Drinks on the house! Cocktails that are created out of war
Chalk this up to "Saturday stupid" if you'd like but as a guy who could make a living as a bartender, this piece out of Newsweek is pretty damn cool. Why is it cool? Because I used to drink ... like a fish ... even out of water. No, I'm not kidding. I was a full-blown alcoholic by the time I was about 28, and I could pound down drinks with the rest of them. Get that beer crap out of my face; the Irish genes worked overtime with things like Glennfidditch, Jack Daniels, and Johnnie Walker. I could, and still can, whip up cocktails for guests with a host of ingredients from my handy-dandy liquor cabinet.
To be fair, I don't drink anymore. I jumped on the wagon when Marcie pointed out that at the rate I was drinking, I'd be dead long before she was. Not that she doesn't drink. She has the occasional glass of wine with dinner, and maybe a martini or two at night, but I could easily go through about a dozen scotch and sodas, 7 & 7's or Jack and Cokes throughout the night. But that's behind me now. I'm on the wagon, and I've only fallen off once. The day amnesty died in the Senate, I opened the bottle of 150 year old Jack Daniels I have in my cabinet, and took a shot in honor of the nation defeating the poor bill.
But, enough about me. Let's get on with the Newsweek piece. It almost made me cry knowing that I'd probably never partake of any of these new gems created by the new war:
It’s Saturday night at the World Bar, a glitzy Manhattan lounge in Donald Trump's World Tower building. Inside, clientele sit at bronze tables sipping cocktails, including one concoction that’s radically misplaced amidst so much Western decadence. The “Osama bin Laden” shot is a brutal, throat-scorching blend of Pernod liquor and Tabasco sauce that kicks like red peppers sucked through a licorice stick. Has it caught on? “Not so much,” admits general manager Kenneth McClure, who’s only had a handful of requests for the very-off-menu hooch that appears on BarMiester.com, a popular drinks Web site.
The bin Laden cocktail may not be a fixture at taprooms near you, but something similar may enter the mainstream soon. At least a dozen new cocktails have cropped up in the last few years in honor of the Iraq War, the invasion of Afghanistan, and the grinding, open-ended “war on terror.” Boston’s KO Prime steakhouse now serves the Guantanamo Bay Breeze, a shake-up of citrus vodka, pureed pineapple and cranberry Juice, named after the airtight life of inmates in the Cuban detention camp. The Malt Shop in Washington, D.C., recently authorized the Shock and Awe, a 100-proof shot of whiskey and Red Bull, commemorating America’s opening blitz in Iraq. And at Bar R15 in downtown Sacramento, Calif., customers have two options for drinking their dissent: Blood and Oil, a special black vodka and cranberry juice drink that underscores the notion that America is warring to defend energy interests, and the Dirty Bomb, a radioactive ounce of vanilla liquor and Jägermeister that’s dropped into a pint of Red Bull, and swilled all at once.
But by far the biggest shelf for war-inspired spirits is cyberspace, where anonymity fuels drinks that bartenders might shy from serving in the light of happy hour. Amongst the most offensive are the Jihad Cocktail, a (surprisingly) grandmotherly mix of orange juice, vodka and lemon-lime soda, and the Afghanistany Whore, a blend of rum, Coke and vodka. According to Tanya Wenman Steel, editor of Conde Nast’s recipe site Epicurious, “There was a surge in these types of recipes after the Afghan invasion, and again with the public flap about ‘freedom fries’ in 2003,” when Congress renamed french fries on House cafeteria menus in a culinary rejoinder to France’s refusal to support America on Iraq.
Professionally edited Web sites like Epicurious decline to list such creations, leaving them to other sites like 1001cocktails.com, BartendersGuide.com and personal sites. “While the Taliban is getting bombed, you should too!” writes one Washington-based writer on her Web site, introducing a long list of drinks, including The 'Thrax, The Osamalamadingdong, The Talibanana, Puff the Magic Turban and Take off Your Burqa. (As of earlier this month, she was still requesting recipes for Osama’s Mama and the Tali-BAM. The site promptly went offline after NEWSWEEK requested an interview.)
Every war has it's historical drinks. The piece continues with that theme, and as they point out, drinking goes hand-in-hand with war. But this one tends to have some of the more brutal drinks, and the sort that would challenge even the best of college drinkers.
