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Pictures & Music & Booze & Etc will be posted over there from now on!

Young Pimps

Steven, a young man who appears several times in family photo albums.

Had my game tight since '89.

Estate

Working on uploading a new batch of old photos from the late 30s. Until then, take a look at these things:

Leather bag of jacks, presumed to be 80+ years old. Note the verdigris on that copper snap.

Phone from the Rubidoux Mortuary, back when everything in LA was 714.

Repeal!

Everything went off without a hitch! Thank you to everyone who came!

More here.

Getting ready

Getting ready for a big party tomorrow...

Grenadine and orange molasses. The grenadine looks black, but it's really a deep purple.

Perfecting the egg cream recipe. I think I've got it, full profile coming up.

Classy is not an option around here. It's a necessity. (Yes, that's rice milk)

Menu

My friend Jenn just sent me these, the menu she made for my cocktail party tomorrow! I couldn't be more pleased with this.

Fix - Neko Case

Apologies for the fan-vid.

I hear Neko Case is rough and will mess you up good.

Tier 1 Drink: No-Frills Old Fashioned

Is it any surprise that I like this drink with a name like "Old Fashioned"? Best part about this cocktail is that it's hard to mess up. What are the ingredients? Check the dictionary, brother.

Whiskey, bitters, water, and sugar. It just so happens that you have all of these things (and more!) in your home bar. Here's what 'cher gonna wanna do to make it.

Take a glass. Any old glass will do.

Put some simple syrup in it. Put as much as you want.

Shake a few dashes of Angostura bitters onto the sugar. Put as much as you want.

Put a little water in there, just enough to help these things swish around together in the glass. If you like the way your tap water tastes, use that.

Fill the glass with ice cubes.

Put in some whiskey. Ounce and a half to two ounces.

Give this a stir.

Add some lemon zest if you have it.

Bam. Old Fashioned. Drink this just after you come home and change into some non-work clothes. Ideally, you're wearing a v-neck hanes and sitting in the backyard. When you're done, go make another––It will be better than the last.

Notes:
Several recipes will call for a cherry and an orange slice and lemon. This goes back to a time when whiskey was bootlegged and didn't taste so nice. Whiskey made today tastes pretty nice, so don't go too crazy with the produce if you don't want to. I like rye whiskey for this, and granulated sugar instead of simple syrup, but that's for another post. On a hot day I like to make this in a bigger glass and add a bunch of club soda instead of a little water. Ultimately, use what you have and make it how you like it.

Want to make another drink? Try the Manhattan.

Home Bar: Tier One

I've been talking for some time about writing a guide to assembling a home bar. Google will leave you with a dozen different how-tos that range from okay to awful. Martha Stewart even has one (and it kills me to say that it's not that bad).

The problem with these is that they assume the reader is going to go out and spend 500 bucks TODAY to make this bar happen--calling for three kinds of whiskey, two gins, two rums, vodka, tequila, brandy, sherry, port, six kinds of glasses and a dozen tools you'll never use. That's just unreasonable, especially for someone with limited experience with making drinks--the person, we assume, these guides are for. In order to fix this deficit in the internet, I submit my tiered approach to assembling a home bar.

Tier One - The Beginner 


This tier serves a dual purpose: To provide a strong foundation for expansion, as well as to explain the basics for someone who only wants the basics. The majority of people will want to be able to have the stuff on-hand to mix a decent cocktail, to impress a date or a father-in-law, but not be interested in making infusions, or reductions, or recreations of drinks long gone to antiquity. Regardless of your long-term goal, I advise watching Alton Brown's Good Eats about cocktails (Part 1, Part 2). There's three cocktails, information about glasses, and three tools you pretty much must have.

Hardware––Shaker, Strainer, Measure
You will be tempted to run out to the mall and buy these things. Do not. The selection will be too limited and the prices too high. BarSupplies.com has a wide selection of tools for very cheap.

