Savory Cocktails

Fall's coming, and your drinks should reflect that.  I mean, go right ahead and enjoy your Gin and Tonics in October, but when the leaves outside begin to turn and the flames inside your fireplace start popping, savory cocktails will respond perfectly to those autumnal clues.

Thankfully, Greg Henry has arrived with his new book, Savory Cocktails.

Henry is the author of Savory Pies - and now he's brought his palate and eye (his photographs in the books are stunning) to the bar.

Savory Cocktails is perfect for the novice drink mixer - with brief introductions to glassware, tools and techniques, but more experienced drink wizards will revel in his delectable recipes.

Don't think an heirloom tomato belongs in a cocktail? Just wait until you taste his Salad Bowl Gin and Tonic.  Horseradish and cucumber?  Try out his Breeder's Cup.

The drinks are grouped in categories like Herbal, Umami, and Smoky.  I went with Smoky.

My first selection was the Autumn Ash.  I hadn't had Scotch in a while - bourbon and rye have taken over my bar - but the smoky notes to the Ash caught my eye.  And while Henry calls for a blended scotch in this drink, I went with Glenfiddich because I had a bottle (and incurred the wrath of a friend who intoned that I had sullied the Glenfiddich and where did I get off thinking this type of heresy should be allowed?)

Ouch.

Still, it made for a delightful drink, so there's that.

 

Henry's photos are lovelier.

AUTUMN ASH

 

2 oz. Glenfiddich (or a blended scotch whiskey to keep my friend Al off your back)

1 oz. Laird's Applejack

.25 oz. St. Germain elderflower liqueur

2 dashes Angostura orange bitters

 

Combine the scotch, apple brandy, liqueur and bitters with ice.  Stir.

 

Strain into a chilled cocktail glass.  Squeeze a lemon twist over the drink, rub it on the glass' rim, and use as garnish.

Shave and a Haircut

Bad hair day doesn't begin to cut it, so I had to cut it.  I had Shirley-Temple curls, Alfalfa sprouts - I was a mess.  So much so, that when I picked up the kids for their first Daddy Day of the new school year, Daughter #1 said, from the backseat...

Daddy, you need a haircut.

...and simultaneously, from Daughter #2:

You need a haircut, Daddy.

Which is unanimous and so off we went to a Barber Shop of My Own.

The Temescal Alley Barber Shop is old-school in the ridiculously hipster way people use the term.  No sinks for washing scalps - you come in clean.  A barber-pole outside.  Hex tile floors inside.

The one major change is that among the gents cutting hair there's usually one gal.  So this isn't your grandfather's barbershop, but he'd approve.

Trust me, he'd approve.

So we park right across the street, on 49th, and then I put my name on the barber-shop's chalkboard.

Lots of hair on the floor, Daddy, Kristina says - and I say, Yes.  That happens in Barber Shops.  She just shakes her head.

While waiting, we check out the offerings in the Alley's other shops - super-expensive pants, hot hot coffee, succulents and dried sage.

Elizabeth picks up a bundle of that dried sage inside Homestead Apothecary and breathes in its earthy smell.  Ooh, I like that, she says.

A young customer inside has tats - everyone's got tats, or piercings, or both, and as I'm feeling especially like a citizen of Squares Ville, I hear my name called out by the young man who wrote it on the chalkboard earlier.

The girls decide to sit outside, in the shade (which is a relief on this hot August afternoon), and pet the dog stretched out under their bench. 


I go inside and take a belt of the Bulleit they have on a high shelf.  It goes down all spicy, orangey, and sweet.  Since I was last here, the shop's front door got moved - but more importantly, the bourbon and rye got moved, too, from the low bottom shelf of a cabinet to this high shelf on the wall.

Different location, same good taste.

I sit and my barber just looks at the unruly mop I offer once I take off my Giants' cap.

A trim? he says.

No, no, I say.  A proper cut.

Really? he says.

Really, I say.

Ok, he says, smiling.  Let's get you good and cleaned up.




The reading material is period appropriate.

We start talking.  He's got three kids - three, two and ten months.  A brave man, certainly.

My guy tells me that his #1 son is a big reader, like his mom.  Began by eating pulpy board books, as good readers should, and lit off from there.

