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The Buy-Back: Getting comfortable in NYC

Thursday, February 7, 2008

“Next round’s on me.”

That’s when you know you’ve got the bartender in your pocket. It’s New York City and you know your bars. You will juice your local dive for whatever amenities you can find: free jukebox, cheap pool table, even free food. You will not pay more than five dollars per pint.

Five bucks a pint seems outrageous outside this city, but in New York it’s basement price for good beer. This is one of the many virtues of living in NYC; you will never feel that anything is overpriced anywhere else. Rents in Manhattan and Brooklyn are high, driving drink prices higher. But obviously no one is going to stop drinking. NYC is a drunk city, permanently. (If it weren’t for a Bloody Mary over brunch, New York would collectively die every weekend.) Competition between drinking houses is intense; bar owners must, as a matter of survival, provide additional enticements to woo customers away from the bar next door.

Bars in other cities offer the standard accoutrements outlined above. In New York we have a concept that is maybe not unique to the city, but no other city has made it an institution: the buy-back.

The buy-back is when your bartender buys you a drink. Your bartender does this because he likes you, and he may like you for several reasons. Examples follow.

(Continued)

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A Winding, Mostly Pointless Story About Booze

Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Some time ago, between the time when Jurassic Park left theatres and Dummy hit the airwaves, we acquired a case of Bud Light through the aide of some false identification and some liquor store clerks who could be described as “less than vigilant.” Sitting on a tree stump by the froggie pond knocking back twenty four Bud Lights (the 30-pack and the wide-mouthed cans had yet to be invented) seemed to be the right thing to do on a summer’s eve as we looked back at high school and forward to college. For a night, we would be kings…

Our driver and booze procurer Jim drops us off at the entrance to the woods and makes us solemnly promise not to start drinking until he has found an inconspicuous parking space and has made his way back into the forest. Naturally, as soon as we’ve disappeared into the woods, the first of the mellow gold is cracked open. We’ve scarcely reached the trusty drinking spot and sat down before we hear rustling in the woods.

“Is that Jim? It can’t be Jim already,” wonders Ryan allowed.

“It’s probably an animal,” I posit.

“Animals don’t carry flashlights,” replies Tim.

Shit. Very calmly, very slowly, we set down our hoard and walk in the opposite direction of the light, back towards the other, more public side street that abuts the wood. Just seconds after exiting, a cruiser pulls up behind us and starts coasting slowly. “Just relax,” said Ryan. His words are quickly interrupted by WOOP WOOP.

That’s the sound of the police.

The flashlight-wielder emerges from the woods and catches up with his cruising buddy. Along with his torch, the Standard Issue Street Soldier has brought with him our beer. After several denials by the party of the first part, Office Crothers makes several threats ranging from arrest to calling our parents, gives a passionate and lengthy speech about the dangers – and illegality – of underage drinking, and finally decides that we have learned our lesson and lets us off with a warning.

Naturally, while all this is happening, Jim is in the woods wondering where the hell we all were. He comes to the conclusion that we’ve fucked him over, so he drives home in a sour mood (and apparently watches cartoons for the rest of the night), leaving us without a ride home. Ryan decides to have a little fun with him.

“Jim,” he says into the phone the next morning, while we sit in his living room giggling like schoolgirls. “This is Ryan. Yeah. I bet you’re wondering what happened last night. Yeah, well… no, we didn’t dick you over… no, listen… oh FOR FUCK’S SAKE THE COPS CAUGHT US. <silence> Yeah. Uh, we have to go to court, probably community service. <silence> Yeah, I guess you did sidestep that one. Heh. Funny thing… about that. Uh, the cop asked us who bought the beer, Jim, and I had to say it was you. <silence> JIM, HE MADE ME SWEAR TO GOD. I HAD TO TELL THE TRUTH! Yeah, well, anyway, the cop said they were going to stop by your house today, and you’ll have to go to court, too. The cop mentioned something about taking away your car or suspending your license or something.”

At this point we are rolling on the floor like we are comic geniuses. The reason for this is because Jim’s summer job is delivering pizzas, and believe it or not, without the income from this bustling, high-profit industry, he has no way to pay for Syracuse. So telling Jim he couldn’t drive was like telling him that college was right out.

After about two minutes of Jim cursing him out with every possible swearword and swearword derivative, Ryan gets sick of it and interrupts him.

“Jim…. Jim…. JIM!” He pushes the speakerphone button, and we all gather around. “Just kidding!”

We all laugh loudly and obnoxiously as Jim realizes he’s been had. He swears a few more times and is clearly planning on launching another tirade when Ryan interrupts him again. “Basketball at Magnolia. 1 o’clock,” he says and hangs up.

