Mistakes were made

by incorrigiblerobot

Before I tell this story, I’d like to apologize to bartenders everywhere on behalf of my wife.

Years ago my wife, a twenty-something bar hopper at the time, was in Fell’s Point in Baltimore with some friends, out to have a good time. At the bar she orders “a Myers’s and cranberry.”

Finding a spot with her friends, she took a sip and I’m not clear on whether or not there was an actual spit take involved but suffice it to say the taste wasn’t what she was expecting.

Charging back to the bar she held the drink out to the bartender.

“What the hell is this?”

“It’s a Myers’s and cranberry.”

“Look,” she said. “I know a Myers’s and cranberry and this is not a Myers’s and cranberry. Now give me a Myers’s and cranberry!”

The bartender stared at her for a second before angrily dumping the drink out. He refilled the glass with ice, turned to the shelf and grabbed a bottle. Turning back, he held the bottle of Myers’s dark rum out to her for inspection before proceeding to make the drink. In that instant, my wife realized her mistake. She didn’t want a Myers’s and cranberry. Of course she didn’t. Who would order that? No, she wanted a Malibu and cranberry.

Uh… oops.

Now, my wife doesn’t give up easily, which is one of the things I love about her. So, even in her early twenties, down by two against a Fell’s Point bartender and just seconds on the clock, she’s not throwing in the towel. Oh, no.

But as the bartender made the drink she might have shifted uncomfortably, not sure what her play was in this situation. He finished and slammed it on the counter.

In that instant, it came to her. Her game-saving play.

Picking up the glass, she took a taste.

“Now, that’s a Myers’s and cranberry!” she said.

Then, taking care not to seem like she was rushing, she rushed back to her friends as the bartender’s eyes drilled angry holes in her back.

Was that the right thing to do? Maybe not. But sometimes a win’s a win.

Posted at 10:48am and tagged with: moltz,.

June 28th 2010

Horseradish-Infused Vodka

by incorrigiblerobot

79 notes

So, yeah, speaking of store-bought flavored vodkas…

OK, I’ll admit it. There was a time when my freezer was stocked with a variety of damned stuff.

Go on, go on. Have your laugh. I can take it.

It would be easy to blame my wife, but like some horrifying Island of Doctor Moreau-esque cross between a frat boy and a cougar, I used to do shots. I was young. Mistakes were made (oh, boy, were they). I’ve put that part of my life behind me.

Eventually I learned — in Mexico, of all places — that if the alcohol you bought was good instead of rotgut or flavored like candy, you could sip it straight.

Whaaaat?! You mean not just shoot it right past your tongue in an effort to get it into your bloodstream as fast as possible? You could have knocked me over with a feather (because even though I was now sipping the liquor I was still fairly drunk).

That bit of education mostly ended my drinking of straight vodkas. My tongue, when finally asked what it wanted in a straight liquor, said it preferred anejo tequila and single malt scotch. We had a good chat, my tongue and I. Turns out we like many of the same movies and my tongue said that sometimes it just likes to feel appreciated. We both cried a little.

The one straight vodka my tongue and I both still like on occasion, though, is horseradish-infused vodka. I was introduced to this at a Christmas party years ago. The hostess handed me a glass of the stuff, advertising it by saying her mother took a shot of it every morning to get her system going. I can see how it would do that.

Horseradish-Infused Vodka

3-inch piece of horseradish root
1 bottle of potato-based vodka

Peel the horseradish and cut it into 1/8 to 1/4-inch slices. Pour the vodka into a container, add the horseradish, cover and let sit for a week (less for a lighter infusion, more for nighttime cold relief). Then strain to remove the horseradish.

It makes terrific Bloody Marys of course, but it’s also a kick in the pants straight. Apart from zinging your tongue, horseradish really gets into your sinuses. Like anything flavored, I find a little goes a long way but if a little bit of this stuff wakes up old ladies in the morning, it should be good enough to get you going.

Posted at 4:41pm and tagged with: Moltz, recipe,.

June 23rd 2010

Bar tools

by incorrigiblerobot

68 notes

Is keeping a good set of bar tools a lost art? Maybe it’s just me but I get the sense that it’s not what it used to be.

Growing up, my parents had a special drawer full of them and an area set aside on the counter for ones that were used so often there was no point in even putting them in the drawer. They also had a backup set in the cabinet below the drawer that someone had given them for Christmas, apparently kept around for times when the first string bar tools could not perform their duties. They had more than one martini shaker and lots of tumblers and beer mugs in a cabinet specifically for drink glasses. They had two ice buckets and tongs. And a bar sink. And a drinking problem. Man, they had it all back then.

What am I talking about? They still live in that house.

It seems almost ridiculous now when there’s a whole TV channel practically devoted to how to reduce clutter. An extra set of bar tools? When you’re a serious drinker, it makes sense.

Everyone knew the serrated knife that was for cutting limes. When it got washed, it went back into the bar tool drawer. You didn’t use it to cut peppers or tomatoes. It was for limes, fool.

Yes, this was how I was raised, but as an adult I haven’t practiced the same level of commitment to the art of bar tool curation. For too long I’ve relied on a haphazard collection of utensils drafted as needed for crafting cocktails. Bar tools shouldn’t be multi-purpose. I use a steak knife to cut limes, for Christ’s sake. I’ve strayed too far from my roots.

To better equip myself as a the kind of drinker that made the middle part of the previous century great (assuming you throw out all the racism and misogyny), I’m slowly trying to accumulate a hand-picked collection of best-of-breed bar tools. No, they’re not going to match, but they’re going to help make awesome drinks.

If you look on Amazon, you’ll see that most of the stuff commercially available is either crappy or needlessly expensive. In my view, rather than get some prefab set, it’s more personal to collect tools one at a time. Plus, a lot of the great mixologists of the middle part of the previous century are now dead from cirrhosis of the liver so their tools are out there right now, looking for good homes.

To that point, I recently bought a Tap-Icer off eBay for five dollars.