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?

It was. I made a Paez to the letter: 2.5 oz Plymouth gin .5 oz NP dry vermouth 6 dashes Peychaud’s bitters pinch sea salt Stir, lemon twist. It's a bit like a dirty martini, not surprisingly; next time I'd go with even more Peychaud's, as it came out somewhat muted. The drink's not going into heavy rotation here, though, as the salty ending, like a brine-supplemented martini, is less appealing to me than a classic with orange bitters and no saline close. So, strike one on the salt, says I. ← My wife and I, on the other hand, have had the Paez a couple of times, and although it hasn't earned a place on our regular rotation, we both liked it. It's a nice change of pace.

We're old skool: about once a month, if we're not dining out on Friday, we like to get a thick rib-eye, sear it in the cast-iron, and have a good bottle of wine. But the drink that kicks off this celebration is almost always a cold, cold martini. Sometimes I'll do an old fashioned or a Manhattan instead, but normally, it's a martini before steak. I think I love preparing a martini almost as much as I love drinking one, and our favorite gin of late is Aviation. We're really getting a kick out of the botanical blend in that one, especially stirred up with a good vermouth.

That's some good stuff. Unfortunately, I couldn't afford a bottle when LeNell had them available, but I sampled some and liked it a lot.

If it's okay to do so, I'll probably cross-post my contribution here and on my own blog.

Thanks, everyone. I think we'll try it tonight and see what happens. We've been in both Pegu and Flatiron when they were crowded; hell, at Pegu, the bartender was stuck making White Russians, so we're used to crowds of amateur drinkers. Mainly, we just don't want the long wait. If we can get seated immediately, we'll be happy, especially if it's at the bar where we can talk to the bartender.

Thanks, Nathan. I'll talk to my wife and figure out what we're doing.

Okay, my wife and I are planning to meet somewhere tonight for a drink after work. We'd love to try out Death & Co., but if it's still mobbed by scenesters, we're happy to continue waiting. What's it like there now? Anyone been in the last week or so?

Man, it really seems no one can keep the Rittenhouse stocked for long right now. Was at LeNell's Saturday and found only one bottle, which I promptly bought. I'm in Astor once a week (it's right on the way home), and the Rittenhouse seems to be out of stock more often than not. Today, though, they had what appeared to be an entire case on the shelves, so if any of you NYCers need stocking up, I'd go soon. I'd love to think that rye is the next vodka, but I'm sure it's just us whiskey nerds buying it up right now.

Yeah, I dunno why it's not on the website. Folks who were at Tales of the Cocktail in New Orleans last year got an early sample of them, and so I started looking. They finally came to LeNell's in Brooklyn late last year, so I grabbed up a bottle. Looks like you can order online.

This doesn't directly answer either of your questions, but it's a nifty little passage that tells you a bit more about the history of the hotel and its proprietors, and it doesn't appear to be cited in that wiki: Here's the source for that passage. Finally, some illustrations of City Hotel and its environs: http://www.talkinbroadway.com/oldnewyork/Icons/boy20.jpg http://www.talkinbroadway.com/oldnewyork/Icons/boy20a.jpg http://www.talkinbroadway.com/oldnewyork/Icons/boy21.jpg