The Savoy Hotel

What do you think of when you think of luxury? It's a strange thing to define in the wealthier parts of the world in the 21st century seeing as so many elements of comfort have become de rigueur in most places. If you went into a hotel room and found anything less than hot and cold running water, an in-suite toilet, electric lights, climate control and a telephone, would you consider it proper lodging? These days, of course not, but for the first fifty or so years of its run the original Savoy Hotel in London was considered a place of innovation for being the first hotel to implement all of those things in its standard rooms. Indeed, the very things we have come to associate with hotels began at the Savoy, mostly between 1900 and 1945. It opened in 1889 as a companion to the famous Savoy Theatre where the wildly successful musicals of Gilbert and Sullivan premiered. It was a favorite leisure destination for such people as Oscar Wilde and Charlie Chaplain. Monet and Whistler made paintings of the view outside their windows there. But for our purposes, the most notable celebrity associated with the Savoy in London is Ada Coleman, the woman who first presided over the Savoy's illustrious bar.

Well, it's unfair to give the Savoy bar's glory just to Coleman, though she did make it the cocktail capitol of the world very early in the history of the mixed drink and paved the way for a very important yankee, her successor Harry Craddock. Together these two invented or popularized some of the most famous cocktails in history.

Ada Coleman's most notable contribution is the Hanky-Panky. It's a cocktail of a bygone era that you may be able to find in what I'd refer to as a proper bar. See, it's pointless to ask a talented bartender to make you something so simple you could (and do) make it yourself. It's better to aim for mixed drinks that use ingredients and tools you probably don't have much incentive to keep on hand at home. Take, for instance, Fernet-Branca. It's a somewhat obscure and very potent digestif hailing from Italy, more or less grape-based brandy with a whole slew of herbs and spices. Fernet-Branca comes from an age when intense distillates were used more often as medicine than as indulgences, which explains why there's really no effort to make the stuff palatable beyond a few drops. Used like bitters, Fernet-Branca gives a distinct perkiness to cocktails, turning Ada Coleman's sweet vermouth variation on the classic martini into a real ass-kicker of a drink. The Hanky-Panky truly tastes antique and it started a long tradition of creative cocktail recipes at the Savoy.

The Savoy wouldn't share its amazing cocktails with the world beyond the Thames/Strand corridor until a Prohibition-hating fellow named Harry Craddock left the States and became a barman at the hotel, eventually taking over for Ada Coleman. Craddock's presence was so transformative to the Savoy that they branded their bar The American Bar, thanks mostly to the association between America and cocktails. Craddock had hundreds of drink recipes, many of them his own invention. It's quite likely that he invented the White Lady and while it's certain that Craddock didn't come up with the dry martini we do know that he was the first and most respected advocate for that now-standard variation. It was Harry Craddock who created the Savoy Cocktail Book, which is still a barman's bible today. The SCB first hit shelves in 1930 and has been reprinted several times since then. If there's any justice in this world, people will be taking that text with them to space colonies.

America Wakes Part Eleven: Nate Crowe

Chapters

1       2

3       4

5       6

7        8

9        10

 

Nathan Crowe, who insisted we call him "Nate", is a freight driver with the Denver Woodwork Company. We hadn't scheduled a meeting with him but we struck up a conversation at a fuel station in the outskirts of Chicago and he had plenty of interesting things to tell us about life in the Federation of Free States.

I drive, geez, I dunno how many miles a year. Yeah, we still use miles instead of kilometers in the Fed. Heh, not like folks around my neck of the woods are big on change. What they are big on is key lime pie. Denver Woodwork pays me a loogie's worth every month to haul their crap but the truth is that I can only afford my illustrious lifestyle thanks to the good people of Milwaukee Metro and Parish and their appetite for genuine key lime pie. My route runs to a lot of the richie rich parts of the NAR, so I usually pick up a couple dozen pies while I'm down there and stick 'em on ice. When I get back to the north end, I sell each pie with about a 200% markup. And yeah, they'll pay that. I'm actually one of the cheaper pie guys around. Don't miss something 'til it's gone, right?

 

I've heard of luxury items coming into the Federation illegally through the freights. Is it also true that other products, drugs for instance, come in the same way?