Then he tells the young man at the door that he's ready for a drink.  A Shebang? the young man offers.  No, my guy says, the Whole Shebang.

Another of the barbers looks at the clock - a few minutes before three - and says that's it's also time for him to have a Whole Shebang.

What's a Whole Shebang? I say.

My guy pauses as he clips.  You're probably hoping it's got something inside that's high-octane, he says and laughs.

I was hoping that, yes.

You've had a shot yourself, right? and he points to the high shelf.  Magazines up there, too, he says.

What they were reading in August, 1971

I nod.

A Shebang, he says, will disappoint you then.  It's just Gatorade--

Original, I say?  Not purple or blue?

Original, yes, he says.  Yellow.  But a Whole Shebang is the Gatorade and Red Bull.  It's a good boost late in the afternoon.  Especially a hot afternoon like today.

So the young man leaves, and as he closes the door some of the hair on the tile floor does a little breeze-shift.  Lot of hair down there, I say.  My daughter thought it was funny, all the hair.

One of the other barbers, the guy who's in on the Whole-Shebang - his apron is leather, smooth like the skin on his scalp - shakes his head.  That would be the Apprentice's fault, he says.  There isn't supposed to be any hair on the floor.

Actually, my guy says, it's not supposed to even touch the floor.  He should catch it as it falls.

Fat chance, says the young barber - pretty and tattooed - who's just to our left.  But she's laughing as she says it.  Lots of laughs from this crew.

The bald barber looks my way.  First week of school for your kids? he says.  What grades?

Fourth and First, I say.

First grade, he says, and he scowls.  I fucking hated First Grade.  I got suspended on the first day of First Grade.

I didn't even know that was possible, my guy says.

What'd you do? I say.

I threw a chair at a kid, he says as he runs his fingers through the hair of the guy he's cutting on - checking to see if the ends are straight.  He deserved it, though, he says.

Lots of laughs at that.

And I went through all the steps to prevent it, he says.  I told the teacher three times that this kid was bugging me--

So you're a snitch in addition to being a truant? the pretty barber says without pausing as she combs through her customer's hair.

--I'm telling you, I tried letting the teacher know what was going on, but she just kept telling me to sit down, so I finally took matters into my own hands.  Taught him a lesson, too.

What was the provocation? I say.

He looks at me and says, all sotto voce, I didn't want to say this out loud - it's because I was crying.  I missed my mom, bad, and I'd been crying all day and this kid, man.  He just kept going at me, you know?  Just kept going at me.

Wow, the pretty barber says, you've got a lot going on, huh?  Terrible student, violent, and mommy issues, too.

Lots more laughter.

It's about this time that my guy drapes a hot towel around my neck - I always thought that getting my hair washed when I got it cut was the best feeling, but let me tell you, that hot towel?  As a prelude to getting the back of your neck shaved with a straight razor?  That's pretty great.

So he shaves me, and brushes me off, then whips the smock off like a matador.  How's that look? he asks as he swivels my chair around so I can get a look in the mirror.

Like a new man, the pretty barber says, and I smile at that because, yes - the curls are gone, the sprouts have been sheared, and I've got a shot of Bulleit in me and another story to tell.

Looks great, I say, and I tip my guy and go.

The girls are ready to head out, so we load up in the car and put Alameda in our sights.

Temescal Alley Barber Shop.  I'm just saying.

National Rum Day, 16 August 2013

I've got a story for you about rum.  But I need a drink so I'll write it later.

Drink From the 18th Century

Pauline's.  Have you been to Pauline's?  It's on Park Street, just up from ye olde bookshoppe.  It's many thousands of square feet on two floors - jam packed with treasures.  It's where I found the perfect Tiki glasses for the Bad Monkey cocktail.  You'll always find something, even when you're not looking for anything.

Especially then.

They have a sale right now - 45% off everything in the store.  It's a thank-you to their customers for recently being voted the best Antique Store in the East Bay.

I went in looking to buy an incredible Mason jar I've been coveting - and don't give me heartache about what I covet, ok?  She was still there, beautiful and big.  Bigger than any Mason jar you've ever seen, lid and all - which was impressive considering she was more than a century old.  We have a few of her cousins, and outside, on a summer day, full of flowers?  They're delightful, I think.

