Hello and welcome to Cooking Issues. This is Dave Arthur, your host of Cooking Issues coming to you live from Rockefeller Center at New Stance Studios, joined as usual with Nastasia the Hammer Lopez. How are you doing, Stas? I'm good. Behind me, uh, which is unusual, so I can't see what you are doing, what kind of faces you're making, makes me a little bit nervous.
Should I be nervous? No. Uh mm-hmm. Got uh John also chilling behind me. How are you doing, John?
Doing great thanks. How's uh the great state of Connecticut treating you? Uh it was good, but I'm back in back in New York now. Oh, nice. Back here for yeah, a little like two weeks ago.
We're not gonna have time, but uh I I guess I shouldn't ask you about your so John for a while, before I go further into the amazing show we have, John for a while cooked for tennis uh superstar uh Djokovic, or as I call him Naga Jolokovich. And uh interesting in the news, I kinda wanna get your read, but then you might not ever get to work for him again if I got your read, so probably you don't want to talk about it, am I right? I don't know if I'll ever get to work for him again, anyways, based on some other things. Not with him personally, but with that family. You lit him on you lit him on fire or you lit the child on fire.
He doesn't have a child, but the family he stayed with has a child. Did you light the child on fire? Was it your fault? Was it your fault that the burger had the secret sauce on it instead of on the side that caused the meltdown that almost burnt the house down? Yes.
John, if I've told you once, I've told you a million times, you gotta pay it you gotta get more front of the house in you and pay attention to what sauces are ordered on the burger. Not gonna go through the Shake Shack, you know, order for 20 people and look through each individually wrapped burger to see what, you know, make sure there's the one that doesn't have the sauce on it. Yeah, but the kid of the host is the one that has to be right. Yeah. I mean, in the you're you're correct.
In the real life, you're correct. Everyone's important. Yeah. But in the business world, it's that one kid, that one trash can kid that's important. Hey, uh, not that not that you're a trash can kid, not that you listen.
Uh all people are are have some decency in them somewhere, I guess. Uh in California, we got Jackie Molecules. How you doing in our California booth? I'm good. I'm very good.
Oh, yeah? You sound like unusually. What is happening? Well, I just uh sorry, I have a little feedback here. Um I just got back from New York, actually.
I did I did like a crazy 24-hour trip to New York to see my niece for her birthday. So nice travel fatigue. So when someone who lives in California gets back from New York, do they double down on the California like, yo? No, I'm not I'm still in New Yorker. Come on.
I'm still a United Coast guy. Okay, sure. Okay. And we have Hassan Moore in the booth. Uh back again.
We thought we were gonna have Joe back, but Hassan, because Joe's uh Joe's didn't make it back yet. So how you doing? I'm good. Yeah? Yes.
I hear you here. I hear you're excited for today's uh show. Hasan, are you an enjoyer of spirits and cocktails? I am. Did you know that on today's program we have as our special guest, uh actually you he was on the show once before, uh uh probably a decade ago, right after we started.
Famed cocktail writer and historian Dave Wondrich. Dave, how are you doing? I'm doing good. How are you? I'm I'm all right.
I'm all right. Yeah, I think last time we had you on the show was about 10 years ago. Yeah, it was in another century, it seems like. And uh you know, maybe uh overseas somewhere. Did we just have you on because we wanted to, or were you was it after one of your books like Punch or one of these things?
It was probably after one of these books because uh, you know, they come out of every every once in a while, every 10 years or so. Well, you gotta keep writing books, otherwise, otherwise the world like forgets if you don't keep writing things, it's crazy. Yeah, it's true. But on the other hand uh if the world forgets is that the worst thing in the world uh as long as the world keeps paying you they can forget the best of all exactly so royalties the best of all scenarios is that everybody forgets but the money keeps coming yeah and then you can just go and you know sit in a cafe somewhere with one of those little tiny dogs and a beret and uh and and drink pastise all morning. That's like those 80s stars and you're like oh they haven't done anything since the 80s but then you look up their net worth and they're worth like a zillion dollars you're like that's the way yeah they're wearing very expensive t shirts.
Yeah yeah yeah very good very good all right so let's let's get into this for those like for the again couple of people who might not know kind of uh where you're from I was talking to my wife actually uh last week when I said you were coming on next week and uh I was like you know like the cocktail historian Dave Wonder she's look well that means there's there's been others right and I was like well no I was like there there there are people that I mean look there are people who are your contemporaries that were interested kind of in specific ingredients like or or recipes or lost recipes like uh Ted Hay and all those other people uh and you know there also were people who wrote uh in the 20s 30s 40s uh that included kind of quick you know back of the envelope histories of cocktails but no one kind of took it seriously as an historical pursuit with the exception of i being interested in specific ingredients right before you like that was it well there there were there were a couple there were a couple of people like William Grimes who wrote a very nice scholarly history, The Cocktail. After that, that was later. Then he quit and gave away all of his cocktail books. So wait, wait. Can you speak a little closer to the mic?
Oh yeah. Okay, yeah. Uh so I thought his book came out after. No, it was well, it was uh one of my inspirations. It came out in the early 90s.
And uh it was like, whoa, this is really cool. Well I was in grad school, I read the book like a dutiful uh academic, you know. If you're interested in something, read a book on it. And so I did. Tip of the hat to Grimy Grimes.
Yeah, he was he was good, but but he you know, he could have he could have kept up with it, but uh he was too smart for that. But didn't he then go to politics before he came back to do food? Yeah, he did a bunch of stuff. And uh, you know, his he's he's he's an interesting person. I used to go and test restaurants with him when he was uh uh food critic.
And he's an interesting person to talk to. He has a PhD in Complet, uh specializing in Russian novels. So and he's a Russian novel character. Huh. So what is it about the combination of liking to go to bars, like uh depressing Russian literature and kind of politics that kind of fits so well together?
Well, there's a strong thread of heavy drinking that goes through all of that. I mean, just you know, back of the envelope calculations today. Yeah, yeah. All right. Okay.
Uh I mean, politicians, ooh, they mop up the sauce. Yeah, yeah. All right. So uh also I should uh oh, call in your questions should you have questions uh if you're a Patreon listener. Two 917-410-1507.
That's nine one uh nine one seven four one oh fifteen oh seven. Uh so a couple of the things I promised we would uh talk about. Uh one, you are uh you have a family compound. It's undisclosed location in Pennsylvania. Yeah, it's a secure location.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's large enough that you can create uh kind of potato guns and test potato cannons, uh, kind of more acceptable terminology for them. And uh you can launch them in such a way that you can shoot them farther than is reasonable and still have them take off and land on your property, and you can see the the effects. Oh, yeah, we could we could get a good 400 yards uh range out of these things uh if done just exactly right. And uh we've got a lake that we can shoot them into, so that's uh that's kind of nice.
