Although my focus on September 19th this year will be on renaming it International Drink Like a Pirate Day, for most folks it will be about the talking thing. And even for us pirate drinkers, it is important to get the voice down just so. So my post today is intended to get you all ready to, well, talk like a pirate.
I want to start with the basics of pirate talk, The Five A’s. This first video is from the leaders of the ITLaPD movement, Cap’n Slappy and Ol’ Chumbucket, the Pirate Guys.

These five words, Ahoy!, Avast!, Aye!, Aye-aye!, and Arrrr!, must include the exclamation point when written, in case you were wondering.
For a more advanced and modern method of learning pirate, the good folks at Rosetta Stone are working on a new product, but I’m afraid it may not yet be available commercially. Perhaps the Navy has bought all available copies for use in the Indian Ocean. At any rate, take a good look:

TalkLikeaPirate.com has much more advanced information for your piratin’ usage, including Pirate Pickup Lines (“Have ye ever met a man with a real yardarm?”), German, Swedish, and Mandarin pirate talk, and even a link to Internet Pirate Chat Acronyms (WWLJSPD-What would Long John Silver’s parrot do?).
In the interests of trying to add something original to the ITLaPD phenomenon, I here offer several lists of suggested pirate talk while pirate drinking.
For pirates in bars:

• “Ahoy, Barkeep! Ye be splashing me a flagon full o’ Cap’n Morgan’s best, and be smart about it!”
• Arrrr, it be Harry the Hook! (Ed note—Harry the Hook’s real name is probably Dwight or Skip) Lay along side, and let yer old friend buy ye a beer.
• Ahoy, me beauty! How can I find a map to your treasure?
• Avast, Bartender! How many doubloons be I owin’ ye?
  Arrrrr?!?
  Who’s been plunderin’ me tab?

For pirate lassies in bars:

• Avast Molly the Red and Bad Betty, me hearties! I be lovin’ this chanty the DJ be playin’! Let’s all go and dance the hornpipe together!
• Avast, ye lubber! Steer to the lee, afore I plug yer bunghole with me boot!
• Arrrr, me fellow pirate lasses. That bell be tellin’ me ’tis time to set sail together for the head!
• Avast, me likely Barman! I’ll be havin’ another Cosmogrogitan.
  Arrrr?
  Arrrr, just be puttin it on yon sailor’s tab. He be buyin’ me grog this night!

And finally, for the tavern keeper, or his serving wenches:

• Ahoy, Cap’n. What manner of grog be ye wantin’ to wash the taste o’ the sea from yer bilge?
• Arrrr! ‘Tis a sad, sad sea tale ye just told, me pirate friend. What canna ye be wantin’ to drown yer sorrows?
• Aye aye, Horrible Harry, Terror of the Lake Erie Main. One Appletini comin’ yer way smartly!
• Avast, ye scurvy land lubber! Where be me doubloons for all yer pirate lagers? Ware, lest I take me belaying pin to yer noggin!

There’s much more video assistance with general pirate talk, but in the interests of not slowing down my main page load, I’ll jam it under the fold. Otherwise, be sure to be steerin’ yer way back to these waters on September 19th its own self. There’ll be lots of recipes to whet yer pirate whistle!
(more…)

While I’m on my iPhone kick, I have one more cocktail app that deserves a featured mention, Cocktails Made Easy. It has nestled in my iPhone beside Flip ‘N Drink and 101 Cocktails. Together they make up the three essential cocktail apps for me. Each app performs a slightly different function, and each is the top of the field in their respective specialty. Flip ‘N Drink is the current overall best large drink database. (My review of it is here.) And 101 Cocktails is a very useful swift access to recipes for the most select group of drinks that there are to be made. (My review of it is here.) Flip ‘N Drink will give you a recipe for most drinks worth making. 101 Cocktails will give you a recipe for the drinks most worth making. Cocktails Made Easy will give you recipes for drinks you can make… right now. (My review of it is what you are reading.) Each of these apps has its own set of features, including the killer one that defines it as best in its bunch. I’d be remiss if I didn’t remind you about my about-to-end contest asking readers for the best currently unavailable feature they’d like to see in an iPhone cocktail app. Click over and put in your two cents!
The function which defines Cocktails made easy is located on the following page within the app, the Cabinet:

This little picture of an idealized bar shelf (my three cabinets are a bit more crowded, for instance) shows 14 important spirits, as well as a somewhat out of place button for non-alcoholic drinks. It’s function is somewhat different from the others. The idea is to highlight each ingredient that your bar currently sports. The app then filters the main database, which currently sports 530 cocktails, into a second data set (My Bar) which shows only those drinks you could make with the spirits you have on hand. It’s simple, elegant, and attractive.
The app has some limitations, like all do, but it is very good at what it does.
The 530 drinks in the database are a good sampling, but like any compromise on size it will be big enough to make going slow for some, and will omit drinks important to others. For instance, there is no Pegu in this app!