Pauline asked after the girls, wondered how things were going at the shoppe - and then was intrigued when my eye was drawn to the seven glasses behind two Mason jars - neither as large as the beauty who had siren-called me into the store today.  I'd been allowed behind the counter and past the brass chain, close to some of those treasures I told you Pauline carries.

But those glasses?  In the display crowded with trinkets and baubles?  Ooh, that little toy gun, like the one Uncle Dean gave to my brother Dean.  Or the double daguerreotypes in the wood and copper frame?

And again, behind the Mason jars, those seven glasses?

Those are from the 1700's, Pauline said.  I bought them from Muriel Johansen - she lived over on Grand?  She was the biggest glass dealer in Northern California.  I must've bought them from her forty years ago, and at the time she didn't own anything less than a hundred years old.  The family she bought them from had been using them for water glasses.  I had them appraised after picking them up - the appraiser was beside herself.  Couldn't believe what I'd brought her.

I couldn't quite believe it either.  The glasses were simple, but gorgeous - the bases thick, full of constellations of tiny air bubbles.  The glasses were tall, with straight sides sloping to a smaller base.  Pilsner shaped, though Pilsner beer hadn't been invented yet, wouldn't be for another hundred years.

I just imagined the number of drinks that each glass had carried, alcoholic and non.  The number of lips that had tasted some frothy concoction.  The different people from different generations.  From the time of our Revolution to now - with the forty year break that they had spent behind glass in Pauline's display case.

This was a Dusty Hunt of a special kind.

I put my beauty of a Mason jar back with a sigh, spectacular though she is.  Did I mention how large she was?  But these glasses - these wonderful glasses...

I took my time choosing two.  I always take my time - sometimes too much, of course.  But a few had some nicks taken out of the rims, and while I'd love to have them all, you can't have everything, so I took my time and chose two.  Besides, when I find lovely cocktail glasses, I pick up singles, always singles, so our set is blessedly mismatched.  But these glasses sang out for two - at least.

How could I separate sisters who are 250 years old?

So I picked out my two and told Pauline I'd be filling them that night with something a bit stronger than the water they last held.  She wrapped them with care in brown paper torn from the huge roll behind her - then I went back to work and shared my find with my coworkers.

Those who would listen.

On my home I stopped by Du Vin Fine Wine - even though Dan, the owner, is in Santorini right now sampling Greek vintages, that bastard.

He now carries a few good beers, terrific additions to his curated wine selection, and I scored a six-pack of Drake's Blonde Ale because it's brewed with Pilsner and I thought that'd look good in the glass.  Also, who doesn't like drinking with a blonde?  And Drake's is local, did I mention that?  So if you want to drink it, you have to come visit me.

So come visit me.

Karen had crocked up some ribs for the kids tonight, and if you don't think that Blonde Ale was going to go wonderfully with ribs slathered in Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce - well, then you don't like beer and ribs.

But the beer.  The beer?  In that glass?

It was beautiful - beautiful just because, sitting there against the wood of our buffet, but beautiful again because of all the drinks that had gone before.

All the people who had drunk from it before.

The languages spoken over its rim, the jokes told behind its back.

The romances begun.

The fights that ended with those glasses clutched in hand.  Their contents forgotten - and then looked at, and then remembered, and then the clinking of glasses, truces called.  Kisses sought.

And then I smiled at the notion of a beer brewed in San Leandro in 2013 almost perfectly fitting its twelve ounces into a glass blown by a forgotten craftsman in 1750.

So I drank from the 18th Century, the 19th, and then the 20th.  Drank from those centuries and then introduced my glass to the 21st.

Hello, 21st.

Oh, and the after, of course.  The lacing left on the inside of the glass after the blonde had gone.  That was beautiful, too.

So come visit.  We'll pick up some more of the Drakes while those glasses chill, and then we'll clink to happy times.

Happy, happy times.

Ernest Hemingway, 21 July 1899 - 2 July 1961

In my office at ye olde bookshoppe there's a poster above the desk.  Ernest Hemingway looks down, impossibly young.  Not the bearded Hemingway that comes to mind when you think of him - not The Old Man and the Sea.  It's his passport photo from when he lived in Paris in 1923.  It's before the Sun Also Rises, before Fitzgerald, before everything, really.

So very young.


The only words on the poster, besides his name, comprise one line from A Moveable Feast:

All you have to do is write one true sentence.

