Snowy is dead

Eastern Standard sure does have a great cocktail menu, as does the B side. I believe the bartendes said at E/S that they also make their own grenadine, but with orange flower water. Pretty damn tasty, I might add. Another place to check out is Green Street, in Central Square. Dylan Black now owns that, another ex B sider, and late of Chez Henri. Very solid cocktails there also. I believe he's making his own pineapple juice. Speaking of Chez Henri, hit Scott up on a quiet night, he has quite a catalog of his own that isn't on the list, as tasty as those are.

I tried my own grenadine twice, with horribly funny results. I'll give it another go, but I don't use enough either, so it would be a novelty. We don't get many kids, so no shirly temples or anything like that. I opened my current bottle of fee's in June, and I still have half of it... I had excellent grenadine at the Eastern Standard in Kenmore square. They use orange flower water. Could've drunk that straight. The bar is in Beverly, I live in Salem. Yeah, it is tough to get a good drink, especially in touristy Salem. I have hope, however. There are a couple of good restaurants, but most is tourist crap. Marblehead has the same problem, from what I understand. Everyone goes for the tourist fish n chip burger crowd, and the locals drive to Boston. Beverly is on its way, and there is some stuff popping up in Gloucester also. Edit to add that I do enjoy the B-side, although I'm usually there too late to properly enjoy the list. I shall have to remedy that. I dispense with the Bud altogether. Sean

here is the little bar, a row of banquets about 6 feet away, and that's it.

I forgot to mention that I opted for the frech 75 with brandy instead of gin. Personal preference there. The algonquin I now use old overholt, vya dry, and pineapple The white rum in the daquiri is cruzan silver the gin for the corpse, et. al. is plymouth falernum is fee bros, although I did bring back a bottle of velvet falernum from NY, but I cannot get it here, so I'm keeping it. I was toying also with the Jack Rose, but I cannot get it right. I have the regular Lairds and fee's american beauty grenadine. I find it too harsh and sour for my liking. I did have one at my friends bar in Cambridge, Green St., that was calvados (le compte), lemon, lime, and fee jr. which I found better than any I have butchered so far.

of all the drinks I've tried, the French 75 fared the best . quite popular. The algonquin (old overholt rye) and daquiri have their "core" following, selling enough to keep me happy. The aviation fell flat on its face, probably because I suck at making them. The corpse reviver #2 has done better than I thought it would. I mainly put it on because I like it so much, but the more adventurous customers are usually game, taken by the name. Keep in mind this is for a restaurant with 20 floor seats and 11 bar seats. On a good week I use 4 grey goose bottles. So selling 12 or 15 of anything in a week is outstanding. I put a swizzle on (mt gay, lime, oj, pineapple, falernum, and I tried those stirrings blood orange bitters for fun, but won't do that again), which does very well. The east india did fairly well, but I took it off for the summer and replaced it with the daquiri. That will go back on in a couple of weeks, along with maybe satan's whiskers, which I quite like. Tried the barracuda, which failed miserably. I put the singapore sling (recipe from drinkboy's site, I think) which did surprisingly well. There must be a lot of children running around conceived after a good night of "slinging" judging by the reactions I get from women who used to drink them in the 70's. Nostalgia alone sells that one. There are lots of things I'd like to try, but I exclude those that have real egg whites, as that scares the hell out of people up here. That eliminates most of the sours I would like to try and a few others too. I am also hampered by my inability to get everything I would like, like rhum agricole. Mr. Hamilton had a Ti punch made for me at Flatiron, and I think that would sell quite well here, as caipirihnas (excuse spelling) are very popular now. Just listed the old cuban on saturday, Sept 2, so will see how that will go. Overall the reception has been quite positive. It was very slow going at first, but it has picked up quite a bit. Our little restaurant has a lot of regulars, and we are on a first name basis with half of the people in there on any given night, so the customers have a good amount of trust in us, so I think that might have contributed to the success. I also think that the fact that we have a funky (for the area) wine list, all but one of our beers is an import, and have different cocktails makes it easier for people to ask questions about all the strange bottles on the back bar and ask for recommendations. That and I've certainly made a more than a few freebies for the more skittish clientele, which has paid off. The information on this website is limitless and priceless. Thanks again for all the help.

I've got some pears infusing now, but they started to oxidize right away. I left the skins on, but removed the seeds and inner part. Is this normal, or should I have cut the skins off? Will it adversley affect the vodka, or is that where my color will come from? Sean

the distributor that carries it in MA says that Marie Brizzard is not all that easy to work with. They often ship less than was ordered, or don't ship at all, with no explanation or reason. The Apry is now listed as discontinued from their end and no other information is availiable, at least from this company.

themes have always worked well for me. chinese food and mai tais, for a simple example. It's like pairing the wine and food. Makie a connection between the hors d'ouevres and cocktails. of course all of my friends are restaurant people, so maybe I have an adavantage.

I thought I saw (maybe on this site) a chart with booze listed from lightest to heaviest.

the answer is no, you cannot get swizzle sticks in Bermuda. At least none that my drunk friends could find.

what accounts for the difference in guiness pints from bar to bar? I've always thought it was a freshness thing over here in the US, but even in Dublin guiness/stouts aren't the same. Is it the mixture of gas or do the barrels lose their "freshness" extremely quickly? Sometimes the head coats the whole glass when your done, sometimes you just get a brown puddle at the bottom. Sean

Taking some glasses home would have been on my agenda as well, but I thought I was seeing a new product in general, not just a limited Dublin area thing. Shame on me for not asking. Nice glasses though.

