Welcome to the Shitshow: Blogging Tales of the Cocktail

I traveled an obnoxious amount, showing up at Sea-Tac at 9:30 am and getting into NOLA at 8:30 pm, and I ate very little (two bags of peanuts and a chocolate donut), then found myself in 90+ degrees with obnoxious southern humidity. Here are my curt initial observations:
- Fucking neon. Holy shit, really? And classic rock cover bands in every bar on every block?
- In between the classic rock cover band bars are strips clubs. Lots of them. Wait...
- And lots of alcohol and no open container laws...
- This place, at least Bourbon street, reminds me of a hybrid of Amsterdam and Vegas meets some caricature of a Creole port town. I can't decide if I love or hate it.

I'm exhausted already and back at the hotel rallying with some water and bourbon after realizing that the peripheral moments in Tales are filled with VIP-who-you-know-kinda parties. Rather than press my luck, I'm going to go see what kind of trouble I can get into...maybe with that gang from Houston's Anvil Bar. They seemed...promising. More to come.

Tom Waits MxMo

Jesus. What to say? I've been listening to Tom Waits non-stop since Andrew posted this month's theme. Here's where I'll start: usually these posts come from the 1022 South blog, but given my relationship to Tom Waits I'm not very comfortable posting them on the biz blog.

Go here to see what Andrew has to say about this month. After that, if you don't own any Tom Waits, beg, borrow or steal any number of albums (I recommend you start with Rain Dogs).

Here's my Tom Waits story. I spent my formative years becoming friends with the asshole (in the best possible way) Jason Quackenbush (J to his friends...)over at Wet Asphalt. He proselytized about many things over the years including Tom Waits, Sun City Girls, David Bowie, and The Cure, Line 6 amps, David Foster Wallace and Anthony Burgess. Before I go any further, I should note that I think this guy is brilliant. I'm sure he's not the smartest person I've ever met, but he's definitely top 5. He's eccentric, occasionally mean but usually very charming, and fixates on strange things probably for the sake of fixating on strange things. I listened to Tom Waits once or twice on his recommendation, it didn't grab and I figured it was another one of his...fixations.

When Andrew posted this months theme, I immediately thought of J. I started listening to Rain Dogs and was immediately sucked in. What I previously mocked as sea chanties or circus music all of the sudden resonated with me. Ya, I know...

So, the reason I write about J is that my memories of him and Tom Waits are all centered around a six month period when I lived in a bat-shit crazy house in the woods across the "bay" from Evergreen State College. The house was all wrong angles and doorways slightly askew or just a little too small. It was nestled in an area of dense greenbelt, I guess you could say (Most would say woods as it was kinda rural). J used to drive down from Sea-Tac (his apartment there is a Tom Waits story in and of itself) and spend the weekend. We would proceed to eat, smoke, or drink all of the drugs I had stock piled, then we would sit in the dark on the edge of the woods and smoke cigarettes and drink beers all night. We were young, felt invincible, and lord knows we were full of piss and vinegar. This challenge made me think of those many, many nights.

Without further ado, here are the god-damned cocktails:

Gun Street Girl
1.5 oz Rittenhouse 100 proof rye
.75 oz Dolin Italian vermouth
2 bar spoons maraschino liqueur
3 dashes cardamom tincture
3 dashes grains of paradise tincture
Combine ingredients over ice, stir, then strain into chilled coupe. Finish with fancy cherry.

This is a riff on the HR 1022. I'm much happier about this one...





And because I can't submit just one cocktail...

Tango Till They're Sore
1 oz Leblon cachaca
.75 oz yerba mate infusion*
.5 oz Licor 43
.5 oz lime juice
serrano pepper
cayenne pepper

Slice a smallish serrano wheel, drop into bottom of mixing glass, and press once with muddler. Combine remaining ingredients, give a vigorous, sexy shake, then double strain into chilled coupe. Top with shake of cayenne.

* 1 cup of yerba mate per 750 ml of 151 NGA. Let rest for 8-10 hours, then double strain.

Something about this month's theme has left me a bit sad. Still, it was fun...

Cocktails

Here's why I'm good at what I do:

Strawberry drink
1.5 Sotol
.5 tarragon syrup
.5 lemon juice
barspoon balsamic reduction
10 black peppercorns
1 strawberry

Muddle peppercorns with srawberry. Add remaining ingredients and ice, shake vigorously, then double strain into chilled cocktail glass.