All Life Is An Experiment – Start with your next beer!

Have you ever thought about a random topic and wondered how far back you have had connections with, or memories related to said item?

Dusting off the cobwebs in the back of my mind, I have memories regarding beer going back to about 10 years old.  No, I didn't drink it then. My father made an attempt at home brew.  My memory is of beer running on the laundry room floor after bottles, stacked in cases, seemed to have burst in sympathetic detonation.  That was the end of home brew in our house.

Later, in the early 1960’s when I was 16, I bussed tables in a regimental beer hall in Camp Drum, New York (now Fort Drum.)  My father, HQ S-3,  arranged for my under-age hiring. The building was a long, low clap-board affair dating to the Second World War.  The beer hall was only open in the summer months, catering to the reservists coming to train at the camp's extensive ranges.  There was row after row of tables, usually piled high with beer cans. I would sweep the beer cans, and plastic cups, many of which still contained beer, into a large, plastic bag lined, steel trash can.  When the bag was full, I would take it from the can and throw it over-hand into a huge dumpster that was taller than I, resulting in my being constantly showered with stale beer.

Two summers later, I worked as a truckers helper for a Falstaff distributor in Leavenworth, Kansas.  That job was pretty cushy. A goodly part of the workday was spent traveling to rural taverns and bars scattered over a wide area.  Falstaff is an old American beer that I doubt many people miss today.

As a college student, in El Paso, Texas, my friends and I would drink Carte Blanca and Dos Equis in Juarez, and have kegs of Bud or Coors at "beer busts" on the banks of the Rio Grande.  When we wanted something "classy" at our favorite pizza restaurant, the Village Inn, we would have a Lowenbraü. At that time, we also thought Lancers and Mateuse Rose were great wines, evidence our youthful tastes were very unsophisticated.

Al, Ft. Riley Kansas 1951

My father in law, Al, bought whatever was cheap at the package store on post. I shared many an Old Milwaukee or Meisterbrau with him until, in his 60's a meddling Veterans Administration physician convinced him that his daily beer was bad for him.

Beer, in my past seemed to have been just plain beer.  Lagers, ales, pilsners, 3.2 "near beer", wheat beers, or stouts, good or bad it was just "beer flavored" beer. 

Today, with the world getting smaller, we are blessed in having easy access to beers of all types, both foreign and  domestic. For this reason, my taste for "American lawn cutting beer," as I once heard a German braumeister describe it, has plummeted over the last 30 years. 

Today, there is an interesting trend in American beer that would have probably failed in the not too distant past. It seems there is a rush to see what flavors can be added to beer. We have  lemon, lime, apricot, pumpkin, peach, clamato, chocolate, raspberry, grapefruit, and green chile beer—just to name a few.

If I may draw a conclusion based on the stores I frequent, this is an almost wholly American phenomena.  I have tried all of those mentioned once.  I did not find any that were good enough to buy a second time.

Beer-based drinks have long existed in England and Germany. While there are a few seen in the US today, for example the Michelada and Red Beer (both of which are excellent if you make your own), one wonders if the trend here for fairly tasteless, pre-packaged flavored beers, is because people are too lazy to "roll their own". While a number of the beers produced are OK, there are several that are poor imitations of flavored sparkling water.  Thinking of big “B” now.

With the increasing popularity of "flavored" beers, I thought I would offer up some of my favorite beer-based recipes, or what the Germans call “biermischungen.”  Taking time to make your beverage is a sure way to increase your pleasure as you savor your efforts. Making your own also let's you titrate the mix to your own taste.

First, the Dog's Nose,  is simply a glass of ale with a dash of gin.  This drink dates to the early 1800’s. According to various texts, it was favored by British sailors and coachmen. This is also an easy drink to enjoy at your favorite watering hole.  I order a glass of ale with a shot of gin on the side and build it myself.

Shandygaff, another English potable is 1/2 ale or lager and 1/2 ginger beer or ginger ale.  A recipe from the 1880’s specifies “One pint of bitter beer, and a bottle of old fashioned ginger beer mixed together and only imbibed on the hottest summer days after rowing.” A nice, light summer cooler.  It dates as far back as the 1600’s.  Served in venues as dissimilar as inns and tea gardens, it was often paired with cheese and biscuit and considered a refreshing drink for walkers and bicyclists.

The Maulesel (Mule) is Germany's answer to the Dog's Nose. Like the others listed here, it is a quick recipe. Add about 1 oz gin and 1 oz. lemon juice (juice of 1/2 a lemon) to a beer glass and fill with beer. I have no idea how old this is, but it is great with bratwurst and sauerkraut.

