killerhooch

My father always loved cars—and vehicles of all kinds.

He loved his 1930’s Harley.  He had one of the first ATV’s—a six-wheeled amphibious thing that had to be steered like a tank—of the kind the Banana Splits drove.  We cut the meadow grass in our neighborhood with gang mowers and a vintage Ford 8n tractor.  He put racing stripes made from electrical tape on his 1967 Buick Electra 225. He collected sporadically with his friend Jack Holden.  They went down to Philadelphia to pick up cars—once they shared an original Lagonda—and had a grand old time.  For a summer or two, a huge black Austin sedan with fold-down snack trays in the back seats sat in our back lot. When 50’s Chevrolet woody wagon (he Val-oiled the wood trim on it for God’s sake) wouldn’t pass inspection anymore, he sawed off the roof and hauled wood and brush with it.  After the first oil crisis, he invested—and lost—tens of thousands of dollars in a very early hybrid car experiment, in which the company fitted a Buick Skylark with a small diesel motor and mine car batteries.  That venture went nowhere fast, so to speak.

1949 Ford 8n

But, he never really pushed the boat out for himself.  I remember him sitting at dinner one night after he’d test-driven two Alfa-Romeos—the Berlina and the GTV.  He was smitten.  “We drove over these railroad tracks and while you could feel it, the independent suspension just soaked them up,” he enthused.  “The steering was incredible and the leather smelled great.”  He passed Alfa brochures around, coined the term “Alfa-holic” and then went out and bought a Mustang II.

1974 Alfa Berlina

This was an unfortunate piece of mid-1970’s styling (bulbous, gravid, jangly, heavy for its size, drooping with plastic-body colored bumpers) on a Pinto chassis, of all things.  A Pinto’s?!  The hapless Pinto’s manifold shortcomings were well known by 1975, so it’s astonishing Ford chose to expand on this folly, to use it as a platform for another car.  The Mustang II was how I found out the Motor Trend “Car of the Year” honor was simply purchased by manufacturers.  Then, sadly, for a few months I had to drive one, a hand-me-down from my brother Andy that was mercifully sideswiped, hit and run, by a crosstown New York City bus and put out of its—and my—misery.  As if to compensate, I bought an 1961 MGA from my childhood friend Ian Hartman, who bought it from Jack Holden, after that.

I can’t even remember what he drove after the Mustang II because he gave it to my sister (who, sadly, somehow traded a Fiat 124 sport coupe for it).  But in the 1980’s, he purchased what surely is the worst automobile Cadillac ever produced: the woeful Cimarron.  This was a Chevrolet with a Cadillac badge glued on. As gutless as it was hideous, it was very early evidence of the decline of the US auto industry.

So when his sister Phyl passed away and bequeathed him her 1997 C230, my dad quietly couldn’t believe his good fortune.  He took the plucky little four cylinder Mercedes—not terribly optioned-up, but with heated seats—on a tour of the Canadian Maritime Provinces and to the Wright-Dayton museum in Ohio.  The car starred in his famous 2005 bicentennial retracing of the route of Lewis and Clark, “Westward Ho Solo.”  T-shirts are still available.  He promised repeatedly it would a) be the last car he ever owned and b) he’d give it to me when he passed away.  “No, no dad, you’ll have another car,” I reassured him.  “We’re confident you’ll outlive it.”

But then he didn’t.

I wasn’t sure how the other seven children in the family would take his bequest, with four cars and a motorcycle of our own it seemed an embarrassment of automotive wealth. But he made such a big deal out of it, and even wrote his sister’s kids informing them of his plans, so there wasn’t any grumbling.  Well, none that I’ve heard.

We’d resolved to give it to our daughter for her sixteenth birthday.

