Some of the people all of the time

The Kaiser called me last Saturday. He’d been out with his lady on Friday night, and they’d gone to some new trendy bar. The reason he was calling, he told me, was that he’d been drinking absinthe there . He swore it was absinthe. Lucid, he told me, was the brand. I had a hard time believing him, as I happen to know that the absinthe importation ban is still in effect. I went to their website, and it looked like the real deal. For a moment, I got a little excited. But just as things too good to be true tend to be, this was. It turns out that in October of 2007, the Department of the Treasury’s Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau revised its policy regarding the use of the term “absinthe” on labels of distilled spirits products and in related advertising material:

We approve the use of the term “absinthe” on the label of a distilled spirits product and in related advertisements only if the product is “thujone-free” pursuant to the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) regulation at 21 CFR 172.510. Based upon the level of detection of FDA's prescribed method for testing for the presence of thujone, TTB considers a product to be “thujone-free” if it contains less than 10 parts per million of thujone.

In other words, Lucid can be legally sold in the States since it contains less than 10 ppm of the stuff that makes absinthe a good time. It’s as if the government clarified the definition of “marijuana” to allow the sale of THC-free products, and I marketed non-filtered Lucky Strikes under the name “420,” and claimed they were cannabis because each cigarette contained a hemp seed. What a gyp. Pernod has been around forever, and tastes exactly as a good absinthe should. To hell with Lucid.

Incidentally, Samantha went on a vacation to Prague with her brother and his wife last month. She was able to smuggle me back a bottle of Czech absinthe. I’ve mentioned before that Czech absinthe tastes horrible. I can only liken it to drinking Windex, but it definitely has the thujone kick. I’ve always preferred Spanish absinthe, but when you’re looking to get drunk, Old Milwaukee is better than water, right? I’d run out of absinthe during my first Ubermom rendezvous, so now my supply is restocked.

Vice Report

The market for vodka is pretty much over-saturated at this point. Seems like three-quarters of any given bar these days is vodka-based. My two favorites: Ketel One for the mixed drinks and Grey Goose on the rocks. Sometimes I end up with strange and interesting vodkas in the liquor cabinet, though, and it’s rare that I find one that I don’t like. I’d been holding on to an unopened bottle of Estonian vodka for a couple of years now: Türi. I’d had it as part of a “Soviet Union” flight of vodkas at Red Square in the Mandalay Bay back in 2005, and had bought a bottle shortly after getting back from that trip, but hadn’t opened it since then. I remembered it being pretty good, and the bottle looked cool in the liquor cabinet. I had a couple of folks over last night, and ran out of Ketel. I decided there was no time like the present to open the bottle of Türi, and let me tell you, folks, it was a wallop of disappointment. It had some real “burn” to it, and smelled like rubbing alcohol. I had poured myself a rocks glass half full of the stuff, and had to cut it with soda just to finish it off. Life’s too short to drink bad vodka, so I’m off to Costco to buy another bottle of Ketel One today.

Making it happen.

There’s a sushi place that opened up within walking distance from my house last summer. Aside from being super convenient, the place is fabulous. The fish is always fresh and the quality is unrivaled. It’s not the fanciest place, and there’s not much flash, but when I get the craving, I invariably find myself there. They don’t have a liquor license, so the place is BYOB, which is actually pretty cool, since I’ve found myself trying out different types of sake that I pick up either from Cost Plus, or the local “fancy” grocery store. Last Tuesday, I walked there, but forgot my sake in my refrigerator. I ducked out to go get it, and Koji, the sushi chef was out back for a “smoke” break. I’ll leave it to you to figure out the quotation marks. I laughed as I caught the unmistakable scent, since I’d describe Koji as demure, if that adjective can be applied to a male, and I’d never really said much more than a couple of things to him. As I jogged past him, I commented that I’d forgotten my sake. “Bring me back some vodka!” he called after me. I knew he was joking, but when I got home, I half-filled a plastic juice tumbler with Ketel One from the Costco-sized bottle in my freezer, and took it back with me. I gave Koji the vodka, and was delighted when a couple of chef’s choices came my way gratis. Among them was some delicious toro nigiri. When the check came, it was surprisingly less than I had expected.

