Quaffing from the Tomato Tin

A gentleman of the tin can brigade

In the summer of 1889, the St. Paul Daily Globe in Minnesota published a tongue-in-cheek study of drinkers in bars — the self-important society man with his elegantly curved arm, the lady who drinks Champagne, the man about town with the latest gossip and news of the freshest scandals, the regular who drinks alone because he likes it and does so in silence, the “posers” who blow foam off their lagers…and this guy, the vaguely Irish, slightly simian tough who pinches stale beer dregs in a keg and…well, read on.

But peerless as she is and tempting as is the sight of beauty and wine, the lady thinks the liquid she is about to taste not with half so tumultuous and pleasurable anticipations as the gentleman of the tin-can brigade as he makes a fat find of stale beer in the discarded keg in front of the saloonist's door. Already provided with a cigar stump from the gutter, he has now made a discovery that to him is more than jewels and fine raiment. There is enough of the flat extract of hops in the keg to fill the can, and ecstasy— yes, unspeakable joy— is imprinted on his features. He has a withering contempt for cold victuals now, and he would scoff at champagne. Safely to the nearest alley will he hie him, and there alone and unaided will he engine in a Bacchanalian revelry that will not cease till the tin vessel is emptied thrice and again. He will attempt no style in drinking. He will simply hoist the can with both hands, and not until it has been replenished and drained many times will he sleep, to be awakened rudely by the policeman, who will hammer the soles of his feet with the stinging club.

St. Paul Daily Globe

July 28, 1889

Reminds me of the juice served at certain lowbrow bars — either as punishment or prize — consisting of all the spills that accumulate in bar mats, a sickly prank juice of commingled whiskey,  energy drinks, cordials, vodka, shot slops, deflated beer foam, melted ice, and whatever else didn't stay in the glass. 

Goes well with:

• George Ade's 1931 musings on The Depth of a Drink.
• Paul M. Angle on The Barkeeper's Favorite Weapon. 
• Sometimes writers have favorite weapons too. 
• Speaking of prank juice, Tabasco in the applejack has a long history...

George Orwell on Picking Hops in the English Countryside

One can talk and smoke as one works, 

and on hot days there is no pleasanter place 

than the shady lanes of hops,

 with their bitter scent—an unutterably refreshing scent, 

like a wind blowing 

from oceans of cool beer.

Eric Blair

The New Statesman and Nation, 17 October 1931

I've been refreshing my memory of Eric Blair's work lately in preparation for a talk in Denver next month. Blair's novels (writing under his better-known pseudonym George Orwell) include 1984 and Animal Farm, but I've been diving into his more ephemeral essays on language and meaning. While digging though the library, I stumbled across an early essay of his on picking hops in the English countryside. In it, Blair tests the idea that a seasonal worker, wanting to get away from London for a bit, might high-tail it to Kent and make a decent bit of income stripping hops from vines for the English brewing industry.

The squalid camp conditions, dishonest measurers, and exploitive owners, however, left Blair realizing that hop picking, as practiced in early 20th century England, was a wretched experience. "What keeps the business going," he wrote,

...is probably the fact that the Cockneys rather enjoy the trip to the country, in spite of the bad pay and in spite of the discomfort. When the season is over the pickers are heartily glad—glad to be back in London, where you do not have to sleep on straw, and you can put a penny in the gas instead of hunting for firewood, and Woolworth’s is round the corner—but still, hop-picking is in the category of things that are great fun when they are over.

His full essay is here.

A 1929 silent newsreel from the archives of BFI shows families, including children, harvesting hops from right around the time Blair wrote Hop-Picking.



Goes well with:

• We like Orwell around here. See Do it to Julia! Pink Cloves and Gin at the Chestnut Tree Café, a look at the pink gin and cloves Winston Smith took to drinking once he was a broken man.
• Gooseberries in Hops Syrup, a recipe from Helen S. Wright's 1912 The New England Cook Book.
• William S. Burroughs' Birthday Beer, a recipe using two varieties of hops for the writer's 80th birthday while we were neighbors in Lawrence, Kansas. 
• Rock Out with Your Cock Ale. Hops come into play into a number of old English beverages, but for that special kick, why not use poultry? As the anonymous recorder of the 18th century recipe noted, you may sweeten it with sugar candy to your liking. 
• More from the BFI archives here. 

Philadelphia Church to Hold Beer Service

Beer is big in Phildelphia. Has been for as long as I can recall. When I packed up to move to San Diego from Philly, I bequeathed my homebrew setup — the fermentation tub, carboys, bottle brushes, air locks, fillers, capper, all of it — to my buddy Zeke, a cheesemonger who shares my taste for beer. In addition to the homebrew gear, there were several cases of liquor. The deal was: no cherry picking. Take all of it or none of it. Zeke's no dummy; he took it all. The occasional fermentation updates from the City of Brotherly Love still make me smile.

Can't make it to Philly?
Relax. Don't worry. Have a homebrew.
And if you don't brew,
Sculpin now comes in cans.
It's delicious.

Zeke and I were far from the only ones who liked making beer in Philly. The city was crawling with other brewers, both professional and amateur. It is, in fact, the location of next week's 35th Annual National Homebrewers Conference. Wrapping up the conference is a service dedicated to all that hoppy, sudsy goodness at a Center City house of worship established in 1796.

On Sunday, June 30th, the First Unitarian Church (2125 Chestnut Street) is hosting a service that

[...] will explore the history and culture of one of mankind’s oldest beverages. Throughout history beer has not only been a sustaining beverage but it has also come to connote conviviality and equality among all people. The service will also look at an interesting message from the world of craft brewing – small is good! This service will mark the conclusion of the American Homebrewer’s Association’s National Homebrewers Conference being held in Philadelphia this year.

Choir member Dane Wells is one of several homebrewers in the congregations. In 1985, he received a certification as a Beer Judge from the American Homebrewer’s Association, and has since devoted considerable study to the history and culture of brewing.

Goes well with:

• The beer service details are here: Conviviality, Equality and Beer.
• Events for the homebrewers' conference are here.

Drinking Advice from Sarah Josepha Hale, 1839

Sarah Josepha Hale (1788-1879)

After her husband died in 1822, Sarah Hale took on writing work to support her five children. Chances are, you are familiar with her work; the song Mary Had a Little Lamb was based on her 1820 poem. She edited Ladies' Magazine from 1828-1837 and later became editor of the influential Godey's Lady's Book. Among her other works, she published in 1839 The Good Housekeeper. Her advice to housewives of the time strikes sensible notes: beer and warm tea are, indeed, wholesome drinks. Well. Hot tea, anyway; warm tea has no life in it. One can almost see her lips pursed in disapproval, however, when it comes to "fermented liquors." By the time she hits stride with her not-one-drop approach to distilled spirits, we realize that we've tumbled down a rabbit hole into a Puritanical realm of proto-Prohibition.

From The Good Housekeeper, here is Mrs. Hale and her take on appropriate beverages for American households:

WHAT SHALL WE DRINK?