On a recent trip to Ireland, I saw they Guiness has a brewmasters series availiable. Different recipes of Guiness offered alongside the traditional (or most recent). The current offering was the Tucan Brew. Much creamier with less of the coffee/chocolate bitterness and a touch more sweetness. Anyone seen these in the States? Sean

I've got some friends going to bermuda soon, can you get them there?

" -- I'm thinking of prescription medications, fuel oil in the winter, grands crus and so on -- ." , the first bottle of fine wine (anything over 85 by RP or 88 WS to begin, the National Bureau of Standards will ultimately takeon this role, however) would be taxed a nominal amount, let's say a dollar. The second bottle would be taxed at twice that rate, $2, the third at $4 the fourth at $8 and so on. The cost is minimal for small consumers like you and I, but anyone buying a case for their trophy cellar would pay $2,048 for their twelfth bottle and, if they had the temerity to try to lay down two cases of Cheval Blanc, the tax on the last bottle would be $8,388,608. I think it might be hard for some to put medecine necessary for healthy life and heating oil and the people involved in the same category of "needy." I might feel I "need" a new car or a bigger house, but do I really? Needing a bottle of $200 wine is not the same as needing to not freeze to death. The RP guidelines could be tricky. Won't that tax also affect the unknown cheap bottles that score well? What safeguards would be in place to prevent the purchasing of these wines at the lower tax rate and then reselling them later at a higher price? The same thing happens with concert and world series tickets. The prices are very clearly printed, but we know what happens with scalpers. Would the taxes be upon initial purchases from the chateau, or every time a bottle is sold? Who would check? Would the bottles be tracked? What is to prevent someone from buying the grand cru with the dollar tax and then selling it for $400 privately? I can imagine that the wine would sell just as quickly, if not faster, and the end result would be a thriving black market where the prices have less regulation, not more, and chateaus selling off the extremely expensive property because they're profits have dissappeared. Maybe its a little grim of an outlook, but I'm just curious to know the details. Thanks Sean

"Suggestions to seek out "undiscovered" wines are a bit, shall we say, superfluous. Almost condescending. It's what one does with every visit to the wine shop. But we'd like to be able to afford a drop of the classics every now and then, as well." Hmm. The intent wasn't to be condescending, simply to illustrate how I deal with not being able to afford the wines I would like. My apologies if my example somehow offended you. Things do change. 200 years ago the average "poor" farmer in New England probably had 200 acres or so of land. People also didn't live on the ocean because it wasn't desireable. Average people at the beginning of the 20th century had horses, not cars. Not so today. These things today are now almost unatainable for all but millionaires. A "good sized" house plot is now about 1/5th of an acre. Horses are reserved tothe posh communities. Sot it is with the "classic" wines. Is it not reasonable to assume those with the cash will pay what they will, have what they want, and search out desireable items, and those without the necessary cash will buy what they can afford? A boycott of something with the desireability of well-known French wine has very little chance of success. The rich from other countries (or your neighbors) would most likely seize upon the opportunity to buy what the Americans (and other boycott supporters) don't, maintaining the price at close to what the market now dictates. Nothing would really change, I fear. I might as well try and boycott the sale of property in Scarsdale, Nantucket, Manhattan, and Long Island for a year to see what affect I have on them. Money rules, plain and simple. I cannot imagine a time when people will refuse to get rich because some people on the planet cannot afford their products. I don't see anyone organizing a boycott of bottled water in the US because so many people in Africa can't afford clean water to drink...

I like to think of the ridiculous prices of many wines as something of a challenge. every wine I bought for $10 dollars until it was "discovered" and now sells for $100 has had to be replaced by something else. Now my wine hobby not only consists of drinking nice wine that I can afford, but the experience of finding stuff I never would have tried had I not been forced to. I feel better about paying $100 for a case of provencal wine that I enjoy than $100 for one bottle of anything. Not that I wouldn't buy the first growths if they were $40, but they're not, so I don't. Same reason I don't live on Nantucket, drive a Jag, and have a 50 foot yacht. C'est la vie I suppose. Maybe they'll start raffling off futures to the huddled masses like they give away cars at the mall...

Arak isn't Arrack. Arak (raki) is a middle eastern liquor flavored with anise. It is similar to Ouzo. That explains that. It shares the shelf space with ouzo.

Thank you

Rum seems to have more misleading and/or intentionally deceptive labelling than any other spirit I can think of. Is this just because people don't pay attention, don't care, or is the rum industry just not as accountable as the rest regarding labels? Maybe this post simply illustrates what I need to learn about rum, or do others feel the same? Please enlighten me. Sean

That is excellent that they helped out.

Stirrings makes blood organge bitters. They aren't very potent and have no alchohol in them. I found that out the hard way when they started to get funky. The rep for the company was in the bar a few weeks back and she was telling me how wonderful and organic all the ingredients were. To me the lack of a bitters like top (it's just an open bottle neck), need for constant refrigeration for lack of alchohol, and weak flavor didn't work for me. To get the same concentration of flavor as a few drops of the other orange bitters, you need about 1/2 an once.

If half the ire directed at foie gras was directed instead at the poor state of education in this country (witness my grammar) no one would even be having this conversation. Inhumane treatment of people by people across the country far outweighs what happens to a duck on a heavily regulated farm in New York. Let opponents of foie gras tackle homlessness instead. Or something else. Cancer, poverty, global warming, whatever. There are no shortage of things that affect people with far more devastating effect than foie gras.

arrack is availiable in massachusetts still. or at least they have a bunch near me

...you buy old cocktail books, jiggers, and glasses on ebay with the same frequency that most people order coffee