So, after wintering in Lancaster, the little cream puff (60,000 original miles in fifteen years) came across the miles on a car carrier.  The truck driver was a handsome, colorful and sprightly fellow named Terry.  He charmed my mother on collecting it, along with a bunch of California-bound cars from the Manheim Auto Auction.  He promised to really beat it to California because, he said, he had some unspecified trouble to attend to near his home of Big Bear.  And beat it he did.  He left Lancaster on a Friday and the car was the last one unloaded on Moorpark Street on a Tuesday evening.

JBE’s car was a time capsule of his daily life—a frozen scene that it seemed he’d left without realizing he wasn’t coming back. All the months it waited for the call in Lancaster I wanted to keep it that way.  It looked and even smelled like him.  It was reassuring to drive when the kids came back for visits. But Saeli wanted, as quickly as possible, to make it her own.  So she and I went through it, from front to back.

There were two Dymo label maker notes stuck to the dash: one to remind him where the fuel filler cap was, and the other to identify the rear defroster. He also fixed a little Velcro strip to the dash to hold the garage door opener to it. There were three golf umbrellas, each identifying a bank or country club.  A tiny car trash bin sat on the transmission hump. There was a pair of his prescription Ray-Ban aviators with the G-3 green lenses.  Like him, I try and take good care of my things.  Unlike him, I lose a pair of glasses every few weeks; he must have had these for thirty years or more.  They’d been soldered at the bridge. Homemade cassettes abounded, included one labeled “jazz stew.”  It proudly displays the pewter front plate everyone in Lancaster has.

The most astonishing find was a wicked knife deep in the pocket behind the passenger seat.  This is a multipurpose implement Davy Crockett would be proud to wield.  You might not be able to kill a bear with it, but you could sure piss him off.   I recall my brother Roger either coveting or possessing this item, with its laminated leather handle.  At one point, an inlay in the hilt had fallen out and it was either reinforced—or decorated—with very thick copper wire—not as thick as UL-rated household electric wire, but pretty close.  What had my dad planned to do with this?  Gore a would-be thief?   It would have been very easy to reach behind and down to get it from his driving position.  I can, quite respectfully, imagine my father even at 88 facing down a would-be carjacker, unsheathing this thing while calmly explaining to the would-be thief, “You know, I’d rather talk you out of it but if I can’t, I’m going to have to defend myself.”

In the trunk, a pair of LL Bean duck boots sat in a strawberry box, alongside a pair of his golf shoes.  “I’m giving you those golf shoes when I pass away too,” he reminded me maybe a year before his death. “I’ll put them in the trunk of my car.” The box, which also included an EverReady Captain flashlight (also good for braining assailants) and jumper cables, sat on a grey rubber-backed doormat.  Next to that was a collapsible snow shovel.  The whole thing was kept neatly in place with an expandable shower rod.  Oh, and his initials, “JBE” in Press-a-ply labels, are fixed to the driver’s side door.

As soon as the car was off the carrier, Saeli wanted to drive it.  She logged twenty supervised, cheerful hours behind its wheel as a student driver, and we drove it down to Indio so she could take her test in it after Coachella.  Bit by bit, many of JBE’s things in the car found homes elsewhere.  It rained enough since then that I’ve had to wear the duck boots a couple days.  I lost one of the golf umbrellas already.  I’m still trying to figure out how to put non-prescription lenses in the old Ray-Bans without breaking them.  Saeli left some touches, like the labels and stickers.  Her friends now enjoy the Life Savers and Altoids JB had socked away, unopened, in the glove compartment.

Saeli behind the wheel solo in Francois for the first time

Watching Saeli reverse out of the driveway in what is now known as Frank (short for Jacques-Francois; all our cars and the motorcycle have names) provided my wife Victoria and I with the most dislocating moment of our parenthood so far: from the time she disappeared down the street until she got to where she was going, we didn’t know exactly where she was.  She’s been driving for two months now and we are still not quite, no, not at all used to this.  Her humble C230—two years younger than she is—parks alongside new Range Rovers and BMW’s in her high school neighborhood.  But she’s as happy as she can be with it.  JBE is smiling in heaven, as is his sister Phyllis, too.