Why water — that is a safe drink for all constitutions and all ages — provided persons only use it when they are naturally thirsty. But do not drink heartily of cold water when heated or greatly fatigued. A cup of warm tea will better allay the thirst and give a feeling of comfort to the stomach which water will not.

Toast and water, common beer, soda-water, and other liquids of a similar kind, if they agree with the stomach, may be used freely without danger. 

Fermented liquors such as porter, ale, and wine, if used at all as a drink, should be very sparingly taken. Distilled spirituous liquors should never be considered drinkable—they may be necessary, sometimes, as a medicine but never, never consider them a necessary item in house-keeping. So important does it appear to me to dispense entirely with distilled spirits, as an article of domestic use, that I have not allowed a drop to enter into any of the recipes contained in this book. 

As the primary effect of fermented liquors, cider, wine, &c is to stimulate the nervous system, and quicken the circulation, these should be utterly prohibited to children and persons of a quick temperament. In truth, unless prescribed by the physician, it would be best to abstain entirely from their use.

Hale, Sarah Josepha Buell. 1839. The Good Housekeeper: Or, The Way to Live Well and to be Well While We Live: Containing Directions for Choosing and Preparing Food, in Regard to Health, Economy and Taste. Boston: Weeks, Jordan and Company.

Goes well with:

• William "The Only William" Schmidt pontificates on Why Men Drink in his 1891 bartending manual The Flowing Bowl. 
• W.O Rigby gets into the spirit of Prohibition by thumbing his nose at Volstead with his 1920 fake-out Prohibition Schooners.

Not That Kind of Yeast

Tim Besecker hipped me to some brewing news yesterday. Read on at your own discretion. Besecker sent a link to Madeleine Davies’s report last week on Jezebel.com that human vaginal yeast is inappropriate for brewing beer.

Oh? Really? I never would’ve guessed.

"Yeast,” Davies writes,

 ...is everywhere, even (as we ladies well know) buried deep inside our vaginas, waiting to go bad and ruin our week at any moment. But does that mean that we could possibly brew beer using the cause of one of our more common south of the border infections? Is "turn a yeast infection into a full-bodied IPA" the new "make lemons into lemonade?" We did some research and, in a word, no. 

Davies explains why in her piece (below). I hope this means we can put a stop right this instant of anyone evening thinking about introducing inappropriate strains of yeast into our whiskeys.

Goes well with:

• Just So You Know, You Can't Make Beer with Your Vagina.

Amsterdamse Krulletter, a Script from Amsterdam's Brown Cafes

It's no revelation that I like booze. Sooner or later with new acquaintances, I pin Amsterdam as one of my favorite places in the world. But a quirk kept a little tighter to my chest is that I'm a complete typography and font geek.

Oh, I'll spend hours after I should have gone to bed, staying up staring at the glowing screen until tears of fatigue flow freely down my cheeks. I grew up in a house with not only a butter churn, but also printers' drawers; early exposure to block lettering instilled an abiding interest in minding p's and q's. More than once, as I've trawled through the offerings of online font vendors, trying out phrases, and learning how various designers have used this or that font, dawn has taken me by surprise.
 

Ramiro Espinoza has combined all three elements — booze, Amsterdam, and fonts — in one tale. Espinoza lives in Amsterdam where he runs the digital font foundry, Re-Type. Intrigued by the cursive, curly script he found on the city's "brown cafes" (i.e., neighborhood pubs) and concerned that they were disappearing as old facades succumbed to renovations and new owners, he set about tracking down why the pubs in particular used this distinctive hand-painted font.

In a way, my research into the ‘Amsterdamse Krulletter’ (Amsterdam’s Curly Letter) began eight years ago as I was walking down the streets of what is possibly the city’s most beautiful district, the Jordaan. As every local knows, this area hosts quite a few of the old, traditional pubs that the locals call ‘bruin cafés’ (brown cafés). In urban environments, type designers are always looking at letters, and especially at hand-painted ones. It didn’t take me very long to notice that many of the pubs in the area had their windows painted in a very interesting and beautifully executed script. Later I discovered they had been painted throughout other parts of Amsterdam too, notably also in the De Pijp area. 

Espinoza tracks some of the examples to Leo Beukeboom who began painting for Heineken Brewery in 1967 and who hand-lettered signs for pubs sponsored by Heineken. "But," he writes, "the history of the style goes back further than that." Espinoza lays out his detective work on this beery lettering with additional connections to Amstel Brewery and 17th century Dutch calligraphy.

Read his ILoveTypography.com article and check out additional photos here.

Edit: Thanks to Jacob Grier for reminding me that the ancient Dutch distiller Bols uses some now-familiar lettering on its genever bottles. It is used again here (right) on the 2011 release of its barrel-aged genever. The regular version comes in a smoked-glass bottle while the barrel-aged genever is sold in tall but hefty traditional stone jugs. It's a nice nod to Amsterdam's drinking history.

Feh. Mistakes when I'm alone are bad enough, but making them here in this public forum is deeply embarrassing. The why of it doesn't matter, but I posted copy without checking facts. Sorry about that. Good news, though: we've heard from ReType Foundry more about the Bols script. Seems we should be looking toward England rather than the Netherlands for this one:

A note on pronunciation: Americans tend to pronounce this malt-wine spirit "GEN-uh-ver" but every Dutchmen I know calls it "ye-NAY-ver." On his show The Layover, Anthony Bourdain either plays it safe or forgets; he uses both.

I'm going with the cloggies on this one. Grab yourself a bottle or two. Good stuff to hand on hand.

Bookshelf: Alt Whiskeys

...[T]he recipes in here reflect the last 3-5 years 

of tinkering with different recipes, techniques, and ideas 

in an effort to do one simple thing: 

expand the horizons of what whiskey can be. 

And, of course, have fun.

~ Darek Bell

Alt Whiskeys

A decade ago, fewer than a hundred distilleries supplied all of America’s domestic legal liquor supply. Today, we can boast four times that number. Well, “boast,” perhaps, is not wholly accurate. That growth has entailed missteps and occasional outright failures as this cohort of new distillers — who may have been hobbyists or working in wholly different fields five years ago — make the transition to more seasoned professionals.

But make no mistake: the transition is underway.

There’s an exuberance common among new distillers, a willingness to try unproven ingredients and techniques. Consider Chip Tate’s Rumble made from wildflower honey, turbinado sugar, and figs from Balcones Distilling in Texas or New Holland’s Hatter Royale, a barley spirit from Michigan finished with hops. Then there’s Darek Bell’s triple smoke malt whiskey that blends a bit of chocolate malt with a triple whammy of German-, peat-, and cherry-smoked malts.

Bell is the owner of Corsair Artisan Distillery. He’s also a hell of a distiller with the credentials to prove it. He trained at the Seibel Brewing Institute and is a graduate of the Bruichladdich Distilling Academy. His whiskeys have won numerous awards. His book, Alt Whiskeys, hit the shelves this week.