 

Hold hold hold up, man. No one ever said anything about drugs. Did you hear me say anything about drugs?

 

I didn't mean to upset you. I can omit your name, blur your face if you wish.

 

Nah, it's okay. Just warn me before you go into that stuff. I could lose my license. I run a big enough risk with the pies. I mean, the militias usually don't give a damn about meringue or anything, but they can still bust you for ignoring import tax. I've heard of tons of guys who got put away for crazy shit just because the border guard decided to be a prick about some stashed toys or something.

 

Moving on, then. How does your arrangement with Denver Woodworks operate?

 

Pretty simple, actually. I own my rig and they pay me per mile plus fuel (after delivery, of course) to move their products. There's almost no market for the stuff in the Fed, so I do a lot of international travel.

 

Why is it such an export-heavy business?

 

If you can find a guy who can sell a wood table made in Denver to a guy who makes the same wood table in Boise... well, he probably lives in the RNE and makes enough money on government contracts. Seriously, I don't how much longer this can go on. I'm staying afloat because of pie but most folks in the Fed are just making stuff. And it's not stuff that brings in a lot of cash, either. All the guns, computers, medicine... it's all made in other countries. Hell, if it weren't for Texas I don't know what would happen to the auto industry. They aren't exactly begging for SUV's in New York City. So, they make tables and pillows and toilets and stuff, trying to just not go broke. Hey, talk to a collective worker and you'll get a sunnier picture. But me? There's a reason I'm driving a truck instead of working the steel mill in Iowa City like everyone else back home. Sperm to worm, same damn job. No thanks.

Zirh Introduces a Booze-Soap Line

At the end of a long, hard night drinking out on the town, it’s likely that you will have at least some alcohol on your body, your top, your jeans,  your purse, your man-bag, your Iphone, your Ipad, or whatever else you might happen to have with you. If you aren’t going out, however, and would like to pretend that you’ve been out for a wild night on the town in order to impress your friends, you can now use Zirh’s booze-inspired scented soaps.

We can all thank our lucky stars that Zihr has a few different choices in their booze soap line.  For those who prefer an Asian scent (or a Sake cocktail), you might want to try out the Sake Bomb, which supposedly smells like Lemon Grass and retails for a ridiculously expensive 15 bucks. Those who are more serious drinkers and like a little more bang for their buck in a cocktail might like the Zirh’s Long Island Ice-Tea soap, which reportedly smells like a combination between citrus and cola. YUMMY! The Screwdriver (unsurprisingly) is marketed as having a citrus-like scent.

Despite the inclusion of the cocktail names in the soap’s names, the Zihr website doesn’t say anything about whether any of the soaps smell like alcohol. A lot of specialty soaps smell like alcohol anyway, so it truthfully would not make much of a difference. If the alcohol scent is really important to you, you could probably put a little vodka in a spritzer bottle to spray on yourself when you feel the need. A warm Sake Spritzer could also do wonders to perk up tired skin and make you feel like you are out boozing when you’re at home or in the office.

I have a hard time imagining that the booze soaps will have much value to anyone beyond novelty.   As to whether or not the cleverly-named soaps are worth the 15 dollar price tag each is definitely questionable- that’s a lot of money to pay for a single bar of soap. That said, I do think the Zirh soap would look sufficiently nice enough in a glass soap dish to dress up a single guys’ bathroom, which always goes far in impressing in any single ladies that might be around because we all know that how a soap looks and is marketed is much more important than whether it actually cleans well, smells nice, and produces nice suds.

Sacramento, California - Alive with Musicals!

The capitol city of Sacramento, California comes alive during the summer with the California Musical Theater and Music Circus back to back musical productions.

One of my personal favorites Oklahoma! is currently playing (July 27 - August 1).

More than a groundbreaking musical, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “Oklahoma!” celebrates the American pioneer spirit.  Independent, warm-hearted women and befuddled, hard-headed men – rugged ranchers and dogged farmers – on one of the last American frontiers as it approaches statehood.  From the beginning Rodgers and Hammerstein classics have been the cornerstone of a Music Circus summer; For our 60th season, we’re proud to present perhaps the most truly American work of the American musical theatre.

