Great music, and tasty adult beverages to go along with it. Can't think of a much better way to wind down at the end of a long week. So here you have it:

“So I’ll get some Montecristo, and we can all go see the band. Well I may not be a looker, yeah, but I’ll help you any way I can.”
— “The Gutterati?” by The Fratellis

Montecristo Ginger Mojito
1.5 oz Montecristo Spiced Rum
1.5 oz fresh lime juice
.5 oz ginger ale
6 mint leaves
3 slivers fresh ginger
Muddle mint, lime juice, and ginger in tall glass. Add rum and crushed ice, then shake. Top with ginger ale. Garnish with mint sprig and candied ginger slice.


“I come home last night full a fifth of Old Crow. You said you goin' to your ma's, but where the hell did you go?”
— “Gin Soaked Boy” by Tom Waits

Old Crow Old-fashioned
3oz Old Crow bourbon
3 dashes bitters
1⁄2tsp sugar syrup
Splash water
Half an orange wheel
Maraschino cherry
Muddle the sugar, water, bitters, orange and cherry, lightly bruising the fruit. Fill a highball glass with ice cubes and add bourbon.

In honor of the Big 4 (Metallica, Slayer, Anthrax and Megadeth) playing Yankee Stadium next week, our hard-rocking friends at Jägermeister have come up with some metal-themed cocktails. If you can't make it to the show, slurping down a few of these with "Master of Puppets" playing at ear-splitting levels could be the next best thing to being there….

Angel of Death - Slayer
1.5oz Old Overholt Rye
1oz Jägermeister
1oz Averna
3 dashes Jerry Thomas Decanter Bitters
Brandied Cherries
Build, stir with ice and garnish with a cherry

Reign in Blood-Slayer
2oz Jägermeister
.75oz Beefeater 24
.5oz Raspberry Simple Syrup
.5oz Iced Tea
Combine all ingredients in a mixing glass. Add Ice and Stir
Strain into a Double Old Fashioned Glass
Lemon Twist for garnish

Bring The Noise-Anthrax
1.5oz Jägermeister
1.5oz Grapefruit Juice
.5oz Don Q anejo rum
.5oz Velvet Falernum
Combine all ingredients with Ice, Shake and strain into a tall glass.

Okay, so...

...one of the coolest things to happen while I was writing my forthcoming book, "Living Loaded: Tales of Sex, Salvation and the Pursuit of the Never-ending Happy Hour," is that I managed to cajole 16 of the best f&*%ing bartenders in the world to create original cocktails designed to pair with the tome, and to write a little sumthin-sumthin about their respective concoctions. One such libational luminary is Ben Reed, a legendary ranconteur and reprobate from London. Ben is one of the industry's best-known mixologists thanks to his high profile as the BBC's Shaker Maker and his colourful career mixing cocktails for the capitals trendsetters and style leaders. His career really took off in the late 1990s during an enormously successful three-year stint as bar manager of London's premier private members club, the Met bar (where he won cocktail bartender of the year in 1997). Ben also wrote a column Barfly for the Saturday Times magazine for two years and his first book Hollywood Cocktails featured in the Times and the Telegraph newspapers top ten purchases for Christmas 99. His own book Cool Cocktails published in 2000 sold out in both the UK and the US in just four months and has currently sold 500,000 copies worldwide. Three more books, The Cocktail Hour, The Martini, and The Margarita and other Tequila cocktails were released in 2002. In 2003 he wrote The Art of the Cocktail to great acclaim. 2005 saw the release of three more books; Sunshine Cocktails, Party cocktails and Hangover Cures and his latest book "The Bartender's Guide" has just been released by RPS.

Here's Ben's contribution to the book, followed by a fun video we shot a few years back:

“The Internal Upgrade” (aka the Roofie Martini)
(created by Ben Reed)
3 miniatures of any hooch you can charm off your trolley dolly, preferably gin
1 lemon slice
2 cans of European lager (room temp pref)
A cup filled with ice
A bag of pretzels
2mg of rohypnol (or any of the following: xanax, ambien, vicodin, codein, stillnox, or any scrip whose name ends in pam)  
1 stirrer
1 eye mask
1 large napkin

Pour all gin into cup of ice, leave to stand. If beer not warm enough, place between legs, under seat, in shoe, until warm. Stir gin. Open one beer and drink quickly. Stir gin. Use second can to crush up meds on in flight magazine and siphon into chilling gin. Stir gin. Eat bag of pretzels (cuz you ain’t gonna be awake for the meal). Drink second beer, quicker. Stir. Consume quickly. Suck lemon (your neighbor may appreciate this) Tie large napkin around neck (there’s a strong likelihood of drooling) Apply eye mask and shut down.

Disclaimers:
1) For the lowbrow nature of this cocktail I blame global terrorism and understocked drinks trolleys.
2) The warm beer thing isn’t a Brit thing. Warm beer drunk at pace perfectly replicates that bloated end of session feeling that your body needs to recognize before properly shutting down for the long haul.
3) Due to the transatlantic nature of this piece, certain meds mentioned above may not be locally available… or strictly legal.

“The beauty of drinking hard on a plane is that most of the side effects you’re trying to avoid when drinking on the ground (inability to stand, walk, speak or remember anything) are exactly what you’re looking to embrace in the air. If, like myself, you travel round the world, mostly at the expense of a client, and your enjoyment of the journey is often at the mercy of their goodwill (and your day rate), then trust me, you’re going to need this cocktail.   