Wow! No Pegu, and you
still keep it on your phone?

It’s a serious functional limitation, I agree.
The bigger issue with the Cabinet is this: Any cocktailian, especially a serious cocktailian, will have nearly every spirit on the shelf in stock. If you give the app your true inventory, you’ll just have an app with a far smaller database than Flip ‘N Drink. The casual, entry level, or very focused drinker will not have this problem. This is less of a problem than I make out, however. Changing what’s in the Cabinet is easy. Just select only the ingredients that interest you at the time, and you’ll get a manageable, useful list of things to give a go. The non-alcoholic button on the cabinet should only be highlighted by itself, as it does not identify the fact that you have non-alcoholic ingredients available. If you list non-alcoholic in your cabinet, it just adds the 27 virgin cocktails to your custom data set. Some kind of toggle function with this button would be helpful.
What would be more helpful is a second cabinet (fridge?) page detailing the big daddies of non-spiritous ingredients. There is a gorgeous listing of these ingredients already in the app, but they are non-interactive pages in the documentation tab. I hope that this means Fizz, the developer, had this in mind, and just ran out of time or money to get it in the first version. Time will tell. For the serious drink mixer, filtering by whether you have fresh grapefruit juice, or cinnamon syrup, or egg whites on hand would be more valuable than knowing if you have vodka, gin, whiskey, or rum.
The photos in Cocktails Made Easy are gorgeous (as seems to be becoming the norm with the better apps), but a little sterile. There must be a vast armada of cocktail photographers out there all of a sudden to be producing so many drink pix.
The rest of the information on each drink’s page is well laid-out and has some neat functionality. There is an email button that lets you send a text version of the recipe. The ingredient list has a checkbox option I use to keep track of which ingredients I’ve added as I go. Anytime you make a drink with several fruits to squeeze, and your child is tapping your hip demanding a Shirley Temple, you run the risk of adding the gin twice and ending the evening early! There is also a comments field with text that is user editable. This, to put it bluntly, rocks.
There are two other quibbles I have with this nifty little app. The search is not a live search, not does the number of drinks in the narrowed list change as you add or remove ingredients from your Cabinet. This slows down use. And cocktails starting with the word The are alphabetized as starting with T. This makes my English Major teeth itch uncontrollably.
All in all, Cocktails Made Easy is a very useful drink app. If you are only going to buy one app, you should consider it. Depending on what you want to do, it may well be your choice. If you are going to buy several to play with, it should definitely be part of your final list.

Update: Welcome Village Voice readers! While you are here, please take a look around at my other offerings, or you can check out my other iPhone cocktail posts below.

Here’s a list of the other posts here about Apple iPhone software:

• iPhone App From CocktailDB: Cocktails
• iPhone Cocktail Directories
• iPhone App: Pocket Cocktails
• Pocket Cocktails Update
• iPhone Software Review: Are You Smarter Than a Bartender?
• iPhone App From Cocktail Dreams: Cocktails App
• iPhone App: 101 Cocktails
• iPhone Cocktail Apps Contest!
• iPhone App: Flip 'N Drink
• iPhone App: Cocktails Made Easy
• iPhone Cocktail App: Cocktails+ is Free!
• The Corporate World Starts Getting In On iPhone Drink Apps
• iPhone App Review: Tiki+

Photo from SaraRemington.com

A while back, I reviewed Artisanal Cocktails, by Scott Beattie, with photographer Sara Remington. Not everyone liked the book as much as I did, but I have yet to read anyone who was less than in love with the Sara’s cocktail photography. As a result, I’ve communicated with her a bit, and pestered her with a bunch of questions about photographing drinks, and she has been more than generous with her time in responding to my questions.
Since this is Tiki Month, and one of the cool things about Tiki drinks are how elaborate they look, I thought this would be a good time to share her thoughts about how to photograph cocktails. Hopefully, if you like taking pictures of your drinks, or anything else for that matter, you can find some useful words here.
If you want to find out more about Sara, or see more pictures than those I’ve borrowed to illustrate this piece, you can visit her professional website. You can also see some other work on her blog. Besides Artisanal Cocktails, you can also see her work in the chocolate chapter of Williams-Sonoma Essentials of Baking. Two books forthcoming this year are Rustic Fruit Desserts and The Big Sur Bakery Cookbook.

