Make My Bar

Bols' Barman in Amsterdam

Clement Brown IV,  recently married to the lovely Abby, and I were at a party celebrating the wedding of his/hers/theirs. Yes! he is the same CB noted in the March 2012 post titled "Parental Discretion Advised! Bars Bars Bars" blog. I remarked to Clement of the hesitancy I observe of many young men have regarding the making of cocktails.


As a default they resort to "sillies" [fn1]. Clement of course is now the master of his own version of the Negroni cocktail. I was quite impressed that he had the experimental yearning. A true mixologist, an adventurer and explorer - learning the art of cocktail making.


We spoke of what’s in the hesitancy of people to embark upon making a cocktail.
Repeating that.  Spoke with a young lady today – she asked me what have I been up to. I told her I had mastered the art of flaming an orange peel. I asked “do you make cocktails?”  She replied she does not know how.  

Frequently I hear, “I don’t make a cocktail as I don’t have the ingredients. I don’t have the fancy equipment and special liquor and the way too many needed bar glasses”.

"So I just don’t entertain!"

"Too bad, I say!"

So here’s your start. With an investment of less than $200 or 180€, you could start simply on the stuff and begin to acquire them incrementally, over time.
It’s as simple as –

         BAR TOOLS $60. Or 55€

• Martini shaker or mixing glass,
• Stainless steel stirrer,
• Ice cube bowl + tong.

         I particularly favor Rösle Brand kitchen and bar tools - the version made in Germany.

         BAR SUPPLIES $15 or  13€

• Bitters,
• Sugar cubes,
• Lemons & limes, [fn. 2]
• Cherries,
• Olives.

         BAR WARE $30 or 27€

• 6 martini glasses, and
• 6 highball glasses.        

         LIQUOR  CABINET  $80 or 70€

• Vodka – Smirnoff No. 20,
• Gin – Beefeaters,
• Whiskey – a good brand of Irish or Scotch,
• Bourbon – Four Roses.

Reference tools to use are “Old Mr. Boston Bartender Guide:  (USA) and Esquire.com. The free app “Mixology” is a good tool for drink menus and provides info on and an inventory of your liquor cabinet, tips and tricks, and more. You can do some research on Google and you will find your own preference in your native language.

Master a few drinks with a good friend. Once you are satisfied, make up a list of your 5 or so selected cocktails for the evening. Thus, when your party shows up, you will have a guide to steer them. You will be prepared and confident. And if they ask for a wine or beer, as the Barman at Glasgow’s Bon Accord Pub said, “It’s a whiskey bar!”... You can say, “It’s a cocktail party – Cocktails!” You have my permission to quote that Barman from Bon Accord. Use the same line. Your guests will look at you in awe.

                               Salut!

Mango Martini

Mango Black Tea infused gin

Agave syrup & dash of lemon juice

Adjust to taste. Rub the rim with mango or peach.

Serve with a slice of mango or peach.

I will leave it to you, as I will be doing this evening, to experiment  with your purchase of Mango Black Tea and mixing it with gin to arrive at the correct taste.

Music – a little Cuban will do the trick.

Appetizer - ceviche

[1] “Silly’s defined for me as a term Barman Mark uses in Belfast’s Berts Jazz Bar to describe cocktails the like of “gin and tonic”, or ”rum and coke”. 

[2] No premixed or artificial ingredients. For example, you can google Grenadine Syrup and there is a simple recipe for fresh, real Grenadine. Same for simple syrup and other syrups.

Lucky Peach (c)

Introduction.

Shopping at the snobbish, Whole Foods like, NGO, organic foods, "Sprouts" here in Phoenix, Arizona, I came across the magazine Lucky Peach.  Took me a minute, and then I recalled Zachary mentioning it to me one night at the Blue Talon Bistro. It's a foodie magazine with the likes of David Chang (Momofuko) on "staff". It's not your normal food magazine - few recipes, but ... interviews ... articles ... research ... comics. Who knew?

Main article.

Time passes. Kids in bed. Best girl by my side. I read - well more appropriately, I peruse.

Food is an obsession. Imagine how it started. Cave man wanders by a Rosemary Officialis bush, leg brushing the rosemary bush. Smells the provocative aroma. Wonders ... "what if I added that to my cocktail tonight?". OK, I get ahead of myself. In reality, he wonders what it would be like added to the barbecued meat he has smoldering over his open hearth fire. That is in reality how it no doubt started.