Why is this post on Killer Hooch?  Well, first, don’t drink and drive.  Second, on this Father’s Day, I look back wistfully in a gentle reverie on my Dad, and his life, adventures great but mostly modest, and stories; many of them told over scotch, martinis, bloodies and libations of all sorts.  I hope I can connect—and keep connecting—with them.  Saeli’s ownership of the car carries his memory and legacy forward another generation out in to the world and sustains her love and memory of him. Happy Father’s Day, Ole JBE.

There are certainly plenty of (lucky) opportunities to try new spirits in the course of my travels, visiting bars, restaurants and rooting around in the liquor cabinet for something I’d overlooked.  I recently found a bottle of Grant’s 8-year old Scotch my father brought to my wedding 19 years ago up there; I think he worried you couldn’t get Scotch in California.  But if you want the full frontal assault of all the industry has to offer in one go, there’s nothing like a big liquor show.

Two years ago I had the opportunity to serve as a judge—alongside Junior Merino and Yuri Kato–in a vodka competition at the New York Bar Show.  We had to evaluate thirty cocktails in about an hour.  As we worked, I asked Kato, “So, what’s next for you after this?”  She replied, “I’m off to do this again in San Francisco.”  I was goggle-eyed, thinking, “You get paid to do this?! Sign me up!”  Anyway, after the tasting I was interviewed on local TV.  I had all sorts of trenchant comments about my favorite drink (The “Bing-A-Ling”) and the state of mixology generally, but all the TV station aired was, “I’m not nearly as drunk as I thought I’d be after that.” It sure made my patrons at IS Vodka proud.  More on that here: http://articles.nydailynews.com/2009-06-16/local/17925587_1_ling-edible-bing

Fast-forward to Wednesday morning, when I meet my friend Lincoln Salazar, who’s starting a proper spirits magazine with his editor John Shakill, and we line our stomachs—I had my second burrito in 12 hours (it poorly compared to Tuesday evening’s one-pound monster from Chipotle)—to tackle the Bar and Nightclub show in Las Vegas.

This show has warped and woofed over the years.  While some major brands like Möet Hennessy, Svedka and Diageo have left the show, some genuinely big players—Patron Spirits, Beam and Brown-Forman among them—were back this season.  The quality and mood of the exhibitors was higher than in several years past, though the floor wasn’t as raucous as the New York show, where at one time sloshed delegates had to be escorted from the premises.  And, while we noticed fewer exhibitors overall, it still challenged us to cover them all in a day.

We started with the tequilas, which were conveniently segregated under the Spirits of Mexico banner, which holds a big tequila festival in San Diego each fall.  By and large they were lovely, family run operations.  Standouts were Corralejo Tequila, whose anejo had a pronounced but not unpleasant lilt in its finish from its aging in scotch barrels, smooth and subtle QV (Querido Viejo) Tequila, as well as a tequila that exhibited outside the Taste of Mexico, Baluarte.  They make an excellent silver and reposado that come in a distinctive frosted (another trend) black bottles unlike the squat containers used for most tequilas.  One company, Kah, gets unabashed double duty from using the very same skull-shaped bottle Crystal Head Vodka uses, but each bottle is hand-painted in wild Day of the Dead meets lucha libre colors.

Out on the main floor, attention must be paid to The Situation’s vodka, Devotion.  With vodka, flavor can often be hard to separate from hype and there’s more than enough to go around here.  I think the Situation must think himself a pretty lucky guy to have ridden to success in the spirits realm; no matter what people say about him and Jersey Shore, millions of prospective “Devotees” make their way to TV’s and DVR’s pretty dutifully Thursday nights.  I was partial to the “straight” spirits from Michter’s of Kentucky.  They boast a fine rye from the company’s history as America’s oldest distillery, founded in Schaefferstown in Eastern Pennsylvania.  Now, the owner grouses about doing business in Pennsylvania, which used to be the largest single liquor account in the world.