Photo from SaraRemington.com

It’s a long article, so I’ll tuck the Q&A under the fold. (more…)

Life, on occasion, sucks. And when fate revs up the Hoover, a drink has been known to ease the situation, or at least the recovery. But what is the best choice in a cocktail to help you get over your friend Dudley giving your date a ride home? And what prescription is best after leaving your big presentation, only to discover a giant booger, slowly drying prominently on your tie?
These are the sorts of questions asked by Kerry Colburn (author of the doubtless dry and scholarly text, The U.S. of EH?: How Canada Secretly Controls the United States), in her new book, Good Drinks for Bad Days.
Good Drinks for Bad Days is a collection of 56 of the crappiest little deals life flings at people. And 56 cocktail remedies, each chosen to thematically soothe its matching wound. The problems are mostly tailored for the young, single professional, so many of them will not connect for a guy like me. Depending on the problem, this left me alternately nostalgic and relieved.
Good Drinks for Bad Days is a pocket-sized hardcover, just the right size to fit in the drawer of a small bar at home. The design is gray and white, with spartan text and red graphics representing the type of cocktail being advised. Among the criteria I personally consider when considering a cocktail book, it has some hits and misses. First, there are no sumptuous photographs of the cocktails, which in this book is not a serious failing. I also look for snappy quotes as sidebars that help illustrate the point being discussed and give me grist to appear wittier in conversation than I really am. These would have really have added something to this volume. And there is no Pegu recipe! Grrr. Of course, the magnificent Pegu is a cure-all, and the book would have been a bit of a bore had every problem had the same prescription…..
The recipes are virtually all standards. A I’ll get into below, this is one of this books virtues, but for the middle-aged cocktail fanatic with 30 books already on the bar shelf, Good Drinks for Bad Days is a light read, not a need.
But I still recommend a purchase, either to the twenty-something it is written for, or the old fart (like me) to buy as a gift. The strongest reason, beyond Good Drinks for Bad Days’s basic readability, is those recipes. Read them, and the cocktailian will soon see that Ms. Colburn (or perhaps her husband) knows their way around a real cocktail. A merciful few use Vodka, and the book comletely eschews such red flag shortcuts as sour mix or even Rose’s. There are lots of calls for fresh lemon and lime juices. In short, the book’s premise is fun, but its mixology is serious.
With a genuinely useful index, convenient size, and real cocktail recipes (the Red Bull and Vodka excepted), this is a very nice little starter recipe book that will stay useful to the budding cocktailian long after he or she finishes reading it for the ha ha. And if you, the old, hopeful mentor, have a young friend or relative who needs saving from the viscous cycle of beer and wine (and Jager Bombs), this is a good gift to get them pointed in the right direction.

OK, this was supposed to be a post about an epic blog fail. But neener, neener, haters! I’m sitting here at my computer, pretty damn pleased with myself. Try this, and you’ll be pleased with me too!
First, some background: Back in October, I was sent a bottle of Hiram Walker Gingerbread Liqueur so that I could be part of a recipe contest. The idea was that a lot of us bloggers would whip up magical concoctions using this not-half-bad-on-its-own liqueur and the best would be selected and showered with laurels.

But wait!
I saw no entry for you! And the contest is over. Shawn Cox won with the Bronze Autumn.
FAIL!

And thus it was that this was supposed to be a fail post. And as far as the contest goes… yes, Epic Fail. October got away from me and the deadline passed without so much as a halfway decent experiment to submit. Nonetheless, I was determined to put this bottle to good use. So about a week ago, I did the only sensible thing there was to do. I took the Gingerbread Liqueur with me to my bar and plunked it down before Pegu Blog Certified Bartender™, Tony. With several friends as willing guinea pigs, we had our own little Tuesday Drink Night. And we came up with a damn fine, simple to make cocktail, which I shall call simply Tony. Why? Because Tony concocted it, and because it, well, you’ll see.

Sounds good.
Let’s have the recipe.

Wait. It gets better. Much better. The conversation was wide ranging, and during the discussion over a failed attempt using Godiva White Chocolate Liqueur, I had an inspiration. Not for a drink, but for a desert!