Stop!

Think about that for a minute! How did early man start to initiate the use of so many herbs, cooking styles, plants? How many died trying out the hemlock fruit before someone wrote on a tablet or papyrus ..." Don't use the hemlock in your meal preparation".

Contemporarily, maybe it's like cocktails (fn 1). There is a resurgence in cocktails! Well, in some places. There is a resurgence in good foods, organics, home grown, whole wheat, fresh baked goods, "fish line caught" and not from another continent's waters. And the drinking of rye whiskey again. So its not surprising that good guys are now contributing to a magazine. Back to my story.  So I am reading and find the article "That Oven Feeling". Big as life I can see my Θεια (Greek word for aunt) Aspasia's outdoor brick oven. Twelve feet tall. Wood burning. 



facsimile 



On my second visit to my father's small village of Apidia in the Peloponnese of Greece, my senses were overwhelmed with food, drink and dessert. 

With favorite Cousin Deppy translating to all for me and for my girl, we eventually got around to dinner. Stefado, or meat stewed in tomatoes and green beans, is the one thing that comes to mind. But I am certain it was proceeded by a tomato salad with goat cheese feta and "Kalamata" olives  [This is Kalamata Land, the little town of Kalamata lies 113 km away, οr scenically 134 km]  And for sure, there is a hearty bread on the table beside other cheeses. What was so different to note was that my aunt came in from the outdoors with the Stefado dish, but the white porcelain stove was staring at me from across the table. I gathered my wits and asked about this conundrum. Thru cousin Despoina, my aunt began to apologize for her very humble brick oven. CAN YOU IMAGINE! She was apologizing for cooking in a wood burning, brick oven. Let me say that again..."θεια was apologizing for cooking in a wood burning oven"! 

I could not contain myself. As quick as can be, Thea took me out to the terrace, outside the house and there it was. It was huge.  A dying red fire looking out from the one eye of the oven face.   I recall, as plain as yesterday, telling her that in America it is everyone's dream to build and have a wood burning oven on their backyard patio - which she'd been apologizing for - that every person coveted. 

The meal went on forever. Greek dinner is part drinking, socializing, eating, socializing, more eating, arguing, followed by laughter and more socializing. Did I mention drinking?

But my last recollection of that evening, before climbing up the stairs to the bedroom in my Aunt Aspasia and Uncle George's home, was the dessert. The dessert was emerald green,  tiny vegetables stuffed with almond and dished into a bowl with a honey lemon sauce surrounding it. It was heavenly and unlike anything I had ever had. Of course, I asked what was this delicious vegetable dessert. I heard the word "melitzanaki", or melizane. Again, I chastised myself for not studying more in Greek school. The word I heard I knew to be eggplant. Surely that cannot be!

Aunt went on to describe, secondhand via Deppy - whom I trust translated correctly, but who knows - that she takes baby eggplants, boiled and then soaked for eons in honey and lemon - thus absorbing the sauce into the plant. If you get lucky, get some. 
It's not the obsession for food that drives us for the sake of the food. It's the remembrance of the food experience. Remembrance of the chef coming out to the table, or the conversation over the meal, or sometimes even the server - nevertheless all combined with the meal itself. And so it is that drives us foodies to seek what we had once before experienced. In this particular case, it was dinner my aunt served that evening and seeing my father's brother, Uncle George.

So Lucky me. 
     > To have found the magazine, "Lucky Peach".
     > And, to have my memory of Thea's dinner in my family's village in our homeland made         by Thea Aspasia in her wood burning oven. 

So take the time to sit back and enjoy a Pernod or Ricard, perhaps some Ouzo if you are fortunate to have a bottle. Some red vin du pays along with a dish of beef stew. Some fresh baked bread to be followed at the end with a simple but elegant dessert. I'd listen to a little Xaris Alexiou, Edith Piaf, or perhaps Amy Winehouse if not something more vintage. 


                           Thea Aspasia is likely in her 90's and still lives in the village of Apidia. 
                              But unlikely baking still in that wood burning oven. But who knows?


