the pit of one thousand demons

Burns night went well. I did not fuck up the vegetarian (in fact, vegan) haggis, and the meaty real deal was quite tasty. Too bad my stomach decided that yesterday, of all days, was a Time for Hate. I spent the entire day in pain, chewing on antacids at work, and finally descending into PeptoBisland when I got home (in the end, nothing really worked). It really, really, really sucked. I couldn't even stomach more than 2 swallows of whisky, it was that bad. So I can't say I was much company, but Doug soldiered on (and also made a tasty cranachan). Still, we read some poetry, and listened to some songs, and generally had a good time with some of our friends.

Nothing much of use to say. We are drinking rum and generally enjoying life.

The Year of Fuck It! is going very well. I am sure somebody is going to shit on my parade soon enough, but I cannot but be relatively happy. I've even lost a few pounds and am now feeling much better about myself. Still not skinny like I used to be, but fuck it. I like having curves.

I think I might need to make a Year of Fuck It! avatar...hah.

We just finished off the bottle of 15-year Highland Park that we bought while up in Orkney. A sad day, to be sure, but damn that whisky is good stuff.

So, at long last I tried an experiment -- one I've been wanting to do for almost a year.

See, in the old days (like, handlebar moustache era), bartenders did not use mere "simple syrup" (that's sugar dissolved in water) to sweeten their cocktails. No. They used something called Sirop de Gomme (aka Gomme syrup), which is simple syrup (usu. 2:1 sugar:water) with dissolved gum arabic**. This mixture entirely changes the character of the cocktail. It makes the drink incredibly smooth and silky -- in short, it's a fucking revelation, and another bald indicator that most bartenders (and bar patrons) don't know what the fuck they're doing these days.

So of course we had to try our new gomme in a variety of cocktails, all of which demand simple syrup, last night. A Commodore. A New York cocktail. A Sazerac. In the end, the Sazerac was the clear winner -- those drinks that are booze-only and that require sweetening will benefit most from the gomme. But it did a creditable job with the Commodore as well.

Now, three cocktails in any evening is going to make me loopy -- I also managed 1/3 of a beer with dinner, but gave the rest to Doug. Amazingly, the only aftereffects of my booze blowout was a wicked headache at 11pm last night, and some crazy-ass dreams about monsters off the coast of Australia. Awesome.

**In my research, I found that gum arabic is a major crop in Sudan, and which has been linked with the entirely fucking awful Sudanese government/Janjaweed. Well, fuck. I'd already bought it and dissolved half the packet in water. No going back after that. Although now I'm kind of curious where else gum arabic (or gum acacia) is found...

The shit I do for money!

I gotta prepare a 5-course gourmet meal tomorrow night. The caveat: I'll get paid over a thousand bills for the article I write about the experience afterward. The hitch: I gotta set myself up for failure by picking really time-dependent or finicky dishes for the entire thing. Like, blinis and souffle and duck.



Lemon Drop
1.5 oz vodka
3/4 oz lemon juice
1 tsp sugar

Shake over ice, strain into a sugar-rimmed cocktail glass. Get blind drunk with cousins you only see once a year.

Yeah, it's misunderstruck 's (Mr. X/Doug) birthday today. And it's supposed to be, like, 102F today. Good Gods, it was hot before the damned sun came up!

Happy Birthday Doug!

In honor, the recipe for Doug's favorite drink.

The Gibson
3 oz gin
1/4 oz vermouth
odd number of vermouth-infused cocktail onions where n>1

Put onions in a chilled cocktail glass. Stir other ingredients over ice. Strain into glass. Drink with flourish and then perform some rockin' air guitar for the cats.

Update on the Apartment o' Death: still sleeping on the couch. Attempted to sleep in the designated bedroom, lasted 30 minutes until first asthma attack, gave up the ghost and crashed on the futon. After 3 hours of heaving, retching and wheezing. WTF? Thank the gods for the Intarrwebs and the delicious distraction it provides.


Attempted all kinds of cocktail mayhem this weekend. I made a variation of a Maiden's Blush, but with a splash of Lillet, and a bit more grenadine than usual. Delightful. We're still working on the Gentleman Bastard -- using cognac as a base is a fucking pain. Nothing goes with it. We tried a cognac + benedictine + Lillet....no love.

But, a post needs a recipe. Soon, I'll be posting all of our X-class Inventions in one post. So you can see just how crappy our tastebuds are! Until then:

The Maiden's Blush**
2 oz gin
3/4 oz cointreau
1/2 oz fresh lemon juice
grenadine to taste

Shake over ice. Strain into chilled cocktail glass. Laugh at how far from a maiden you are, at this point in your life. Fornicate.

**I jacked up this cocktail to include:
1/2 oz of Lillet Blonde
1/2 oz grenadine

My apartment may be killing me.


A Drink, because we need it:

The Scofflaw

1 oz rye whiskey
1 oz dry vermouth
1/4 oz lemon juice
dash grenadine (use the real stuff, made from pomegranate. the fake makes a bad cocktail)
dash orange bitters

Stir over ice. Strain into a cocktail glass, garnish with a twist. Quaff, and reflect on the frailties of the human body. Have a sympathy asthma attack, then burn some money.

Names in blood, and all that. Lease is signed, we move in on the 30th or the 1st. Hopefully this will curb my recent crankiness. Between the apartment and the heat, I've been on the verge of quasar-level flaming certain people (on the boards, IRL, my boss, my writers) for the smallest of infractions. Bleargh. I need to save that hate for...the next election.

America, Fuck Yeah!

Celebratory Sealing-the-Deal Drink, Brooklyn Version.


The Brooklyn
2 oz rye whisky (Matt uses Old Overholt. We use Rittenhouse)
1 oz Gran Gala
2 dashes Angostura bitters

Stir ingredients over ice. Strain into chilled cocktail glass. Flame the orange peel (we'll teach y'all how to do this in LA, BwB peeps), then drop into drink. Extend the Bird to Manhattan (poor fuckers), sit on yer brownstone stoop, and watch the goombahs drive by. (or, in our case, the MILFs with the double-strollers.)

Still nowhere to live. 15 days until Homelessness. We look at 2 1 places tonight -- maybe we'll get lucky? (Just got a call that one of the places has just been rented. Fuckers.)

Also, am formally swearing off tequila for the remainder of my life. I don't know what it is about that stuff, but I was wrecked from Tuesday night's outing (going away party for a colleague). Nothing says "Teh Sux" like dry heaves on the subway.

Tequila Avoidance Therapy
(aka Classic Margarita)

2 oz silver tequila
1 1/3 oz cointreau
2/3 oz fresh squeezed lime juice

Shake over ice. Strain into glass. Walk into bathroom and pour the margarita into the toilet. (this cuts out the middle-man, you, from having to gestate the margarita for a few hours -- embarrassing yourself in the process -- before relinquishing the drink to its fate in the sewers of your home town). Flush. Twice. Curl up asleep on the cool, cool tiles until morning.