A desert?
So now you’re a foodblogger?

Hang onto your hat, December is going to be foodblogging month here at the Pegu Blog, kicked off by this gem.
My all-time favorite desert is called Zebra Pudding, a bog-simple masterpiece made with nothing but whipped cream and obscure but readily available Nabisco Famous Chocolate Wafers. I realized that the Hiram Walker Gingerbread Liqueur would make for a great variant. Because of how it looks, I’ll call this desert Tiger Pudding, or simply The Tiger.

Tony itself is ridiculously easy. It’s sweet as all get out, but yummy, and The Tiger is not the only desert it works very well with.

And voila, Tony and The Tiger!

Seriously folks, this is damn good. And it’s easy. And it’s cheap. And it looks great. And you need to try it.

James Bond: Cocktailian

OK, I am a giant sucker for James Bond. And I’ve found quite bit to like about nearly all the Bonds.

Nearly all?
In other words, George Lazenby need not apply?

Exactly. But that said, I’m really liking the new James Bond series reboot that they started with Casino Royale, and are continuing with Quantum of Solace. And as a cocktailian, I truly appreciate the screen Bond’s return to Gin in his drinks, and the Vesper cocktail in particular. I’m going to start with a short review of the latest film because, well, I can. I’ll try to avoid much in the way of spoilers, but you can scan down past the big picture below if you want to skip the review and get on with the drinky stuff.

Quantum is unique in the Bond oeuvre in that it is a direct sequel. The movie begins right after the end of Casino Royale, and I mean right after—as in probably less than an hour after. Much of the plot and character arc (yes, James Bond has character arcs these days) reference Casino Royale in detail, to the point that if you haven’t seen that film, I doubt this one will make a lot of sense.
The film revolves around Bond and MI-6′s discovery and investigation of Quantum, the shadowy organization of evil capitalist pigs who seem to be replacing SPECTRE in the Bond world. This is the group fronted by Mr. Whyte in Casino Royale, and centered on Mr. Greene in this one. Hmmm. There might be a theme developing here.
Mr. Greene is in many was an Al Gore figure: He is a celebrity world traveller who spends much of his time calling people’s attention to the disastrous effects of climate change on our planet, and being lionized for his efforts. He also makes vast amounts of money off of his activities. Finally, he is capable of oilily charming banter and acts of astounding evil (and acts of astoundingly oily evil). That last comparison is ridiculous of course. Al Gore is not remotely capable of charm.
Interestingly, the female lead, Olga Kurylenko, is not a love interest at all for Bond. She is instead a mirror in which he sees himself as the film develops. She is a protegé of sorts, and a weapon, for Bond. Don’t worry guys, she is also ridiculously hot. Some things, the Bond family does not screw with. Bond in fact beds only one woman in this film (I guess we all hit dry spells), but he does otherwise show the uncanny Bondian ability to get women to do anything for him with little more than a smile. This is more believable than usual with Daniel Craig, when you consider how definite yet reticent women are when discussing him in front of their husbands….
The gadgetry is low-key and largely believable. I can see MI-6 having computers like the ones in this movie. (Sorry David Caruso, but I do not believe the Miami-Dade Crime Lab having such computers) The car and boat chase scenes are fantastic, and all centered on Bond’s fantastic skill, luck and titanic titanium balls, rather than Q Division’s street-modding. The cinematography in the fight scenes gets a little chaotic, but the fights themselves are adrenalin drenched and fun. The climax has everything a Bond movie is supposed to have, including the question of why evil people persist in building isolated facilities designed to blow up so magnificently.
Go see the movie if you ever liked any Bond flick.

One of the most interesting parts of the reboot of the Bond series, starting with Casino, is what Bond drinks. Gone is the Vodka Martini please, shaken-not stirred. Lifting straight from the books, Bond invents his own cocktail while playing in the Casino Royale. He names it the Vesper, in honor of his lady love. Unlike the book Bond, who never drank one again after she dies, Craig continues, drinking six in one of the cooler cocktail venues you will likely never get to enjoy yourself.
The Vesper is a simple cocktail, but one most bars today will be unable to make.