Tapping that fat vein of experimental distilling, Bell subtitled the self-published tome Alternative Whiskey Recipes and Distilling Techniques for the Adventurous Craft Distiller. Alt Whiskeys is a turning point in the literature of American distilling. There’s nothing else out there that captures, page after page, our modern distillers’ spirit of innovation with new ingredients, techniques, and equipment — or that reveals the deep connections between craft brewing and craft distilling, as evidenced by Bell’s thorough use of original and target gravities, fermentation temperatures, barrel notes, and other specific technical notes that read more like something from brewers' manuals than the recipes one usually finds for spirits.

“What’s wrong with whiskeys the way they are now?” Bell writes.

Absolutely nothing. As a whiskey geek myself, I am an avid whiskey lover. You might even say whiskey obsessed. BUT I do think whiskey could be better. Different. More interesting. Brewers have a palate of over 50 different types of malt at their disposal to draw from, while most distillers just use plain 2 row barley.

How could they be better, different, more interesting? The book gives ample suggestions and guidelines, starting with grains. American distillers are familiar with corn, wheat, rye, and barley, of course. Bell, however, explores alternatives; amaranth, quinoa, spelt, kamut, grain sorghum, millet, blue corn, tritordeum, and more. Buckwheat, even — not actually a grain, but it can be treated as one, as Bell demonstrates in his recipe for 92 proof buckwheat bourbon. More of them come into play in his seven- and eleven-grain bourbons.

Click to embiggen

Bell’s background as a brewer shines through across the pages. An oatmeal stout whiskey is an early tip-off, but he lays out his cards in two chapters devoted entirely to whiskeys inspired by America’s craft brewing beers. There’s the pumpkin spice moonhine, a riff on 1980’s-style pumpkin ales, and a mocha porter whiskey. Other whiskeys are based on witbier, Russian imperial stout, Octoberfest, dopplebock, American lager, Bavarian helles, and Pilsner.

But he really hits stride in the chapter on hopped whiskeys. “If whiskey is distilled beer,” Bell asks, “why has an element so critical to the history of beer never been used?” Well, it has been used, just not widely; hopped whiskeys are still a surprise even to many whiskey drinkers. Bell embraces the bitter flower cones with abandon.

Seven hopped whiskey recipes reveal multiple ways to get the hops’ nose, taste, and tang into the bottle. Some, such as dry hopping, are familiar to brewers, but hopping whiskey is not exactly the same as hopping beer. Distillers work with a sealed vessel, so there’s no just tossing in hops as brewers do during the cooking of the beer. Bell’s solution? A handmade double-valved hop insertion pipe for the still that allows distillers to add hops at particular points in the run. He also deploys hop backs, hop teas, and hopbursting, a technique that introduces massive amounts of hops late in the process that allows the distiller to amplify the hops aroma (and a bit of bitterness).

Another chapter explores alternates to hops, malt, and yeast. Wormwood wit whiskey, anyone? Chamomile wheat whiskey? How about an elderflower Bohemian pilsner whiskey, barley sochu, mint-chocolate milk stout whiskey, or cannabis moonshine? I’ve yet to taste a yeast-free [see comments below] whiskey made with Brettanomyces lambicus, so familiar to lovers of Belgian lambic beers, but Bell lays out how to make a soured barley example fermented with a lab-cultured strain from yeast vendor WYEAST.

And there’s smoke. The chapter on smoked whiskeys includes recipes, of course, but even more useful for the experimentally-minded distiller, guidelines for types of woods, how to smoke malts, and how changing the percentage of smoked grains in a mash bill affects the perception of smoke in the final product. Want to build a smoke injector? Learn how to make liquid smoke (even though Bell gives the stuff only qualified endorsement)? That’s here. So’s a corn cob smoked whiskey, inspired by a Tennessee meat-smoking technique.

About 60 recipes in all, rounded out with a chapter on cocktails from Josh Habiger.

Alt Whiskeys belongs on the shelf of every American distiller, legal, extra-legal, or simply aspiring. Whiskey lovers, see what’s going to be happening to your beloved spirit over the next few years — not just from Corsair,  but from distilleries across the country. The rest of you lot, if you want to understand why this is one of the most interesting and promising times for distillers in hundreds of years, get this book.

Then break out the whiskey.

Darek Bell (2012)
Edited by Amy Lee Bell, Photography by Pete Rodman, Forward by Bill Owens
Alt Whiskeys: Alternative Whiskey Recipes and Distilling Techniques for the Adventurous Craft Distiller
200 pages (paperback)
Corsair Artisan Distillery
ISBN: 0983350000
$29.99

Amazon sells it here.

Goes well with:

• Manual of a Traditional Bacon Curer. As I wrote two years back, "If you make sausage or cure your own meats—any kind, not just pork—don’t delay. Get a copy of Maynard’s book today. It’s the one we’ve been waiting for." Just so, Alt Whiskeys is the one we've been waiting for.

Bookshelf: Tavern League: Portraits of Wisconsin Bars

Many of these bars are the only public gathering place
in the rural communities they serve. These simple taverns offer the individual the valuable opportunity for face-to-face conversation and camaraderie, particularly as people become more physically isolated through the accelerated use of the internet’s social networking, mobile texting, Facebook, LinkedIn, gaming, and the rapid fire of email.

~ Carl Corey

Not being on Facebook is like not being in the phone book; people just expect to find you there. And for a small business owner like me not to be on Facebook is just stupid. Yet last year, I said to hell with it and posted my last status update, telling friends and clients that I’d rather grab a meal or drinks in person than spend even more time at my keyboard.

Sure, I miss invitations to parties here and there. Conversations about distilleries and restaurants go unnoticed. I sometimes learn weeks afterwards that someone has moved to Chicago or San Fransisco or has become a new father.

But new clients find me through word of mouth, family and friends still call with news, I was invited to more parties in the last six months than I could possibly attend, and work keeps me in touch with food and drinks folks almost single every day. I’m spending more time now in the actual, face-to-face company of friends than at almost any time in the Facebook years.

Carl Corey’s book Tavern League reminds me of just why I decided to ditch the ubiquitous social media site. Through evocative photos of nearly four dozen Wisconsin taverns, Corey depicts a world where friends and neighbors still gather in what some friends dismissively deem “meatspace” to socialize and to find a sense of belonging that Facebook, Twitter, on-demand television, World of Warcraft, or (my personal weakness) Xbox can’t even approximate.

Though I’ve never been to any of the taverns in the book, I’ve weighed down many a seat and stool in places like them throughout the Midwest. In his foreward A Toast to Old-Timer Bars, Jim Draeger explains their importance to Wisconsinites in particular:

Taverns have been and still are predominantly a family business. Low start-up costs, long hours, and patrons longing for a "home away from home" have all rewarded the mom-and-pop operations, and these neighborhood joints have been a cornerstone of the Wisconsin tavern experience. For much of our history, workers lived in modest dwellings: small houses, apartments, and tenements with little space for gatherings of family and friends. Without family rooms, decks, and patios, Wisconsinites used the tavern as an extension of their own living rooms, a place to socialize with friends, family, and neighbors. Tavern owners responded to this longing for a home away from home by decorating their bars to reflect their interests as well as those of their patrons. Their local flavor became a comfortable attraction to their regular patrons and gave each tavern a particular and unique character. As a result, tavern owners have been staunchly individualistic, resisting attempts to standardize, franchise, and homogenize their spaces.