I look at those words, at that face - that face that had so much living ahead of it.  His sentiment sounds so simple and of course that means it's going to be so very hard.


Today - his birthday - and I'm thinking about Hemingway.  Trying not to think too much about the end - about that other July day in Ketchum, Idaho.  But of course I do think about it, and thinking about it brings to mind one of his brilliant, late stories:  Get a Seeing-Eyed Dog.

Hemingway has already been on the Safari in Africa where he was hurt so badly, was already in the pain that would be with him the rest of his life.  In the story, a man - Philip - has suffered an accident and lost his sight.

Philip can now only see himself as a burden, less than he was, and so tries to distance himself from his unnamed companion - obviously a lover.  Not so obviously a wife, and Hemingway doesn't say.  What Hemingway does do is describe her trying to provide relief even though they both know she's ill-suited to the role of babysitter.

She'll say:

"Can I make you a drink?....You know how worthless a nurse I am.  I wasn't trained for it and I haven't any talent.  But I can make drinks."

Later, he'll think:

She has been so good and she was not built to be good.

But her simple question?  Can I make you a drink?  Sometimes, there's nothing prettier.  If you ever have need to get into my good graces, that's the question to ask.  And for Philip, a drink is just the tonic for the rainy day he finds himself trapped in.

Then comes a string of Hemingway sentences.  Not the choppy mockeries people use to ridicule his writing, but a paragraph of his own:


   He heard her coming up the stairs and noticed the difference in her tread when she was carrying two glasses and when she had walked down barehanded.  He heard the rain on the windowpane and he smelled the beech logs burning in the fireplace.  As she came into the room he put his hand out for the drink and closed his hand on it and felt her touch the glass with her own.
   "It's our old drink for out here," she said.  "Campari and Gordon's with ice."


There's so much I love about those images.  Without sight, we're given a glimpse of Philip's heightened senses - of hearing her coming up with two glasses, then the rain on the window.  We reach out into the dark, his dark, for the glass he knows will be there.

Then?  Then she touches his.

Clink.

Oh - and the drink?  Splendid and easy.

In his book, To Have and Have Another - A Hemingway Cocktail Companion, a different Philip, Philip Greene, describes the loveliness of Campari in cocktails, from the Americano to the Negroni to this, the most simple of all:

 

 

CAMPARI & GIN:

 

1-2 oz. Gordon's London dry gin
1 oz. Campari

Pour over ice in a highball glass, stir.


Tonight, I'll be reading a little Hemingway, sipping a damn fine drink, and will continue looking for that one true sentence.

National Daiquiri Day - 19 July 2013

Today was National Daiquiri Day, but you knew that.  Did you also know that daiquiri's don't have to come out of a Slushy machine?  That all you need is rum, lime juice, and a sweetener?  I know, I know - simple.

Unless you don't have a lime, which I didn't, so I made a plea via social media - pick your poison, Twitter, Facebook - it's a great big world out there with friends available to help.  You just need to ask, even though asking for help can be hard for some people.  Not for me, but for some.  I need so much help it would be a shame not to ask.

I got plenty of responses, but the closest available limes were in Napa, which is a bit of a drive on a Friday night - so I did things the old-fashioned way.  I knocked on our neighbor's door.

John maintains he loves it when we knock because he never knows what we'll be asking for - Chairs? Cheap labor? Vodka?  It's a crap shoot with us.

Tonight he had what I needed - the Anderson's always have what we need.  In addition to the lime, John also had a glass which I borrowed in case there was extra daiquiri juice.  I took it just to be safe.

You never know.

Imbibe Magazine had tipped me off that it was the special Day, and they had conveniently included six daiquiri recipes.

I went for the Brooklynite because it used Jamaican rum, which I had, and honey syrup, which I had, and it was courtesy of the Bartender's Guide by Trader Vic - and I have a soft spot in my heart for the Trader since his first bar was here in the East Bay, in Oakland.

So, with lime in hand, I had enough for two.  Coulda made three but John's wife Beth is in Tahoe.

BROOKLYNITE

2 oz. Jamaican rum
.5 oz. fresh lime juice
.5 oz. honey syrup

Combine all ingredients and shake with ice. Fine-strain into a chilled glass and garnish.