Last night, I had the sushi craving again, so I went to the fancy grocery store to pick up a bottle of sake. As I was in the liquor aisle, I noticed that they had a sale on Rain vodka. I’d never tried it, but it was regularly $24 for a bottle, and selling for $17. In light of the “access and cachet” moment I’d had at Robertson’s on Friday, I decided to try an experiment. I bought the vodka, intent on giving it as a gift to Koji. I even bought one of those fancy little wine carriers so it would look gift wrapped. Let me tell you . . . after I got there and presented the bottle to him, as far as access and cachet goes, it was indescribable.

Koji came from around the bar, shook my hand and bowed, thanked me repeatedly, and told me that he was going to do something special for me. One of the waitresses opened the bottle on the spot and poured him a long draught of the hooch. She also brought me a sake cup full of it for my enjoyment as I waited for a table to open up. Served neat, I was pretty impressed with the smoothness of the Rain.

I paid close attention to my order, since I was sort of experimenting. I ordered some yellowtail, some snapper, a Vegas roll, and a California roll. When my order came out, Koji had doubled all my orders, and had included some toro sashimi, and a couple of other morsels that I’d never tried or seen. He also included some pickled wasabi. I actually struggled to eat it all . . . I was literally gorging myself on sushi. When I finally threw in the towel, I was spent. The vodka and the sake had also gone to my head a little and I was glad that I’d walked to the place. I asked for the check, and when the waitress brought it to me, I couldn’t help but chuckle. $31. I glanced at the sushi-menu just to gauge the net worth of what I’d been served. By my estimates, it was about $75 worth of sushi. The toro sashimi by itself would have been $20 if I had ordered it.

Sometimes, if you actually know somebody, or if you’re a regular at a place, greasing them a $20 bill can come across a little gauche. For those folks, the access and cachet requires thoughtfulness. Thoughtfulness always pays off.

51 First Dates

Got another e-mail from the Fulbright scholar yesterday. Despite my feelings about her, I have to give credit where credit is due: she sets shit up, and I look forward to it.

It's time for another great gathering featuring good people and DRINK. For completely non-interesting reasons, I have to skip the hosting honors this month but let's get together and enjoy a drink at The Jefferson (4440 W. Twelfth St.) this Wednesday at 7:30 ish.

Thanks to all those that brought new faces to the mix last month--keep them and others coming!!

-elisa

I have to say, her distribution list always includes a very promising girl-to-guy ratio.

Fifty First Dates

As a follow-up to my last post, another piece of clothing that the other ten percent have completely hijacked and that I think kicks ass is the striped boat-neck shirt: totally not historically gay. I don’t own one, but only because I’ve never found one in my size that I like. Picasso made the style famous, and I’d wager that he crushed more ass than Sinatra in his day.

So Frankie and I went to the Fulbright scholar’s cocktail party last night. She was still a little cold – despite the fact that she invited us to the party. It wasn’t like we crashed it or anything, even though that’s not beyond us at all. In fact, we brought a bottle of Junipero gin as a gift, and shook up a couple of killer martinis. For the first hour or so following our arrival, there were only two other guests there. They were, however, a completely cool husband and wife who were totally interesting and engaging and a pleasure to talk to. In fact, if I were to have a party at my place, I’d track them down and extend an invitation, though, I’m ambivalent about whether or not I’d invite the Fulbright scholar at this point. I probably wouldn’t.

I had pre-soaked with two vodka sodas before we arrived, and was three Dos Equis lagers into the party by the time the other guests began showing up. The highlight of the night hit early, as the fifth guest to arrive was a woman that Frankie had made-out with for a while at Melissa’s Tropi-Christmas bash. We realized this immediately before she did, and called an audible: feign complete ignorance of who she was. It helped that when she approached Frankie, she said something to the effect of “Don’t I know you? Isn’t your name Bert?” Of course, Frankie’s name is not Bert, and he had proof of that, so when we both told her that we’d never met her before she had to believe us. She was looking pretty good, and we talked with her for a while. Whoever said you never get a second chance to make a first impression never plugged alcohol into the equation.