Cheers to Carl Corey for a touching look at some of our beloved public spaces. Long live the Wisconsin tavern. And the Missouri tavern. And the Louisiana tavern. And all the other great places in America where locals gather to have some drinks, swap stories, shoot pool, do a little shuffleboard, and — now and then — sing along to a little Hank Williams or Waylon Jennings.

Carl Corey (2011)
Tavern League: Portraits of Wisconsin Bars
136 pages (hardback)
Wisconsin Historical Society Press
ISBN: 0870204785
$29.95

Goes well with:

• A look at America Walks into a Bar, Christine Sismondo's look at the tavern's place in American history
• Jerry Apps' book Breweries of Wisconsin from University of Wisconsin Press (now in its second edition). These brands in here are exactly the ones I drank in the Midwest as a budding — and underage — homebrewer scrounging for cheap reusable bottles.
• My run-in with paczki, a sometimes-vodka-spiked doughnut with Polish roots found throughout Polonia, including, where I came across them, Wisconsin

Granizado de Michelada

A discussion arose yesterday among colleagues over what, exactly, a michelada is. Everyone acknowledged that it was Mexican, but after that, there was some...confusion. Despite the protean ingredient list one finds in bars from El Paso to Tijuana, a michelada is a simply cold beer that’s been hacked.

The embellishments of a michelada may be as straightforward as a squeeze of lime and dash of salt or may involve more complex iterations involving chile, Worcesterchire sauce (called salsa inglesa or "English sauce" in the Mexican idiom), Maggi seasoning, tomato juice, Clamato, shrimp, etc.

In the same way that something as straightforward as iced tea morphs from a sweet North Carolina specimen to a passion fruit-laced California example (or a bloody mary changes between bartenders), a michelada in Veracruz will not be the same as one in La Paz — or Dallas. With little effort, one may drift from the safe and familiar harbor of, say, a Corona-and-lime into more exciting territory of drinks a lot like seafood cocktails.

Add to this mix Fany Gerson’s granizado de michelada, a frozen concoction more akin to an Italian granita than a San Antonio thirst-quencher. Gerson, author of My Sweet Mexico, has written a complementary book called Paletas about Mexican ice pops, shaved ices, and aguas frescas. It’s a cool little book and, despite the obvious appeal to parents with young kids, bartenders and cocktail types would do well to crack it open; more than a few of the recipes include sugar, water, and spirits — the very definition of a classic cocktail. Well, minus the bitters.

Gerson’s main topic — the paleta — is a typically Mexican popcicle. You’ll find easily approachable ones everywhere, flavored with strawberry, tamarind, mango, or coconut. But you won’t have to scratch around long in Mexico to find varieties with corn, hibiscus flowers, berries, melon, rice, chiles, chamoy, and more.

In addition to lime-and-chia, rice pudding, strawberry-and-horchata, coconut, lime pie (with crushed graham crackers pressed into its surface), avocado, grapefruit, watermelon, and other kid-friendly flavors, frozen alcohol-spiked varieties in the book include:

• Paletas de crema y cereza con tequila (pops with sour cream, cherry, and tequila)
• Paletas de sangrita (with a tequila-laced spicy tomato base)
• Paletas de donaji (mezcal-orange ice pops)
• Paletas de platano rostizado (roasted bananas with rum)
• Paletas de rompope (rum- or brandy-spiked egg nog)

For my friends in Pennsylvania who may not have ready access to such things, here’s Gerson on her frozen michelada:

Micheladas, often called cheladas, are drinks made with beer, fresh lime juice, and sometimes chile. Micheladas especiales, or cubanas, use the same foundation but add Worcestershire sauce, hot sauce, and Maggy sauce, a popular seasoning that has a salty, caramelized, deep flavor. This raspado is inspired by these popular beverages.

Granizado de Michelada
(beer with chile granita)
SERVES 4 TO 6

2 small piquin or arbol chiles
3 cups water
½ cup sugar
Zest and juice of 3 limes, plus juice for wetting the rim
¼ cup chile powder
½ tsp salt
2 cups cold medium-dark beer

Combine the chiles, water, sugar, and lime zest in a saucepan and cook over medium heat, stirring, until the sugar dissolves. Let cool to room temperature, then stir in the lime juice. Strain through a fine-mesh sieve. Pour the mixture into a shallow nonreactive pan and put it in the freezer.

Once the edges start to freeze (about 1 hour), scrape lightly with a fork, bringing the ice crystals from the edges to the center. Return to the freezer and continue scraping every 30 minutes or so, until the mixture is completely frozen and looks like small ice flakes.

Place the chile powder and salt in a bowl and stir. Wet the rim of a glass with lime juice, then dip it in the chile powder. For each serving, place ½ cup of the granita in the prepared glass. Pour about ¼ cup beer over the granita and serve immediately.

Note: It's always best to serve granita as soon as it's ready. But if you leave it in the freezer and it hardens, simply take it out of the freezer, let it soften for 5 to 10 minutes, and then scrape it with a fork again.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to slip off to get some chamoy for tonight's round of mangoadas.

Fany Gerson (2011)
Paletas: Authentic Recipes for Mexican Ice Pops, Shaved Ice & Aguas Frescas
128 pages (hardback)
Ten Speed Press
ISBN: 1607740354
$16.99

Goes well with:

• My take on Gerson’s previous book, My Sweet Mexico
• The Tex-Mex Cookbooks of Robb Walsh, including his recipe for a more traditional michelada

Tiki Tuesdays

Whether the house specials are tropical drinks or tacos, it seems as if Tiki Tuesdays are cropping up in bars all over these days. Some tikiphiles don't even bother with bars and simply make delicious rum concoctions at home before the work week is even half over. Me? I don't know why we have to make it Tuesday. Seems Tiki Wednesday and Sunday are perfectly fine days to mark the passing of the week. That's not to say I would turn around and leave if I should stumble across a full-blown Tiki Tuesday in progress...and that's exactly what I found at Rogue Ales public house in Portland last month.

Because I intended to catch up with Blair Reynolds of tiki syrup fame, Craig Hermann (aka Colonel Tiki), and their families while there, I packed along a Hawaiian shirt. For this, I was roundly mocked at home. This was, of course, not the first time that has happened. Whenever I don one of those floral shirts, my sidekick Dr Morpheus asks "Is that what you're going to wear?" Sometimes, admittedly, I put one on just to elicit this response. I never said I was not mischievous. Photographer Douglas Dalay will more blatantly lean in closer to me, cup one hand to his ear, and make the most pained expressions when he sees me wearing such a shirt. "What?" he'll mock-shout. "What?! I can't hear you over that loud shirt."

So with those two in tow, I dropped by Rogue Ales to take a load off and try to catch up with distiller John Couchot. John was offsite that day, so we visited him at another Rogue property, but not before discovering that Rogue, too, had a Tiki Tuesday. The deal was that anyone walking in wearing a Hawaiian/tropical shirt would get a free beer. Mine was locked away in the rental car a block away. Ah, well. After much travel, it felt good to sit and enjoy a cool beverage and I wasn't about to go get it.

