Inaptly Judging a Drink - Color

In my opinion, too many drinks are judged by one of these three things, when they should be judged by their taste, liquor content, and history.

Color

Glassware

Name

I'll tackle color first - once you've made a few different types of cocktails, you start to recognize the colors and textures of different types - the telltale creaminess of a drink with egg whites, the (surprising) rosé of a whiskey cocktail, the silky-clear top to a gin drink. If you drink Manhattans often, you might have already had this conversation before:

You walk into the room or across the bar with a nice Manhattan in a cocktail glass
"Whatcha got there, girlie-man?"
"A Manhattan."
"What's in it? Unicorn tears and heartstrings, why not drink a real drink?"
"Whiskey. Vermouth. Bitters. A few of your teeth soon."

The problem is, even with the recent renaissance in the cocktail world, few people even know the history of the word cocktail, let alone the storied past of drinks ranging from the Pink Lady to the Papa Dobles. Here in America, the birthplace of the cocktail, a drink that isn't clear or silty brown comes with the presumption of feeble drinking abilities.

Now, sometimes it is appropriate to judge - or at least assess - a cocktail based on its color. However, you should first verify your suspicions by a hearty taste, and perhaps a request for a trial cocktail on the house. Once you know for sure that the yellow-green-neon concoction with a parasol and a fruit bouquet is indeed dreck, then go ahead and assume all the matching drinks on the premises are of similar quality.

All of this goes to the point that while a Duchess might look girly, it's 1/3 absinthe, and the other 2/3 vermouth, so back off you dolt.

Davie Crockett's Speech Tactics

The ruse worked perfectly.  The crowd roared with laughter, and that gave him confidence to go on to other rough stories that only won the listeners even more.  Knowing that his opponent would get to speak after him, though, and worried that the man would show up the complete lack of substance in his speech, Crockett concluded by saying that he felt keenly thirsty and suggested that the voters join him at the whiskey stand.  Most of them did, leaving his opponent speaking to a largely empty field while Crockett continued his storytelling at the liquor barrel.  In the entire episode Crockett sold himself to the voters, while never risking alienating one of them with an unwelcome opinion on the subject of the county seat.

-William C. Davis, Three Roads to the Alamo

 

Killing that Noxious Beast

You all know the feeling - a bottle of liquor, whether the choice was sweated over, or your typical brand was casually nabbed from your local bottle shop - sits on your shelf calling to you.  No, it's not saying your name in a frenzied attempt to draw you deeper into the sad world of alcoholism, it's just looking at you.

It's daring you, challenging you not to disappoint.  It is giving you a once over to see if you have what it takes to put up a real fight.  In the end, we all know if you go head to head with a bottle of booze, it takes at least as much from you as you take from it (I said this about martinis last week, and I repeat it again).  Instead, it works much better to sidle along, slinking from one glass to the next, offering a friend an ounce or two in between cups, perhaps quietly downing a shot in an obscure hour when there is no one to watch.

Once you have outwitted the noxious beast, it becomes less a test of wills, and more a defining of the inevitable.  As you turn the bottle up for its final pour, there is a blend of satisfaction and disapproval.  If only you'd sprung for the bigger bottle, the harder stuff, more of it, maybe the challenge would have been harder.  Yet at the same time, you have accomplished what you set out to do when you bought it.  With grim, if unsteady motions, you can put the bottle down and forget all about it now.  You are left as you were, with nothing more or less than yourself.  I just hope the guy at the bottom of the bottle has a healthy glow about his cheeks!

Palative Potables - Paying the Bills

Today I would like to start a new Redfacery regular: Palative Potables.  In these entries, I will discuss various potables I take for everyday tasks.  Palative Potables will cover beverages I currently employ at various times in the week, or perhaps new ones for new occasions.

Today's entry, in honor of payday, is my Palative Potable while paying the bills.  Bear with me, the alliteration will not stay this agonizing.  Whenever I sit down to work out the next month's budget, pay any bills, or sign a check, there is one drink in particular I go for - cheap bourbon neat.  No water.

The Part you can't see says "80% Grain Neutral Spirits"

There is something about a glass of undiluted ethanol burning your mouth, your throat, and your gut before driving that tingle through your limbs that feels just like sending away your hard-earned cash.  Just don't breath through your nose.

A Short Slide Into Jerry Thomas Territory

Now, admittedly, mixed drinks are not paintings, sculptures, novels, or poems.  They are disposable and, frankly, not a little bit disreputable, standing roughly in the same relation to the culinary arts that American motor sports do to automotive engineering or hot jazz to musical composition: they smack of improvisation and cheap effects and even the most august of them lack the cachet accorded to fine wines, old whiskies, and cognac brandies.  They are easily abused; they can degrade lives and even destroy them.  Even if appreciated in moderation, they are appreciated in surroundings that rarely lead to detached meditation on truth and beauty (if those are not the same thing) or constructive engagement with the great moral and social questions of the age.  And yet neither are they contemptible.  A proper drink at the right time - one mixed with care and skill and served in a true spirit of hospitality - is better than any other made thing at giving us the illusion, at least, that we're getting what we want from life.  A cat can gaze upon a king, as the proverb goes, and after a Dry Martini or  Sazerac Cocktail or two, we're all cats.

Imbibe!, David Wondrich, page 10

Wise men take hearty quaffs, sing

Hail to thee, amber King of booze.

Indolent waifs sip dainty straws,

Stare vapidly at fruity hues;

Katzenjammers find everyone.

Erode sobriety with class,

Yaw home each night with empty glass

Words Matter

I've always loved Shakespeare.  In english classes in high school, at a show, or just once in a while perusing a sonnet or two, his mastery of the English language gives me immense satisfaction.  Those who know me well, know I love words.  At first, my diction can sometimes appear arrogant and unnecessary to people I first meet.  I've been told over the years by quite a few people that I have appeared to be putting people down by using big words when small ones will do.

I don't by this logic- use the word that  best fits the sentence, whether it's well known or not.  Yes, yes of course, there are times when brevity requires more terse statements, but for the most part, taking a moment to say what you mean to say precisely is very important.  In the politics of your daily relationships, how you say and what words you use matters almost as much as tone.  Creating a particular insinuation or suggestion while not saying something is important.

Getting to the point here, Obama has changed the Executive Branch's diction in a bunch of ways.  This matters, a lot.  One of the main reasons I like him so much as our president is simply his appreciation and use of words.  Read any speech he wrote (I like the speech on race in Philly the most), and you will feel the words as much as you will read them.  That man can write, and he can write meaning and clarity into topics that are often obscured and ignored.

Everyone should know at this point who pulled strings in the Bush administration - it was Rove and Cheney and their ilk that were creating imagery and nuanced language to inspire specific reactions.  Obama does the same thing, only his team seems to be closer to Google than Microsoft in purpose if you get my drift...