A Berlinerweisse is a “biermichunge” that is definitely on the fruity side.  Add about 1 oz. raspberry syrup to a beer glass and fill with hefeweizen. I prefer Monin raspberry syrup.  If you use Steinhager instead of raspberry syrup, you have a Berlinerweisse mit Strippe (with stripper.)  If  beer with fruit overtones appeals to you, try a bit of any of the Monin syrups, but go lightly.  You will get some interesting results.  If you do not want to buy, or use, an expensive German hefewiesen, you can substitute Blue Moon with decent results.

The Radler (Bicyclist) seems to be a 1950’s or 60’s innovation.  One story says that  a group of bicyclists stopped at a gasthaus and the owner, not having enough beer, mixed it with lemonade.  The Radler is 50/50 mix of beer and lemonade. Best with a marzenbier or lager. I use San Pelligrino Limonata or Aranciata, as the lemonade, since they are not too sweet and lend a nice citrus tang.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said: “All life is an experiment.  The more experiments you make the better.”  In addition to buying some of the “flavored” concoctions coming from the brewers, try your own. You might be surprised.

Yes Virginia, There Are Italian Bar Books

Two years ago, several members of my family had the opportunity to return to Italy, visit family, and do the obligatory tourist rounds.  I asked my brother George to see if he could find me a vintage, or any, Italian bar book. After much searching, and asking around, he reported that he had been told there were none and that, in Italy, drinks were not measured.  Neither sounded likely.  To make any drink, as in preparing food, a basic recipe is needed.  The ingredients need to be added in appropriate amounts and mixed in an appropriate manner. While a skilled bartender may not use an actual measuring device, he/she can make an accurate pour through practice.  Since mankind (and womankind) have a compulsion to chronicle any topic of interest, from ardvaarks to zydeco, where were those elusive Italian mixology texts?

Being told there were none, like being told something cannot be done (or shouldn’t be done), is a challenge too good to pass on.  I set out to find a trophy for my collection and, in twenty-four hours, there were two being shipped from Italy despite outrageous shipping charges.

Those of you who grew up post-internet do not fully realize how easy life has become. Back in the 60's, when I was studying geology,  doing research meant spending endless hours in a dull  library, without coffee or beer, poring over index card files.  Then, with a fistful of notes,  roaming the stacks looking for texts that were often not there, or did not have the hoped for information.  After exhausting the local university library, you would travel to another seeking the elusive grains of gold for your research paper. Today, you can sit with your electronic device of choice, in your skivvies with a cup of joe, browse the contents of libraries around the world, then request the titles at your local library. Damn young whipper-snappers just don't know when they have it good!

Trying the easy way first, searching eBay, over my morning coffee, was a bust.   There were several rather dull looking Italian pieces from the 1980's or newer, nothing I felt worth the effort to order or work with.  Not all was lost though.  I found a bargain priced, odd little 70’s drink book from Venezuela entitled Tragos Magicos.

Deciding the bigger gun of a serious resource was in order, I went to my favorite online used bookseller, AbeBooks, and the hunt was on.  Hunting a book online when you do not have a title, author or publisher, is a matter of utilizing key words.  What key words would you use in searching for a mixology text in a foreign language? Think about it.

 I once worked with a physician who was an excellent diagnostician.  Like

Dr. House of TV fame, he could diagnose unusual illnesses with minimal information, later to be proven correct in testing. A favorite saying of his was "Common things are common."  In other words, you need to rule out the ordinary before you move to the exotic. 

While there are many words related to imbibing, sometimes the obvious are the best. The word I use is "cocktail" in its various translations.  Though the term limits you to books from the late 1800's forward and will totally miss specialty books dedicated to punches or other esoterica (for example, the German text Bowlen und Punche), it is a great starting point.  The down-side to key word searches is that you may end up with hundreds of titles to peruse, many of which are totally unrelated to what you seek.  Italian drink books of quality do seem to be as scarce as hens teeth.  I successfully located two, i cocktails and Il Barman e i Suoi Cocktails. Both are well worth having and the former is todays topic.

When it comes to enjoyable books, some are a pleasure to read, others a pleasure to look at.  i cocktails is a blend of both.  Written by Luigi Veronelli, published in 1963, i cocktails is a hefty 365 pages including the index. The recipes include the old, as the Bee's Knees, and the obscure like the Zakusky and Monachino.  Perusing the index of recipes, one is led to believe that i cocktail is an amalgam of drinks from around the world. If you enjoy gin as I do, there are over 200 recipes calling for it.