Jim didn’t show up for basketball and threatened to boycott our company indefinitely. That is until we offered to pay for his share of beer the next night. So yeah, we bought his integrity for about five dollars.

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Lavender Bitters

Sunday, February 3, 2008

We revisited the lavender bitters last night. This is a concoction that has sat patiently awaiting use since we posted about it on Mixology Monday in November 2006. I don’t think it’s aged too badly. It remains floral, although not as bright an aroma as 16 months ago, but it is still bitter and tasty.

LavenderWe mixed the Periwinkle, a fairly simple gin base that sets up the lavender nicely.

Periwinkle
In a cocktail shaker over cracked ice, pour
◇ 1½ oz gin,
◇ ½ oz Grand Marnier, and add
◇ 1 strong dash (~1 tsp) lavender bitters.
Shake to chill, strain into a cocktail glass.
Garnish with a lemon twist.

Here’s the recipe for our lavender bitters. It does not include a bittering agent, like pau d’arco or quassia. Instead it derives it bitter flavor from the lavender itself, and cloves, ginger, and orange peel. It takes six weeks to steep.

Lavender Bitters
◇ 6 oz vodka (100-proof)
◇ 1½ cup organic dried lavender blossoms
◇ 1 coin-sized slice ginger
◇ 1½ tsp dried orange peel
◇ 4 cloves
Let steep in a cool dark place for six weeks.
Strain, and add 1 teaspoon of Lyle’s Golden Syrup.

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circling the abyss like a shark

Monday, January 21, 2008

Deschutes Abyss and pintOnce a year the Deschutes Brewery in Bend Oregon produces an imperial stout, a portion of which is aged in new oak, in (used) bourbon, and in (used) pinot noir barrels. It is a dark dark liquid, thick (leaves legs on the side of a glass), high alcohol (10-11%), and designed to improve with age. It is a stellar example of so-called “extreme brewing”. They call it The Abyss.

Last year’s release (brewed in 2006) garnered a number of festival awards. Through the efforts of NABC member Misuba, we were able to taste last year’s release both fresh from bottling and after 10 months or so of bottle conditioning. When young, dark sugar, molasses, even liquorice flavors were fairly overwhelming. After the better part of a year, the molasses tempered and wood flavors began to step forward. There are few precedents for this style of beer and little practice as to what to expect, but it seems that it could have still improved with more age.

This release was scheduled to appear on shelves in Portland last Monday. There was some kind of delay between the brewery and the distributor. John’s Marketplace seems to have received it Wednesday; Belmont Station was certain they’d have it Friday. Each store probably received 40-50 cases.

Friday morning the beer blog on The Oregonian website declared the Abyss to be sold out in Portland, posting even before the Belmont Station shop opened at noon. By the time the NABC purchasing party arrived at Belmont Station their entire allotment was sold. We cursed the fact of our day jobs, indeed, as Mr.Wilde said, work is the curse of the drinking classes.

Out at a bar late Saturday night, a friend mentioned having seen a stack of cases at a nearby grocery store. It was too late to shop at the store and too early to attempt burglary. And then Sunday I rambled across Portland’s west side looking at buildings, which left little time to even investigate the rumor until evening. But the rumor proved true: there was almost a case and a half left when I telephoned around 8pm.

Seamus and I arrived at the grocery store and talked to a woman who stocks the wine and beer section. “A lot of people are gonna be upset you got it,” she growled. When we checked out, the clerk asked “so is this the last of it?” (she at least seemed amicable) and then carded us. If we had been buying the equivalent cost in cases of PBR (say, 13), I could have understood the age check.

We cleared sixteen bottles. They are currently in the secure room, and this weekend an armored car will transport them to the underground wine bunker.

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Brooklyn Brewery, grow a pair

Sunday, January 13, 2008

One of the best things about living in New York City is that every last deli, grocery store, and bodega in the city will, in addition to the usual assortment of watery domestic piss that goes under the name of “beer” in less enlightened parts of the country, have several varieties of beer from the Brooklyn Brewery, out of some sense of hometown pride, I suppose. This is indisputably a good thing, as it provides one with the comforting assurance that no matter the hour, no matter what god-awful place your drunken revelry may take you, when sobriety draws dangerously near, you will be able to beat it back screaming into the darkness with something that comes within spitting distance of compliance with the Reinheitsbegot. It’s hard to argue that any of the varieties of Brooklyn beer are bad beers. The problem is that, well…they’re mostly boring.

(Continued)

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the open house at House Spirits

Saturday, December 15, 2007

House Spirits is a distillery in the inner SE industrial district of Portland that produces a vodka, a gin, and whatever else captures the fancy of the distillers. They share space and equipment with Ransom Sprits, producer of grappa and port, and Sub Rosa Spirits, producer of infused vodka.

