Notes on Drinking
Last night I was confronted, once again, with an Annoying Manhattan.
Don’t get me wrong. Manhattans are among my favorite cocktails, and I’m glad that in the recent revival of cocktails, they’re one of the few that has been revived with a minimum of adulteration.
Nonetheless, the one I got was annoying. It was primarily annoying because the glass was full to the rim. This is the latest thing in cocktails — fill the damned glass to the rim. This is just plain stupid. It’s going to slosh all over the waiter’s hand, then it will slosh on the tablecloth (well, just the table; restaurants haven’t used tablecloths for fifteen years). And, assuming that half the damn drink hasn’t sloshed all over by the time you get it, you have to somehow get it to your mouth without sloshing it into your crotch. I solved the problem by leaving it on the table and lapping at it, catlike, until it was down to a manageable level in the glass.
Note to Bartenders: I don’t care how goddamned chic it is, glasses that are full to the rim are a waste of perfectly good booze, and a pain in the ass.
The 1980s, with their insipid wine coolers and MADD platitudes, did more to destroy American alcohol consumption than Prohibition could have dreamed of doing. We went from a nation of sophisticated cocktails (well, barring some of those awful ’70s Harvey Wallbangerish concoctions) to a nation that drank nothing but vodka (a.k.a. rubbing alcohol). We emerged, in the late ’90s, out of the Drinking Dark Ages, only to discover that everyone with the exception of a few elderly bartenders in dark forbidding ’50s restaurants had forgotten how to make drinks.
The once-vaunted names of Sazerac and Bronx will now meet with a head tilt and “Huh?” from twentysomething waiters and bartenders. Order a Rusty Nail and the same waiter will take the order, go up to the bar and come back two minutes later: “Umm, Sir, what’s in that?” If you have to ask, you won’t make it well, and I don’t want it. Mint juleps — once a summertime feature in every bar on the East Coast, even in New York — are now for some reason considered the realm of white linen suits and hoopskirts. The last time I was foolish enough to ask for one in a bar, the waiter put on a fakey Deep South accent and said, “Oh, I’m sorry Suh, we ain’t got none o’ your Mint Julep heah!” Okay, pal, say goodbye to your friend Mr. Tip. And eggnog, fer Chrissakes! I’m in Baltimore, the eggnog capital of the world, and these days the only way I’m getting eggnog is to make my own. The bar at the Hotel Lord Baltimore serves it, but it’s the un-potable variety that comes in a carton from 7-11. It tastes like a liquid yellow cake with a shot of whiskey.
Further Note to Bartenders and Younger Drinkers: Everything is not a “Martini.”
While waiting for my Annoying Manhattan last night, I overheard a waitress ask the bartender what he was making. He told her, but since she’d never heard of a Manhattan, he explained it as a “Whiskey Martini.” Um, no. It’s a Manhattan. Go to any fashionable bar where the younger set congregates and you’ll find a list of “Martinis.” Pepper Martinis, Cognac Martinis, Chocolate Martinis. Again, no. There is precisely one drink that is a Martini. It is gin, vermouth and an olive. If you make change the gin to vodka, it is not a Martini. It has just morphed into a Vodka Martini. If you change the olive to an onion, it becomes a Gibson. I don’t know what the hell it turns into if you add chocolate Schnapps, but it is emphatically not a martini.
I’m really happy that, as a nation, we’ve rediscovered cocktails. I was getting quite tired of the little nose-wrinkle and reproachful glares that you got a few years ago when people noticed you with an Old-Fashioned. Hey, I’m not Satan, folks, I just like a stiff drink. (Satan could probably actually get a well-made Old-Fashioned if he wanted one.) All I ask is that people walk the walk. If you’re purporting to be a bartender, pick up a damned bartender’s guide and learn to make something, and learn that something is not a Martini just because it's in the same room with a vermouth bottle.
Last night I was confronted, once again, with an Annoying Manhattan.
Don’t get me wrong. Manhattans are among my favorite cocktails, and I’m glad that in the recent revival of cocktails, they’re one of the few that has been revived with a minimum of adulteration.
Nonetheless, the one I got was annoying. It was primarily annoying because the glass was full to the rim. This is the latest thing in cocktails — fill the damned glass to the rim. This is just plain stupid. It’s going to slosh all over the waiter’s hand, then it will slosh on the tablecloth (well, just the table; restaurants haven’t used tablecloths for fifteen years). And, assuming that half the damn drink hasn’t sloshed all over by the time you get it, you have to somehow get it to your mouth without sloshing it into your crotch. I solved the problem by leaving it on the table and lapping at it, catlike, until it was down to a manageable level in the glass.
Note to Bartenders: I don’t care how goddamned chic it is, glasses that are full to the rim are a waste of perfectly good booze, and a pain in the ass.
The 1980s, with their insipid wine coolers and MADD platitudes, did more to destroy American alcohol consumption than Prohibition could have dreamed of doing. We went from a nation of sophisticated cocktails (well, barring some of those awful ’70s Harvey Wallbangerish concoctions) to a nation that drank nothing but vodka (a.k.a. rubbing alcohol). We emerged, in the late ’90s, out of the Drinking Dark Ages, only to discover that everyone with the exception of a few elderly bartenders in dark forbidding ’50s restaurants had forgotten how to make drinks.
The once-vaunted names of Sazerac and Bronx will now meet with a head tilt and “Huh?” from twentysomething waiters and bartenders. Order a Rusty Nail and the same waiter will take the order, go up to the bar and come back two minutes later: “Umm, Sir, what’s in that?” If you have to ask, you won’t make it well, and I don’t want it. Mint juleps — once a summertime feature in every bar on the East Coast, even in New York — are now for some reason considered the realm of white linen suits and hoopskirts. The last time I was foolish enough to ask for one in a bar, the waiter put on a fakey Deep South accent and said, “Oh, I’m sorry Suh, we ain’t got none o’ your Mint Julep heah!” Okay, pal, say goodbye to your friend Mr. Tip. And eggnog, fer Chrissakes! I’m in Baltimore, the eggnog capital of the world, and these days the only way I’m getting eggnog is to make my own. The bar at the Hotel Lord Baltimore serves it, but it’s the un-potable variety that comes in a carton from 7-11. It tastes like a liquid yellow cake with a shot of whiskey.
Further Note to Bartenders and Younger Drinkers: Everything is not a “Martini.”
While waiting for my Annoying Manhattan last night, I overheard a waitress ask the bartender what he was making. He told her, but since she’d never heard of a Manhattan, he explained it as a “Whiskey Martini.” Um, no. It’s a Manhattan. Go to any fashionable bar where the younger set congregates and you’ll find a list of “Martinis.” Pepper Martinis, Cognac Martinis, Chocolate Martinis. Again, no. There is precisely one drink that is a Martini. It is gin, vermouth and an olive. If you make change the gin to vodka, it is not a Martini. It has just morphed into a Vodka Martini. If you change the olive to an onion, it becomes a Gibson. I don’t know what the hell it turns into if you add chocolate Schnapps, but it is emphatically not a martini.
I’m really happy that, as a nation, we’ve rediscovered cocktails. I was getting quite tired of the little nose-wrinkle and reproachful glares that you got a few years ago when people noticed you with an Old-Fashioned. Hey, I’m not Satan, folks, I just like a stiff drink. (Satan could probably actually get a well-made Old-Fashioned if he wanted one.) All I ask is that people walk the walk. If you’re purporting to be a bartender, pick up a damned bartender’s guide and learn to make something, and learn that something is not a Martini just because it's in the same room with a vermouth bottle.
posted by Daniel | 5:34 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home