 You can catch the show at the Wells Fargo Pavilion 1419 H Street, Sacramento, CA, 95184

Music by Richard Rodgers. Lyrics and book by Oscar Hammerstein II. Based on "Green Grow the Lilacs" by Lynn Riggs.

If you miss Oklahoma! be sure to check out “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels,” Aug. 3-8 “Funny Girl,” Aug. 10-15 “The Marvelous Wonderettes” Aug. 17-22 and “42nd Street” Aug. 24-29

Hooray! Too Many Stupid Toys!

Put on your party hats, pop the cork on that bottle of Dom Perignon, tell your boss to go consummate his relationship with his fountain pen and break out that emergency reserve of cocaine-dusted hookers because we've hit an Internet milestone. Well, at least we're about to. In just a few months (by current estimates from very estimate-y people) we're going to run out of IP addresses. For all ya'll who live out in the sticks, that means we're short on the numbers, dots and magicals that make the glowy think-box work. That's right, while there is a functionally infinite variety of domain names for use on the Internet, there's a very limited number of meaningful device addresses that actually allow your computer to access all that porn and pirated music, and probably some business-related stuff, too.

So, a few things are going to happen in the days leading up to IP Address Doomsday. First, a bunch of complete morons are going to freak out on Internet forums and start claiming that it's the end of the Web as we know it. It'll be annoying and all of your most stupid friends will start to entertain the idea that there just might be something to it. About a month later, cable news networks will jump on the story with their usual empty-headed mix of simultaneously sensationalist and dismissive coverage. A chiseled-jawed talking head will say something like, "Are we running out of Internet?!" and then lead into some low-content story about the dwindling IP's that's just panicked enough to grab the crucial idiot demographic but not enough to concern people who are too old to care or too smart to watch cable news unironically.

After all that business has stopped making ratings and being cool to post on forums, the people who actually make our technology will just add a couple extra digits to IP's, giving us another 4 billion addresses for another 4 billion Inter-toys. Those of us born before the 1990's (aka the cool kids) experienced a similar event back in 80's when phone and fax numbers were at peak saturation. This is what happens whenever humans make a new tech ubiquitous. I'm sure there was a time when people freaked out about running out of domesticated oxes, or a long-gone era when fire and tool making hominids worried about running out of forests to cut down and... oh. Crap. Well, even though we're facing a treeless future in which oxygen is the preferred commodity of mutant raiders and shadowy CEO kings in their monolithic towers, at least we'll have plenty of IP addresses for our increasingly redundant Apple products.

The reason we're running out of IP's is our love of mobile Net devices. Aside from our desktops, laptops and traditional office items, there's almost no such thing as a modern cell phone that doesn't have online capabilities. Hell, it seems a bit silly to even call what we carry today "cell phones". We're really stretching the definition. Usually when something starts doing things it normally doesn't do, we change the name. That's why we don't drive Toyota carriages or kill one another with Glock iron ore. Perhaps we won't burn through the extra 4 billion IP's in just a few years if we stop marketing smartphones as, ya know, phones. That way it'll be harder to convince people that they need iPads and other pointless dovetail toys.

But that great, rational future is far away. For now, let's just celebrate the fact that we've consumed enough technology to force ourselves into an even deeper bureaucratic hole. Yay!

Tell an Old Joke Day

Tomorrow, July 24, is the day everyone gets to sigh with collective relief because they don’t have to come up with new jokes to entertain people with. Okay, maybe those of us who aren’t comedians don’t really lose sleep over such things, but there is a joy in recycling old jokes, isn’t there?

For one thing, they help you relive pleasant memories. My friends and family have so many running, “in the know” jokes that whenever we even sputter out part of one—for example, if my husband drones in his best Jon Heder voice, “Eat, Bella, you fat tub of lard!” reminding me of our running Twilight/Napoleon Dynamite joke—we not only relive the joke but also our history with it, which makes it even more delightful. (In this instance, it was at one of our favorite Italian eateries, where we were cracking up and causing the waitress to quirk her eyebrow at us.) Most of the other people that I know have similar “inside jokes” that they love to share with friends and family as well.