The many air miles I’ve accrued are seldom spent in first class; if they were, the trip would go down like a tepid martini back home Chez Reedo. So I’ve learned that if, if, on the odd occasion one is told firmly (and often forcibly) to turn right rather than left upon entry to your assigned aircraft, something a little creative is often required to numb the senses and propel you instantly to the place that, were you in business or first class, you would be gently (and expensively) reaching somewhere over a large water mass. This is your escape route to aviation oblivion.”
-- Ben Reed is British and demented. And not necessarily in that order. A former bartender at the famed Met Bar, Reed is the author of the best-selling tome “Cool Cocktails.”

by John Myers (Cocktail Historian, Writer and Mixologist, Local 188)

The Gin Gin Mule, also known as a London Mule, is a variation on the Moscow Mule that I much prefer.  The flavors of gin blend well with that of the ginger beer, making it much more pleasing to taste, and much more complex, than a Moscow Mule.


Since I do not like vodka, I am a a fan of the London Mule.  The London Mule is essentially, the more commonly known, Gin Gin Mule, except with the removal of simple syrup, which I add makes it too sweet for my tastes.  The flavors are great: a strong, Jamaican style ginger beer, combined with a robust juniper-oriented gin such as Gordon's, Tanqueray or Voyager makes a delicious and refreshing drink that seemingly has many more flavors going on in it than the common Moscow Mule.  The flavors blend well with the mint garnish, making it even more refreshing when combined with the rest of the botanicals, and the lime brings out any citrus characteristics of the gin, creating a sour that compliments the ginger beers slight sweetness. 

The Gin Gin Mule was created by Audrey Saunders while at the Bemelmans Bar in New York City.  Currently, Saunders is at the famous Pegu Club, which is the place from which the Gin Gin Mule is most commonly associated.  According to John Myers, the Gin Gin Mule is "part Mojito and part Gin Buck."  He writes that ginger beer drinks were known as "bucks" prior to the creation of the Moscow Mule, before the Moscow Mule came along, ginger ale/beer drinks were called “bucks” and came in a wide variety of types and styles.  The Pegu Club is perhaps one of the most famous bars in the world, let alone the United States, which is known specifically for its' use of premium ingredients, fresh juices, homemade infusions and ginger beers.

The original Gin Gin Mule utilizes the addition of rich simple syrup, about a quarter of an ounce, in order to sweeten it and make the drink more palatable on the whole.  However, it is entirely unnecessary for it only makes the cocktail seem absurdly sweet.  But if you were going to go with the proper recipe, make it with a little bit of simple syrup added in order to sweeten it.  And when garnishing using the mint, once more I suggest utilizing doing what Jamie Boudreau suggests (which is also a practice used by bartenders at the Pegu Club): slap the mint between both your hands, in order to bring out the flavors and aroma of the mint without bruising it and releasing the chlorophyll or other things which might contribute to bitter, and unwanted, flavors.  You can also neatly tuck the mint into the cut of the lime wedge, in order to keep it on the edge of the glass as a garnish.


The London Mule (a Gin Gin Mule without the simple syrup):
1 1/2 to 2 ounces gin
3/4 ounce fresh lime juice
Four or five leaves of mint
Ginger beer
Combine the juice and mint in a copper mug or collins glass. Muddle the mint, then fill the glass with ice, adding the gin. Stir until chilled. Top with ginger beer. Garnish with a sprig of mint and a piece of lime.

John Myers comes from a long, if intermittent, line of saloonists. Currently plying his trade in Portland, ME—a drinking town with a fishing problem—Myers might be  characterized as a librarian with a bartending problem. Boasting volumes of text from The Casco Bay Institute for Applied Intoxicological Studies, his collection of bartending literature is one of the most substantial in New England. In addition to sitting on the Board of Advisors for The Museum of the American Cocktail, Myers’ column “The Land of Forgotten Cocktails” appears in Portland’s bi-weekly, The Bollard.  He is currently at work on the guide, "What Would Jesus Drink: Cocktails for the Second Coming.”

How about a nice salad?

No, I didn't think so. Don't take this the wrong way, but people who read about about wines, spirits, cocktails and imbibery in general, aren't usually tripping over each other up trying to be first in line to the arugula.

And yet, there are all those farmers' markets, where you should probably buy something. And you do need roughage; everybody says so. So, herewith, a reason to buy cucumbers. And in bulk.

Heretofore, a great many people I happen to know in the spirits game have relied completely upon Hendrick's gin for their cucumber intake. Lovely stuff, Hendrick's. Made with actual roses as a botanical, too, but the cucumber is just a grace note, and can't really be counted as a vegetable item for your dinner.

On the other hand, the Lucky Jim is the perfect way to get some green into your system without resorting to parsley-soy shakes. Readers of a certain age will recognize the name Lucky Jim as the novel that made Kingsley Amis famous. Readers below a certain age will recognize the name Amis as belonging to Martin, Kingsley's son. Non-readers won't recognize anything, which is so often the case. You know who you are. Whom.

While slurping Beefeater and tonics in the penthouse suite at Imbiber Headquarters, my production crew and I put together this short video comprised of footage shot last summer at the Hawksmoor in London.  That's where famed bartender Nick Strangeway plies his trade. My partner in crime in this clip is Pernod-Ricard's always-entertaining man-about-town, Simon Ford. Enjoy.