I didn't have any lime left over for a garnish, so I skipped that.

John didn't mind, not at all.

Dusty Hunting in Modesto Reveals Lolita - Peanut Lolita

Driving through the hot streets of my hometown and I have just a few minutes for a quick Dusty Hunt.  To recap, Dusty Hunting is hitting old-school liquor stores for bottles of booze that have collected dust because they were purchased, set out on display, but never found a home - often just getting shuffled to lower and lower shelves, sometimes for decades.

Fine bourbon can be found - not by yours truly, not yet, no butterscotchy Old Forester from the '70's for me.  For me so far it's been other finds - other, well, oddities.

In Jason Wilson's book, Boozehound, he describes Dusty Hunting, but he calls it Liquor Store Archaeology.  For him, it was a game he played with his brother - each trying to unearth something as singular as a Schliemann discovery.

He finally declared his brother the victor in their games when Tyler dug up Peanut Lolita - the dancing harem girl on its label enticing him to buy this bourbon-based peanut-flavored liqueur.

That's gritty on the tongue.

And that was last bottled when James Earl Carter, Jr. was President.

Winner?  Winner.

So I'm motoring down Tully when I see the sign for a store I've seen my whole life--

--but now?  With Dusty Hunting on my mind?  Tully Liquors takes on a whole new meaning.  I pull into the lot and hustle inside.  Did I say the clock was ticking?  The clock's ticking.  I'm supposed to be somewhere so I read the shelves like a bad summer book - fast but fascinated.

Curiously, in this Modesto liquor store, I come across a bottle of St. Germain, a gorgeous, elegant liqueur - which is a little like finding Grace Kelly in a whore house.  But why is the spirit inside the splendid bottle colored dark brown?  The elderflower liqueur should be delicate and light - this is anything but.

They've also got 1.75 liter plastic bottles of Wild Turkey - old?  Old enough that the bottles are collapsing in on themselves.  Old, yes - appetizing?  Not really, no.

But there, on the bottom shelf, my eye spies five (!) bottles of Peanut Lolita.

It's hard to make out the name on the label - it's faded, practically white.  But the girl swaying her harem hips on the front of the bottle guarantees that it's Peanut Lolita.  I try and take a quick picture of the bottles on the shelf, only to be yelled at by the guy behind the counter.

No pictures!  No pictures!

Trying to placate him, I show that I've got one of the bottles in hand - I'm a customer, I'm buying - but he still doesn't like it.

I pay for the bottle and head to my car where I'll send Mr. Wilson a quick message - just, you know, shooting a query off to a man I've never met but who might receive it because all the world's connected and all the men and women tweeters:


@boozecolumnist Just found 5 bottles of Peanut Lolita in a liquor store in Modesto, CA. #ToBuyOrNotToBuy

Then I head off into the Modesto afternoon wondering what the heck I'm going to do with Lolita there in my backseat.  I'll be able to mix her into something, right?  I'm sure of it.  I just don't know what.

Later, as the July sun finally sets, I receive a reply from Mr. Wilson:


@NickPetrulakis Whaaaaaat?!!!!!! Buy. Buy two and I will buy the other from you.


So I'll do just that - grab another bottle of Lolita on my way out of town.  I'm thinking, there's no need to rush.  The bottles have been there for more than three decades - they'll still be there in a few hours.

And that's one of the things I love about this kind of Hunt.  That the bottles have been there - from Carter to Reagan to now.

Just waiting.

Back home and I send off Mr. Wilson's bottle with a note I typed on my dad's old Remington.  I hope Lolita arrives safe and sound - I hope the Federales don't intercept her.  It's probably not legal, right?  Shipping booze to the Boozehound?  

Oh well.

With my own bottle, I've decided to beat the heat with a Sundae - a Bourbon Sundae.  Come on over, bring friends.  You scoop, I'll mix and we'll both drink to the general joy of the whole table.

Bourbon Sundae:

1.75 oz. Four Roses bourbon

.25 oz. Peanut Lolita Liqueur
.25 oz. simple syrup

3 dashes Scrappy's Chocolate Bitters

1-2 small scoops vanilla ice cream

Combine bourbon, liqueur, syrup and bitters with ice.  Stir.  Strain into a chilled glass.  Using a melon baller, scoop once (or twice) and add the vanilla ice cream.