Booze Day in the New York Times

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In Wednesday’s Dining Section, the New York Times turns the features over to booze, and there’s a lot of interesting stuff to explore.

First up is “White Russians Arise, This Time at a Bowling Alley,” a feature on what The Big Lebowski has done for White Russians, replete with quotes from David Wondrich, Ted Haigh and Martin Doudoroff.

Next up, Eric Asimov continues his long, in-depth series of tastings and explorations of different spirits with a walk through 21 single-malt scotch whiskies.

A breakdown of 8 schools of bartending philosophies follows, ranging from “Pre-Repeal Revivalists” to “Molecular Mixology”; the story mentions many of my favorite bars and bartenders, including Julie Reiner at Clover Club, Jim Meehan at PDT, Daniel Hyatt at Alembic, Murray Stenson at Zig Zag, Kevin Ludwig at Clyde Common, Daniel Shoemaker at Teardrop Lounge, John Gertsen at Drink, Toby Maloney at The Violet Hour, and Martin Cate at Forbidden Island. Plus, the story mentions those media darlings Boudreau and Morgenthaler, and to top it all, there’s even a photo with the caption: “NEO-CLASSICIST Murray Stenson making magic at Zig Zag Cafe in Seattle.” Get it while it’s hot.

The features are rounded out with Jonathan Miles’ story, “A Brotherhood Formed with Cocktails and Ice,” a piece about, for lack of a better term, cocktail geeks, that quotes sources including Don Lee, Sam Kinsey and, um, me. When the paper of record calls you a geek, you’re pretty much branded for life; fortunately, I embraced my geekishness years back — makes sense, considering all that time I spent devoting myself to geekish pursuits while not dating during high school — so it pains me not that Miles quotes me in the story, and it ensures that anyone Googling for “cocktail + geek” will likely come across my name fairly quickly.

Though I have to admit there are two things that dismay me about the piece: first, it sounds like Dale DeGroff has just about had it with those of my ilk (though really, there are people who are WAAAAY worse about this stuff than me, so I’m not taking it too personally); and second, I’m left wondering, “Who do you have to !*%# to get a mention of the blog’s name in the NYTimes, never mind a freakin’ link????” Ah well, maybe Asimov will commemorate the second (or so) anniversary of me first linking to The Pour (or maybe the second link I’ve given it in this post) by reciprocating with a link in his blogroll.

Though as a geek, I’m accustomed to disappointment, so I’ll just suffer in silence. Just me and my Last Word, which apparently my name will also forever be linked with via Google; I wonder what neo-classicist bartender revived that drink, anyway….

8 Responses to Booze Day in the New York Times

  2. Could be worse- you could be a “faux tropicalist”. Now _FAKE_ is part of my name! Heheh. Keep me posted if you’re heading down south again, big man.

  3. Hey geek, thanks for the mention – you can call me ‘darling’ anytime. I thought you came off quite well, although I agree that we could have at least learned the name of your blog in the article.

    As for DeGroff, I think he’s got a valid point there, but it does sound a little grouchy out of context.

  4. I agree, Dale has a point. But the pendulum will eventually swing back and the cocktail world will find a happy, less-wonky medium. And you’re right, Martin, the “Faux” is uncalled for. There’s nothing fraudulent about the newly reborn tiki drinks. Though perhaps the writer meant that the cocktails in question were never exactly “tropical” to begin with.

  5. Great site.
    I found you through the NYT article. First part of the paper I read this morning. And yours was the first site I looked up, once I got my laptop going. OK, there wasn’t a link. but how hard is it to find — type in your name and the word “cocktail” into Google.
    Now I have a lot of catching up to do.

  6. A nod to Jeff re: Paul’s paraphrase of my favorite movie line of all time…Sigourney Weaver in Alien 3, I believe, “Who do I have to #$%@ to get off this planet?”

    Paul’s comment on reciprocal links is really the subtext of the “geekdom” issue. We’re all in this for many different reasons, but one thing I believe we universall share is a desire to have our voice heard. Links and traffic are the coin of the realm, and sharing the wealth among us is the best way to enlarge the audience for all of us.

  7. No Robert- it’s OK- Jeff Berry (I think) coined the term Faux Tropicals for exactly the reason you suggest- that these drinks were invented often in LA, and that no one in Rangoon certainly ever drank a “Rangoon Ruby”. It’s a decent term, but I’m not a big fan, just because of the attachement of “fake” to it. I prefer “exotic cocktails”, because that’s what they were called then, and I think it brings to mind a certain era. I tried to get the NYT to go with that, but no dice. It’s OK. They originally wanted to call it “Neo-Tropicalism”, which I poo-poo’d.

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