We observed one strong trend: cream liqueurs.  Perhaps chasing the success of Patron XO Café, offerings ranged from a vanilla cream liqueur to “hard chocolate milk” and cream limoncello.  There was also NutLiquor—yep, peanut-butter flavored vodka.  It was surprisingly good; the peanut taste fully suffused the spirit from aroma to finish; it didn’t feel glued on as an afterthought as lot of flavored vodkas do.  Ironically, it’s made in Temperance, Michigan.  It features an unfortunately named drink called Monkey Nuts, which consists of NutLiquor with a splash of something else called 99 Bananas.  I didn’t try this.  I also didn’t try Cougar Juice vodka, because, contrary to the brand’s call to action, the cougar just wasn’t in me.  Cougar Juice? Tiger Blood?  These poor big cats are getting milked for all they’re worth.  I did try and loved 4 Orange, an organic vodka distilled from four kinds of Florida oranges from the owners of Sobieski  Vodka.  4 Oranges is light, refreshing, not oily; the flavored vodka category succeeds best when the spirit really feels infused rather than “flavored.”

Most exhibitors strove mightily to get show delegates into their booths.  One company that built portable bars hired a mentalist.  Rums of Puerto Rico slung drinks from a 40-foot bar.  Beam Brands’ booth oozed prosperity and elegance.  Marlboro had a smoke-free trailer for sampling their snuff pouches called SNUS “like goose,” confounding visiting smokers looking for free packs (last year’s exhibitor Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Company, makers of American Spirit, were absent).  Almost everyone had busty “booth babes.”  There were booth babes in nurses’ uniforms, booth babes in Sue Sylvester Glee tracksuits, booth babes in angel’s wings, booth babes in coach’s outfits, you name it.

Lincoln and John and I politely made the rounds.  But you can’t be polite and chat up exhibitors—many of them brand owners and boutique distillers—without sampling their offerings.  And some of them have a whole range to try; tequileras, for example, always have a silver, a reposado and an anejo.   So, no matter whether you spit it out or not, a hundred-plus tiny sips are going to lead up to something. Lincoln’s manifested itself in a growing, finally irresistible desire to visit Jimmy Buffet’s Magaritaville at the Tropicana (where I had my stag weekend).  After about an hour of hectoring, his editor John Shariff and I finally gave in, and quit the show for the garish Stripside theme venue with papier-mâché penguins leering down from the rafters, the “parrot crossing next 3 miles” signs, and the rows of fake boats as seating booths with prominently branded Garmin sonar pods on their flying bridges.

As we tucked into margaritas and barbacoa nachos, the flat winter light sunk between the big new hotels but still cast a warmth over the Strip and favored those clinging to the rail outside for what for a moment felt like a little Caribbean sea spray…but maybe it was just water sloshing out of the hot tub in the back of a passing limo.

I’ve had a lifelong love affair with The Bloody Mary.  As a novice drinker, I tried ordering a Tom Collins but the club bartender snapped back,  ”A Tom Collins?  REALLY?  Here’s a Dewar’s and water; it’s what your father drinks.” So a Bloody was a respectable drink that didn’t taste much like alcohol and was hearty in the absence of snacks.  ”The cocktail and hors d’oeuvre in one,” I’ve always called it.

As I grew older, I pursued the ultimate Bloody with passion.  I experimented with many recipes.  The first were “kitchen sink” recipes that relied as much on the quantity of ingredients as on their nature. At one time, Campbell’s made V-8 with clam juice that made for a pretty impressive variation; up until then I’d tried splashes of clam juice and Old Bay Seasoning when going in that direction. And then of course, there’s beef broth.  Once you’ve tried this, it’s hard to go back.  It’s what makes the Bloody a meat drink.

