Latest / The Restaurant Guys / Comic Cocktail History | David Wondrich

Transcript

Comic Cocktail History | David Wondrich · The Restaurant Guys

• 0:11
  Mark: Hello everybody, and welcome.
• 0:13
  Mark: You are listening to The Restaurant Guys.
• 0:15
  Mark: I'm Mark Pascal and I'm here with Francis Shaw.
• 0:17
  Mark: Together we own Stage Left and Cathal Lombardi Restaurants in New Brunswick, New Jersey.
• 0:21
  Mark: We're here to bring you the inside track on food, wine, and
• 0:25
  Speaker 11: the finer things in
• 0:26
  Mark: life.
• 0:26
  Francis: Hey there, Mark.
• 0:26
  Mark: Hey, Francis.
• 0:27
  Francis: Very excited today to have our old friend David
• 0:29
  Speaker 12: joining us.
• 0:30
  Mark: it when we have friends on the show
• 0:31
  Francis: Yeah, he wrote...
• 0:32
  Francis: He's got an amazing book out that we're gonna talk about, but it's a history of the cocktail.
• 0:35
  Francis: And you know what?
• 0:35
  Francis: Very fun.
• 0:36
  Francis: Just turn the
• 0:37
  Speaker 12: on, David
• 0:37
  Francis: Wondrich starts talking.
• 0:38
  Francis: Just listen.
• 0:39
  Francis: Just, when you get a- When you get an opportunity to drink a drink that David Wondrich makes, drink it, and when you get an opportunity to listen to him talk about anything, listen
• 0:47
  Speaker 12: or read what he has to say.
• 0:48
  Speaker 12: Uh,
• 0:48
  Mark: one of the things that I love about life, and I love about doing this
• 0:53
  Speaker 11: show, is you get to learn something every day.
• 0:55
  Speaker 12: Yeah.
• 0:56
  Mark: when you have David
• 0:56
  Speaker 11: Wondrich on your show-
• 0:57
  Speaker 12: Mm-hmm
• 0:58
  Mark: you learn, like,
• 0:59
  Francis: new things that day.
• 0:59
  Francis: Yeah that's, that's true.
• 1:00
  Francis: That's true.
• 1:01
  Francis: That's true.
• 1:02
  Mark: I learned something before
• 1:03
  Speaker 11: we started.
• 1:03
  Speaker 12: you learned something before we started because your wife and I shared a geeky moment.
• 1:06
  Speaker 11: Oh, my goodness.
• 1:07
  Francis: You, you had brought up Chuck Mangione, and you said,"Well, he played the trumpet," and Jen and I both said,"Flugelhorn." we're in the big geeks
• 1:17
  Speaker 12: right now.
• 1:17
  Speaker 12: Yes,
• 1:18
  Mark: you are.
• 1:18
  Mark: You, you've been in it for a long time, though.
• 1:20
  Mark: Don't you
• 1:20
  Francis: thought you were as well.
• 1:21
  Francis: But your wife's joined me in this one.
• 1:22
  Francis: I really enjoyed that a lot.
• 1:23
  Francis: Um, okay.
• 1:24
  Francis: So, today I wanna talk about spritzes.
• 1:28
  Francis: Okay.
• 1:28
  Francis: So we are toward the end
• 1:30
  Speaker 12: the year, and
• 1:31
  Francis: 2026
• 1:32
  Speaker 12: was a year of the
• 1:33
  Mark: came just so close to just,
• 1:35
  Speaker 11: like, spitting
• 1:36
  Mark: it.
• 1:37
  Mark: you.
• 1:37
  Mark: You, can
• 1:38
  Francis: You...
• 1:39
  Speaker 12: can
• 1:39
  Francis: what?
• 1:39
  Francis: If you knew what I was
• 1:40
  Speaker 12: say, if you had one of those little spritzers that you spray your
• 1:43
  Francis: cat's face with when you want
• 1:44
  Speaker 12: to get off
• 1:44
  Speaker 11: the
• 1:44
  Mark: you spray your cat's face with, then that's gonna- If I had had a spritzer,
• 1:45
  Speaker 11: you'd have been spritzed.
• 1:46
  Speaker 12: I, I would have, I would appreciate that.
• 1:48
  Speaker 12: Um, and I would not have pressed charges for assault.
• 1:51
  Speaker 12: but 2025 and 2024 were the year of
• 1:53
  Francis: the spritz.
• 1:54
  Speaker 12: The question is, have we reached
• 1:57
  Francis: peak spritz?