Now, I want you to describe for me the not so jet now uh speaking of drinking, like I'm sure you're familiar with the Highland games and the caber toss and all kinds of strange feats of idiocy that people do in cultures that uh also have a lot of drinking. I want you to describe to me the uh sport of potato catching that you invented with one of your buddies at your family compound. Yeah, this was uh this was a number of years ago when our kids who are now grown and out of college were small, and uh we uh had a fungi bat, you know, one of those uh big wide plastic bats. And uh we were kind of new to the waves of the potato cannon. And uh my friend Mike uh runs to the end of the field with the fungy bat and goes, okay, point it right at me.
Uh we'd been drinking Geneva Punch the first time I ever made that. I found a bottle of old Geneva in a uh liquor store upstate, which was it was gone from New York City at that point. Uh and so I was really excited, and I drank maybe a little bit too much, and so did Mike. And uh so uh he goes, you know, all right, let's let's see if we could do this. And I shoot the potato out of the potato can, and you know, you fill the back with hairspray, there's a chamber, and you flick a little coleman lighter, bang, uh, and uh it goes boom and shoots the potato.
And if you're standing there shooting the thing, it looks like it's moving fairly slowly. But uh Mike's standing there with the bat and it whizzes right by him. Uh I was shooting, you know, a bit to the left of him, uh, or rather to the uh to his right, let's say, uh, because uh I I really didn't want to hit him. Uh and then uh second shot, it's even further to the to the right. And then he goes, Okay, okay, point it right at me.
Not a problem. So I point it right at him, I shoot it. He goes, ass over T Kelly as a bruise the size of a dinner plate on his upper chest. And this is this is one of my profoundest regrets is we did we weren't videotaping this because uh that would have been an absolute winner on the late Bob Saggett's America's Funniest Home videos. I mean, it was just so predictable.
Oh my god. And the perfection of it uh was was it was just uh such a vignette. You're so lucky no serious damage was done to him. Yeah, I know. If I'd hit him in the head, it would have been really bad.
Well, uh the the thing about compressed gas is that like unless you do a lot of calculations, it's really hard to kind of and also even if you do the calculations. Um I think I told you once I made a a chicken gun uh out of a big chicken cannon. That is a big cannon, yes, huge. And you need a lot of gas for that thing. Yeah, it was uh the the bore was six inches.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I and it's heavy artillery. And then I I built the uh the gas container, I think out of eight or ten inch like pipe, like uh, and then like uh you know, fully filled it with compressed air. And then and I was like, oh, this half inch thick polycarbonate is like polycarbonate's not gonna break, it's strong. So I I got that as the target to shoot at.
Yeah. And then you know, loaded the chicken in. Do you use you don't need a sabot with a potato because it seals. No, we don't use potatoes, we use limes actually because they're much more ballistic. And you're a cocktail man.
Yeah, and also we can get them in in uh Brooklyn for cheap. So we bring them up with us. By the way, for those of you that don't live in the New York area, some areas of the country, limes are inexpensive. And in New York, if you're paying more than 25 cents for a lime, it's like what? Yeah, yeah, especially in Brooklyn.
You can get sometimes uh when they're at season, you can get 10 for for for a dollar, uh, which is amazing. Yeah, up in uh Monaco land where John's from in in Connecticut, limes are like a dollar a piece. Like oh with lime. Yeah. I would it's still worth it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Except for that time of year when they when they're hard as rocks and have no juice. Well, they fly out of a potato gun really well. Yeah, yeah, that's true. I guess they don't need to be good.
But then do you have to sabote them or you just make sure they stick real close? You just gauge them to your barrel. I gauge them to the barrel, and you know, I might do a little work with a peeler if they're too big. Uh smart, smart. We have a rifled barrel.
We've got one on a carriage with a rifle barrel. No, I bought it actually. Uh I I wish I had done it myself because I would have done a better job. And you hit your buddy with a rifle. No, that was early.
All right. Well, that was the smoothbore muzzle loader. Anyway, uh chickens are not as conformable or uh as you know easy to mess with as limes. So I sabbated it with uh uh styrofoam, and it does when something that big is flying away from you, it looks like it's going slow. Yeah.
Yeah. It's not. Anyway, yeah, it completely shattered the uh well, the amount of mass there, I mean, that's a heavy projectile. Oh my god. Oh my god.
For those of you so like mine also, though, compressed air makes I think a different kind of noise. I've never fired one of the hairspray ones, but it's got to make like a pop or like a Yeah, it makes a good good, nice size bang. Yeah, the compressed air ones just make this kind of like frightening fun, though. Yeah, it is kind of cool. Uh you should do you should uh but I don't do compressed air stuff anymore just because Nastasi and I were supposed to do a video of remember this to us?
Yeah. And we didn't do it because I told you there was a small but non-zero chance that the aged PVC pipe could shatter. Yeah. And that uh that would almost certainly kill me if that happened. Yeah.
And you were like, this is some bullcrap, Dave. And I'm like, well, I didn't have the money to build it out of ABS, something that shatters in a less violent way than PVC. Well, you know, you can just wrap the whole thing in duct tape. That's what we do. I mean, that's the thing.
I think the like once you get up to the like large bores, yeah, yeah. Like each individual piece of plastic. Did I ever tell you the story about how I was doing a demonstration on liquid nitrogen safety on what not to do? And I put liquid nitrogen into a two-liter bottle and sealed it. And then put okay, so cocktail people, you know what I'm talking about, the 23-liter cambro.
For those of you that don't do the the Home Depot bucket to do your big batch stuff, like the 23-liter square cambro is a standard 23 quart square cambro is a standard thing. So I was like, oh, I'll stick this thin two-liter soda bottle inside of the cambro, and it's not gonna break the cam bro. Loudest thing. Oh, I'll bet. Second or third loudest thing I've ever done.
And it completely obliterated the cambro and sent shards. Just, you know, again, lucky that I can still I was wearing glasses, thankfully, but yeah, nitr look liquid nitrogen is is a beast. I do love it though. I love it. I really do.
It is well, uh the thing about liquid nitrogen is that it's just one of those things it's mesmerizing. Like like as a material. Yeah, like fire. Yeah, like uh well, we could talk fire. Well, we'll we'll we'll talk fire uh because you are also a big proponent of fire.
I like fire. Yeah, like fire. But none of this is why you're here today. You are here today because uh after many, many years of work, uh you've just recently come out with the Oxford Companion to Spirits uh and Cocktails, uh along with your co-editor Noah Rothbaum. And how many years was this in the making?
You want to talk a little bit about this project? Yeah, this was uh uh I signed the contract for it in uh 2012. So it came out last November. That's how long it was in the making. And uh it was one of those projects that uh I was skeptical about, but I got talked into it and uh it turned out to be just exactly as hairy as I thought it was gonna be.
