Haven't thrown down a good rant in awhile. Given that I'm riding a pretty good high right now (engaged, good weather, decent baseball being played here in Seattle, just had some great guests over, Labor Day coming up), this seems an odd time to pitch a hissy fit... but here's a few just to get them off my chest.
Dirty Martinis.
Yeah, who came up with this one? What a good way to waste some tasty booze. The other night, I had a clown who wanted his extra extra extra dirty. Know what he got? 3 parts olive juice to a drop of vodka. Verdict? Delicious, although the poor guy went through three glasses of water before he finished it, mua ha ha ha!
Pomegranate and cucumber drinks. Really, I'm just waiting for the fad to pass. Pomegranate may have some legs, but my money is on the cuke trend burning out before too long.
Not knowing your surroundings. Union is a fine-dining restaurant, and our decor reflects this. So walking in and being mortally pissed that we don't carry Miller Lite or Pucker cracks me up. Two ditzy chicks walked in and complained over our lack of, ahem, "normal beer", missing that we have several iconic Belgian and German beers. I don't get mad when I go to KFC and they don't offer a burger.
High fives and WOO HOO's. Get a hold of yourself there, brother.
Long Island Iced Teas. Nothing screams ROOKIE more than this drink. Really, what they want is a fast buzz, so I introduce them to Stroh '80' (a 160 proof abomination from Austria) and then watch them pinball out the door with cartoon stars spangling around their noggin.
Making me read the menu to you because you didn't bring your glasses. Honestly, you wouldn't believe how often this happens. Pack some reading glasses, Mr. Magoo!
"What's good?" Uh, everything!!! Were you expecting a different answer?
Making out (and I mean really making out) at the bar. Get a hold of yourself there, sister.
Snobbery. Yeah, gotta save this one for last, because I can be guilty of this sometimes (I'm looking at you, weekend warrior. . . WOO HOO! I got your Apple Pucker right here). Really, I just try and have fun at work and not take myself too seriously, and usually do just that. Bartending is a gas, most of the time, and I haven't found a better job.
Enjoy the last days of summer everyone. See you in September.
Two Posts In One Day!!!
The Spumoni
By now you might have noticed the sidebar I recently included on this site, the current cocktail menu at Union. I've been wanting to post it since seeing Jeffrey Morgenthaler's menu. He has his as a PDF, but I'm far too dumb and lazy to figure out how to do that, so I just presented it this way.
With fall coming, most of these cocktails will get the elbow. The Spumoni, however, won't be one of them. This spin on the woefully under-ordered Americano is too easy to whip up, my boss loves it, it's popular and, of course, it be too dang tasty to bump aside.
The Spumoni
1 oz Campari
1 oz fresh grapefruit juice
1 oz tonic water
Build in collins glass, garnish with an orange twist.
That's it. The pub for the drink goes to our old bar manager, Jerry Tide. It is utterly simple, both in construction and taste. The little bugger is refreshing too, and given the low alcohol content, you can knock 'em back all friggin' night.
What a Long Strange Trips It's Been
Well, I missed the party this Monday, and I never miss a good party, especially when it's thrown by people who know their way around the sauce. And for the second month in a row I managed to squeak out three measly posts and have barely had time to read through my favorite blogs.
So what's up? Plenty, my friends, plenty.
The weather's been great, the Mariners are in playoff contention, I 'pulled a Waldbauer' and dropped my digital camera (so no pics for a bit), a family reunion in Oregon, extra days tending bar, family dropping into town, my 20th year high school reunion (sheesh), brainstorming ideas to improve the bar and update the cocktail menu at Union, planning my wedding, studying and plotting the cocktail books I'm writing, trying to quit smok. . . woops, what was that????
Did I say wedding? Yup. I'm happy to announce that Christine and I have gotten engaged!!! After three and a half years, I finally get to call her my fiancé.
Right now we're planning on a Caribbean beach wedding (I'm just gone on the idea of a barefoot, tropical beach reception, whooping it up with some aged rum and a steel pan band in the background). And I wish I could invite every one of you, but since space is limited for us down there, I'll have to find another way to share a round of drinks with my favorite drinkers.
Oh, how about an engagement party?
Keep your ears open in the next month (in other words, once I can catch my breath), I'll be announcing an engagement cocktail party similiar to the Mixology Monday events, and you're all invited. Theme? I'm open to suggestions, but I have a few ideas.
Oh, and Dr. Bamboo, just wanted you to know I celebrated my engagement with . . . ta da! A gin and tonic. (and having just finished reading your recent post, I toast your newborn and your new life as a father with one as well)
Lenell's
Yup. That's me, staring longingly at a bathtub chock-filled with hooch. Let me explain....
You see, just before the 4th of July weekend, I went to NYC for the wedding of one of my best friends in the whole wide world. At the pre-wedding dinner, Christine and I mentioned we had bought the bride and groom a bottle of Lucid, the new legal absinthe being sold in the city, to Kat, one of those electric human beings you run into every now and then who seems to know everybody and everything. She told us we simply had to go to this one liquor store in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn. The way she described this little place, I felt my life would be lesser if I didn't make the trip.
And wouldn't you know it, it probably would have.
First, we couldn't find a cab driver who even knew how to get us to Red Hook. You should know we were already in Brooklyn, staying at the Marriott near the Brooklyn Bridge. I had to get us there, reading the map for the cabbie. What should have been a ten minute ride from the hotel ended up being closer to 30 minutes. Beginning to sound like the quest for the Holy Grail?
In a way, yes. Welcome to Lenell's, the coolest liquor store on the planet.
You want bourbon? They've got the largest selection in NY. Rye? In addition to their own (which, apparently, kicks all kinds of ass), they've got a hefty amount. The gin is stored in a bath tub, seen in the picture above. There are tastings every day, Chartreuse VEP when I went.
I was duly stunned. My gast was flabbered.
I don't have the space to go into everything they do, or everything they have. Go to the website, browse around, peruse the gallery and their selections. Plonk yourself on their mailing list. And for the love of King Arthur and his Knights, embark on the quest the next time you're in NY.
The Ines Cocktail
First, a big huzzah!!! to Paul for hosting a deliriously fun Mixology Monday. I haven't had time to browse through all the blog love, but somewhere in between this post and compiling my recipes into book format, I plan to.
As I mentioned in my previous post, I've got a backlog of drinks I'd like to write about, starting with one of the weirder cocktails I know. This one, like so many others, was introduced to me via Ben Dougherty at Seattle's iconic Zig Zag. It graced the menu at Union for a hot second, until the seasons changed and found itself elbowed aside.
The history behind The Ines Cocktail is slim. All I know is that it won a 1982 bartender challenge in Portugal, whipped up by Alain Nevers of France. Ben found it in an out-of-print cocktail book, then made one for me.
1 3/4 oz gin
1/2 oz sweet vermouth
1/2 oz dry vermouth
1/4 oz amaretto
Stir, strain into chilled cocktail glass
Add one green olive as garnish
After Ben made it, he watched me taste it, furrowed his brow and said something like "it's pretty interesting, isn't it? It's good..."
Interesting is a good word for it. It's an odd little bugger. The combination of Amaretto and gin and an olive seems to throw people off, yet it works, darn it. Something about the sweet-almond flavor of the Amaretto and the saltiness of the olive creates an ethereal flavor I've never tasted in a cocktail.
Just about every bar has the ingredients (Christine even had me instruct a bartender at a casino how to make one). Rather than buying Amaretto for this one drink, I'd recommend you jot the recipe down and teach your local bartender how to make it. It's worth the effort.
Drinks like The Ines are hopefully what this site can be about....saving really good cocktails from the scrap heap.