Dalay had other ideas. Not one to pass up a good deal, he asked for the keys and disappeared. About five minutes later, who should stroll through the front door talking smack about free beer? I wasn't sure because I had one hand cupped to my ear, leaning in, and trying to make out what he was saying over the loud, loud shirt.

Goes well with:

• Simbre Sauce, the pre-batched cinnamon-allspice-vanilla-bitters syrup we use at home for Nui Nuis, ice cream, over granola, etc., is named after Douglas Dalay.
• Rogue Ales. There are several venues for Rogue, but the one we dropped in that day for Tiki Tuesday was at 1339 NW Flanders in Portland, OR [(503) 222-5910]. They also host a Bacon Wednesday. At least, that's what the sign by the host station read. I didn't have a shirt for that.  
• Other Portland stories include Remember the Maine? Hell, I Barely Remember the Walk Home and Pok Pok's Chicken Wings (with recipe).   

Want to Start a Brewery in San Diego?

San Diegans are fortunate that so many good breweries call this place home. We have Stone Brewing, Lost Abbey, AleSmith, Ballast Point, and more. Jay Porter, the godfather of 30th Street, wants to add one more.

30th Street is a stretch of road in North Park, a neighborhood that borders Balboa Park and is home to many Craftsman homes from the 1920's and 30's — it is, incidentally, my neighborhood. In the five years I've lived in San Diego, the street has gone through a renaissance that's seen coffee shops, restaurants, and pubs open. The place has become a real draw and Jay Porter is part of the reason.

Porter is the moving force behind the San Diego restaurant the Linkery which he founded in 2005 as well as the year-old El Take It Easy. As local beer aficionados know, the Linkery has been serving great beers almost from the get-go as well as special beer dinners with West Coast brewers.

As our changing economy makes so many of us rethink business models, Porter writes that he's mulling over the idea of turning over the Linkery's space to a brewery:

The passion that brought me into the business in the first place was urban development — I wanted to help transform our old streetcar neighborhoods along 30th Street back into the lively, pedestrian-based places they were conceived as. Now, I think we in North Park are a bit heavy on the restaurant/entertainment side (which makes me really happy compared to 2004, definitely) and light on offices, workplaces, retail stores, and, most importantly, places that make things. I’d really like to help our neighborhood put our culture of craftsmanship front and center. And a great place for us to start is, naturally, beer.

Specifically, I’ve recently become semi-obsessed with the idea of the Linkery transforming into a brewpub. “Brewpub” isn’t really the word, I should say either a brewery with an excellent restaurant or an excellent restaurant that brews its own beer. I picture the space on the corner of 30th Street and North Park Way, with the open-air vibe and the beautiful city landscape, as a brewery/restaurant and it makes me think the neighborhood would be even more awesome than it already is.

I love this idea.  Doesn't San Diego have enough breweries? No. Nor do we have enough distilleries. The building, unfortunately, is not set up to run a still — but making gallons upon gallons of great local beer? Hell yes. I encourage anyone serious about the idea of opening a brewery in San Diego to track down Porter at the Linkery.

The Linkery
3794 30th St
(at North Park Way in North Park)
San Diego CA USA
619 255 8778

Photo above from Assemble Magazine. Original here. 

Bookshelf: The Tex-Mex Cookbooks of Robb Walsh

My favorite food is Mexican food.

I used to be a waiter in a Mexican restaurant in Indiana.

Now that's where you go for Mexican.

~ Jim Gaffigan

Time was, Americans considered a chicken enchilada combo plate (with rice and beans) solidly Mexican. Then along came Diana Kennedy’s 1972 The Cuisines of Mexico, a book that raised Americans’ understanding of, and appreciation for, regional Mexican cookery. But in publishing it, she also dismissed our familiar Texas-style “mixed plates” as ersatz and debased Mexican, not worthy of our time and attention. After Kennedy, Tex-Mex was to real Mexican as ReaLemon was to an actual lemon.

To this day, nearly forty years later, some folks look down on what we’ve come to call Tex-Mex cooking. “That’s not” they can be heard to sniff “real Mexican food.” Well, they have a point. Tex-Mex is not Mexican per se. Kennedy was right. The food you find in restaurants and homes throughout Texas and at “Mexican” joints in the Southwest and Midwest is sometimes nothing like what’s eaten in Oaxaca, the Yucatan Peninsula, or Michoacán. This is not news — but it doesn’t stop the supercilious regard some hold for a sizzling plate of fajitas.

Good lord. How can anyone look down on a well-made plate of fajitas?

In The Tex-Mex Cookbook (2004), Houstonian Robb Walsh lays out how Kennedy actually did us a favor and helped define an American cuisine:

We can all thank Diana Kennedy for inadvertently granting Tex-Mex its rightful place in food history. By convincing us that Tex-Mex wasn’t really Mexican food, she forced us to realize that it was something far more interesting: America’s oldest regional cuisine.

Walsh makes the case in The Tex-Mex Cookbook for this “debased” Mexican as a very old and perfectly legitimate amalgam of cookery traditions from Mexico with influences from German, Native American, and even Canary Islander sources. He reminds us that San Antonio’s famous “chili queens” were selling bowls of spicy red goodness to hungry Texans around the time Vincent van Gogh killed himself and H.P Lovecraft was in diapers.

The Tex-Mex Cookbook is an invaluable source of information on this regional American cookery. Really. If you know nothing about Tex-Mex other than it involves chili, tequila, enchiladas, nachos, bean dip, and Frito pie, this is the book that explains what it is, where it came from, and why it’s not simply low-rent Mexican, but born of a tradition that both sprang from and parallels Mexican cookery. Walsh digs into archives and newspaper morgues, pulling old photos and interviewing old-timers. This is solid scholarly research. Naturally, there are chapters on chili and tacos, but there’s substantial ink devoted to enchiladas, tamales, breakfasts, sweets, and, for you boozers, the margarita (including the story of how Mauriano Martinez saw kids getting Slurpees at 7-11 in the early 1970’s and — bing! — had the idea for a machine to make frozen margaritas which theretofore had required blenders). Yes, recipes are included.

Made it this far? Good. Pour yourself a michelada, a lightly spicy lime-and-beer concoction that can be pretty damn refreshing with a plate of grilled oysters.

Michelada

½ Key lime
coarse salt
2 dashes of Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp (5ml) of Tabasco or other hot red pepper sauce (more to taste)
12 oz light Mexican beer (such as Corona)

Salt the rim of a chilled beer mug by rubbing it with the lime and dipping it in the coarse salt. Squeeze the lime into the mug. Add the Worcestershire sauce and Tabasco. Pour in the beer and serve.

Walsh picks up the Tex-Mex story in The Tex-Mex Grill and Backyard Barbacoa Cookbook (2010) that focuses on grilling and smoking techniques you’ll find in restaurants, backyards, and various ho-downs in the Lone Star state. Yeah, there’s some repeated material from the earlier book (There’s Martinez and his frozen margaritas again).