And uh I mean it's it's uh it's basically an encyclopedia of spirits and cocktails, uh eight hundred and sixty pages long, eleven hundred and fifty entries, a hundred and fifty contributors plus, and uh it covers as much stuff as we could possibly jam in there. Up to two thousand and four. Uh roughly. We don't have individual entries for people uh who whose careers took off after two thousand and four, because if we ha if we did that, we'd have an infinity book. An infinity book.
Yeah. Because so many people took off in the cocktail, you know, revolution. We c we talk about them d in the book, you know, it's not like we don't uh uh like it's not like we're saying they don't exist it's just we can't write individual entries on them and those things are they're they're usually pretty googleable also yeah uh so for those of you that are looking at it and like why is my favorite why is it not there like just read it's always a good idea to read the introduction of a book beforehand to get the tenor of the book the other uh interesting thing about uh the thing is is one you say listen we're actually going to try to do spirits of the world and not just spirits from the coasts of uh that are drunk on the coasts of uh the United States it's not just what you can get in duty free right right that's literally the quote out of the introduction and um the other thing you say kind of right off the bat is that it's not a social what's the word what's the exact wording you use it's not that you realize that spirits can be problematic yeah in many ways in their production and in their consumption and in their trade uh but that's not what this book is about. No, I mean if you want to read about that there's a a great book I don't always agree with it but it just came out by one of our contributors Mark Shredd called Breaking the Liquor Machine about uh global temperance movements. And uh it's fascinating uh but uh we don't really cover that.
Well so it it's a it's a good book. Yeah it's interesting. I don't agree with some of his premises but he's got a lot of evidence and he's a good arguer and uh some someday I'll I'll I'll I'll sit down with him and and hash it out. My my favorite book on uh the temperance movement in the United States is the Furnace book from yeah, mine too. Yeah.
That's a great book. Yeah, JC Furnace. Uh beautiful writer. I mean, just beautifully. Makes you want to read it.
Yeah. I own his other book, but haven't read it. I forget what it's called. Yeah, I I I haven't read it either. But that that uh his book uh was it called like Prohibition or something like that?
Or Demon Demon Rum. Oh Demon Rum, yeah. Demon Rum came out in the early 60s. Great book. Uh uh, I'm happy to meet another fan, you know, because that's a book that more people should know.
That's the best book uh written on American prohibition. Right. And I think maybe he was one of the early people, so like uh, you know, the the older you get, the more you see how history is warped by the no offense by the people who write it. Yeah, you know what I mean? Yeah, and so I think he was one of the early people to tie the success of the temper temperance movement.
It was well known, but back to Graham. So Graham was kind of a Sylvester Graham was kind of a fringe figure prior to his kind of rehabilitation is the wrong word because no one thinks he's not a lunatic. But I mean, he's kind of reinforced. I mean, but who among us, right? Right, right, right.
But uh his reimportance as a as a uh important figure in American culture. It's like Furnace and a couple other people uh from the 60s to the 80s, because I think no one was talking about Graham in the in the 40s and 30s. No, not so much. You know, he was he was uh his time had come and gone and they moved on to other things. But he was dyspeptic and a bad writer, among other things.
I mean, uh not a very uh compelling character. No, and yet he had enough charisma to like found all kinds of stuff. Yeah, yeah. Gramite's the worst. Uh look, if someone doesn't like liquor, fine.
You don't like liquor and you don't like sex. I mean Well, it or exertion or physical exercise. I mean, choose one of these things to hate. You're not gonna really uh life is gonna be hard for you. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's not, it's not okay. So back to the book. Yeah. Uh another interesting thing before we uh how how did you get an interesting choice? Marcus Samuelson, chef to write the forward.
What was the impetus behind that? Uh Noah and I know and admire Marcus. And we wanted a we wanted a chef because uh we wanted people to realize that this is part of like the culinary world, you know? It's not just uh for bartenders. It's a this book is uh, I mean, we've got like uh blurbs also on the back by all a pretty diverse group of people, including uh Lars from from uh Metallica and uh and uh Dan Aykroyd and you know people we we've we've met uh uh uh over the years.
Uh and it it's we really just want to show that you know this is like a huge part of of our lived experience in the world, uh impinges on this in some way. I have never had Dan Aykroyd's uh vodka vodka that is filtered through Herkimer Diamonds, which PS is quartz from Utica. Yeah, uh like uh well it's actually it's it's pretty good. And it was I uh I do Noah and I have our Life Behind Bars podcast, and we had him on, and we spent a lot of time talking about technical stuff. He he was like really into it.
He was weirdly into into the the technical side of distilling, and I thought that was cool, actually. I appreciated that. But like, what's the purpose of the quartz? Just a thing, it's just a little bit more. Well, quartz filtering, they they've been doing, you know, quartz filtering goes goes back, and it's uh part of Soviet uh vodka technology.
The Soviets spent so much time studying vodka. It's shouldn't come as a surprise. It does not. But they but they did. And uh they learned things like precious metals filtering.
Uh platinum works, silver works, gold doesn't. Um quartz works, you know, some things do in the and it's basically a matter of ionization of the uh of the uh uh of the alcohol molecules, uh, because there's really not much else in there. And uh it somehow you get different ions. I've tasted against each other at a distillery in in Kyrgyzstan, uh where which was the former Soviet distillery for Central Asia. I've tasted uh silver filtered, charcoal filtered, and quartz filtered vodkas, and they all taste different.
What was that grapey stuff that you got back from there? Oh yeah, that was that was that was their samogon. Yeah, yeah, but their their vodka was the real treasure at that place. Their vodka was exquisite. I mean, it sounds a little bit like what Nastasi and I used to do with the French culinary.
We're like, I don't know, pour it through this, see what happens. Yeah, exactly. Uh but but it but then they got like uh you know, people with PhDs in chemistry to to to walk the cat back and and see like why it happened so that they could do it again. I mean, we used to stash remember remember when we used to filter, we used to buy the cheapest worst vodka for distillation, and then we would like we would just keep filtering it till it didn't taste like poison anymore. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I mean uh you know, vodka's pitiless, and uh anything you'll taste, and anything that's in there you'll taste. We uh we the school wouldn't give us the money to buy filters, real filters. Uh-huh. So we went across the street to the Dwayne Reed. T-shirts?
Uh oh no, but we bought just the refills for Britta's. Oh, there you go. And then melted quart containers and smashed the filters through and then just like held them there for hours like idiots. Well, okay. But a t-shirt set it worked.
It worked really well. I mean it it it it removed all the character, which is fine because we were gonna redistill it anyway. We were adding our own character to it. We wanted complete neutral. Do you like neutral vodkas or do you like vodkas with character?
I like them with a little bit of character, actually. Yeah. And you know, I mean, if I'm mixing drinks, I really don't care. I mean, any vodka is is is practically practically any vodka is fine. But uh I like I like it drunk Russian style when you pull it out of the freezer and uh, you know, it's the wine of the north.