• 1:59
  Francis: has Fonzie jumped the spritzy shark, huh?
• 2:02
  Mark: I
• 2:03
  Speaker 11: don't know.
• 2:03
  Speaker 11: I
• 2:03
  Mark: think that spritzes are gonna be around for a long time.
• 2:06
  Mark: I, and they have been around.
• 2:07
  Mark: They've, I mean, they've been around
• 2:08
  Speaker 11: for way longer than, than- Well 2024.
• 2:11
  Speaker 11: I mean, they-
• 2:11
  Speaker 12: Yes
• 2:11
  Speaker 11: they got super popular, I guess, what, summer of'23 was really-
• 2:15
  Speaker 12: 22 even.
• 2:16
  Speaker 11: Yeah.
• 2:16
  Speaker 11: Aperol Spritz came out.
• 2:17
  Speaker 11: I mean, super popular.
• 2:18
  Speaker 12: Well, you know, I was always a big fan of Campari and soda.
• 2:20
  Speaker 11: Mm-hmm.
• 2:21
  Francis: and then Aperol,
• 2:22
  Speaker 12: was 2005, right?
• 2:23
  Speaker 12: So the Aperol Spritz had to come out 15 years ago- Yeah'cause we invented the parasol- Yeah when Aperol first came on the market.
• 2:29
  Speaker 12: Yeah.
• 2:29
  Speaker 12: So that was 2005,'06,'07.
• 2:31
  Speaker 12: We really hit peak
• 2:32
  Francis: spritz.
• 2:33
  Francis: The Aperol Spritz is a great drink.
• 2:35
  Francis: Do
• 2:36
  Speaker 12: I- I'm using it I
• 2:36
  Speaker 11: don't know
• 2:37
  Mark: this is peak
• 2:38
  Speaker 11: spritz, is that really a thing?
• 2:39
  Speaker 12: I don't know.
• 2:40
  Speaker 12: We'll find out.
• 2:40
  Speaker 12: You never know
• 2:41
  Francis: about the history that you're in.
• 2:43
  Speaker 12: So here's what I have to say, though.
• 2:45
  Speaker 12: they're everywhere, and they're delicious, and they're never gonna go away.
• 2:48
  Francis: I have a
• 2:48
  Speaker 12: recommendation for Aperol Spritzes.
• 2:50
  Speaker 12: Got Aperol Spritzes are Aperol, club soda, and champagne or prosecco.
• 2:54
  Speaker 12: It is supposed to be prosecco.
• 2:56
  Speaker 12: I'll take champagne.
• 2:57
  Speaker 12: But eliminate the s- club soda.
• 2:59
  Speaker 12: it's Aperol- Mm and champ- And champagne.
• 3:01
  Speaker 12: You
• 3:01
  Speaker 11: don't need club
• 3:02
  Speaker 12: soda and, and champagne or prosecco.
• 3:02
  Speaker 12: You don't
• 3:02
  Speaker 11: need
• 3:02
  Speaker 12: club soda.
• 3:03
  Speaker 11: I, I must confess.
• 3:04
  Speaker 12: Mm-hmm.
• 3:04
  Speaker 11: So we were recently recording in Houston, and you and Jennifer went off to do something and, and Julie and I stayed back and recorded something else.
• 3:12
  Speaker 11: And then I had to catch up to you guys.
• 3:13
  Speaker 12: Mm-hmm.
• 3:14
  Speaker 11: So I kinda hustled across the field to the other side is where you guys were- Mm-hmm of the event.
• 3:19
  Speaker 11: and as I was passing the Aperol Spritz table-
• 3:21
  Speaker 12: Uh-huh
• 3:22
  Speaker 11: I scooped one off the s- the table and-
• 3:24
  Speaker 12: They're delicious
• 3:25
  Speaker 11: and drank it while I got, got the rest of the way to you
• 3:27
  Speaker 12: guys.
• 3:27
  Speaker 12: It's, it's absolutely delicious.
• 3:28
  Speaker 12: And so
• 3:29
  Francis: we had a late entry into
• 3:31
  Speaker 12: game.
• 3:31
  Speaker 12: It was a
• 3:31
  Francis: Hugo Spritz, has been around for the last couple of summers,
• 3:34
  Speaker 12: last summer was a...
• 3:35
  Speaker 12: It was a battle between the Hugo Spritz and the Aperol Spritz.
• 3:38
  Speaker 12: Well,
• 3:38
  Speaker 11: tell them what the Hugo Spritz is.