By the end of the evening, around 11:00, there weren’t many people left at the party. Some engineering type who was talking about – I am not making this up – how the elements on the periodic table got their names ended up cornering our new friend out on the patio. We thought about running the cock-block on him, which would have been easy, but decided, instead, to just slip away into the night . . . . we had succeeded in being good, interesting (I think), and memorable guests at the party, and we had made our positive impression on the crowd. Like the gambler, Frankie and I have learned that the secret to surviving is knowing what to throw away and knowing what to keep – ‘cause every hand’s a winner and every hand’s a loser, and the best that you can hope for is to die in your sleep.

'Tis the Season

“Wine is fine, but liquor is quicker.” If you read deep enough into this blog, you’ll find a bit of drinking going on, and you may note that I’m quite the liquor snob. I really enjoy a martini made with quality gin, for instance, and I don’t shy away from a premium vodka on the rocks when I really have to take the edge off. I’ve been known to spend good money on bottles of whiskeys from around the world (if the world consisted of Canada, Kentucky, and Ireland), and if I were stranded on deserted island, I’d be OK, so long as I had a never-ending supply of cold beer. But wine . . . I’ve never been able to get into wine, much to my chagrin. I’ve tried. Really I have. For what it’s worth, I tried to get into opera once, too. Some things just never “took” in the Jack Gordon repertoire. The finer points of wine appreciation are completely lost on me, and I have to say that my favorite bottle of wine, if I’m going to be cracking one open at home to share with a lady friend, is a Chilean Merlot called Casillero Del Diablo that I can pick up for under $10.00 at Cost Plus. When all is said and done, though, I typically won’t drink wine if there are alternatives available.

One thing that I do like to drink around the holiday season, however, is a good mulled wine. I keep a tin of mulling spices in my pantry, and at least once each December, I’ll buy a bottle of the cheapest burgundy I can find at the supermarket, fire up the stove, and make a batch. I may not have a Christmas tree or a Festivus pole up, and my house may look pathetic next to the Clark Griswold-esque decorating efforts that my neighbors make, but nobody will ever be able to label me a complete grinch.

Day Drinking Ahead

At precicely 10:49 a.m. today, I jumped on an office grenade and volunteered to take an emergency project that will require some work over the weekend (probably most of the day Friday). My only request was that I get to bug out early and have all day tomorrow off. The Wednesday before Thanksgiving is one of my favorite drinking days of the year, and I was able to recruit a few crew members to join me this afternoon. We're priming the liver at 2:00. In preparation I should probably stop by an ATM and hide a $20 bill in my boot for cab fare later.

Funny e-mail of the day

From a guy that we met at a mutual friend's happy hour a few weeks back that we ran into at the Pub on Friday night:

Hey dude,

I don't remember precisely how things went down Friday, as I was a real mess by the time I saw you and Frankie, but it was good to see you guys.

I had some drink called a Kentucky sidecar early in the night, and I'm never having another drink that sounds like it belongs in a sex-position email forward again. It's like playing cards with somebody with the first name of a city. Bad idea. I think I actually cried on Saturday morning I was so hung-over. anyway, good to see you guys again.

Never having heard of this particular cocktail, I Googled it, and here share my findings with you, dear readers: the Kentucky Sidecar is made with bourbon, Cointreau, sweet & sour, and a sugared rim, with a twist. Some recipes seem to substitute Frangelico for Cointreau, which is weird since oranges don't taste remotely like hazelnuts. Either way, I don't believe in diluting a good bourbon with crap like lemonade, so I'll avoid the cocktail altogether and give this post a rest.

Rye report

So last night, I finally got around to trying out the bottle of rye that I bought last week. Let me put it this way, if whiskies were hair products, then rye would be Brylcreem. Gets the job done, but I can see why the market has pretty much relegated it to obscurity and it's associated with geriatrics. I may give it a second run in the near future, but I suspect it will become an "orphan" in my liquor cabinet waiting for the inevitable party at my place where the booze runs low, and somebody finds the inspiration to drink it.