Like I said, I'll probably never partake of any of these beverages, and that is sad. I was the sort of drinker that would try almost anything once. But as I'm on the wagon, I'll invite our guests to partake if they so choose. In the meantime, have a drink on us!
Publius II
To be fair, I don't drink anymore. I jumped on the wagon when Marcie pointed out that at the rate I was drinking, I'd be dead long before she was. Not that she doesn't drink. She has the occasional glass of wine with dinner, and maybe a martini or two at night, but I could easily go through about a dozen scotch and sodas, 7 & 7's or Jack and Cokes throughout the night. But that's behind me now. I'm on the wagon, and I've only fallen off once. The day amnesty died in the Senate, I opened the bottle of 150 year old Jack Daniels I have in my cabinet, and took a shot in honor of the nation defeating the poor bill.
But, enough about me. Let's get on with the Newsweek piece. It almost made me cry knowing that I'd probably never partake of any of these new gems created by the new war:
It’s Saturday night at the World Bar, a glitzy Manhattan lounge in Donald Trump's World Tower building. Inside, clientele sit at bronze tables sipping cocktails, including one concoction that’s radically misplaced amidst so much Western decadence. The “Osama bin Laden” shot is a brutal, throat-scorching blend of Pernod liquor and Tabasco sauce that kicks like red peppers sucked through a licorice stick. Has it caught on? “Not so much,” admits general manager Kenneth McClure, who’s only had a handful of requests for the very-off-menu hooch that appears on BarMiester.com, a popular drinks Web site.
The bin Laden cocktail may not be a fixture at taprooms near you, but something similar may enter the mainstream soon. At least a dozen new cocktails have cropped up in the last few years in honor of the Iraq War, the invasion of Afghanistan, and the grinding, open-ended “war on terror.” Boston’s KO Prime steakhouse now serves the Guantanamo Bay Breeze, a shake-up of citrus vodka, pureed pineapple and cranberry Juice, named after the airtight life of inmates in the Cuban detention camp. The Malt Shop in Washington, D.C., recently authorized the Shock and Awe, a 100-proof shot of whiskey and Red Bull, commemorating America’s opening blitz in Iraq. And at Bar R15 in downtown Sacramento, Calif., customers have two options for drinking their dissent: Blood and Oil, a special black vodka and cranberry juice drink that underscores the notion that America is warring to defend energy interests, and the Dirty Bomb, a radioactive ounce of vanilla liquor and Jägermeister that’s dropped into a pint of Red Bull, and swilled all at once.
But by far the biggest shelf for war-inspired spirits is cyberspace, where anonymity fuels drinks that bartenders might shy from serving in the light of happy hour. Amongst the most offensive are the Jihad Cocktail, a (surprisingly) grandmotherly mix of orange juice, vodka and lemon-lime soda, and the Afghanistany Whore, a blend of rum, Coke and vodka. According to Tanya Wenman Steel, editor of Conde Nast’s recipe site Epicurious, “There was a surge in these types of recipes after the Afghan invasion, and again with the public flap about ‘freedom fries’ in 2003,” when Congress renamed french fries on House cafeteria menus in a culinary rejoinder to France’s refusal to support America on Iraq.
Professionally edited Web sites like Epicurious decline to list such creations, leaving them to other sites like 1001cocktails.com, BartendersGuide.com and personal sites. “While the Taliban is getting bombed, you should too!” writes one Washington-based writer on her Web site, introducing a long list of drinks, including The 'Thrax, The Osamalamadingdong, The Talibanana, Puff the Magic Turban and Take off Your Burqa. (As of earlier this month, she was still requesting recipes for Osama’s Mama and the Tali-BAM. The site promptly went offline after NEWSWEEK requested an interview.)
Every war has it's historical drinks. The piece continues with that theme, and as they point out, drinking goes hand-in-hand with war. But this one tends to have some of the more brutal drinks, and the sort that would challenge even the best of college drinkers.
Like I said, I'll probably never partake of any of these beverages, and that is sad. I was the sort of drinker that would try almost anything once. But as I'm on the wagon, I'll invite our guests to partake if they so choose. In the meantime, have a drink on us!
Publius II
posted by Syd And Vaughn | 4:02 AM
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