Boston Shaker
The intro video gives a little explanation about boston shakers. I suggest the 18 oz and 28 oz. This combination gives you enough volume to mix anything from small cocktails to lemonade & iced coffee drinks. Total for both: ~7 bucks. (Compared to $50 at Crate & Barrel)

Julep Strainer
More practical than a hawthorn strainer. You can even use it to scoop out ice shards or lemon seeds that find their way into finished drinks. Hell, you can even use them how they're intended!

In julep drinks that are densely packed with ice.

Total: ~2 bucks.

Measure

I'm a little anal about measurements. Unlike grandma who, to her credit, cooked without a recipe, your grandpa measured twice and cut once. Standard jigger/pony measurement is 1.5 oz / 1oz. I don't like this because it makes it difficult to measure half-ounces without eyeballing. I like the 1 oz / .5 oz measure for exactly this reason. Sometimes you'll buy these and they're not true to size--not so with the Bar Supplies ones (I have a 1 oz / .5 oz and a 2 oz / 1 oz that both measure true).

Total: ~2 bucks.

All the tools you need for 11 bucks + S&H. Bar spoon? Use a table spoon. Muddler? Use a table spoon. Juicer? Use your hands. Zester? Use a knife. Bag for crushing ice? Use a washcloth. Glasses? Use what you have, go to goodwill, or use a jar. 

Software––Booze, Bitters, Sugar, Fruit.


Booze
Start with whiskey. One bottle of whiskey. That's it. No sherry, no two-kinds of tequila. Whiskey. Hell, it doesn't even have to be rye or bourbon or anything. You're starting out, you're going to make mistakes, you'll botch a drink or two. That's good, you want that––fudging a recipe is the best way to improve the next one (ask me how many manhattans I made before I decided on a recipe I liked). That in mind, don't get anything too fancy to start.

Want a recommendation? Use Jack Daniels. Not too expensive, you can buy it anywhere, and it's generally accepted among whiskey drinkers (They say Lemmy of Motorhead drinks a bottle of it every day. You ain't ever gonna be badder than him, so don't trip about JD). We'll talk more about whiskeys and flavor profiles and grain mash and all that some other time. Cost: Shoot for something between 15-20 bucks.

Bitters
"Hey, whoa. This is getting complex now. Can I get that at Vons?"
Naw man, it's cool. Get it at BevMo. You want Angostura Bitters. Bitters taste pretty strong alone, but make lots of drinks taste really good. In the same way that salt and pepper enhances the flavors in food, bitters enhance the flavors in drinks. Having this in your cupboard instantly takes your cocktail possibilities up a notch and impresses people who don't know much about booze (Something about being made with mysterious herbs from the Far East). Cost: ~7 bucks.


Sugar
I debated for a while between simple syrup and sugar cubes. Ultimately, simple syrup is the winner. You can use it for booze, or coffee, or iced tea because it doesn't need heat to dissolve. It's sweeter than regular sugar so you can use less, it's easy to make, and it keeps in the fridge forever. You definitely want to make it yourself because it's cheaper than the gas you'd use driving to the store to get it.

Simple Syrup (1:2 ratio)

Put 1 cup water in a pan over high heat. Add 2 cups sugar. Bring to a boil until the sugar dissolves, drop it to a simmer for 5 minutes, then pour into a heat-safe container. When it cools, stick it in the fridge and forget about it until you need it. Use within 6 months.

Fruit
Buy some lemons. With the exception of everything else, this is the only thing you need that can go bad if you don't use it quickly––and quickly is relative, these keep forever in the fridge. Always use real citrus, not the bottled stuff. Ask around, someone you know probably has a lemon tree that is heavy with fruit. Get lemons from them, or from the store for cheap.

There you have it. All told, assuming you don't have sugar at the house, you're looking at a $50 investment. Buy these things and build on them, or just keep them on a shelf until you bring a date back to your place.

But what to make for said date? Try an Old Fashioned.

Fix - Three Little Babes

I was listening to Sugar In The Gourd the other day and heard this song. It was one of those occasions where I knew the lyrics but was unfamiliar with the artist. It hit me a few minutes later: Joanna Newsom! Can't seem to find the original recording (no surprise), but here's a satisfactory performance.