Conspicuous Consumption 101

Every type of alcohol that I have encountered in my years of drinking has had a unique effect on me. Tequila makes me aggressive and fearless, and shows me a good time before it takes me out back and sodomizes me; sake makes me stupid; vodka and gin are good for the long nights on the town and are relatively forgiving the next morning; and beer -- sweet, beautiful, refreshing beer -- has been there from the beginning and has never let me down.

My favorite distilled spirit, however, has got to be whiskey. Crown Royal, to be precise. While I enjoy a quality bourbon, and some nights a Bushmills Irish whiskey hits the spot, for me it was love at first sip with the regal Canadian in her purple bag when I was 19. I drink my Crown on the rocks, and refuse to dilute her with anything more than the water melting from the ice keeping her cool. Colas insult her royal majesty. My friends know my tastes, and on my last birthday, one buddy gave me a 1.5L bottle of Crown, and my former boss, who still loves me, gave me a 1.5L bottle of Crown Special Reserve. I keep a 375 mL bottle of Crown in my office . . . just in case. When I stood best man in a wedding back in 2005, I had a half-pint of Crown in my inside tuxedo pocket in case the groom got nervous. Instead of the groom, I got the maid of honor, the bride’s brother, who was also standing in the wedding, and two of the bridesmaids soused. Because a swig of Crown takes the edge off like nothing else. Before I walked into the interview for my current job, I pounded a miniature bottle of Crown and popped a breath-mint. Gave the best interview of my life. Yes, Crown and I go back a long, long way. My dream girl is like a bottle of Crown Royal: elegant on the outside, smooth and refreshing, and a damned good time when you get to know her. If you take that metaphor a step further, there’s not many ladies out there as comfortable at a NASCAR race as in a five-star restaurant.

On Sunday, I happened to hear Things to do in Denver when you’re dead, by Warren Zevon. There’s a line in the song: “Dressed in black, tossing back a shot of rye . . .” and it occured to me that to my recollection, I’d never had rye whiskey. As a matter of fact, I can’t think of any bar where I’ve heard anybody order rye, and it’s never been at any party I’ve attended. And I thought about Don McLean’s American Pie, with its “good ole boys were drinkin’ whiskey and rye” line. And so I determined that I needed to give the rye a try. (As an aside, I’m pretty sure it’s in these songs because it’s so easy to rhyme, rather than anything else). I went to the “fancy” liquor store to pick up a bottle, since I figured they’d have the best selection. Turns out there are a few brands out there. Distillers you’ve actually heard of make rye whiskeys, though, again, I’ve never seen these bottles outside of the liquor shelves. I recognized the yellow-labeled Jim Beam, for instance. I settled on a bottle of Wild Turkey rye, since it proudly set forth its 101 proof strength on the label, and it was a nice, round $20 for the bottle. I believe in doing things right, but dropping the ducat on “premium” rye whiskey seemed a little excessive, given my dearth of rye knowledge.

I was at the counter ringing up the dirty bird, when I looked at the shelf behind the cashier . . . the shelf with the super-premium alcohols (Johnnie Walker Blue Label, etc.). Sitting in all her majestic beauty was a bottle of Crown Royal XR (extra rare). I didn’t even know such a libation existed. I asked the sales guy about it. He wasn’t a very good salesman, but I did get this out of him (and the box the bottle was in after I asked to see it): XR is a limited-release blend of Crown Royal sold in serial-numbered bottles, and is made from the last batch of whiskey distilled at the Waterloo distillery, and there would be no further whiskies of that blend, since the distillery burned down. I’m a total sucker for marketing, and how could I resist the lovely lady to whom I owed so much? I cringed at the price tag when I first looked at it. I called the Kaiser so that he could talk me into it. It didn’t take much. I decided to buy the bottle and save it for a special occasion, to be determined. I passed the cashier my Discover card, since nobody takes Discover anymore, and I’ve had that card since I was 18, and it symbolically linked me to my drinking past. I’ve come a long way, and yet I haven’t. I hope I have something worth celebrating soon!

Cocktail tip #23

With special thanks to Dr. Del, who introduced me to this pearl of wisdom at a wedding reception last night: You can mask the taste of inferior gin in your gin and tonic with a dash or two of bitters.