True to the books, Bond specifies Gordon’s for the Gin. I use Sapphire because a) I have lots of it in my inventory, and b) it is higher proof. James Bond hates low caliber ammunition, and Gordon’s is lower proof now than when Casino Royale the novel was written. I have tried Vespers with more esoteric Gins such as Whitley Neill and Hendricks. The Vesper is a case where these liquors are a bad idea. It is a remarkably balanced drink and flinging cucumbers, rose petals, or baobab into the mix just makes for chaos.
I use Sobieski for the Vodka, but I suppose a sturdy British Vodka like Tanqueray Sterling would fit the bill to a T. Just use a Vodka that you won’t notice. It is in the drink merely to dilute the botanicals in the Gin.
The Lillet Blanc is where you will lose most bartenders. The bartender in Quantum of Solace actually goes out of his way to define Lillet. A French aperitif that is not Vermouth, he says emphatically, collecting a handsome product placement fee for the producers of the film.
I started drinking these on a lark when Casino came out, but I find I really really like this cocktail. As I said, it is remarkably balanced. It also helps with my cocktailian self-respect, as I still cannot drink Gin Martinis. If you can’t either, try a Vesper or two instead. The Vodka reduces the impact of Juniper & Co. without diluting the alcohol, and the Lillet is a slightly different compliment to the party than Vermouth.
Plus, it allows you to be a Bond weenie, while sounding sophisticated. Any bartender who works somewhere that actually carries Lillet is going to cringe at anyone ordering a Vodka Martini, shaken not stirred. Order a Vesper, and you’ll still be a fanboy, but one who knows his stuff.

Hey, I don’t want to alarm anyone, but I actually came up with a more than passable cocktail of (mostly) my own devising. As all eight of my regular readers know, The Pegu Blog is not replete with original recipes. I do try to make up a new concoction from time to time, but I seldom blog about the resulting beverages because they usually lack a certain something… a certain… what shall I call it… Ah yes! A desire to say Oh, that was good! I’d like another!
However, I’ve been in the kitchen a bit lately, preparing possible ingredients for MxMo XXXIII: Made From Scratch, coming to you here and on better blogs across the cocktailosphere in November. And, while blueberry syrup doesn’t really qualify for MxMo (there being no commercial equivalent that I know of), I made some up, according to Alton Brown’s recipe. Even if you don’t like my cocktail idea below, the blueberry soda you can make with this stuff is worth it on its own. It’s quite easy to whip up, but the recipe is a bit long to reproduce here.
My initial intent, when I finished the syrup, was to try it as a substitute for fresh berries in Jacob Grier’s Blue Beetle. But I started having creative thoughts. Instead of lying down until the sensation went away, I thought about how I could riff on Jacob’s recipe.
Here is the original:

Most of the world does not have St. Germaine lying around, of course. I do, but that’s irrelevant. I decided to go with Gin, instead of the vodka and St. Germaine. The muddled blueberries and simple syrup became my blueberry cordial. The resulting drink was much darker and brighter in color than Jacob’s, and with a more in your face flavor. But it was a little flat, and I felt it needed just one more note. Rather than going with Orange Flower Water, I tried two heavy shakes of Fee Brother’s Lemon Bitters. This worked like a charm. I had produced an attractive, tasty cocktail!
Now I just hope someone out there tries one too!
So, with a nod to the Corpse Reviver family of drinks, I give you the…

Parts Two and Three in this series dealt with fairly big ticket items. With Part 4(a) I’m going to talk about something that is perhaps even more critical, but costs a lot less—at least in detail.

What’s with the 4(a)?

Upon editing this piece, I decided to break it into a three parts. The first is about the glasses you need from the start when you set up your bar. The second will cover all the other cool glasses you can add later for various purposes. The third post will be about how to acquire the glasses you start with and those you add later.

You edit your work? Seriously?

…!
Actually, yes I do. But I don’t cut very vigorously, or you’d end up in the bin almost everytime…

…

When you first construct your Basement Bar, you will have to have some glassware in which to serve and drink the drinks that are the purpose of the exercise. You probably already have some of what you need upstairs, but you may not. Also, you may want to keep what you have in the kitchen, in the kitchen. For the purposes of this piece, we’ll assume you are starting from scratch. Any elements that you can cover from stock, go ahead and do so.
There is a bewildering array of glassware out there. What is more bewildering is the number of cocktail books who try to tell you that you need a minimum of four cordial glasses for your basic setup. Even the more restrained references will still tell you to have an egregious number of kinds of glasses.
To set up your Basement Bar, you will need four kinds of glasses. That’s all. Anything else can wait for pocketbook to recover and/or opportunity to present itself.
Much more below the fold: (more…)