For the visual individual, the book is a cornucopia of liqour labels. These labels are not the usual color photos as found in so many publications. In i cocktails there is page after page of heavy paper with individual labels neatly mounted, usually two to the page.  The lables represent products from around the world.  Very Old Fitzgerald - Barrelled in 1955 bottled in 1963, Cederlund Schwedenpunsch, Drioli Marachino and Tequila Sauza are but a few.  I am inclined to think the labels genuine since the Sauza label has printing on the back that would only be seen from the opposite side of the bottle.

The author uses  a pictorial key with each recipe that indicates the number of servings (usually two), the type of  glass in which to serve, how to mix (mixing glass or shaker), and if the drink is short, long, or hot.  

Units of  measure are always a challenge to translate.  Sure, a gocce (drop) in Italy, is susceptible to the same laws of physics as a  drop in the New Mexico desert, but when we get to bicchiere and bicchierino, glass and small glass, we have work to do.

In a recipe where all the units of measure for liquor are identical, all bicchiere or all bicchierino, the recipe is easily converted into a ratio.  When we combine dis-similar units, we need to know what each unit’s volume is. The chart below will help in translating volumes of measure in Italian cocktail books. Unfortunately, Italian measures seem to have as many differences in definition as Italy has had governments since World War II, so the selection shown is the product of multiple sources.

Having completed the laborious task of converting measures, we may now attempt the pleasurable task of  mixing a unique drink from an allegedly non-existent book.

Being an enthusiast of both gin and Campari, I was pleased to find yet another  cocktail using both. If you enjoy an occasional Americano or Negroni, you will probably enjoy the "Gin On Top" cocktail.  Served in a chilled cocktail glass it is an excellent aperitif.  Having the peculiar moniker of "Gin On Top" would lead you to believe it is a layered drink, but this is not so.  It is a conventionally prepared, stirred not shaken, cocktail.  In real life, I prefer shaken cocktails as I like mine colder  than the proverbial witches' breast in a brass brassiere.  The introduction of air causing a cloudy  drink, and hence "bruising" it, is of little importance to me. For me, there is no discernible difference in taste. Neanderthal that I am, I also do not raise my pinkie when I drink tea, or other beverages,  unlike a well-bred  Canadian I once worked with in Etobicoke (who disliked me for being "loud", and I him for being prissy) -- but that is another story.

Without further adieu, here is the Gin On Top:

This drink is distinctly on the bitter side. I find it best served with cheeses, crackers, or other hors d ovres  of your choosing. This recipe for two, would work well in three smaller, old school cocktail glasses.

Gin On Top (for two)

150 ml dry gin

25 ml Campari

25 ml lemon juice (1/2 lemon) filtered to remove pulp

2 wild strawberries

Ice cubes.

Place ice in mixing glass. Pour in the lemon juice, dry gin and Campari. Stir briskly with bar spoon, leave one or two seconds, then stir again slowly. Serve immediately in chilled cocktail glass garnished with a wild strawberry (in the New Mexico desert, you will get powerful thirsty looking for a wild strawberry)

The Good, the Bad, and the Simply Awful

I was lying in bed at 0300 wondering what my next blog would be.  I have several topics in mind, but none fully developed. When fighting insomnia, my mind often drifts back to past careers, usually nursing. This free thought in the wee hours led to today's blog on taste and potables.

When thinking of "nursing" and "drink," simultaneously, the obvious link is abuse of alcohol rather than the occasional cocktail or glass of wine.  Truly, I can tell horror stories about the excessive intake of intoxicants but preferring to preach moderation in all things, today's blog is less about drink, than taste.

As an RN on a  pediatrics floor, I adopted the practice of tasting the oral medications that I administered to my patients. This helped me anticipate problems and come up with creative ways to mask the taste of most, but not all, unpleasant drugs.  The worst, and least palatable, was prednisolone liquid. It taints everything that you put it in or on, leaving you with a greater volume of yuck for the patient to deal with. In one study, close to 20% of the kids taking it vomited; not from allergy, or adverse reaction, but rather from perceived nastiness of taste and mouth-feel. I can vouch for this from personal experience and, I would like to state for the record, that there is a world of difference between having a child upchuck on you, and having an adult who has been intemperate do so.

As a side note, there are many medical studies in the literature that do relative taste comparisons of drugs within a class, many of which are practically interchangeable, however physicians seldom seem to read those articles and have an instinctive knack for selecting medications most foul.

When it comes to drink, whether we are talking soft drinks, beer, wine, small batch gin, single malt scotch, or mixed drinks, taste is an interesting topic. We enjoy sharing descriptions, both verbal and photographic, of savory repasts, of tasty drinks and memorable spirits. There are many sites like TripAdvisor that let us share on a grand scale.

