Posts from the ‘Bartending’ Category

  • All The Sand In All The Sea

    January 7th, 2020 | Bartending | journalpulp | 17 Comments

    I recently discovered this song — on an obscure FM radio-station — and I fell in love with it. So I decided to make a bartending video to go along with it.

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  • Quiddity

    Quiddity

    September 6th, 2018 | Bartending | journalpulp | 3 Comments

    This certainly beats most of the other stuff I’ve had sent to me lately. Thank you TRD! And thank you Merrriam-Webster for using my sentence. “Quiddity” — Word of the Day, September 6th, 2018. That article, incidentally, which discusses the difference between mezcal and tequila, was part of a monthly series I once wrote for […]

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  • Gin and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

    February 9th, 2017 | Bartending | journalpulp | No Comments

    Did you know that gin is flavored vodka? It’s a Dutch invention. The word itself comes from the Dutch word jenever, which in English is genever, in French genievre — all of which derive from the Latin juniperus — and this goes far in explaining why the predominant flavor of gin is juniper berry. The […]

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  • Putting the Cock Back in Cocktail: Have You Heard the Story of the Hot Rod Lincoln?

    Putting the Cock Back in Cocktail: Have You Heard the Story of the Hot Rod Lincoln?

    December 19th, 2016 | Bartending | journalpulp | 2 Comments

      The Sudsbuster He was one of the mellow, the soft-spoken, the tawny-haired — one who preferred to be alone. His name was Mark, a dishwasher at age 45. He was a drifter, a loner. He valued his freedom above all. Dishwashing jobs he could always find. Our paths crossed and re-crossed at the Café Claire, where […]

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  • How To Be The Most Interesting Person In The Bar

    September 15th, 2016 | Bartending | journalpulp | 12 Comments

    Most people are boring. Not you. Why? Because you broke away from the pack a long time ago. You’re a different breed — a dog of a different color. You cultivated the black art of individuality, learned the art of personality. You became brilliant. People argue about your modesty. She does things differently, they say, […]

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  • Because Whisky

    September 1st, 2016 | Bartending | journalpulp | No Comments

    Do you like whisky just because — just because it’s awesome? Then buy the motherfucking shirt: Many different styles and sizes — totally original, all totally mine.

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  • Cleopatra: Independent Thinker, World-Class Drinker

    August 30th, 2016 | Bartending | journalpulp | No Comments

    Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale Her infinite variety; other women cloy The appetites they feed, but she makes hungry Where most she satisfies; for vilest things Become themselves in her, that the holy priests Bless her when she is riggish. — Antony and Cleopatra Act II. Scene II. On this day, in 30 […]

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  • Putting the Cock Back in Cocktail: I Wish You Love

    August 24th, 2016 | Bartending | journalpulp | No Comments

    In bartending, as in life, the fundamental things apply. And time goes by. Thank you for watching.

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  • Moonraker, Mountain Dew, Moonshine, or White Lightning?

    Moonraker, Mountain Dew, Moonshine, or White Lightning?

    August 19th, 2016 | Bartending | journalpulp | 2 Comments

    This article first appeared in the Coloradoan newspaper. If it shed any light on the subject at all — and it doesn’t remotely — I might be tempted to elaborate on the actual term “moonshine,” and where it originated: i.e. rural England (circa 1780), when country smugglers hid illicit barrels of French brandy in shallow […]

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  • A Green Fairy Named Absinthe

    July 22nd, 2016 | Bartending | journalpulp | 9 Comments

    This article first appeared in the Coloradoan newspaper, which took a tomahawk to it and ruined it. You won’t like absinthe if you don’t like black licorice. Absinthe — mint-green star in a constellation of multicolored bottles, over-proofed, over-hyped, overrated, mythologized, mystified and then demystified — won’t, all reports to the contrary notwithstanding, make you […]

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  • Wodka!

    Wodka!

    June 17th, 2016 | Bartending | journalpulp | 2 Comments

    This article first appeared, in slightly altered form, in the Coloradoan newspaper. The Polish call it wodka. The Russians call it vodka. The word itself comes from the slavic voda — meaning “little water” — and, like water, vodka is colorless, odorless, and often enjoyed ice-cold. Distilled from fermented potatoes, or fermented grains (like rye […]

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  • What is the Real Difference Between Mezcal and Tequila?

    May 20th, 2016 | Bartending | journalpulp | No Comments

      Tequila is a type of mezcal. It is, in other words, a species of the genus mezcal, and the word itself — mezcal or mescal, depending on which part of the world you’re in — comes from the Aztec word meaning “oven-baked agave.” Thus mezcal is a spirit distilled from oven-cooked agave plants. Agave, […]

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  • Getting Numb With Rum: How Rum Blazed the Trail for Bootleggers and Bourbon

    April 20th, 2016 | Bartending | journalpulp | 10 Comments

      Rum, like the hangovers it can create, is a side-effect, a by-product: a by-product of the juice that comes from sugarcane. This, really, is one of the few definitive things you can say about the origins of rum. Rum, for instance, may or may not have been invented by Portuguese colonists operating along the […]

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  • Brandy: She Can Break Your Heart

    March 4th, 2016 | Bartending | journalpulp | 2 Comments

    Brandy is the brown-eyed beauty of distilled spirits — the one from whom you can never quite get away, despite her flawed and fugitive nature. What I like most about brandy is what I like most about people: the almost inexhaustible versatility. The Dutch didn’t invent brandy, but the name comes from a Dutch word: […]

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  • Putting the Cock Back in Cocktail: Spirit Hound

    September 15th, 2015 | Bartending | journalpulp | Comments Off on Putting the Cock Back in Cocktail: Spirit Hound

    Deliver my soul from the sword, my darling from the power of the dog: Thank you for watching.

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