But there’s also barbacoa de Borrego, beef short ribs in an ancho-molasses sauce (we use cane syrup), sweetbread tacos, grilled baby goat, rack of lamb with red pepper glaze, posole, and a long section on fajitas — what they are, where they come from, how they became popular, and why they’re sometimes mushy (tenderizing enzymes). Recipes abound for goat, pig, beef, game, chicken, seafood,  burgers, and the drinks and sides that go with them. We are especially fond of a recipe that doesn’t appear in the index: page 201’s cilantro cream.

Cilantro Cream

1 cup sour cream (we use a more liquid and pourable crema)
juice of one lime
¼ cup chopped fresh cilantro leaves
2 Tbl chopped green onions

Mix in a bowl and refrigerate until ready to use.

It goes especially well with puffy tacos or a big ol’ plate of freshly grilled fajitas — like the one below just begging for onions and peppers. Thanks, Robb, for the pointers on making them.

Robb Walsh (2004)
The Tex-Mex Cookbook: A History in Recipes and Photos
288 pages, paperback
Broadway Books
ISBN: 0767914880
$18.99

Robb Walsh (2010)
The Tex-Mex Grill and Backyard Barbacoa Cookbook
256 pages, paperback
Broadway Books
ISBN: 0767930738
$18.99

Goes well with:

• Robb Walsh: Texas Eats. The man has a blog. Buy his books, but check out the free stuff, too. Click on the “books” tab once there for a rundown of his other titles. 
• Texas Tea, a Punch in Disguise — a bit inspired by an offhand comment in a 1960's Texas cookbook. 

Stone IPA ~ Bringing Moths to My Flame

Complete strangers were looking me in the eye and smiling. Hey buddy, the first one said. A second a few feet later added Lookin' good. I smiled back. The third looked at what I was carrying, grinned, and gave a rueful shake of his head. How's it going, man? No doubt about it: that was pure, unadulterated envy.

I wasn't twenty feet inside the grocery store when it stuck me like a cast iron skillet upside my big pumpkin head: Stone 10th Anniversary India Pale Ale is an irresistible pheromone for San Diego beer geeks.

Like it was an infant, I was cradling a three-liter bottle in the crook of my left arm as I headed for the store's Coinstar machine. The beer itself was gone and the bottle was half full of several months' worth of pocket change — but the allure of Stone's IPA remained as strong as ever. Maybe it was just the mere hugeness of the bottle, but I carried it with the mug-hoisting gargoyle facing out, so I suspect it was the brand itself. San Diego is a beer town and these boys know their brews.

I'd bought the beer for coworkers a few years ago when I was an account manager for a local advertising firm. One client came to us for a complete rebranding and everything — from the name and logo to the lobby sign, prospectus, and business cards — needed new designs. By the time we finished, there wasn't a single person in the firm who hadn't contributed to the project. Everyone at the office got a sample of the potent (10% abv) hopped ale. I kept the bottle and have been stuffing coins into it ever since.

Once or twice a year, I haul those coins to a Coinstar machine and redeem for Amazon.com credit. I want to buy a machine for the kitchen and Amazon's got it cheap. Well, 35% off retail. The coins were just weighing down the floor and this seemed a better use for it. Cool thing about Coinstar is that it normally takes a hefty percentage when issuing store credit, but at some — and apparently only some — machines, it will issue credit for various online retailers without taking the percentage. Put in $120 worth of change and get $120 in credit.

As long as my bank won't take a of bottle of coins anymore, then the beer geeks of San Diego will see me again come Christmastime.

Meanwhile, I really should score another big ass bottle of delicious Stone's most recent anniversary ale. Find tasting notes on the 10th Anniversary IPA here.

Behold the Pasbstmosa

I'm at a fancy bar in Louisville, Kentucky. For obvious reasons, I won't mention which one. Two seats down, the couple at the bar is having an earnest but subdued discussion. I missed the first part, but at its conclusion, I turned to face them.

“…bstmosa,” she was saying.

“Don’t order that,” he pleaded. “Not here.”

“I want one. I want a Pabstmosa.”

Wholly unable to continue my own conversation with the distiller to my left, I turn to face them. “Excuse me. Did you just order a Pasbstmosa?”

She had. No explanation was necessary. I got it immediately. Her meaning was apparent, but Deb Torres elaborates anyway. “Yeah, it’s Pabst and OJ, just like a mimosa. It’s great.” Deb's visiting from Arizona and explains that she learned the drink from her friend, Dawni Rotten. The man to my left orders one. What the hell, I order one as well. Pabstmosas for everyone.

Deb assures me that Pabstmosas are good any time of day. I’m glad to have ordered one. I’m glad for the subsequent conversations it sparked in which I learned about Arkansas martinis and Monkeywrench martinis (beers with an olive or a maraschino cherry, respectively). I was even glad to see the same bartender serving more later that night. But mostly? Mostly, I’m glad that’s the last Pabstmosa I’ll ever order.

Pabstmosa

12 oz Pabst Blue Ribbon beer
4 oz orange juice

Pour the beer into a large glass, and top with OJ. Normally, I call for freshly squeezed fruit juices in drinks, but in this case, I can’t see that it would matter.

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Lost Abbey Gingerbread Cake

Serpent’s Stout is out now. Drink some now, eat some later.

Last year, I spent the better part of a Friday night with brewer Tomme Arthur of Lost Abbey just north of San Diego. Before that, cheesemonger Zeke Ferguson, photographer John Schulz, and I began with lunch under the hop vines at Stone Brewing’s beer garden. We ended up at Lost Abbey among racks of oak barrels, eating cheese, breaking out funky chocolates, and sampling a load of Tomme’s specials, including some vintage bottles he pulled out so we could taste the variations over years. All in all, it was a great night.

It also made me more appreciative of Lost Abbey beers, so I’ve been scoring more of them since then. This week, I grabbed a stout. At 11% abv, Serpent’s Stout is a seasonally available beer (early winter) in a 750ml corked bottle. It’s a very dark, malty beer, light on the carbonation, with an almost creamy texture. Given its notes of chocolate, molasses, and even coffee, I immediately realized how well it would work in baking.

After lightly chilling the bottle, I poured out 8 ounces, then savored the rest as Tomme intended. The portion I set aside went into a dense, dark, moist gingerbread cake that carried over the lingering taste of Serpent’s Stout with undertones of molasses and racy ginger. Photo to the left courtesy of StudioSchulz.com.

Adapted from Claudia Fleming’s Guinness Stout Ginger Cake in The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern, this version contains slightly more ginger and double the cardamom of the original.

Lost Abbey Gingerbread Cake

1 cup Lost Abbey Serpent Stout
1 cup molasses
½ Tbl baking soda
3 large eggs
½ cup granulated sugar
½ cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
¾ cup canola oil
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 ½ Tbl ground ginger
1 ½ tsp baking powder
¾ tsp ground cinnamon
¼ tsp ground cloves
¼ tsp freshly grated nutmeg
¼ tsp ground cardamom
1 ½ Tbl peeled fresh gingerroot, grated or finely minced

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Butter a 9- X 5-inch loaf pan, line the bottom and sides with parchment, and grease the parchment. Alternatively, butter and flour a 6-cup Bundt pan or ring mold.