Our tasting party began with brunch, then migrated to the distillery. Afterwards stragglers continued for chocolate. Yeah, it’s been a pretty good afternoon.

(Continued)

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Forget about that other writing contest

Friday, December 14, 2007

This is the one that is going to put you on the map. The one that will bring out the real Great American Novel. The one that will separate those of us what can hold our liquor and type in the footsteps of our patron saint, the late Hunter S. Thompson – with a red laptop under one arm and a fifth of Wild Turkey under the other.

This, folks, is AlcoWriMo. Only longer.

The idea is from my buddy Ken, who today said I should write the next Great American Novel in my free time, as he put it, “I’d love to see some thousand-page monster entitled BABOONS RIDING MY DICK FOREVER in bookstores.”

So. Get out your old fashioned glasses, an ice bucket and a bottle of bourbon, all arranged counterclockwise from your keyboard. Put four ice cubes in the glass, pour on just enough bourbon to make them float, take a sip & start writing.

It’s about time we brought back the sordid, alcohol-soaked underbelly of writing. How could Ernest Hemingway, Stephen King, Truman Capote, Edgar Poe, Stephen Crane, Theodore Roethke, Hermen Melville, Delmore Schwartz, Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulker, Jack London, O. Henry, Sinclair Lewis, George Sterling, Maxwell Bodenheim, Sherwood Anderson, Hart Crane, Dylan Thomas, Joaquin Miller, Eugene O’Neill, Malcolm Lowry, Jack Kerouac & our patron saint, Hunter S. Thompson, be wrong?

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Repeal Day

Sunday, December 9, 2007

Celebrated Repeal Day at Teardrop Lounge with Xen, Mara, Curtis, and Sarah. Some time we’ll post a thorough review in these pages, but for now, let me quickly mention what a wonderful time we had and that Teardrop remains my favorite place for cocktails in Portland.

The Teardrop put up a wonderful list of special drinks that included a few of my favorites: the Jasmine, the Pegu Club, the Ward 8. And their Aviations are fairly close to perfect.

NABC cardholders, make sure I take you here when you’re in town.
Also, their monthly newsletter, which enumerates the daily drink special, is an inspiration.

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Chicago Ted’s Patented Egg Nog Recipe

Thursday, December 6, 2007

Ingredients:

  • 4 egg yolks
  • 1/3rd c sugar
  • 2 c whole milk
  • 1 c heavy cream
  • 4 oz. bourbon
  • 1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

Directions:

Pour bourbon over 4 ice cubes in an old fashioned glass. Throw everything else away. Repeat.

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Duchy Originals Organic English Ale

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Duchy Originals Organic English Ale

Wychwood Brewery Company, Ltd.

5% ABV, 20.9UK fl oz. (596.67 ml), $3.99/bottle

Bodine Value: 7.47

Total consumption time: approx. 1 hour

You discover some interesting things wandering the aisles of Russian-owned, Korean-managed, various-South-American-staffed markets in Brooklyn. Golden Farm, on Church Ave. at East 4th St. happens to have far more interesting imported beers than six-packs of the standard brews you’d expect to find. If you’re in the market for a somewhat obscure eastern european beer, try one of these places before lighting out across town to a distributor.

In this particular instance I stumbled across a shelf near the bread aisle containing most of the Samuel Smith product line and something I’d never seen before: Duchy Originals Organic English Ale. Being an imbiber who is always interested in unexpected bodega finds, I immediately grabbed a bottle.

The folks over at Beer Advocate have submitted 92 reviews for this particular ESB, so I shall quickly sum up my thoughts. When decanted carefully into a pint glass (beware of overage… it comes out to about a pint plus a healthy sip) you’re presented with minimal head and a pleasing coppery-brown hue. The nose is malty, with a trace of roastedness that reads slightly chocolatey. It’s tasty, but stays fairly close to the standard ideal ESB and thus isn’t terribly remarkable beyond noting that it’s pleasant. The flavor is mild, and I was glad the bodega hadn’t chilled the bottle as doing so would probably have rendered it nearly flavorless.

The label copy reads:

“Made to a traditional and exclusive recipe using Barley from selected organic farms including the Home Farm at Highgrove” and “profits donated to the Prince of Wales’s Charitable Foundation”.

It’s clear they’re going for the crunchy hippie angle here, royal patronage notwithstanding.
Duchy Originals is Prince Charles’ organic food label which launched in 1992 and the Prince’s website claims that one million British pounds are steered into various charities due to Duchy Originals profits every year. It’s possible that the bottle I purchased was over a year old as the Prince apparently changed the name of his charity to The Prince’s Charities Foundation in 2006. Age didn’t seem to have a negative effect on the beer.

The verdict? Worth trying, but don’t expect much in the way of a new experience here.

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