Huh. Well, we’re back—Lo-Fi Lush Hour No. 77: Calci di Rigore, Round 2. Like everyone, I was hoping it wouldn’t come to this, but hey, if nerves are stripped and short-circuiting, could be worse, what what? So there’s that.
In keeping with this evening’s theme of traumatized optimism, Today’s Toast is a lovely, soft and pleasant one—a fuzzy kitten of a drink: Harry Johnson’s Blackthorn, from 1900 or a little before. But let’s see to those hands, though.
So. Irish whiskey. Powers’—even in it ugly-ass new bottle—is my go-to. If you ain’t got, any other Irish, or even a light blended Scotch or—what the hell—Crown Royal will work.
The accouterments: blanc vermouth, absinthe in the dasher, and aromatic bitters. If all you have is dry vermouth, that’s fine: it’s probably what HJ used anyway, although I prefer the lightly sweet blanc.
The batterie du bar. Whatever you like to stir drinks with, use that.
So. Ounce and a half of the Irish.
Aaaand an ounce and a half of the vermouth. For a butcher drink, of course, you can always do two ounces Irish and one vermouth.
A dash of the absinthe—just the one, mind you!
And a couple of dashes of the bitters—“Bogart’s,” Fee’s Aromatic, and Abbott’s all work.
Ice. Crack the cubes, as one must, and fill the glass.
Stir. With anticipation, mind you.
And strain.
Hit it with your lemon twist...
...and there stands the glass. G’ahead—you’ve earned it. We all have—and how!

I may be back tomorrow, although I really, really hope that won’t be necessary. Cheers!

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More from @DavidWondrich

3 Nov
An’ just like that it’s Lo-Fi Lush Hour No. 76: Calci di Rigore. Overtime is over, we’re all bent over panting, trembling hands on trembling knees an’ no breath to be caught, an’ now we’ve gotta kick th’ ball past th’ poor bloody goalie more times than th’ other guys. Sheesh.
Today’s Toast: Wine and Bitters, just like George Washington served Sir Guy Carleton back in 1783, when he was negotiating how to get the damn Brits outta NYC, what with them having lost the war the hard way. But first—you may recall the drill—wash your hands.
So. Wine and Bitters. Turns out to be a very stretchy sort of term. It can be wine—the General woulda prolly served Madeira, like these—and bitters; he woulda used Stoughton’s, like these that I had made up for an event way back in th’ Before Time.
Read 16 tweets
29 May
Lo-Fi Lush Hour no. 75 marks the end, alas, of the Lush Hour. When I started this, on March 14, we has 60 U.S. dead from Covid 19.

We washed our hands
We stayed inside;
Our president
Just lied and lied.
We mixed our drinks
And talked, and sighed;
A hundred thousand
People died.
Having worked our way through more drinks than any normal person needs to know, from the Tasmanian Blow My Skull to the kümmel-Vodka-and-Tabasco Epsom, let’s make Today’s Toast the elegant original version of the Negroni, as printed in 1947. Dunque, lavatevi i mani!
Yinz know what goes inta this one well as I do. It’s gin—I’ve always liked Tanqueray in mine, but you do you—an’...
Read 18 tweets
18 May
Coming around to a starboard tack to run before the freshening gale with topsails reefed, hatches and gunports sealed and hammocks stowed it’s Lo-Fi Lush Hour no. 64, and ain’t she a sight to behold!
For Today’s Toast, I figured on freestyling a little aperitif in the key of rum, perhaps with a fortified wine supplying the harmony. Since that reads “sailors” to me, let’s christen ‘er the Brigantine, a sort of ship once crewed by men whose hands were a lot dirtier than yours.
Now, it seems to me there are two ways we can go: 50-50, with a strong, funky rum such as these (which range from 57 to 60% abv), or whatever else you’re hoarding that fits that description...
Read 20 tweets
16 May
The days we pass with anxious twittering
While death and lies contest the agora
And what we had to make our sojourns sweet
Stands out of reach without a sure return.
Yet what remains is Lush Hour Sixty One.
Today’s Toast is a turn-of-the-last-century fave from the windward reaches of the British West Indies, the Green Swizzle. Whether the Ice House in Bridgetown or the Queen’s Park Hotel in Port of Spain made the better one was an open question. Hand sanitation, not so much.
You could make the Swizzle with white rum, of course. You can go strong or mellow or mix the two.
Read 20 tweets
13 May
Well, it’s too late to get today right—let’s forget about today, ok? It never happened. I wasn’t there, didn’t do it, was off somewhere better doing that other thing that I should have been doing. But tonight still lies before us, and with Lo-Fi Lush Hour no. 59 to usher it in...
Today being World Cocktail Day, I should prolly inflict the original Cock-Tail on yinz. Two fingers of American genever, a lump of sugar, a big splash of water, a little one of Stoughton’s bitters, and—nah. What say we have a lil’ Weeski instead? Washercize them digits first, tho
This one’s something I came up with on Halloween 2003 when I didn’t have any rye left for Manhattans. I had Irish whiskey—John Power’s. The stuff on the right, not the nectar on the left.
Read 21 tweets
10 May
Week 9, day 2: Lo-Fi Lush Hour no. 56. That’s the most days since I’ve seen the inside of a bar no shit since 10th grade. I assume yinz’r findin’ this as teejous as I am, which on the scale of teejous keeps knockin’ the right hand pin. But it’s still time an’ I’m still drinking. Image
Today’s Toast is from Jim Grey, Head bartender st NYC’s tony Fifth-Avenue Hotel from the 1880s until it closed in 1908. He called it an Old-Fashioned Whiskey Cocktail; others called it a Toddy. But he was the man, and they weren’t. It’s simple as breathing if your hands are clean Image
You need whiskey. Jim used “Fifth Avenue Special,” from the hotel’s richly-stocked cellars. Bourbon or rye, use something nice (that Cellar Blend is full of old whiskeys). Image
Read 15 tweets

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