Yeah, I mean the freezer tamps down on some of that kind of hospital nose. I don't like a hospital nosy vodka, one that smells like uh like uh I'm about to be disinfected. Yeah, you'll get some of the that, certainly in the eastern European ones, but uh, you know, they're not completely neutral and they're not sweet. I mean, they don't have uh that sweet, sweet corn nose. Do dislike when they jacket with glycerin.
Yes. Do you do the the hand wiping test? I try not to because uh I don't care that much. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just you know, it's volume.
That's the smart thing. Yeah, not care that much, except for how it tastes and how you're I mean, if I'm judging it for a spirits competition, then I care very much. And I try to like come up with a fair evaluation, and then you know, I kind of look on that a little ascance. But I mean Stolitchnaya was always my benchmark back in the day, and that was lightly sweetened and might have had a little glycerin in it, but it was certainly lightly sweetened. And uh, you know, and that's that goes back to the origins of Stolitchnaya in the late 40s, mid-40s.
By the way, uh, in the book, there's a picture of an old Smyrnoff bottle, and it says that's in your collection, and it says pre pre-revolutionary. And I was like, I was like, oh, wait, we're not the only country with a revolution. He means the Russian revolution. Yeah. I was like, Yeah, I mean the Russian Revolution.
I mean the Russian Revolution. Hey, uh Nastasia, has anyone ever referred to us as lightly sweetened? No. Uh okay. Uh now, uh question.
Uh some things what was interesting in the book, is how many different contributors? A zillion, three zillions? About 150. 150. So some of the contributors write in kind of more of a classic encyclopedia style, and some write giving kind of more color commentary and opinion.
And it's interesting how they mix, like, was that a choice to not impose encyclopedic style on everyone's uh contributions or I didn't want to impose it too heavily. You know, if if the person was a lively writer, as long as it uh uh the information was there, I I made sure to keep some of that. Uh some people needed to be reined in, some uh other people, you know, needed to be a little less encyclopedia style. But uh but uh in general, it was uh, you know, it's not an anthology of writing, it's everything has to kind of pull together. So I spent a lot of time harmonizing entries and making sure that they didn't really contradict each other fundamentally, because that's the problem if you're writing a reference book is like where does this book stand on this?
But uh I I left uh I left some of people's little jokes and things in there. Yeah. Well I mean because that's kind of the way you write. So I was wondering whether it was more difficult to to kind of deal with writers who wrote in a style that was completely foreign to you as opposed to someone who was like allowed themselves a little bit of leeway. In term not a leeway in terms of facts.
I don't mean that way. No, but just yeah to to to make it a little more conversational. Right, right. You know I couldn't make it too conversational. So some people I definitely had to uh had to uh uh pull back a little bit to into or into the orbit.
But you know there's a spectrum. Uh it's a it's a big book and it contains a lot of different people's voices. Uh sometimes muted but they're still there. Right, because when you write normally I mean your voice is kind of always there. That's one I think the hallmarks of your writing is that you like there to be a voice.
And it's kind of makes sense for someone who's doing a bar history because bars are all about talking to people. At least I think it's always been my uh my uh I guess my s my style guide is always uh write like you're talking to an intelligent friend preferably sitting at a bar. Yeah. But you know it's like you can I I came out of academia where that was anathema, you know, and and uh the some of the writing was so bad and so unreadable and I I I kind of went in the other direction. Maybe a little too far, but that's always been how I've done it.
So people people seem to enjoy the work so I mean that's one of the reasons they got me for the book. So it was part of my mandate was to make it readable. So a couple other questions that I want to know. So you had to farm you farmed out uh not fine. That's a bad way to put it, but you gave you you found people who were experts in particular things and let so quite a number of them, yeah.
Right. So when someone writes something on something that you don't know a lot about, are you like, you have to get me some of that to taste? Or you have to get me like like some of the different spirits or like most of the spirits I've tasted. Uh however, uh I did have to uh I had to write the uh one of the articles on West Africa and uh on uh palm spirits there, and I finally broke down and uh talked to my friend uh Colin Appia, who's uh uh Ghanaian, and he got some some uh Akpa Tache from his uh from his uncle in in in Ghana, and uh which is this beautiful palm spirit, or can be beautiful. And uh I still have a little bit of that.
He I just got this, he got me this tiny little bottle of it, which was amazing of him. So what it tastes like. Uh it's uh it tastes like palm wine, you know. It's it's got uh it's a little bit lactic, a little bit uh acidic, uh clean and fresh, and uh really, really quite nice. Uh not so heavily flavored.
Uh it's it's palm spirits can be fairly neutral, uh, which is interesting, kind of like grape spirits. Yeah. I guess yeah, they run the gamut, depends on how they're yeah. Uh another thing, I noticed that some of the things I thought would be in here aren't necessarily and uh like for instance, I was not able I searched through it to find a reference on dive bars or that style of thing. That that category of different categories of bars isn't necessarily.
Yeah, because it's it's spirits and cocktails, it's not a uh bar, it's not the Oxford Companion to Bars. Now that would be a book. I would I would want to be the dive bar editor on that one. Well, I mean, I know that you're a huge proponent of dive bars, and I was I was like hoping to find, you know, kind of your history of the dive bar in there. Yeah, it just it wasn't in my uh my brief as the uh yeah as the people at Oxford would say.
I mean, you I I I always assume that you would prefer to be at a dive bar than a not at a dive bar. I I like dive bars quite a bit. Yeah. Now it's I mean, you know, I like a nice cocktail bar too, but I really like dive bars. Yeah, yeah.
I like a dive bar. I like a dive bar. You know, I like a comfortable dive bar. I I it doesn't I like I like uh dive bars in the afternoon when it's quiet and uh it's you and the bartender. Yeah.
I always think of I I I was in DC once and I walked uh uh I was uh doing uh a bar crawl for Esquire, and I thought I'd start at the Raven Inn uh up in kind of kind of north of uh of downtown. And uh I had to walk a mile in the snow to get there. And I go in and there's only one person sitting at the bar. It's the middle of the afternoon. And within 10 minutes, me, the bartender, and this one person were discussing like how people raise kids like crap these days, uh what the Japanese aims were in the Central Pacific during World War II.
Um what kind of tires work best in snow and about 20 other things. And we were just having the greatest time, you know. You know, I love an old I love an old uh dive bar. Nastasi and I went to my old dive bar and we had an okay time, right, Sas? We went before the Billy Joel concert too.
There was the bar fight that broke out while we were there. That's true. Which bar was this? Holland. Oh yeah.
And then we went to uh before we had gone to like to Nastasia's old dive bar, and someone there tried to order me. What the what the hell did that guy try to do? It was the Jack Daniels honey product. Oh yeah. Oh yeah, that's not so good.