• 3:39
  Francis: Hugo spritzes elderflower St-Germain Mm-hmm And that's an interesting thing, right?
• 3:44
  Speaker 12: Most of those amari that we love, there's the Averna, there's the Braulio, there's, all the brown bitters, and the red bitters- Mm-hmm Aperol, Campari, those are all owned by Groupa Campari.
• 3:53
  Speaker 13: Mm-hmm.
• 3:53
  Francis: There's, they consolidated,
• 3:55
  Speaker 12: So all the spritzy bases
• 3:57
  Francis: were controlled by Campari
• 3:59
  Speaker 12: But the Hugo spritz uses
• 4:02
  Francis: St-Germain, which is not owned by Gruppo Campari, and they're not
• 4:05
  Speaker 12: amused.
• 4:07
  Speaker 12: They are not happy about that.
• 4:09
  Speaker 12: And so last summer they decided- But
• 4:10
  Speaker 11: this, I mean, honestly, Aperol was
• 4:13
  Mark: huge
• 4:14
  Speaker 11: boon to Groupa Campari.
• 4:17
  Speaker 11: And then Aperol Spritz coming on, to even further that- Yeah
• 4:21
  Speaker 12: just- And Campari is in a Gr- in a Negroni, the
• 4:23
  Speaker 11: most- Right popular- Brought Negronis back.
• 4:24
  Speaker 11: Uh.
• 4:25
  Speaker 11: This group who was languishing, I think, uh, languishing is a, is a tough word, but really didn't have
• 4:31
  Mark: juice
• 4:31
  Speaker 11: that they have now- In
• 4:32
  Speaker 12: the last 20
• 4:33
  Speaker 11: years 15 years ago, 20 years ago.
• 4:34
  Speaker 11: Yeah.
• 4:34
  Speaker 11: They're all of a sudden they're at the forefront of everything.
• 4:37
  Francis: and they would like to stay
• 4:38
  Speaker 11: Yeah.
• 4:39
  Speaker 12: Right?
• 4:39
  Francis: And so
• 4:40
  Speaker 12: the Hugo spritz
• 4:41
  Francis: did not amuse them one bit, and they feel that
• 4:43
  Speaker 12: a lot of juice left to the spritz market.
• 4:45
  Speaker 12: Mm-hmm.
• 4:45
  Speaker 12: And so they introduced
• 4:46
  Francis: this last summer, the Sarti, Rosa.
• 4:49
  Francis: It's the Gruppo Campari's new...
• 4:51
  Francis: You ta- I know you
• 4:52
  Speaker 12: it with
• 4:52
  Francis: me at a tasting, and I believe your, your
• 4:54
  Speaker 12: notes
• 4:54
  Francis: were, hold on a second, I have'em, I think I have them here.
• 4:56
  Francis: Uh, you write,"Blah." That's
• 4:58
  Speaker 12: It's funny.
• 4:59
  Speaker 12: Actually,
• 4:59
  Francis: it's, uh, it's, um, it's, uh, it's, uh, Sicilian blood orange, mango, and passion
• 5:07
  Mark: Oh, I did
• 5:08
  Speaker 11: have that
• 5:09
  Francis: that.
• 5:10
  Francis: And you're like,"This is Italian?"
• 5:11
  Mark: I did
• 5:11
  Speaker 11: have
• 5:12
  Francis: Mango and passion fruit is not the Italian bitter...
• 5:14
  Francis: What
• 5:15
  Speaker 12: you doing?
• 5:15
  Speaker 12: And it's awful, okay?
• 5:16
  Speaker 12: Oh,
• 5:17
  Speaker 11: I did have that.
• 5:17
  Speaker 12: And look,
• 5:18
  Francis: Gruppo Campari, you sponsor
• 5:19
  Speaker 12: things for
• 5:19
  Francis: us.
• 5:20
  Francis: I would love you to do that.
• 5:20
  Francis: But, and I love most of your stuff, but this is, this is
• 5:23
  Speaker 12: terrible.
• 5:24
  Francis: It's fake fruity, uh, the mango
• 5:27
  Speaker 12: I
• 5:27
  Speaker 11: forgot that I had
• 5:28
  Speaker 12: that Oh my God, I made you try
• 5:29
  Speaker 11: it But I remember now.
• 5:30
  Speaker 11: You made me try it.
• 5:30
  Speaker 12: Remember you wrote those notes?
• 5:31
  Speaker 11: No, no, I remember- Blah I remember being angry at you for- making me taste that.
