dietsch

At 41, I'm not much behind Chris in the old-man dept., so I'll be avidly following this thread.

As far as I know, neither the Washington State Bartenders' Guild nor the Oregon Bartenders' Guild is associated with the USBG. I believe they are both independent guilds. Ouch! I assumed they were state chapters of the national guild. Shows how little I really know about these things.

Chris, have you contacted anyone involved with the Washington (State) or Oregon chapters to see what advantages they see in it? There are some fairly Internet-prominent bartenders and enthusiasts among their memberships: Keith Waldbauer, Jamie Boudreau, Paul Clarke, Robert Hess, the brothers Munat, Jeff Morgenthaler, Blair Reynolds. It wouldn't hurt to drop 'em a line with a link to this thread and ask them to add their thoughts. At least three of them are eG Society members, right?

Funny. The Remember the Maine is a cocktail I keep rediscovering. I'll mix it, wonder why I don't make it all the freakin' time, and then forget it while pursuing some other Yeti. I think I need to etch it into my walls. Edited for grammar.

This is something I want to spend more time doing the next time I judge (which will be two weeks from now, since I'll be in New York on 11/3 attending BarSmarts Live).

Here's my entry, the Micky Ficky Flip--rum, Kahlua's new Coffee Cream product, cinnamon, bitters, cocoa, and a whole damn egg. If I flip for you, will you flip for me? Yippee-ki-yay, micky ficky. EDIT: Ugh, I broke my sig.

Thank you very much, Dave, that's just what I needed to know!

Thank you, Andy. That makes sense, and it makes the bottle look more historically accurate, so it's good to know. I still sometimes find bottles with those, and I can't always tell whether they're just really old or whether the bottler is just going retro.

I don't know how many of you watch Mad Men, but I do. And if you do too, you know that Old Overholt featured in a scene between Don Draper and a guy who's probably Conrad Hilton. The year in which this scene is set is 1963. If you haven't seen it, let me recap. Don's at a country club, where his boss is hosting a party. Don wants another drink and finds a bar inside with a white-jacketed man at the bar, back to Don. Don asks for an old-fashioned. White-jacket says, "I'm on the same mission, but there's no bourbon around." Don realizes this is another guest, not a bartender, and goes behind the bar himself to see what he can find. He picks up a bottle, shows the label to the other guy, and says, "Is rye all right?" It's a bottle of Old Overholt. Now, if you've read Robert Simonson's Sixties Accuracy in Every Sip piece in the Times, you won't be surprised by the Overholt. But you'd also know that when they needed a case of gin, they went with Tanqueray over Beefeater because the Tanq label hasn't changed much since the Sixties, whereas the Beefeater label has. The Overholt label hasn't changed much, and I just rewatched that scene for the fifth or sixth time, and the label on the show matches the current label. The only thing different I see on the bottle is it seems there's a strip across the cap. I don't know what you call it; it's the strip of paper that's glued to one side of the neck, goes up over the cap, and is glued to the other side. I suspect the prop master chose Overholt for the same reason she chose Tanq, because the label's stayed the same for so long. But that's not what I'm here for. What I'm really wondering is, what Overholt would people have been pouring in 1963? The bonded or the 80 proof? Has anyone sussed out when the 80 supplanted the 100? I may have overlooked that answer, if you've already discussed it. I searched through every page of this thread and I didn't see it. I see the consensus that Overholt would probably be better as a bonded whiskey, and I noticed that Overholt used to be bonded as recently as 1950, but I didn't see anything about the switchover.

Interesting, thanks. Might be worth checking it out again soon.

Steve Soper reports that Loie Fuller is under new ownership: Dining Out in Providence: Loie Fuller My wife and I dined there in February and enjoyed the entire experience, but I know that we were apparently lucky in that regard. This is the first time I've seen anyone mention this. Anyone have more info?

Thank you. I appreciate that you took the time for a brief primer, and I'll be sure to read the links you provided.

I can't remember whether anyone's addressed this on the forums, so I apologize if I'm repeating a question. My science is pretty rusty, so the thermal properties of various materials is confusing. Is a frozen glass better for stirring than a frozen shaker tin would be? I stirred up a martini in a frozen tin last night and got a lovely layer of frost on the outside and a nice viscosity in the gin.

I bought a bottle at Astor yesterday (Wednesday) evening, but there appeared to be only one other bottle on the shelf. So if you can get to Astor today, you might still be in luck.

I can't imagine using simple syrup in either a sidecar or margarita in the first place! Isn't that the place of the triple sec/Cointreau/curacao/Grand Marnier?