Old jokes also help us remember people we love. My Aunt Joyce’s famous joke about a widow whose husband had just been cremated—and his constant wish for oral sex when he was living—never fails to crack anyone up when I tell it, and it always makes me think of her big, boisterous laughter, glittering eyes and quirky seasonal outfits. Though she passed away some time ago, her humor lives on in her jokes. Our favorite comedians can be remembered the same way; all it takes is for me to scream, “Pull over! Pull over! Pull over!” at my husband, or for him to tell me, “I’m sick of guys named Kyle!” and we both recall our beloved favorite comedian, George Carlin, a man we’d always wished to see in person but never had the chance to meet.

So don’t fret over googling the best joke of the day to tell everyone tomorrow. Instead, enjoy those little jokes you knew way back when. Teach a child your favorite knock-knock jokes that you knew when you were little. Swap the dirtiest jokes you coveted as a teen—so funny yet so taboo they made you blush when you whispered them to friends!—with your now-grown friends. To get you started, here’s one of my favorite older jokes I used to tell during the Bush II years. You can substitute any other famous idiot you like, of course.

George Bush called Dick Cheney to his office, telling him it was urgent. When Cheney arrived, he growled, “What could be so urgent? I though you were working on a stupid puzzle.”

Bush says, “That’s it, Dick! The puzzle says ‘4 plus’ on the front, but it only took me three months to finish it!”

Travel Pro: Airport Check-In

Over the past decade American air travel has become a pretty daunting task. What was once a mode of luxury and leisure has become a heavily trafficked and frequently esoteric experience. There's a ritual to making it through airport security smoothly and a number of ways to avoid the most common headaches of traveling by air. Here are a few tips for becoming a real pro of the plane experience.

1. Know How To Check In

In days past, getting your boarding pass was a matter of interacting with a real representative of your chosen airline. Today you'll be hard pressed to find a company that still prefers the face-to-face method. Call it a sad commentary on the state of customer service, but automation is the new standard for air travel in America. The most obvious way to speed up your trip to the gate is to print out an e-ticket at home or at work prior to arriving at the airport, but I'd advise against that. In the past two years I've done a fair amount of flying and I've never been to an airport where the barcode on somebody's e-ticket didn't give airline staff a problem. E-tickets just aren't reliable yet. To play it smooth and safe, go for the computerized check-in kiosks at your airline desk. You'll need a credit or debit card in your name, your flight number or your final destination to print your ticket. Done properly, you'll spend less than five minutes at the kiosk.

 

2. Travel Light and Compact

There's no reason, repeat no reason to lug around half your life in a cumbersome bag when flying. With some proper packing techniques you can fit as much as five days' worth of clothes, toiletries and business materials in your carry-on luggage without taking up too much space or inconveniencing other travelers. Wheeled cases are always a good idea, though soft and flexible hand bags with zipper tops can work just as well. Don't worry about wrinkles. Just like most of your toiletries, food concerns and sundries, an iron will almost certainly be available wherever you're traveling. And remember, most airlines have a policy of one carry-on plus one personal item (purse, laptop case, etc) that can be safely stowed beneath your seat.

 

3. Learn The Security Requirements

Going through the security checkpoints at the airport can be stressful, embarrassing and strange, especially if you aren't prepared for what's expected of you. In short order, here's what you will have to do: Remove your laptop from its case and place it in a separate bin; Remove all jackets and coats and place them in a bin; Have your shoes off and ready to place in a bin (likely with your jacket and everything in your pockets) before getting to the sorting table; Avoid wearing as much metal as possible; And finally, just don't bring liquids with you. No water, juice or soda, certainly no alcohol or lighter fluid, no cans of deodorant, shaving cream or soap. Unless you pack small, travel-size items, avoid it altogether. Airport security will take them all away and slow you down.

 

These are the basics of flying like a pro. Next time, we'll take a closer look at life inside the plane itself.

Hot Weather Drinks

It's hot. It's damn hot. It's summer, so that means there's little to do in the off hours but sweat and long for air conditioning. It's hard to get into a mood for booze when there's so much heat outside. Never mind that alcohol actually drops one's core body temperature, just one nip will bring on a little too much mercury for these dog days. So, how can you get away with downing the fire water when it's blazing in the shade? Well, you can dip deep into the classic cocktail book or you can get creative.