(1) In a large and deep saucepan over high heat, combine the stout and molasses and bring just to a boil. Turn off the heat immediately, stir to mix thoroughly, and add the baking soda. The resulting foam will subside after a few beats.

(2) Meanwhile, whisk together the eggs and both sugars in a bowl, then whisk in the oil.

(3) In a separate bowl, sift the flour, then whisk in ground ginger, baking powder, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and cardamom.

Combine the stout mixture (1) with the egg mixture (2), then whisk this liquid into the flour mixture (3), half at a time. Add the fresh ginger and stir to combine.

Pour the batter into the pan and bake for about 1 hour, or until the top springs back when gently pressed and a cake tester inserted in the middle comes out clean. Do not open the oven until the gingerbread is almost done, or the center may fall slightly. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Because of the canola oil, this cake keeps at room temperature for several days. Serve with whipped cream, ice cream, or just plain with a cup of coffee or tea.

Goes well with:

Friday, Saturday, or Sunday nights at The Lost Abbey’s tasting room.

Port Brewing / The Lost Abbey
155 Mata Way, Suite 104
San Marcos, CA 92069
(800) 918-6816

William S. Burroughs’ Birthday Beer

It’s a stretch to say that William S. Burroughs was a friend. But back in the 90’s the writer and I were neighbors in Lawrence, Kansas. Matt Dillon, Allen Ginsberg, and Hunter S. Thompson showed up now and then and the novelist Scott Heim was kicking around town at the same time. No, Bill and I weren’t friends, but we knew each other and on rare occasions chatted over dinner.

As thanks for his hospitality, I made a special beer — Teufelkatzen — for his 80th birthday. Later, I found bottles and labels of Teufelkatzen in bars, in peoples’ homes, mementos of spending time with him. Bill never drank the beer I made for him, but he did pass it around. I even heard third-person stories of the private brewer who only made beer for Burroughs. A bottle of that stuff, I was told, was only for people he liked and trusted.

By the time I knew him, the crazy-ass junky was history. The mischievous old man with an avuncular smile whom I came to know had a fondness for guns and cats. His afternoon tipple was as questionable as a syringe of junk, though: vodka and flat Coke.

I found the recipe today, along with my sole remaining copy of a label, in an old file. Haven’t made it in years, but for the first time ever in print, here is the recipe for William S. Burroughs’ birthday beer. In the mid 1990’s, I was still making extract brews, so it’s an easy recipe.

Teufelkatzen

8 lbs pale malt syrup
½ lb British crystal malt, crushed
1.5 oz Northern Brewers hops
½ Cascade hops
1 vial of lager yeast*

But the crushed crystal malt in a brew bag and add to 1.5 gallons of cold water in a boiler. Bring to a boil. Remove the grains and add the malt syrup and Northern Brewers hops. Boil for 45 minutes. At the 43 minute mark, add the Cascade hops.

While the beer is boiling, add 3 gallons of cool water to a fermentation vessel. When the wort finishes boiling, add it to the cool water in the fermentation vessel and top off with more cool water to make five gallons total volume. When the wort cools, pitch the yeast. Ferment to completion and bottle.

Makes about 2.5 cases.

* See White Labs page on yeasts for more info on pitching.

Goes well with:

• Eggs, William S. Burroughs — Wait, What?, a 1940's recipe from French chef Henri Charpentier.

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Chickenshit Afternoon

...professionals, students, bankers...would be watching a chicken

on a 10x10 board yelling in unison "SHIT! SHIT! SHIT!"
Ahh, you should have seen it.
The Chicken Drop was stupidity and senselessness
on a Herculean scale.

~ Brooks Hamaker

Grousing about New Orleans’ oppressive heat and humidity is all well and good, but if it weren’t for yesterday’s stultifying heat, my delicate mind would still bear a Chicken Drop-shaped hole.

As I approached Good Friends bar on the corner of St. Ann and Dauphine, the heat and sweat had put me in a mildly grumpy mood. Just in front of me, neighbors crossed into the cool interior with two large dogs. Turns out that Good Friends in the afternoon is the most dog-friendly bar I’d seen in the US. At least six meandered among the customers, lounged on the cool floor, and pretty much made themselves at home. At Good Friends, even the dogs were regulars.

But the pool table stopped me. It was covered with a plywood board that had a Twister mat duct taped to it. The board was surrounded by a wooden frame enclosed by chicken wire. It was my good fortune to stumble across the lead-up to a New Orleans chicken drop—half gambling, half brazen ploy to get bar patrons to linger and buy more.

The Chicken Drop is simplicity itself. Around a setup similar to the one above, patrons place bets—or as at Good Friends, simply put their names down under red, green, blue, or yellow columns with no exchange of money—on where a live chicken will, well, dump. I bought two beers just in anticipation.

Of course, there’s lots of build-up. “Ten minutes left!” the manager calls. “Two minutes to place your names!” “Thirty seconds, everyone! Get your names in for a free drink!” Oh, yes—patrons who correctly guess where the bird drops a deuce get a free drink. It’s the most juvenile fun I’ve had until actually writing just now the phrase “the bird drops a deuce.”

The assembled patrons gathered around to watch the live speckled hen gently removed from her carrier, then placed over the wire enclosure onto the board. The crowd jockeyed for positions around the table, guffawed, cheered, and tried to startle to chicken into prematurely defecating while she strutted over certain colors.

A few false starts as she bedecked the white spaces between the colored circles. Then, after about four minutes, gold. She dumped a huge number on yellow. I got a free beer, was all cool and refreshed, and the grump was gone.

I cannot wait until the Hamster Derby.

Good Friends Bar
740 Dauphine St
New Orleans, LA 70116-3055
(504) 566-7191


Goes well with:

• Brooks Hamaker’s essay “The Turkey Terror of Willow Street, Part I” on the Chicken Drop for eGullet—with a Thanksgiving twist. It’s just a classic New Orleans bar game and a really fun essay. Helps that I’m staying with Brooks so he can elucidate these things for me.

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Tales of the Cocktail 2009

In the last two years, I’ve spent more time in New Orleans than in any place other than my own home. Now it’s time to head back.

Tales of the Cocktail, the annual homage to mixed drinks, kicks off July 8th in the French Quarter. Headquartered at the Hotel Monteleone, Tales brings together bartenders, distillers, writers, cocktail bloggers, and the public from around the world for five days of seminars, workshops, talks, panels, dinners, and sampling.

Lots…and lots of sampling.

For a preview of what’s to come, check out the collaborative Tales Blog. Entries from cocktail bloggers around the world present interviews, snapshot of upcoming sessions, suggestions for surviving such copious amounts of alcohol (hint: just because it’s paid for, tasty, and in front of you doesn’t mean you have to drink it).

Chris Sule, distiller at Old New Orleans Rum, has spearheaded a session I’m particularly excited to attend. In fact, it’s a big reason why I’m coming this year. From Brewer to Distiller takes a look at what happens when beer brewers get their hands on a still. It is also a chance to examine what unique sensibilities—if any—brewers bring to the table when they start making rums, whiskeys, absinthes, brandies, and other spirits. My preview of the session is on the Tales Blog here.