Oh, this is just a horrific product. Yeah. But um it's more horrifying that that that this guy at the bar thought that A, that Nastasia couldn't order for me. Yeah. Yeah.
That's the first thing that was like, uh, excuse me. She knows much more about liquor than you do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then that he thought, looked at me and was like good stuff. Yeah.
And that's what I was gonna want. Yeah, that's a honey guy. Yeah. And then we went to a third dive bar. Which bar was that?
I gotta know. The gaff. Okay. And then we went to a third bar and got taken for tourists and got the tourist rate at the dive bar, and that pissed me off. Oh, that was so.
Well, you were a tourist at that dive bar. I was, although I used to live around, I lived around the corner from it for five years. I didn't go to it because I went to the Holland. Yeah. You know what I mean?
Well, see, you you weren't you weren't one of the that dive bars. But the the the bartender looked at us, right, John? She just yeah and just freaking, freaking It was like $47 for three drinks or something like that. Yeah, bad dive bar drinks. And I was like, I was like, hello.
Excuse me. Excuse me. You know, like, yeah. You know, you you you should have showed your face in there a few times. I haven't lived in that neighborhood in like 18 years.
So you were a tourist. I mean, I guess, but you know, Lower East Side isn't a tourist in midtown, you know what I mean? It's like, I don't know. Oh, that's funny though. That's funny.
God, oh, ouch. Yeah. All right. So some more Umbridge while we're at Umbridge. Yeah.
Oh, not this. I like that. You you generously. So at the book launch, Dave uh generously signed all of the books that people stole. I think.
I didn't get you to sign this for Yeah, they were they were there for the taking. Yeah. It's like you stole yours. I did steal mine. Before anyone said anyone could take anything, I was like, I went up to the person.
Publishing people are so funny because they're at the table, and the person that they put in charge of the table usually has no power. So it's mean slash fun to make them a little bit nervous. Be like, I'm gonna steal this. Can I steal this? She's like, uh I'm like, I'm gonna steal this right now.
I'm stealing this. Okay. And she's like, uh, you know what I mean? But that's me. Well, all that ends for it.
I'm I'm Italian. I would go there and like, you know, talk them out of it. But you're like the this weird northern Italian who also knows how to speak German, right? I I don't know how to speak German. No.
No, I mean I can read it a little bit. Yeah. Uh my German was my weakness in in doing this book. All right. Let me let me see.
Where's where's your where's your table of uh weights and measures? Which smart is near the beginning of the book, which is something I should have done. It's uh after the after the topical outline of engines, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right.
Anyways, a bar spoon, my friend, four milliliters according to my count, not five milliliters. It depends on the bar spoon, doesn't it? I measured them. I mean, all right, we're gonna have a bar spoon fight. For the for the purposes of this book, it's five milliliters.
Okay. Although I do appreciate you using the uh cocktail ounce at 30 mils, which is something that I believe uh anyone who thinks about an uh uh bar ounce being 28 point whatever is just wrong. It's how are you gonna measure that? You know, that's the thing is like I tried to we we used like 30 mil. We tried to make it uh everything is is metric in here, but we tried to make it as easily convertible to ounces uh as possible.
Yeah, the cocktail ounce is 30 milliliters. It allows us to to not look like tiny children to our uh international compatriots. Exactly. Uh so I do appreciate that. And then uh also, uh John, I don't know if you know this.
Uh I am a I'm in the molecular mixology. You know how d horrible molecular as a term is. I uh it it's completely meaningless. Yeah, it's it's uh all mixology is molecular, but uh exactly. Yeah, but but on the other hand, that's what people call it, and that's what we needed to title the entry.
It's it's uh you know, uh 'cause people have to be able to find it. You know, uh one of the uh interesting things uh way back in the day, uh people tried to oppose like make a um kind of a a diametric oc opposition between people who enjoyed uh learning about old techniques and people who uh were more interested in new techniques. And so not just in in in cocktails, but also in in food, I'm thinking John Mariani, who is you know, horrible at that. I mean, like he might have been good at other things, but horrible about that. And also very rude if you want it to be rude person.
He c he could certainly be a rude person. Yeah. Uh uh well, rude and like I'm rude, but I hopefully not mean and rude to people that I don't know. I hopefully I'm only mean to people that I know well enough that's a hell of a distinction. Well, I mean He was mean to his friends, but he was nice to everybody else.
I mean, yeah. I mean, I don't know, like I think it takes a different kind of jerk to be rude to a stranger. Oh, I think so too. Actually, uh I try not to do that. Yeah, 'cause you don't know who this stranger is, or or why would you be rude to a stranger?
Why would you be rude to a stranger. That just doesn't compute to you? Exactly. So, like before we get into another another interesting uh thing you have at the at the near the end, is you try, as many people have, to categorize the world of spirits. How much of a pain in the behind was that?
Oh, it was interesting. That was actually kind of fun, but it was also really hard. Right, because like vodka well, so for those of you that oh wait, what'd you write about Bialystokers? I didn't even see that. Oh, it's just someone named Bialy Stock and as a postcu thing.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I come from the Lower East Side is where where I live. That's that's Bialli Stoker Plaza. That's where and where the Bialis were from in the in New York.
You can't really get a good Bialy anymore. No, I haven't seen one in a while. And and they're really the the last one I had was extremely boring and not very good. Yeah, Kosar's, which is uh like on the block where I live, back before they got sold, back when they when they used to close down for the Sabbath, like all of the businesses did in that neighborhood, they made a good bialy. You know, a little bit dry, a little bit of onion stuff.
You had to eat it the day. It was a couple hours after the I mean they really don't keep. They're not even good in the evening. No, you want to know they they have to be practically fresh out of the oven. Yeah, which is what you're supposed to do.
You know, and then they're moist and delicious. Yeah, but uh nowadays I have not had a good uh I've had like these biales that like I think people want them to last and they shouldn't. Yeah. It's like this idea of shelf stable. Nothing should be shelf stable unless it's in a can.
Look, and I hate to poo-poot this, the other thing is like uh Kosars used to have a decent bagel, I thought. Like back in the day. I haven't uh it's not, it's not in my circuit. Uh you know, I'm in Brooklyn. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So you have your own decent bagels. But they went from being uh kind of uh a normal bagel. So if you're gonna think about bagels on the 1980s spectrum of H H to Essa, that kind of dichotomy, right? Uh they went from being kind of the denser, small, not Union bagel size, but you know, reasonable size bagel, chewy and dense. Yeah.
I got one last time, literally, I thought it was a football. It was like Oh no, no, no. Yeah, it's not good. No hole, but like, you know, not even as chewy as Essa style, but just like a football, like a like a bready football. And I was like, what?
What? That's the end of the bagel as we know it. I mean, I don't even think it's called Kosar's Bialis anymore. I think it's just called Kosars now. Yeah, because nobody knows what a biali is.