Let's talk about the mint julep. This is the drink thirsty people in the American South invented to sip on their porches in those extra hot summer days prior to advent of central air. It utilizes the inherent sweetness of bourbon and one of the south's local crops, spearmint, to make a positively refreshing cocktail. Being one of the older mixed drinks in the books, there are a lot of different ways to make a julep and everyone gets a little pretentious about which way is right. I won't go that far, but I will provide some options.

Option 1: Glass or metal vessel. It's all part of the classic presentation to build and serve a mint julep in a tin or pewter cup, but there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to get the same flavor by building in a tall glass. Sure, the cold metal might add to the refreshing feel of the drink, but it's not mandatory.

Option 2: Crushed or bruised mint. The recipe for a julep is simple. Bourbon over ice with fresh mint muddled with sugar. There's a lot of debate about how thoroughly you ought to grind your mint for the drink. Some say the leaves ought to be merely bruised, while others demand them to be utterly pulverized. How much you crush your mint depends on how much mint flavor you want in your julep. The more you muddle the leaves, the more oils you'll release and thus the more mint flavor you'll impart to your julep. Which brings me to...

Option 3: Infused simple syrup. Just like another southern favorite, sweet tea, you could always give your julep the old simple syrup treatment. It's exceptionally easy to make. For mint syrup, just combine equal parts sugar, water and fresh (perhaps diced) mint leaves in a small stovetop vessel on medium heat until the sugar has completely dissolved. Strain the mixture into a container and let it sit for at least a half hour before using. Voila, mint-flavored syrup. Hit a glass of bourbon on the rocks with the stuff and maybe a fresh sprig of mint for garnish and you have a science-ofied mint julep.

If bourbon's not your thing, you can make a very similar cocktail with brandy called the Brandy Smash. This cocktail is best augmented with a little bit of flavored bitters, though. Brandy doesn't have as much character as bourbon, so a dash of peach or orange bitters can make for a rather refreshing cocktail.

Of course, the hard stuff isn't the only way to cool down your cocktails. Take stout beer, for instance. For something that shares so many other qualities with coffee or chocolate, why not give it the ice cream treatment? With a bottle of your preferred dark beer, just add it slowly to a scoop or two of vanilla ice cream, waiting for the head to go down before adding more. Stir, blend, or otherwise mix the concoction to your preferred thickness. For some optional fanciness you can drizzle some chocolate syrup on the top, though it's not strictly necessary. The stout float is a grown-up version of a malt shop favorite.

Stay cool, all you summer lushes.

Bourbon: A True American Spirit

Today is Independence Day in the United States, a holiday when we yankee folks recall our country's successful bid for autonomy from our colonial rulers in the English crown over 200 years ago. It's a day to celebrate liberty and all the things we love about our nation. While there are a lot of things to appreciate about America (its dense cross-section of different cultures, its unparalleled contribution to the art of film and its varied landscape to name a few), one of my personal favorite things about our sovereign union is its most popular native liquor: Bourbon whiskey. A lot of cultures have a unique variety of whiskey to their claim and it's for that reason that America has bourbon today. Many of our 18th century immigrants were of Scottish and Irish descent, so they brought their craft for whiskey making with them to these shores. There's a very interesting history to just how bourbon became the whiskey Americans know and love today. It involves war, two great historical figures and a staple of American agriculture.

The story of bourbon begins in the mid-1700's when recent European settlers in the pre-Independence colonies of America began using their surplus rye crops to make whiskey in regions like Pennsylvania and Virginia, adding a new local flavor to tavern shelves alongside other American favorites like Applejack and wheat ale. After the Revolutionary War, the fledgling Congress began collecting taxes on such luxuries as distilled spirits, a notion that didn't sit too well with those Pennsylvanian whiskey makers. They violently opposed the new tax, thus beginning the so-called Whiskey Rebellion, a conflict that lasted three years. President George Washington opted to switch from military force to revenue-producing settlement incentives to quell the rebellion. In conjunction with Thomas Jefferson, then the Governor of Virginia and the region known as Kentucky prior to the establishment of Kentucky as a state, President Washington offered the rebelling rye farmers a plot of land in Kentucky in exchange for an agreement to raise native corn in the soil. And where there's corn, there's corn-based whiskey.