Plenty of people found my obsession a little annoying.  At every nightclub I worked in, I’d try to get them to up their game in the Bloody department. “Why do you use that crappy Mr & Mrs. T’s–they’re for airline Bloody Marys,” I’d complain derisively.  Usually the club owners would tell me to stick to my parties or art or promotion and leave the bars to them, and reminded me Mr. & Mrs. T’s lasted a long time in the well. Sometimes, I’d take cans of beef broth into establishments where I was the only person who’d ever order a Bloody Bull.  A few places made great ones–Orso and Maple Drive in Los Angeles, for example; but the Bloody Mary at Bix in San Francisco got me back to the basics: tomato juice, Worcestershire sauce, tabasco, salt and pepper, and good (not great) vodka.  It forms the basis for my own recipe:

• 4 oz. Tomato juice
• 4 oz. Beef broth
• Tabasco to taste
• Worcestershire sauce to taste
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 1/2 teaspoon celery salt
• 1 teaspoon coarse-ground black pepper
• 2 oz. vodka

Shake or stir ingredients vigorously. Strain through ice into small old-fashioned or big martini glass. Garnish with fresh cilantro. Consume immediately.

A Bloody Mary starts with tomato juice.  Would that I had my grandmother’s recipe (and a lot of time on my hands) for that; she used to make it herself.  She’d cook it up on the stove and bring it over from York to Lancaster where I grew up.  It would have been perfect for Bloodies–it was thin, but very flavorful with a baked tomato taste. Trouble was, she put the tomato juice up in old liquor bottles. We could index the Owings family spirits consumption on the basis of these deliveries. Like most things, this embarrassment of quality made me pine for the most processed versions of it–Clamato, V-8, etc. but I got over it.

So bringing us up to the present day, I haven’t had a Bloody Mary rock my world since Bix, until last night, when some my wife, some friends and I visited Street in Los Angeles, “Two Hot Tamales” chef Susan Feniger’s first solo operation without her partner Mary Sue Milliken.   There, I had ordered a glass of Provençal rose, but noticed a plain bottle behind the bar with a tiny profile of a pig fixed to the bottle with cellophane tape.  I learned this was at the heart of Street’s BLT Bloody Mary.  Susan infuses her vodka with real bacon essence right on the premises.  The bacon craze has spawned some pretty nasty things (bacon mints or licorice, anyone?), but I believe in using all parts of what Homer Simpson called the miracle animal.  (I’m actually becoming conflicted about this as, as much as I love “the other white meat,” pigs have an impossible, pet-like cuteness and demonstrated intelligence that makes eating them seem, well, mean, and I might have to stop at some point in the future).

A cute, compelling argument for vegetarianism--or at least turkey bacon!

Street’s bacon vodka is subtle, smoky, natural-tasting on its own and a smash in the BLT Bloody. I normally don’t like really thick juice but Street’s mix actually clings to the big Romaine lettuce leaf garnish for a very satisfying, bacony, crunchy, meaty snack to accompany the drink.  The latter has flecks of fresh red chiles and actual bits–globules, I might say–of bacon fat and bacon bits in it.

There’s as many Bloody Mary recipes as there are shoes in Imelda Marcos’ old closet, but 2009 was the 75th anniversary of the vaunted drink (invented at the King Cole Bar at the St. Regis in New York, it’s said) and the hotel published twenty of their favorites–one required 24 hours’ notice.  I couldn’t find the actual recipes easily, but there’s a New York Post article which identifies a number of them here:

www.nypost.com/p/lifestyle/food/item_5YB4XGD97UxMn7i0MryHPP

So this Valentine’s Day, raise a loving toast with a drink that’s red for the special occasion–and nothing says “I love you” like bacon!

