Days of Wine and...More Wine.
No cause for alarm. This isn't turning into a wine blog.I just thought I'd take a small, one-post detour into wine territory since I found myself attending the Pittsburgh Wine Festival recently. Now...
View ArticleTales of the Cocktail: Preemptive Strike (Part 3)
Next up in this series of pre-Tales dispatches is a brief Q &A with Wayne Curtis. Wayne is a freelance journalist who has written for many fine periodicals including The New York Times, Saveur, The...
View ArticleTales of the Cocktail: Preemptive Strike (Part 4)
Continuing with the pre-Tales festivities, we check in with Ed Hamilton. Ed is a noted authority on rum, and has written about various sugar cane spirits for a number of magazines and newspapers. He...
View ArticleTales of the Cocktail: Preemptive Strike (Part 5)
Rolling along with the pre-Tales "Cavalcade of Booze Knowledge" (tm) I got the chance to grill Christine Sismondo on her presentation "The Bad Boys of Saloons.'' If you don't know Christine, she's the...
View ArticleTales of the Cocktail: Preemptive Strike (Part 6)
With Tales of the Cocktail officially kicking off in less than two days, I have time to sneak in just one more preemptive strike before the madness gets in gear. This time I had the opportunity to chat...
View ArticleTales of the Cocktail: the First 24
The first 24 hours surrounding Tales of the Cocktail. is a hectic and joyous period. No matter when you arrive and begin your activities, that first day or so is always an intense, gleeful mixture of...
View ArticleTales of the Cocktail: The Carousel after 5
The Carousel Bar at the Monteleone is a hub (figuratively and literally) of activity during Tales of the Cocktail. During the day it’s both a convenient meeting place and a handy spot for a quick drink...
View ArticleTales of the Cocktail: Classic Hotel Bars
Being that I’m staying in a hotel and doing a fair amount of drinking in a nearby hotel containing a well-known bar (that’d be the Carousel bar at the Monteleone) I felt I’d be remiss if I didn’t...
View ArticleTales of the Cocktail: Barrel-Aged Cocktails...Patience, Grasshopper!
Why dump a perfectly good cocktail like a Negroni or Manhattan into a wood barrel for a couple of months?1) It’s fun in an old-world mad-scientist kinda way.2) It may make your cocktail luxuriously...
View ArticleTales of the Cocktail: Random Observations
So here it is a few weeks after Tales of the Cocktail. Much as I did two years ago, I find myself sifting through notes and compiling a loose collection of info from the event. It's difficult to do...
View ArticleCocktailing: The Early Years
If you hang around booze geeks long enough, eventually you find yourself discussing a topic that's become a perennial favorite: what kinds of stuff you used to drink before you got turned onto a wider...
View ArticleThe Greatest Drink Book Ever Published (Pt. 2)
Once again I'm paging through Cocktails for Two in my mission to share the splendor that is the Greatest Drink Book Ever Published. For this installment I've selected the Shamrock, an apparent tribute...
View ArticleMoonlighting: Sept.'11
Once again I feel compelled to direct you to a couple other places where you can aim your eyeballs at more of my words and pictures concerning booze and related topics. Proceed with all due haste! (or...
View ArticleOne (or two) For The Road
It's been a fun couple of weeks for Dr. Bamboo's Mystical Traveling Bar and Road Show. For two consecutive Fridays I've loaded the Bamboo Wagon full of spirits, mixers, barware, ice and other...
View ArticleA Bibulous Bibliography: Playboy's Host & Bar Book/Bar Guide
A while ago I found myself the recipient of two books published by Playboy, the venerable purveyor of adult-oriented diversions (as I've mentioned before, when people find out you're into cocktails,...
View ArticleCowboy Cocktails
Morricone2 oz. Bourbon1/2 oz. Punt e Mes1/2 oz. Berentzen Apfelkorn1/4 oz. Simple syrup (optional)1 dash Angostura bittersBuild in a rocks glass and stir well. Add a single large hunk of ice and...
View ArticleWhat I've Learned: Year Five
It looks like another year has slipped by while I was busy killing brain cells and writing about it here. However, the cells that remain managed to hold onto a few things, which I present below in...
View ArticleLocals Only
As I mentioned earlier, anyone who says you can't get a good drink in Pittsburgh simply isn't looking. In the last 2 -3 years there have been a number of great restaurants and bars in the 'Burgh that...
View ArticleOregon Daiquiri
Oregon Daiquiri 2 oz. White rum 3/4 oz. Lime juice 1/2 oz. Hazelnut syrup 2 dashes Bittermen's Xocolatl Mole bitters Shake everything with ice and strain into chilled cocktail glass. The Oregon...
View ArticlePack & Pour: A Guide to Nomadic Bartending
If you enjoy making cocktails (and if you're one of the five people who read this blog, then it's a safe bet you do), sooner or later someone will ask you to bartend at a party, cookout, tailgate, or...
View ArticleWhat I've Learned (Bartending Edition)
This is normally the time of year when I rip off pay tribute to my favorite Esquire feature and check in with my list of things I learned while blogging about booze the previous year. Unfortunately,...
View ArticleWhat I've Learned (Bartending Edition Pt. 2)
It's time again for my annual laundry list of stuff I've learned over the past year. Hopefully I'm a little wiser than I was 12 months ago, but you never can tell...all that alcohol probably impaired...
View ArticleWhat I've Learned (Bartending Edition Pts. 3 & 4)
Here we go again with some random knowledge I’ve accumulated over the last couple years of throwing booze at people. Please enjoy responsibly. What I’ve Learned in My Third and Fourth Year of...
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