Because no one knows what a biali is. Oh well. Can I say something else? Not related to cocktails. Anyone who's listening, if you're gonna open a bagel store, store, right?
Or a store. Or a store with a shtick, yeah. Please, please, separate lines for the people like me who just want to come in and buy bagels, separate line from the people who want you to manipulate their bagel. I don't know why anyone would want a bagel shop to manipulate their bagel for them, but fine. You know what I mean?
It's like it's Hey, you manipulated my bagel. Exactly. I mean, like, I gotta stand behind someone who's like, what kind of cream cheese do you want on your bagel? I don't care. I'm just buying a dozen bagels and getting the hell out of here.
Make separate lines. What do you think about this? I would love to see that because I just want the bagel. I just want the bagel. I toast it at home if I want it toasted.
Also, New Yorkers. We have a uh uh New Yorkers take note. When you come to or non-New Yorkers, when you come to New York and order a bagel, because we hate being ripped off, they're gonna put too much cream cheese on your bagel if you have had the bagel shop do it. Like a crazy amount of cream cheese. Do you do you hate the fact that they put so much cream cheese on bagels here?
Uh I don't hate it. It's so much so messy. I don't know. I I like I like butter on my bagels these days. So that's you know, that's that's me.
Nastasi, what do you think about butter on a bagel? No, not really. No? What about toasting? Where are we on toasting?
Bagel side only, of course. I mean cuts out. I like it toasted with butter. Toasted bagel with butter is my favorite. I know that's you know, completely wrong in every way, but that's still what I like.
Wait, Jack, what'd you say? Toasted bagel with butter is my answer as well. This is why you moved to Los Angeles. Yeah, I think I I spent a year in Los Angeles and that probably corrupted me. I think like, look, if you if if you've been relegated to like, you know, eating lenders, then sure, split and toast that sucker and put butter on it.
You know what's actually good? I uh going against myself here. A buttered salt salt bagel. Oh, that would be good. Yes.
I would I would eat that. Yeah. I would eat that right now. All right. Speaking of uh eating right now, uh, you've just poured us before we go further in depth into these things.
He wanted to uh describe what you're drinking. I I brought a little bit of rum that uh my friend Alexander uh from uh plantation rum uh sent me. This is made in uh one of the two operating three chamber stills in the world. That's a type of still that nobody really that that had fallen out of the distilling industry's consciousness used in America from the beginning of the 19th century up until World War II. And uh it's uh it's sort of a if uh uh pot still, the kind of you know, bootleggers still we think of, if that's a muzzle loading gun, and uh the column still like they make vodka on is a machine gun, you know, you just feed the stuff in and it comes out the other end.
This is sort of like a bolt action rifle. It's like you gotta load each each charge, but it's got a bunch of them stacked up to be distilled inside the inside the still. Does he does the a uh analogy take over to accuracy too? Bolt action rifle is extremely accurate. Yeah, this is extremely accurate in terms of flavor.
This gets the most flavor. Uh uh, I mean, maybe uh it's different from a pot still, it's a little lighter, but the stuff stays in for a long time and gets steam run through it. And uh this is uh this is from the uh Vulcan, which is a Cincinnati manufacturer uh three chamber still that they have at the uh West Indies rum distilleries in Barbados that they found uh rusting away in a corner and uh and and and refurbished and have been using. What's the proof on that guy? Uh it's uh 51%.
Well, I would I would have guessed that it wasn't quite that hot. I would have guessed like 45, so it doesn't drink as hot as it is. No. But it's got a lot of flavor to it though. Yeah, it's got like uh it's weird, it's got some fruitiness to it.
Yeah, it does. That's what really comes out is like kind of the mid-range and and the base flavors. It's very good for that. There's a lot of body for it. What do you guys think?
I like it a lot. Anyone tasty? I have to try it. Hasan, are you willing to drink out of my cup? I know I don't know how you feel post-corona.
Uh I've already had it and I'm boosted. If there's something else we could pour it in, also, we could do that. There you go. All right. There we go.
Uh huh. So this is uh this is on obtaining, huh? Uh right now it is. It I I'm sure it'll be on the market soon, but uh age oh aged in a chestnut barrel. Oh well further on obtaining.
Yeah. This is like this is everything that I geek out about in in in one in one bottle, basically. Where do you stand on uh GMO chestnut trees? Uh I have not thought about them. One iota.
But uh if they're using them, I'm not for 'em. Oh, I'm I'm for GMO chestnut trees. What are they using them for? N uh nothing. They just wanna they wanna have American chestnuts back.
You know, I I see what you mean. Yeah, okay. So like, you know, what they've done is they've they've uh made a GMO chestnut that um that will that will resist the uh resist the blight. The black. And so, you know, in other respects, because it hasn't been back crossed with uh Chinese chestnuts, yeah, it is an actual American chestnut tree.
It's just resistant. And so Yeah, that that that doesn't bother me as much. Yeah, because uh you know it would be nice if they could get back elm trees also. I mean Which are which are beautiful. Uh I mean what's what trees are gonna be left?
Like uh the hemlocks are are dying, and that was the great uh, you know, after we killed after we cut down all of the white pine. Yeah. Uh you know, hemlock was uh, you know, in this area over where John, you know, is par uh you know mom lives, is uh that was all hemlock. And that has all died because of an invasive bug. All of the ash trees here are dying left and right.
You know, it's it's like D-Day. Uh I mean, the invasions are huge and and well supported and they won't stop. And every every uh plant in the world is gonna meet its its worst enemy. It's it's uh it's scary. Yeah, I mean, like uh the only ones that survive are the ones that aren't dense enough to get nuked by uh by an invader or or that are just like hella weeds.
Yeah, yeah. But look, you know, we might even lose uh I mean I'd like to find a kudzu pest. Oh my god. Well, do you have any property down south? Have you ever had a kudzu problem?
No, but I've I've I've driven, you know, I've traveled through the South a lot, and holy Hannah. In the 80s, when cable TV first came about, yeah, uh HBO, I think was one of the first things on on cable, and they only ran movies like uh from like 3 p.m. to remember. And they used to have shorts. So one of them was on kudzu, and it implanted in my mind as a kid this horror of kudzu that to endures to this day.
Well, I mean, you drive through like parts of rural Mississippi and see it just covering whole fields, including the houses that used to stand in them or still stand and are completely covered, and just it it's it's like this the it's like a fungus on the face of the earth. Yeah, you know, it's amazing. Uh it's one of those things that the railroad brought. Yeah. You know, and they they thought it was gonna stop railroad embankments from falling down.
Yeah, it was uh anti it's good for it's good ground cover. Yeah, it's really good ground cover. Also in the 80s, I should go look at it. Remember, um, so for those of you that aren't, you know, that are younger, which is basically everybody, uh, you know, who's listening, the um in the 80s you used to read magazines. This was something that you did, and like this was a valid way of finding information because there was no internet.