So I never got around to my sparkler story over Christmas.  It’s still to come.  Instead I ate and drank my way (in moderation, of course) through the Sundance Film Festival.  I was lucky enough to have paid for only one meal the entire Festival, a quiet, pre-Sundance riot sushi evening with a client at Oishi in Park City.  We got a table without a wait, had terrific Aji sashimi, and didn’t talk about film at all…

As the paroxysm of branding and celebrities drew to a close after the Sundance Film Festival’s opening weekend, the Stella Café presented by Food & Wine and Sorel at the Galaxy Tab Lift quickly earned a reputation as the hub of casual, low-pressure industry networking and social activity at the Festival.   Oh, and Stella Artois beer was, as you can imagine, everywhere.  Stella www.stellaartois.com has a terrific flavor in their signature chalice at very low temperatures and high altitudes.  The combination makes is smooth, flavorful, not fizzy, and very thirst-quenching, with a citrus acidity and very mild bitterness.  And 5% alcohol carries a respectable kick at altitude.

The Stella girls with Olympic speed skater Allison Baver at the Lift (photo credit: Philip Hooghuis)

During the day, industry swells and press held meetings and filed stories while chefs including Michael Voltaggio (best known for winning Bravo’s “Top Chef” Season 6) and Fig’s Ray Garcia prepared delicacies like a Serrano ham huevos rancheros and chicken shawarma.  By night, The Stella Café offered invitation-only hosted receptions and dinners (Koji Tacos for the first time outside of LA) of a different sort than the high-pressure, door-policy venues further up Main Street. Rather, the Stella receptions, for independent films and groups with lesser-known casts, harkened back to an earlier time when the Festival was less about hoopla and branding and more about movies.  Festival Program Director Trevor Groth, who visited the café several times, remarked, “We DID notice, and we appreciated it.”

Friday, January 21^st, Stella hosted the Film Society of Lincoln Center, invigorated by new staffers Rose Kuo, Eugene Hernandez, and Courtney Ott.  Guests included FSLINC board member Peter Herbst;  festival execs Graham Leggat (San Francisco), Alec Jhangiani (Lone Star), Britta Erickson (Denver), James Faust (DALLAS), Janet Pierson (SXSW) and Sundance’s Keri Putnam, John Cooper, Trevor Groth and Basil Tsiokos; and film executives Phil Engelhorn and Peter Raisler (Cinereach), Howard Cohen (Roadshow Attractions), Ira Deutchman (Emerging Pictures), Mark Urman (Oscilloscope), and Ryan Werner (IFC Films); and some of the top journalists covering the Festival.

Later that evening, the Café hosted the post-screening reception for writer/director/actress Miranda July’s long-awaited second feature THE FUTURE.  Guests included July; cast members Hamish Linklater, David Warshofsky, Isabella Acres and Joe Putterlik; and producers Gina Kwon, Roman Paul and Gerhard Meixner.

Saturday, January 22nd brought the Café ON THE ICE, with writer/director Andrew Okpeaha MacLean and cast members Josiah Patkotak, Frank Qutuq Irelan, Teddy Kyle Smith, Adamina Kerr, Sierra Jade Sampson, John Miller and Rosabelle Kunnanna Rexford in attendance.  Cast members Patkotak and Sierra Samson sported the “Twitten,” the curious and silly two-handed mitten for couples making the rounds of the Festival.

Sunday, January 23^rd, media property Hammer to Nail (www.hammertonail.com) hosted a reception honoring all low budget American Independents in festival.  Guests included Trevor Groth, Ted Hope, Lynette Howell, Mike Plante, Mike Ryan, Christine Vachon and Hammer to Nail editor Michael Tully (who also directed and starred in midnight feature SEPTIEN).  The party also drew directors, casts and crews from The Catechism Cataclysm; Co-Dependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same; Kinyarwanda; Lord Byron; Martha Marcy May Marlene; The Off Hours; On The Ice; The Oregonian; Septien; Terri; and The Woods.

To close out the café Monday, January 24^th, Stella hosted the post-premiere party for ANOTHER EARTH, with co-writer and director Mike Cahill and co-writer/producer/actress Brit Marling and cast member William Mapother in attendance.  The film sold to Fox Searchlight about 24 hours after the event.