And the cover version...

(lyrics)

Re: Your Paradigm...

I remember that my dad could build a pair of trousers just as well as he could build a house or an engine. I'm nowhere near as good as he was, but I have not let his gear gather dust.

Mark came over yesterday for a bit. We ended up in the garage with the sewing machine. Mark picked up an old goodwill shirt and wanted to see if he could slim it up.

16.5 -- about two sizes bigger than what Mark wears.

Using a fitting shirt to mark the alterations.

Finished product. A little tight in the arms, but generally good overall. No adjustment for the length, which is clear here. Nothing a roll can't fix. 

I set myself to the machine after Mark. I had a fitting shirt that was a little big around the waist. It turned out well. Nothing but pictures after the jump:

HR 40-74

Onion News Network, Circa 1924. A voice of reason resounds in the House of Representatives.

Dress Like This

(photo: lotus_07)

Again, I make no claims to understand the way a woman constructs an outfit as I am barely functioning in my personal application of the rules of menswear. I leave it to you, the fairer sexed reader, to analyze this photograph for its sartorial merit.

Fourth recap

Talking to my landlord (he lives in the house next-door) about cocktails for a little while yesterday, he offered to let me experiment with some of the produce he has growing in his backyard. Came back with fresh mulberries, peaches, and plums.  

Mulberries, prepare to meet my muddler.

Mulberry cocktail #2 (up)

You Will Require:

Shaker

Strainer

Muddler

It Includes:

Juice of half-a-lemon

2 oz rye

handfull of washed and stemmed mulberries

1 barspoon of simple syrup

soda water or branch water

ice

In Detail:

Wash and stem the berries, place them in the shaker. Add simple syrup and muddle. Add just a spray of soda water to the drink while cleaning off the muddler, you don't need more than a half-ounce. Add rye (or bourbon, more on this in an upcoming post), lemon juice, and plenty of ice (not cracked). Shake violently to incorporate the fruit. Strain and serve up. Garnish with a smashed mulberry, or a slice of fruit in season, or lemon zest, or whatever.

Notes:

I took a slice of peach, removed the skin, rubbed it around the rim of the glass and then squeezed the mulberry over it. Did it make the drink look cooler? Yes. Did this change the flavor? Not a lot. Does it drastically change the overall beverage? No. The point here is that garnishing was nice, but don't feel it's necessary to do the peach thing. Save your money if you can't get the peaches for free.

Mulberries, you probably won't find in a store as they explode a little in your hand as you pick them; partially-exploded berries don't have a lot of shelf-appeal. Don't have these? Use raspberry or blueberry, but make sure you muddle well. 

Detail about variations on this theme after the jump.

Hobo Jazz

Drove through Redlands, California the other day and stopped at one of my favorite vintage stores. The owner, Marcus, is sort of Inland-Empire-famous for his band Hobo Jazz.

The shop is a good place, and the music isn't bad either.

Some days

I'll take booze over brews any day of the week, but some days...

You gotta keep it simple.

4th of Ju-ly!

Picture taken on July 4, 1949. The gentleman with the shit eating grin in the far-back is my father. You can see this in full-size on the flickr page.

July 4, 1952:

Fix

(lyrics)

Jessica Lea Mayfield. Heard about her on Prairie Home Companion. The above music video is, I admit, pretty bad. Here's another:


(lyrics)

OH SNAP! -- Thrift Store Grand Slam.

Remember what I said earlier today about coupes and thrift stores? Do you remember that which was said this very morning?

Walked into a place today, looking to kill some time, and saw a coupe in among the drinking glasses. I asked the old-timer behind the counter if he had any others, he responded by pointing to a whole case full of them.

"How much?" I asked the old-timer.
"How about 25¢ each."
"How about it."

Most of them are regular, one that says "Bride", another saying "Maid Of Honor", two saying "25th Anniversary", & two of them very delicate and shallow (like me).