You bought the almanac every year and you read magazines. Smithsonian Magazine was an interesting magazine in the 80s. It still is. I just don't read magazines anymore. You used to write for an interesting magazine in the 90s and 2000s.
Yeah, in the 2000s. I wrote for Esquire, which was great. In the 90s, I wrote for The Village Voice, which was great. Oh my God. Remember when the Village Voice, like what happened?
How did that just fall off of the Well, you know, the internet took away all their classified ads. Yeah. And that and those ads were what paid the people's salaries. So Peter Kim from the Museum of Food and Drink, Nastasia Lopez and I were driving up to do a lecture at what was that? Was that Williams?
Yeah. We're going to Williams. And we were driving up there, and he's like, you guys gotta be quiet. I'm doing a very important interview. This is after like the Village Voice was on its last legs.
And Nastasi was like, who's it with? Peter goes, Village Voice. Nastasia starts laughing, and I go, worth worth Village Voice, worth every penny. This is after it had gone completely free. Oh man.
Remember that, Sus? Yeah. Yeah. I I was almost their music editor, which would have been really interesting. Well, also, small known fact, you were a bassist.
I was a bass, I was a bassist for 10 years. But you prefer chunk a chunk of bass. You don't like uh, you don't you're not a super flamboyant bass guy, like you're not a Larry Graham aficionado. I'm not a Jaco Pastorius Larry Graham aficionado, no. I'm more like how do you put Pastorius and Larry Graham together?
I mean, I get it, they're both. They play a lot of notes. I'm gonna forcefully interject here. We should get to some questions. In five minutes.
What? Yeah. I haven't even asked my questions. All right, I'll ask the Patreon questions. All right.
Uh from Warren Johnson, Johnston, in episode 13, around the eight-minute mark. So you I want your mind, Dave, to go to the actual eight-minute mark uh of Life Behind Bars. It is mentioned that Count Negroni had spent time, quote, as a cow puncher in Montana and Alberta. Can you shed some light on uh how you discovered this or where there might be more sources referencing it? Uh yeah, well, uh there's uh a book on the traces of the count.
Uh uh I guess I'm I just translated that from Italian. I can't remember what the uh it's it's basically in the count's footsteps. I can't remember what it's called in in English by Luca Piki, P-I-C-C-H-I, that tells the Count Negroni's life and uh the life of the Negroni cocktail. It's a very good book. Luca's a uh a great guy and a great researcher, a bartender in in in Florence.
But uh there was uh an article in uh this new this newspaper columnist Bob Davis ran into Count Negroni in the uh 20s, and uh they got to talking, and it turns out they had friends in common in Montana. And uh Negroni uh gave a whole uh spiel about his days as a cow puncher. And I've found in New York City uh city directories, he was in New York City, he was a fencing instructor. Uh he was evidently a uh a gambler here. He was a very sporty individual.
He uh he definitely led the sporting life in New York and out west. And uh so uh there there is some evidence. Uh it's you know, it's mostly his recollection, but it checks out uh because he remembered the people that Bob Davis remembered. So so that's uh that's kind of interesting. Uh two quick uh follow-ups on that.
One, every bartender, I know you said Florence, but every bartender in Milan's name is Luca, discuss. And two, when you uh I think it's been when you first started working in history, the internet didn't have everything digitized. There's still not everything digitized, but there's a lot of and you mentioned that actually in the in introduction, how that kind of I wouldn't say makes life easier, but just gives more information for you to have primary sources. But I think we all know from the past four or five years, no matter what side of the political debate you're on, that just because something is written don't make it true or unbiased. So when you're reading someone who has all the biases of the 1880s in their own head, how hard is it to actually get what you find to be truthful or good or solid information out of primary resource back?
I I I try to confirm everything I can. I, you know, my my motto is chase down every rabbit. And you know, every every thing they say, I I double check it and and you know, try to find other sources to confirm it. And sometimes I can't. And then it's basically this is what I learned in graduate school is weighing sources.
I I was I I specialized in ancient uh scientific poetry and and uh that was my dissertation. And a lot of those things we only have the poem, you know. We don't know anything about anything other than that. And confirming stuff is is basically a judgment call. But you learn a certain amount of judgment.
So I can't remember whether you wrote the section on adulteration in here or whether it was somebody else. Uh neither can I. Yeah, but like, but like the interesting thing specifically about things like adulteration is is that I find in any historical first, you know, uh writing about things like that, they're usually heavily anti-other, heavily kind of racist, anti foreigner, right, right, right. And uh fear of the unknown, and often just kind of wrong, right? Not the section adultery here, but I'm saying like that specific topic just popped to mind because I was looking through it today.
But it gets into issues of corruption, and then that gets people started, you know. And we we see we see what people think is corruption these days is just you know it it's complicated. Yeah, very complicated, yeah. From Jonathan Oberhaus, milk clarification. Uh does lactose intolerance still apply since the method increases cocktail longevity.
I've noticed flavor intensifies and proves with time, but for how long before it degrades, sincerely someone who drinks too fast to wait and see. You should always drink cocktails quickly, but in moderation. That's about right. Yeah, yeah. The moderation's the hard part.
Yeah. But uh but you but uh the solution is smaller cocktails quicker. Yeah, anyway. I don't know about the the lactose personally, because uh uh I I think you're getting rid of all the solids. Right, but the lactose stays.
Lactose stays. Yeah, but last lactose is a sugar, so that's gonna stay. Yeah, the the the real point, Jonathan, is uh uh it's it's a matter of quantity. If someone truly can't have any lactose at all, then it's gonna be a problem. But the the amount of milk and milk punch is usually quite small per volume of liquid consumed.
So, you know, it's not like pounding a thing of ice cream. It's yeah, exactly. It's it's it's it's really it's pretty it's not negligible, but it's very small. Yeah. Uh from Miguel Kunz, I recently purchased uh Tempest Tempest Fugits creme de banane.
Can you say that with some French, John? Creme de banane. Thank you. Also, yeah, you have five minutes. LCB.
Oh, I'm winning because I had five minutes, five minutes ago. I have one. Uh I I love it. Uh can uh Dave Wandrich please talk about some of its historic uses, cocktail recipes, et cetera. Thanks.
Uh there aren't a lot of cocktail. Actually, I gotta confess something here. I loathe bananas, so I've never really looked into creme de banan. Ah in general? Yeah, I just I I can't take their flavor.
And uh I do not like uh I I just don't like them. And so I don't like banana flavored liqueur. What about fake what about fake banana? What about Laffy Taffy? No, nasty.
What about that song Laffy Taffy? Terrible. Well, that's bad too for different reasons. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
I mean, that's more for for that. It's a terrible song. That messes with your ear, not your digestion. And now it's going through my head. But uh, but in general, I'm I I there are very few recipes that uh that are classic cocktails uh or or from the classic period.