Meanwhile, downstairs at the House of Swagg, Thule (www.thule.com/en/US) renowned Swedish vehicle rack maker, is getting into the luggage business with stylish, rugged gear, tried out its new luggage line on numerous celebrities from America Ferrera and Emily Mortimer and Susan Sarandon to Danny Glover, Emile Hirsch, Li’l Jon (both pictured) and Scott Wolff—and even Real Housewives of Hollywood’s Adrienne Malouf.   And because a bag is no fun without a place to go to with it, Thule tucked a night’s stay at the new BLVD Boutique Hotel and Spa in Studio City inside, along with what Interview Magazine called “a swag highlight,” the “Twitten”—the silly, goofy, FUN and warm two-handed mitten for couples to hold hands inside www.thetwitten.com.

And finally, everywhere at the Galaxy Tab Lift, guests could sample IZZE Sparkling Juice www.izze.com.  Kim at the Stella Café originated a spectacular new recipe for IZZE for the Creative Coalition’s Spotlight Awards, the IZZE Spotlight, consisting of IZZE Clementine, Patron Citronge, and POM.  Delicious!

Wine was nowhere to be found.  Turning Leaf, a former Festival sponsor, left the fold several years back and last year’s sponsor, David Johndrow www.Johndrowwine.com sat this year out so no sponsored plonk plied Festival guests.  One friend at the Spotlight Awards lamented, “Oh, if I could JUST have something that wasn’t served cold or over ice!”

I DID have a very nice glass or two or three of Nicolas Feuilatte’s NV Brut Reserve Particulaires champagne at Livestyle’s supper club dinners www.feuillatte.com.   I have always felt Nicolas Feuilatte was an underrated champagne house.  I think this is a superb champagne, fruity, light on the tongue, with a hint of not-unpleasant pear-like sweetness.  I like toasty, yeasty champagne but this had a supple quality I’d associate more with a rose. Long ago, when Details Magazine was printed on pulp paper and still had Steve Saban’s column in it, they had a very cool ad campaign called “Sips and Spills” that was the among the first branded editorial—actual editorial of their parties in the magazine that looked just like regular editorial. I wrote one of them once.

Meanwhile, up at the RealTVFilms Social Media Lodge, www.realtvfilms.com, guests eagerly consumed Root www.artintheage.com/spirits-aita and Snap, two extraordinary new liqueurs actually concocted by a Pennsylvania advertising agency called Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.  Both certified organic, Root derives from Root Tea, a colonial-era spirit.  It precedes the invention of Root Beer—an alcohol-free variant developed during the Temperance movement of the late 1800’s.   While incredibly fun, complex and mixable, most of the guests at ReaTVFIlm’s four Lodge parties—one each for the Jewlicious pre-Shabbat reception, Scenechronize, IndieGogo and Technicolor—drank Root and its ginger and molasses-distilled cousin Snap, straight.  The also gobbled up everything else in the house–from Popchips, Pirate’s Booty and Pretzel Crisps to Mighty Leaf Tea, IZZE, Stella and Hoegarden beer.

Welcome back to Killer Hooch. I’m going to be going through the trash (I should have planned this a little better) and reviewing some of this holiday’s numerous beverage selections.  So at Christmas Eve dinner, I assembled a team of tasters to work through some of these wines and champagnes/sparkling wines with us.

First up was a 1990 Chateau Potensac Medoc Delon Liguard.  I split a case of this with my friend Heidi Richman at this Spring’s Spectrum Wine Auction at Charlie Palmer in Orange County.  I can’t account for the whereabouts of one bottle but we gave another to our tasters to celebrate their engagement and it was corked.

This bottle wasn’t.  It was everything a 20 year-old Bordeaux blend should be: subtle, complex, mildly spicy, not TOO much of anything–a greater challenge after drinking single varietal Californians most of the time.  Superb and satisfying.  We decanted it to remove sediment and air it a bit.  Robert Parker gave it an 86 whenever he reviewed it; I am convinced he’s give it above 90 if he came back to it today.  I paid just about on market for it at auction; online surveys seem to price this bottle in the $40-60 range if you can find it.