Thursday, July 9 from 2:30-4:00 PM at the Hotel Monteleone in New Orleans.

You bet I’ll be there.

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Rock Out with Your Cock Ale

Trup: Nay, nay, no more sobrietie than will do us good; but that's all one. Look ye, Mr. Spruce, for your wine I don’t love it; and for your ale ye have not a drop in London worth drinking; that's the short on’t.

Spr: How Mr. Trupenny, not a drop worth drinking? Did you ever taste our cock-ale?

Trup: Cock-ale? no; what's that?

Spr: Why there you shew your ignorance. Look ye, sir, I lay ye five pound you shall say, ye never tasted the like in the country.

~ The Woman Turned Bully (1675)
Attributed to Aphra Behn

With a recent post on a 300-year-old drink called negus, I intended to reach back into the misty past of drinking history. Rick Stutz over at Kaiser Penguin has stretched just a bit further with a recipe for Cock Ale. Yeah, with a real cock. Well, a chicken, anyway. The farm-to-table crowd argues about just such semantics.

As an erstwhile homebrewer and incorrigible book hound, I know that recipe well. My thoroughly annotated college-era copy of Charlie Papazian’s old Complete Joy of Homebrewing and its infernally bad index is dog-eared from once-constant reference. Papazian lifted it from Edward Spencer who yoiked it from Eliza Smith whose The Complete Housewife was the first cookbook published in America. The recipe’s been around.

Until Rick’s post, though, I hadn’t known of anyone actually making it. Now, I’ve mentioned before that I’m leery of flesh in my cups—bacon-infused bourbon and whatnot—but anyone setting a mug of cock ale in front of me will soon be faced with an empty mug. By all reports from the 17th and 18th centuries, the stuff was eminently quaffable.

The inclusion of animals in beverages is an old, old practice (whole or parts, live or dead), but has faded almost entirely away. Brewers weren’t the only ones in on the game: When Smith’s book was printed, personal stills were already popular both in North America and England where, in fact, one of the duties of a responsible wife was managing the household still. Cock water was a natural. Also snail water, but we’ll let that one slide.

The practice may be on the ropes, but it hasn't faded entirely away. Del Maguey released, as part of its single-village bottlings of Mexican spirits, Pechuga, a triple-distilled mescal distilled with a chicken breast suspended in the still. The stuff is pricey when you can find it, but I admit I’m curious.

Until I score a bottle, I have this recipe, typical of the mid-18th century, from a handwritten household recipe book once in the collection of Chef Fritz Blank, but now at the University of Pennsylvania. Although I included it in Moonshine, it was primarily as an historical curiosity. Might have to rethink that after prodding from a Penguin…

Cock Water

Take a red Cock from ye Barn’s door, pull it, take out ye Intrals & break all ye Bones, have in readiness of Rosemary, hops and Broad Time each 1 handful, red Pimpernel 2 handfuls, Raisins of ye Sun ston’d half a pound, Dates pick’d and ston’d a qtr of a pound, Currans wash’d and rubb’d dry a pound, Canary sack 2 qts; first lay most of ye herbs in ye bottom of ye still, then put in ye Cock, lay the fruit all about it, put ye rest of ye herbs over it, & pour ye sack in by ye sides, cover and past it close, begin the fire betimes & keep a constant heat under it. You may draw somewhat above 3 pints of very good; mix and sweeten if with Sugar-Candy to yr Liking.

Goes well with:

• The Restoration Comedy Project

Potted, Plotzed, and Corned: An Overdrinker's Thesaurus

This weekend we say goodbye not just to summer (a largely meaningless gesture in San Diego), but also to our good friends Dr. Fidel, Mama Charlie, Awesome Rob, and Mrs. Awesome. They’d been renting a nice little house for the last week in Pacific Beach, an oceanside community where the surfers, college kids, and stoners get along (mostly) while sun-bleached baby Lebowksis are just as likely to call you bra as bro, or—increasingly and annoyingly at my age—sir.

Last night we showed up with beers to feed the cooler just before the sun went down while preparations for a seafood feast got underway. I popped open a can, applied a Texas Dent, and strolled out to the patio.

And that’s when I saw him. The neighbor. Spread eagle on the ground, face up, and flat as a slab of turf, keys in one hand, cash and ID in the other. A quick check proved he was breathing and there was no blood—our friends confirmed he had been swerving drunk as he wound his way up the footpath. There was talk of rolling him over to avoid his aspirating dinner if he hurled, but, since he continued to breathe, we just kept a wary eye on him from our side of the footpath.

In the end, his roommate emerged, took a swig from his beer can, poured a long stream of beer on his prone buddy’s face from about six feet up, and went back inside. Sleeping Beauty spazzed, sputtered, arose, and started throwing down rhymes to anyone who would listen. Us? Our arms-length supervision was over. We turned to Dungeness crab, shellfish, and corn on the cob.

In the course of writing Moonshine, I chronicled so many terms for being drunk that I compiled them into what I like to call the Overdrinker’s Thesaurus, an ever-growing list, part of which made it in the book. From the merely tipsy to the flat-out annihilated, I offer the following alternatives for describing what condition your condition is in.

Please do drop a comment if your favorites are not here….

An Overdrinker's Thesaurus

Annihilated
Befuddled
Bent
Besotted
Blind drunk
Blitzed
Blitzkrieged
Blotto
Bombed
Booze-blind
Borracho
Bottle fever, to have or be afflicted with
Brined
Cocked and loaded
Cockeyed
Corned
Crippled
Demolished
Dizzy
Drenched
Drunk
Drunked up
Faced
Faded
Flat-faced
Floored or floor-hammered
FUBAR (fucked up beyond all recognition)
Fucked
Fucked up
Gathered a talking load
Getting your drink on
Getting your swerve on
Glazed
Greased
Guttered
Hammered
In your cups
Inebriated
Intoxicated
Jiggered
Jimjams
Jugged, in the jug
Knee-walking drunk
Leathered
Liquored up
Lit
Lit up
Loaded
Loopy or looped
Loose
Mangled
Mashed
Maudlin
Mellow
Numb
Obliterated
On a bender
On autopilot
Ossified
Pickled
Pie-eyed
Piqued
Pissed
Plastered
Plotzed
Plowed
Potted
Pottzed
Pot-valiant
Pounded
Put a load on
Rat-assed
Reeling
Relaxed
Retarded
Riotous
Sauced
Senseless
Shattered
Shellacked
Shitbombed
Shit-faced
Skewered
Skunked
Slagged
Slammed
Slaughtered
Slopped
Sloshed
Smashed
Soaked
Soused
Spins, to have the
Staggers, to have the
Staying afloat
Stewed
Stinking drunk
Stupid
Tangle-footed
Tanked
Tanked up
Tied one on
Tight
Tipsy
Torn up
Tossed
Trashed
Trousered
Trucked
Tub-thumped
Twatted
Tweaked
Under the influence
Wasted
Well-oiled
Wheelchaired
Whacked
Wiggity whacked
Wiggity wiggity whacked [NB the progression]
Zoned