There are no like big classic cocktails that use it, and very few in the past. It was not commonly used, that's for sure. It uh commonly used in cocktails. It turns up occasionally, but it's pretty rare. Uh Tempest Fugit uh does great stuff in all their liqueurs, though, so I'm sure it's a great product.
It's just not unfortunately. Uh uh, this is this is like my kryptonite, and uh you just unerringly put your finger right on it. Well, there you go. Uh I have to say, Miguel, kudos for coming up. Uh now the world knows.
Yeah, yeah. Now the world knows. You tried to keep it a secret. Yeah, everybody's gonna give me those drinks with the uh with the bananas cut to look like dolphins on them and and all that stuff. I went through a period in my life when I thought that I would give people things that they hated, but I would be the one that made the it's not it's don't do that.
Don't do that. It's mean and dumb. Yeah, life is hard for everybody. Why make it harder for them? Yeah.
Oh, one more. Uh John, do we have any more questions for specifically for Dave? We should do one more that is good for for the two of you. Uh from Josh S. Okay.
Quick question. I will soon begin designing a bar build-out, about 24 seats and a hundred and thirty seat restaurant. It's a new build-out completely from scratch. I'm interested to know what are some of your favorite touches behind a bar for ease of use, efficiency, or just fun. Good bartenders.
Good bartenders are the that's the most fun part. Uh other than that, you know, if you can uh uh get a potato can and mount there. Yeah. And uh that would that's uh that's impractical. I recognize that.
I I don't know if my old partner Don Lee is still doing uh bar layout consulting work, but he has some very good bar layouts. Um you know, uh Nastasi and I were looking at a bar. Uh keep make sure everyone has a rinse sink, make every station identical. Wait, did I say this? Make every station identical.
That way the bartender can just show up at any of the stations on your bar and act, you know, not be pre, you know, preoccupied with figuring out where the stuff is and can just focus on the on the guests. Good rinsers. I I mean, in terms of like uh aesthetic stuff, I always like to see a shelf of books behind the bar because that tells me that the bartenders are are actually, you know, studying their drinks, and you know, I can order things that I might not otherwise order. Um I like to see a shelf of of weird bottles of stuff. I like to see I like to see the liquor displayed behind the bar.
What about foot rails? Uh wood rails are good. Uh my favorite bars are stand-up bars uh where there are no stools. But I I recognize that that's impractical, but uh God, I love those. What do you call this thing?
The thing that you rest your uh arm on. What do you call that that big round thing that the Labot Balkan bars had? That big molded. It must have a name, but I I don't know what it is. Are you for it or against it?
I don't mind that at all. Stops your drink from falling down and gives you something to lean on. Yeah, that's that's good. But you know, I can lean on anything. Yeah.
Do you like alternative materials or do you prefer wood mahogany? I like a nice polished wood bar, I have to say. Uh on the other hand, my I think the most beautiful bar I know is at uh Camparino in in uh Milan, which is an S-shaped bar of of uh kind of an open S of great size, and it's a single casting in pewter. Oh my god. It's glorious.
And from 1910. Uh I you know, uh, Museum of Food and Drink has Lutes' old bar, which is in pewter. Yeah. Yeah, it's like, yeah, it's cool. It's cool.
I mean, that that's that's a thing of it. If you want to see a beautiful bar, look at Camborino. It's got mu mosaics of parrots behind the bar. I enjoy parrots. Yeah.
And it's just the the gaudiness and beauty of it is is is quite something. I was talking to a uh falconer the other day. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. And uh I asked them, uh, because falcons apparently can uh deal with different people, whereas parrots usually they they like one person only.
Yeah, and everybody else they're very mean to. Yeah. And I was like, I wonder whether that's because falcons are predators and parrots are prey. So they they don't feel like they can be kind of connected to more than one. Having done falconry, they're the most arrogant animals I've ever seen in my life.
More than us? On par. More than, well, uh, Congress people, okay. All right, one last thing. So you wrote the section because I checked on the Rob Roy, and you seem to like it, even though it is a terrible cocktail.
It's not a terrible cocktail. It is the worst of all the Manhattans. It's the worst of all the Manhattans. No, it's not. It is a country.
It's a commercial drink. I love I love Rob Roy. I was engaging Tolner the other day for a friend's birthday, and they had a Rob Roy on the thing, and I asked the guy, I was like, has anyone ever ordered one and liked it? It is a garbage drink. Yeah, my hand is up for those of you in the audience.
I order it every time I go there. Come on, man. It's a great drink. Are you kidding? You should have just said Dave Wundrich orders it, and that would be like, oh.
But like Yeah, I I drink that, I drink those with pleasure. So for those of you that don't know, if you take a perfectly good drink, the Manhattan, which you know And you make it into a different drink with scotch. Ah well, you do say that it's the only scotch is very hard to mix into cocktails. It's hard to mix with because it's very pungent because uh any anything pot stilled is gonna be hard to mix into cocktails. Well, six.
It's not just because of scotch. Yeah. No, it's it's really it's because of the depth of flavor. Like try mixing with baiju. Woo.
Uh yeah. One time uh we were doing that at the at the bar existing conditions because there was a baiju uh rep coming through, and the entire bar was like, what's happened? Yeah. And we're like, it's faiju, shut up. It's it's the baby poop uh aroma.
And I like Baiju. I actually I drink it gladly and I'll drink it, but I but I drink it neat with with Chinese food. It actually works, uh, can work well in citrus cocktails if you push everything. If you just if you're just like, yes, you know what else it works great at is uh a couple drops out of an eyedropper in a Manhattan. Really?
It's just wild. If you use like Mao Tai, like a really good aromatic one. It's like it just adds this thing going on. You don't know what it is, but it's it's like adding meat to it. Yeah.
Yeah. Dave, we're gonna have to have you back on. I'll come back. Okay. So if you like the Rob Roy.
Dave. What's the worst Manhattan variant? Uh the one where they treat Vermouth like they do in Martinis and put in a teaspoonful. That is just nasty. They didn't even know that was a thing.
That it was a thing back when Vermouth was always stale but I didn't know that was still a thing. It's still a thing. The country is bigger than than uh than you think. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. And uh well so we'll have you back on. Uh you finally come back. You didn't write the section on uh cocktails in the movie so I won't I won't torture you about James Bond or why he had his martini shaken or what what the hell sense that makes that wasn't your section to write but it makes no sense it would be colder. Okay.
That was Ian Fleming you know yeah it's cold man. Yeah he wanted it cold. All right all right martini is a drink best served cold. It is yeah like revenge. Yeah much like revenge which uh revenge here's to revenge and martinis revenge and martinis I learned that phrase from uh Ricardo Montelban in uh in uh Star Wh Star Trek uh two Wrath of Comic.
Yeah well there you go one of the great movies of all time Dave uh thanks for coming on appreciate it Dave Nastasia John cheers thank you cooking issues
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