Then, after arguing over whether to open our guests’ Laetetia Pinot Noir 2008 first (I wanted to keep that for a year but was reminded we should drink what our guests bring)  we opened a family favorite: Navarro Vineyard’s 2005 Pinot Noir Methode A L’ancienne.  We had to wait to get on Navarro’s waiting list and since then have loved getting two or three cases a year of this Anderson Valley wine, some of which we cellar and some we drink right away.

For readers of Stephen King and watchers of Fringe, they’ll know what I mean when I say that the fabric separating our universe from theirs is tissue paper thin in Philo and Boonville, Navarro’s Anderson Valley provenance.  There’s a peculiar, technicolor color to the light.  You’re aware of someone, something watching you.  They speak Boontling, a language invented in the 1800′s to hide Boonters’ doings from outsiders.

After the Chateau Potensac, though, the single-vineyard Pinot was nothing like my wife and I remembered.  I KNOW it was supposed to be VERY good, but the wine tasted strong and slightly sweet, a loud, insistent one-instrument performance after the Medoc’s symphony of flavors.  I expected the aging to increase its complexity but it didn’t.  It just bounced off us, an unexpected reaction.  Perhaps this was a fluke, because Navarro seldom disappoints.   Although almost 5000 cases were produced, you can’t even find this wine to buy anymore, so it’s hard to say what it would cost.  Navarro, which I think does most of its business through direct mail and a very select group of restaurants, is at www.navarrowine.com.

Next up was Laetitia’s 2008 Estate Pinot Noir. Our friends are Central Coast wine fans and Laetitia’s Arroyo Grande Pinot was yummy, smooth, delicate with spicy cran-cherry flavors and even a hint of, dare we say it, bacon.  Maybe we should have drunk this before the Navarro. It bloomed up very nicely on the palate with a woody flavor I associate with Carneros Pinots like Acacia in particular.  Very fine, and easily available for a little over 20 bucks.

We went back to Navarro for their 2006 Late Harvest Gewurztraminer, “Cluster Select.” Gewurtz (along with Pinot Gris and Rieslings one of Navarro’s standout varietals), and even with a fair amount of wine on board this was a true standout, a reminder that Alsatian style wines can be very good indeed.  We served it very cold in my father’s old sherry glasses.  They looked sort of dorky but worked just fine.  Honey-sweet but sharp with a thick but not syrupy consistency, this wine’s delicate stone fruit notes combined with an appropriately holiday, dare I say cinnamony finish.  Navarro still sells this for $29 from the vineyard.

Next post?  Sparklers.

Happy Holidays!  I’ve signed up for this blog and hope to link it to the web site Killerhooch.com, which I was lucky as heck to obtain.  Killer Hooch used to be an irreverent look at the spirits (not the spirit) world, and I hope to continue that tradition.  Here, I am going to post various items and stories from the drinks world.

Why? I’m grateful for the opportunity to enjoy spirits, wine, beverages of all sorts.  They provide pleasure on many levels–flavor, aroma, mouth feel, bite, finish, all that.  As for inspiration I look to my late father, who once told this story: when he turned 80, his cousin Bill Musser suggested he square himself with God and strengthen his ties to the Mennonite Church.  My dad replied, “Bill, if you told me I could live ten years longer if I stopped drinking and smiling, I’d have to take a pass on that.”  My dad made it eight very happy, fulfilled years longer, but lamenting close to the end of his life that he felt pain “that even a martini just couldn’t assuage” and I think Bill Musser is still with us, a pretty pinched, dour guy.  Who would you rather be?  The consumption of alcohol is a privilege, not a right, and can be revoked at any time.

Stop back by for some posts soon, because it’s the holidays and I think I will be sampling some beverages then!

Cheers,

Henry

Welcome to WordPress.com. This is your first post. Edit or delete it and start blogging!