The Village of Apidia
Lemon and Olive Trees
photo courtesy of George Bouloucheris 





Foot note 
1. Unless you are in Glasgow's Bon Accord Pub, Charing Cross, ordering a cocktail and the bartender looks you in eye and says "It's a whiskey bar". He need not say more.

Seated At the Bar, Perched On a Stool.

22nd. Lounge. Frankfurt

Sitting up at the Zinc Bar can sometimes be a little intimidating, as you look over at the mirror backed, glass lined shelves with a gazzilion bottles of liquor. My favorite date, perched, leg crossed and dress hiked up - will after some time ponder "well what shall I order?" And of course the bartender  is usually standing there, somewhat intimidating, hands on hips, hair piled high ... leans forward and says "whatll ya have?". I picture the proficient writer Rosie Schaap or, its Stephanie.

Its perplexing!

And have I told you I don't like to hear ... "I'd like a red wine."  

le bar carte

From time to time at cocktail parties I experience a similar situation and reaction to my posed question of "whatll ya have?". So to address that, and with hopes of sharing new experiences, I have resorted to a home "cocktail card" menu. Otherwise referred to as the "Le Bar Carte".The card lists a number of cocktails and liquors on hand. This seems to put people at ease and offers a hint of possibility of experimenting and an expanse of the imagination. And for my more whiskey drinkers, a degree of latitude with offerings unique like Dimple Scotch, or. "Oh you have Aquavit? I have always wanted to try that. Let me have one."

So  may I offer my Top Ten cocktails which you can use as a trigger to create your own list. And of course to make up  a story to go along with it. Something like ... "when I was in Havanna, I really enjoyed ...."

Constantine's Cocktail List

•  Jack Rose

    apple jack (brandy), grenadine, lime, slice of apple

•  French 75

    brandy or gin, sparkling wine

•  Campari bitter topped with club soda
•  Floradora  - The Trellis - Williamsburg

   gin, lime juice, raspberry liquer, splash of ginger ale

• Gimlet

    lime, gin, simple syrup or fine sugar

• Belini - The Prime Rib - Washington

    champagne and peach

• Brandy Alexander

    brandy, crème d cacao, half and half

• Kir Royale

    champagne or white wine (non-Kir) blackberry liqueur

• Daiquiri El Floridita - Havanna

   lime, rum, simple syrup or fine sugar

• Le Serendipity by Colin Field  - Bar Hemingway, Paris' Ritz

    Calvados, sugar, apple juice and Champagne

So get out that Linea Aquavit, some smoked salmon with dill and a little France Bleu music from Strasbourg.

And of course, have a good toast to make spontaneously.

a tout a l'heure 



I am going to celebrate life - GRANDLY!

St-Germaine chapeau, shot at The Trellis Bar

Marcus Aurelius, more known for his Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, which as you will recall is a treatise on this thoughts. Well, my point here is “MA” is not as well known for his treatise, The Art of Celebrating.

The French do it so well! Celebrating is an art as well as a philosophy. People are not innately drawn to celebrating; it is learned. From childhood – birthdays. Love – a ring and engagement party. Marriage – the annual anniversary celebration. Wars – a parade. Deaths – a celebration of one’s life without the main character, most dear, not in attendance!

Yes, it’s work. And it takes time and coordination. You don’t do a Victory Parade, à la Gulf War 1 on Constitution Avenue, three  Stealth F117 Nighthawks flying so low overhead, at the end ….. Yeah! If it’s worth celebrating, it’s worth doing up in style. Grand style. En français – <<De grand style>>.

So reach for those sparklers. Get the firecrackers. Find the party hat. Pick up the phone and reserve that special place. Throw a “gig” and celebrate the moment ---- anything ---- you!

Be a cause for celebration.

What’s up next?

You lucky girls and boys!

Valentine’s Day! And on a Saturday, the 14^th of February.

Bisou! Bisou!

St-Germaine Cocktail Rouge

2 parts Sparkling Wine

1 part St-Germaine – you know that golden elderflower liqueur

1 part club soda

Splash of Cranberry or POM juice

 

Song – Will You Still Love Me Tonight. Amy Winehouse.            Still In Love.
Cuculand – Cucu Diamantes. 

Appetizer – cold grilled Carolina Shrimp with lime sauce.

Picture – chapeau (hat) courtesy of St-Germaine Liqueur Maison 6ÈME  ARR, Coral Gables, Florida.

Nice touch guys!