It wouldn't be until the 1960's that the US government would regulate what actually constitutes bourbon whiskey but ever since that late 18th century move to Kentucky, much of America's local whiskey has been made of at least 51% corn mash. This corn content makes for a characteristically sweet whiskey and allows for a fair amount of variation in different brands. Some bourbons are sweeter and more syrupy than others, while others favor a more Irish-leaning bite and burn. The distinctive caramel color in bourbon comes from its time aging and mellowing in charred oak barrels, a process often credited to a Bourbon County, Kentucky distiller named Reverend Elijah Craig. He had a business transporting his whiskey from Kentucky to New Orleans, using charred oak barrels just like his fellow whiskey makers in the British Isles. The trip from Bourbon County to Bourbon Street gave the originally clear distillate a deep caramel hue and a notably complex flavor, becoming so popular that it was soon standard for American corn whiskey.

Today there are actually no distilleries in Bourbon County, but the state of Kentucky still produces an overwhelming majority of America's bourbon whiskey. Bourbon remains one of America's most popular liquors. In the past decade bourbon has become especially popular overseas. American distillers ship between two and three million cases of the stuff to locales as diverse as England, China, Germany and Brazil to the tune of just south of a billion dollars a year since 2007. I know that if I wanted to bring people of different cultures to the same table with an American product, I'd reach for a bottle of bourbon. Like the greatest aspects of the ideal American character, bourbon is strong, boisterous and unpretentious. Have a happy Independence Day, bourbon fans.

Strawberry Margaritas

I'm a devout admirer of the traditional Margarita made with fresh squeezed lime juice, quality tequila, and Grand Marnier.

But at this time of year, with all the lovely fresh locally grown strawberries that are available just about everywhere, it's time to think about a hand-made strawberry Margarita. If you're going to do this right, it means getting the highest quality ingredients that are possible. To begin with, that means fresh, ripe, sweet strawberries that taste fabulous on their own. If you wouldn't eat them, don't use them in a Margarita. The tequila needs to be something along the lines of Cuervo 1800, if possible. If not, make sure it's 100% agave. There are some very good imported tequilas from tiny labels, and they're worth trying, but always check to make sure it's 100% agave.

You'll see a lot of recipes, and a lot of restaurants, using Triple Sec, or Cointreau; either work, though I prefer Grand Marnier. That said, Triple Sec is much more affordable than either of the other two orange liquers and the slight bitter edge it has can play especially well with ripe, sweet strawberries. The lime juice really needs to be fresh-squeezed, and if you spot them, genuine key limes can be a lovely treat. This is a margarita that needs to be served with thoroughly crushed ice, and a blender can be awfully handy for crushing the ice and pureeing the strawberries. Traditionally, Margaritas should be served in a coupette or Margarita glass, but I rather like using a chilled rocks glass.

Strawberry Margarita (Serves 2)

Ingredients

    2 rocks glasses
  • 1 cup ice
  • 1 cup strawberries
  • 2 oz lime juice
  • 2 oz tequila
  • 2 tablespoons orange liqueur
  • 2 whole strawberries (for garnish)

Procedure

  1. Chill two rocks glasses
  2. Wash and remove the stems from the strawberries, reserving two fine specimens to use as garnish.
  3. Cut the strawberries in two, and puree in a blender.
  4. Add the ice, tequila, lime juice and orange liqueur to the puree in the blender, and blend until smooth.
  5. Pour into the chilled rocks glasses, and garnish each glass with a whole strawberry.

There are of course several other methods. You should experiment with the ingredients and the proportions until you've found the combination for your perfect strawberry Margarita. If the strawberries are a little less sweet, you might want to balance the sourness of the lime juice with a tablespoon of simple syrup. Here's a recipe for making a pitcher of quite strong strawberry margaritas. It's also possible, and sometimes far more practical, to use canned frozen strawberry puree, or even to puree frozen strawberries—especially if you're entertaining company and serving Margaritas by the pitcher. If you use a mix, or one of the bags that you freeze and then add tequila to the contents, I don't want to know about it.

Pages