As with religion, many people espouse their personal taste as the only true taste and display a marked superiority and intolerance for others whose taste is different.

Hard-core scotch worshippers are a good example, with all their talk of single malts, whether taken neat or with a splash of water.  Personally, while I think Laphroaig Cairdeas is about as good a scotch as any I have tasted, I prefer scotch in mixed drinks – Oh heresy of heresies!  I would rather have a "Mamie Taylor" or a "Cameron's Kick Cocktail" than a pour of any fine scotch. As an added incentive, any scotch-based mixed drink does as well using a cheap scotch like Clan McGregor as it does with its pricey upscale cousins.

Recently, seeking new "old" drinks to try, I have made several that  range from "I don't care for this" to "This is pretty awful" and would like to share one from each end of the spectrum.

The first, an “I don’t care for this,” is from a classic text, The Flowing Bowl - What and When to Drink, by Willie Schmidt. Published in 1892, it is a great collection of recipes as served in the "Gay 90's" (a moniker originating when gay still meant light-hearted, not an orientation). While I found most recipes in the book decent or better, the "Gin Puff" is one to have had for the sake of having.  Having had two, it is hard to imagine desiring a third. The first was made using small batch Hendrick's, a dry gin, the second with Hayman's Old Tom.  The Old Tom preparation was slightly better but fell a long ways from good. 

 My best guess is that the Gin Puff was one of those "hair of the dog" concoctions designed to clear a “morning after” fog, rather than a drink to be had while the senses are still acute.

The all-time winner of the "drink so bad you wouldn't serve it to your mother-in-law" award has to be the "St. Barbara."  Saint Barbara is the patron saint of almost all occupations involving fire or explosives.  While it appears in one of my German cocktail books from the early 1900's, the choice of ingredients would suggest that this drink is English in origin, containing scotch, absinthe and Worcestershire in equal parts. One may surmise that the St. Barbara may have been the regimental toast of the Queens Own Cannon-Cockers or the "dare you to drink this" initiation beverage for the Grand Order of Powder Monkeys.

One rule of making mixed drinks is to only use quality ingredients. To every rule there is an exception and the St. Barbara is one. Using quality ingredients is pointless. Being out of Clan McGregor scotch, I substituted 12 year Glenlivet. That did not help. The concoction tastes like anise flavored Worcestershire.

Paired with a nice meat loaf, or lamb and leek pie at your favorite English pub, the St. Barbara might work in tiny sips with a mouthful of food. I have no desire to test it further.

Despite the number of questionable liquids that I have consumed (including gasoline while siphoning), or mixed, including those above, I have yet to find any as vile in taste as that prednisolone of bygone days.

What’s In A Name - Or, why I think you should add 3 Bottle Bar to your collection

In my last blog, I mentioned a book by H.i. Williams, 3 Bottle Bar.

Let me begin by saying that I have always had a fascination with oddities in names - quirks in the spelling, why people have the names they have, or where names originated.

Thirty years ago, I met a woman, now long passed, named Voltarine. She spelled her name as I have written it.  Not having encountered that name previously, I asked her if the name had a family history.  Those of you well read, and interested in feminist studies, are probably thinking “She must have been named after Voltairine de Cleyre, feminist writer and orator, and her parents misspelled her name.”  Not so.  Voltarine explained that her parents were enthusiasts of Voltaire and thought that Voltarine would be the feminine derivative of his name.

I am terrible with names, even those of people I know well.  At the store a few weeks ago I ran into a nurse that I had recently worked with for five years. I repeatedly called her “Kathy” (the name of an RN I hadn’t worked with in 15 years) instead of Marianne. She did not correct me and it didn’t dawn on me until I had gotten home. I still remember Voltarine Williams’ full name, because of her little story, though we met but twice.

On another occasion, when employed as lead nurse in a pediatric clinic, I was attending to a mother whose sons were named Donatello, Michelangelo, Leonardo and Raphael. When I asked if she liked Italian art, she gave me a puzzled look.  I then explained that I was curious about the names of her sons.  As you have probably guessed, she had named them after the Ninja Turtles.

In the hospital, and clinics, where a large part of the patient population spoke only Spanish, I made my name a private pun.  Some Spanish speakers have difficulty with the name “Charles.”  Knowing this, and since I conversed with these patients in passable medical Spanish, I would introduce myself as Carlos Madera – a literal translation of my given name.  For a time, it caused some confusion among co-workers when I was asked for by that name.

