awaiting the January delivery of a new brewhouse we are jammin’ along brewing 80 barrels of IPA and PILS and such every 3 hours. A couple months back we realized that since we can only brew a mere 60 barrels of Shugga’ every 5 hours, that we were seriously screwed. For every case of Shugga brewed, we’d short 3 cases of our favorite daily beers. It’s a drag. This year, we brewed something that we think is also cool and brews more like our daily brews. The new brewhouse will help insure that this kind of failure never occurs again. It’s a mess that we can not brew our Brown Shugga’ this year and we suck for not doing it. There is nothing cool about screwing up this badly and we know it. Maybe we can sue our own sorry selves. There is no joy in our hearts this holiday and the best we can hope for is a quick and merciful end. F$@& us. This totally blows.

The front artwork features their mascot dog saying, “we suck.”

Nevertheless, I was curious enough to buy the beer, and it was the last six-pack at Safeway, so apparently I wasn’t alone.

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