Walked out of there with 13 of them. Would of cost me $130 + Tax and S/H if I sourced them online.

TOTAL AMOUNT THAT I SPENT ON THIS: $3.25

The matter of how to serve cocktails at my upcoming soirée is no longer an issue.

P.S. Pic is lousy, expect some better shots soon when the glasses are filled with hooch.

Thrift Store Score

Had a good run at goodwill. My favorite is the coupe on the far left. The coupe is intended as a champaign glass, but it does a lousy job because of all the surface area it gives the drink –– the champaign goes flat too quickly (that is, if you decide not to take it all down at once). It was repurposed, quite adroitly, for cocktails where you often want a large surface-area on the drink. Another benefit is that the curved sides reduce the spillage you can get with a standard cocktail glass.

They're difficult to get in stores, you can't really find them at a standard crate & barrel kind of place. Internet, of course, but, if you take a day to hit some thrift stores, you're sure to pick up a few.

But hell, if you've got the lettuce, buy a crate––Why? It's very simple:

Home Bar: "Bonnie Mason"

It's floating in the low 80s in Los Angeles, but in about two weeks the levee is going to burst and it's going to bump the daytime high about 20 degrees. So that you're ready, here is a life preserver:

The Bonnie Mason

This here is a summer drink if ever one was invented. Did you just mow the lawn? Come back from a bike ride? Maybe you spent a long, hard day graphic-designing. This drink is the medicine that will cure you.

YOU WILL REQUIRE:

Shaker

Muddler

Ice

IT INCLUDES:

2 oz bourbon

1 scoop apricot preserves

Soda water

Lemon

In Detail:

Take a good spoonful of the preserves and drop it into the shaker. To this, add the bourbon, a squirt of soda water, and a squeeze of lemon. Muddle these things together. Top with ice and shake violently, the ice will help with breaking up and incorporating the preserves. Pour into a chilled old-fashioned glass and top with more soda water (ice too, if necessary). Garnish, sit down, put the cold glass on your forehead for a moment, then enjoy.

Notes:

I got the idea of using preserves from my friend Peter who uses rindless marmalade in one of his concoctions. Don't use too much lemon in this drink, maybe a half-ounce, but go light; the lemon is intended to brighten the drink, not to sour it. For preserves, home-canned is best (naturally). I usually use a store brand that doesn't have high fructose corn syrup. Substituting the bourbon for rye is fine, same with soda water for branch water. The kicker here is that the preserves, upon shaking, will congeal to form little chunks and sink to the bottom of the glass. When you're done with the drink, they will be waiting there for you. You don't have to serve this in an old jelly jar, but... Dammit, yes. You have to serve this in an old jelly jar. There, I said it.

Dress like this - A segment for ladies.

I make no claims to understand the nuances of ladies' fashion. All I know is that, if you are a woman, you should adorn yourself thusly:

(Taken straight up from Sanforized)

Please note the high-rise jeans. Bangs are strongly encouraged, cigarettes are optional. 

Old-timey fix for the day.

The Carolina Chocolate Drops covered this song, but there doesn't seem to be a youtube version worth a damn. What, you ain't heard of the Carolina Chocolate Drops? Do allow me:



That's real good.

D.

Please drink responsibly.

Getting it as wrong as you possibly can be getting it: "Capitan Morgan Lime Bite~!@" Your standard vanilla-flavored Capitan, with the caramel coloring replaced with lime flavorz! Seems innocuous, considering the ubiquity of lime-flavored beverages on the market today, but tell me your thoughts after viewing the following:



This probably would have slipped by as a quiet blip on my hate radar if it weren't for "Brochacho." Advertisers are no strangers to the abuse of morphemes (Now 'n' Later, I see you with your radberry/tingleberry/hulaberry twaddle), but Bro-chacho?

It gets worse with another commercial that encourages you to add the rum to your beer because the "ridiculuicious" flavor will make it "deliciouser," "brohemoth!"

Gentlemen, Ladies, please drink responsibly. Drink your booze with cola if you want, but use limes.