Back to the book and the name of interest.  The first thing I noticed about 3 Bottle Bar was the curious spelling of the authors name on the fly leaf.  Initials capital “H.” lower case “i.” Surely there had to be a story.  I was correct.  H.i. Williams was born Harney Isham Williams in Ladoga, Indiana, 1886.  In his youth, his friends took to calling him “Hi.”  This name stuck and he used it throughout his life in both a personal, and professional, capacity.  “Hi” is certainly an easier handle to remember than “Harney” or “Isham” and conveys a friendly nature.

His book, 3 Bottle Bar - Hospitality Poured From 3 Bottles, published in 1943, is a rather thin book on mixology. A mere 64 pages, with 26 personally created recipes. You might overlook it as a potential addition to your collection.  The drinks aren’t bad and it is an easy to find out-of-print book, on eBay or Amazon, for less than $15 in hardback.

In 3 Bottle Bar, Hi talks about only needing three bottles of liquor to make most drinks requested by guests - whiskey, gin, and dry white wine (which he substitutes for vermouth). In the section entitled Afterthoughts, he relents and says that it would be OK to expand to a 5 bottle bar, adding rum and scotch if desired.  In the course of his book, like most other authors of the genre, he offers suggestions on how to best prepare a drink, requirements for a bar, and related trivia.  I like his less than elitist attitude regarding liquors.  Discussing “whiskey,” he does not mean bourbon or rye. He suggests using whichever whiskey you enjoy.

You may be thinking, “Meh, doesn’t sound like much to bother with.”  There is more. 

A large part of the pleasure of using a vintage drink book, or a favorite cookbook, is that the handful of paper is a tangible link in a chain to the the past.  A link not only to those who used that book, but to the author who wrote it.  While H.i. Williams appears to be merely the writer of a mildly entertaining bar book, he was so much more. To quote the foreward to 3 Bottle Bar:

In earlier years, he relied on drawing as his medium, and he did well with it; painting followed, and he did well with it, too. Currently photography is his choice, and his colorful compositions, which are reproduced in millions of magazines each month, have identified H.i. Williams as one of the foremost photographers in America.

H.i. Williams career spanned 50 years.  He was renown for his contribution to the “food as fashion” movement of the 1930’s. This influenced advertising art as we know it today. He was much sought after for his ability to create engaging, brightly colored commercial photographs of food.

A graduate of the Cincinnati Academy of Art, he earned reputation as a sculptor and artist.  In 1919, he moved on to New York and became a commercial photograper in the 1920s.  Williams shot iconic compositions for many companies including Fiestaware and Fleishmanns Yeast. Pillsbury used his images in their advertising and on cake mix boxes. Examples of his work are in many homes today.  If you look, you may have some, too.

  

Prior to the 1930s, images in cookbooks were hand drawn, sometimes hand colored, but more often, lifeless black and white photos.

Do you remember your mothers, or grandmothers, cookbooks of the 1930s, 40s and 50s?  Sprinkled with pages of brightly colored, full bleed images, of food perfectly prepared, appearing as it should when served at the family table?  These were added to give the cookbooks a bit of dash and appeal to homemakers.  Much of that color imagery was provided by “H.i.” or his disciples.

Williams was a perfectionist. He had a test kitchen with a staff that included professional cooks and bakers. Meats and fish were professionally cut so that the end product would look flawless. One anecdote alleges he would have his staff go through 20 boxes of crackers to find those that were “pristine.”

Creating his compositions was time consuming.  He would first meticulously arrange the layout, when it was completed to his satisfaction, he would discard and replace anything that was damaged or had lost its’ look of freshness.  Only then would he photograph the result.

I have a friend, Mark, who likes to say, regarding selling, that “it is the sizzle that sells the bacon.”  Well, H.i. Williams put the sizzle in food advertising and cookbooks. For this, he was recognized world-wide, and virtually every professional photography magazine of the 1940’s and 1950’s featured interviews as well as articles about his work and techniques.

The photographic process Williams favored to make food appear life-like is known as the trichrome carbro.  Carbro is short for carbon and bromide. The trichrome carbro is very time intensive. Taking 80, or more, steps, it is said that a person working a 40 hour week could complete about twelve of these photographs.

The trichrome carbro process requires three negatives taken utilizing red, green, and blue filters.  These negatives are then transferred to pigmented gelatin sheets which when developed, are then layered. Registration has to be perfect to achieve the final color image.  While this is a very quick and dirty explanation, the results are impressive. There are many articles online that explain the process more completely.

3 Bottle Bar, is a book by a creative genius of the advertising age whose influence is wide spread. As a link to a bit of modern history, the text is an item of drink related arcana worthy of your attention.

From 3 Bottle Bar, the drink of the day is the Carbro. A drink by  H.i. Williams, with a name of his choosing that we can now understand and appreciate.