Accoutre: The Bandana

Accoutre |əˈkudər| - To cloth or equip, typically with something noticeable or impressive. ORIGIN mid 16th cent.: from French accoutrer, from Old French acoustrer, from a- (from Latin ad ‘to, at’ ) + cousture ‘sewing’.

This section of CBBS will be devoted to personal effects and wanton consumerism with the ultimate goal of maintaining proper dress. It's easy for country folk to get overwhelmed by the glitz of big city, often ending up in square-toed shoes and rhinestoned shirts. That's no way for any person to present themselves, country or city or otherwise. This first installment is about something simple and often overlooked: The Bandana.

(Life archives)

Admittedly, most of us don't have jobs that keep us in a coal mine, or require us to do stoop-down work out in a field somewhere. That shouldn't be a reason not to have one of these on your person at all times. If the fact that Grandad wouldn't be caught dead without one isn't a convincing enough reason to make this part of your EDC (hard to fathom), here's a few reasons more why you oughta give one of these a shot:

• Drip some coffee or carbonated beverage onto your laptop? Fuck a genius bar, the solution is right in your back pocket. 
• Itchy, watery eyes in the springtime. I'm not about to carry a box of kleenex in my jeans.
• A man is going to sweat and sneeze. It's either this or your sleeve.
• Air hand-dryers.

Do it for a week, you're sure to say to yourself, "I never knew how useful this thing could be until I started carrying it!" For you who are more sartorially minded, that little line of color sticking out of your back pocket is nice addition (See some of the dudes at Denim Debate for fine examples of this).

Now, you got options.

Nothing at all bad to say about these ones. Polly/cotton, get them at the J.C.Penny, pack of five run you ~12 bucks. That's a value that even grandad can get behind. Technically, these are handkerchiefs. Bigger than pocket squares, smaller than bandanas. You'd be hard-pressed to tie one around your head, but it'll carry the weight of any other task you put it up to. 

Next are your standard paisley bandanas--get them cheaply at the dickies outlet. The one you see in the masthead is mine. Made in the USA, and worn in so perfectly that it's softer than any tissue. Downside: You walk around with one of these dangling and people are likely to have suspicions about your bedroom practices; Those in-the-know about the code might misinterpret my maroon bandanna as a signal that I enjoy two-handed anal fisting.

Finally, if you want to make an investment in a bandana that will age nicely and last for years without falling to pieces, you can't go wrong with The Hill-Side. Pocket squares, handkerchiefs, bandannas, and other American-made garments with classy japanese selvedge chambray. These are a little larger than a standard bandana, which means you'll be able to hold more if your financial circumstance requires you to use a bindle as your primary storage device. Don't tell Grandad what you payed for it or he'll give you a lecture about how you'll be bindling sooner than later. 

The red one is appealing (if you like fisting), but I opted for the hickory stripe (also in the masthead). I got it from a real nice menswear shop in LA called Craft on La Cienega. A cool, no-bullshit place that carries the kind of goods you buy once and have forever--Friendly staff too. If you intend to use your bandana as an accessory as well as a tool, you might consider the tri-color number they had made up special for their store. Pick the color that matches your kit and fold it that-side out. Pretty clever.

(Photo from craftworkwear.blogspot.com)

Serious now, do it for a week and let me know your thoughts.

Your old-timey fix for the day.

Don't hear too much clawhammer banjo in popular music these days. Shame, really.

P.S. Oh god, the widescreen format killed my blog!

A gift.

Got a package the other day from Andrea, a dear friend in ST. Louis. Hadn't imagined getting anything like this when she said "expect a parsel".


Hand-drawn and sewn.


Tracklist.


The envelope had a little blue loop of thread around the button (which was also sewn, not glued) to keep it closed. I accidentally broke it off when I opened it. In all fairness, the package warned me to handle gingerly.

The title of the mix CD, like the title of the blog, will be explained in an upcoming post. Until then, thank you to Andrea for the very fine gift.

D.