• 5:36
  Francis: Yeah, so I don't think that's gonna be a success.
• 5:38
  Francis: And boy, they dumped a crap ton of money in, uh, into advertising this.
• 5:43
  Speaker 11: You can't say it's
• 5:44
  Speaker 12: it's not gonna
• 5:44
  Francis: gonna be a success it's just, it's not good enough.
• 5:45
  Francis: It's...
• 5:45
  Francis: And Aperol Spritz is
• 5:46
  Speaker 12: and Campari and Soda- Mm-hmm is good, and so mu- the other stuff that they do own is great.
• 5:50
  Speaker 12: and I like them all better than the Hugo spritz.
• 5:52
  Speaker 12: But this stuff is
• 5:53
  Francis: just crap.
• 5:54
  Speaker 12: And they put a ton of money into, like,
• 5:56
  Francis: the Hamptons,
• 5:57
  Speaker 12: the tennis matches- Mm and the horse races and, and it was everywhere fancy.
• 6:02
  Francis: I didn't see a lot of
• 6:03
  Speaker 12: drinking it.
• 6:04
  Speaker 11: No one's asked for one.
• 6:05
  Speaker 11: I, in the bar, in our restaurant, I've had zero requests for that
• 6:09
  Speaker 12: drink.
• 6:09
  Speaker 12: Yeah, it's,
• 6:09
  Francis: uh...
• 6:09
  Francis: So I don't know.
• 6:10
  Speaker 12: So I don't
• 6:11
  Francis: think this is gonna work, but does Fonzie jump the shark here?
• 6:14
  Francis: Is there s-
• 6:14
  Speaker 12: when the corporate involvement gets that
• 6:16
  Francis: much, that it's like everything's a spritz, I think people
• 6:19
  Speaker 12: like it when they get it shoved down their
• 6:20
  Francis: throat so much.
• 6:22
  Francis: Figuratively
• 6:22
  Mark: the foie gras goose?
• 6:26
  Speaker 12: Yeah.
• 6:26
  Speaker 12: Foie
• 6:26
  Francis: gras goose loves it.
• 6:27
  Francis: People don't like it.
• 6:28
  Francis: I don't know.
• 6:29
  Francis: I'm curious to see what happens this coming summer.
• 6:31
  Francis: I
• 6:32
  Speaker 12: the Aperol Spritz
• 6:33
  Francis: comes back
• 6:33
  Speaker 12: where it was and people
• 6:34
  Francis: are
• 6:34
  Speaker 12: with it.
• 6:34
  Speaker 12: But I think they wanna push the, the spritz
• 6:38
  Francis: to even more of a market share, and I don't think it's
• 6:40
  Speaker 11: I do think the spritz is
• 6:42
  Mark: gonna get more of a market share.
• 6:43
  Mark: I just think
• 6:44
  Speaker 11: gonna be different kinds of spritzes.
• 6:45
  Speaker 11: It's,
• 6:46
  Mark: it's-
• 6:46
  Francis: Like the one, like the one in your face that you spray on me when come
• 6:48
  Mark: over.
• 6:48
  Speaker 12: misbehave?
• 6:50
  Speaker 11: I'm, I'm coming into
• 6:50
  Mark: the next show with a spritzer
• 6:52
  Francis: All
• 6:52
  Speaker 12: we're gonna come back with a guy who's much more intelligent than we.
• 6:55
  Speaker 12: I know you've been aching for that after this conversation.
• 6:57
  Francis: David Wondrich will join
• 6:59
  Speaker 12: in just a second with his comic book history of the cocktail.
• 7:03
  Speaker 12: Stick with
• 7:03
  Francis: us.
• 7:03
  Speaker 12: You can find out more about us
• 7:04
  Francis: on The Restaurant Guys at restaurantguyspodcast.com.
• 7:08
  The Restaurant Guys: Hey there, everybody.
• 7:08
  The Restaurant Guys: Welcome David Wondrich been on this written so many definitive books and articles, and given so many lectures that we have attended and taught us so much about cocktails that we're not gonna pretend like he actually needs an introduction.
• 7:21
  The Restaurant Guys: He's an old friend.
• 7:22
  The Restaurant Guys: He's one of our favorite drinking buddies.
• 7:23
  The Restaurant Guys: He's the guy who knows more about the history of cocktails than just about anyone.
• 7:27
  The Restaurant Guys: His recent book is completely different.
• 7:30
  The Restaurant Guys: It's been out for a while, terrific.
• 7:32
  The Restaurant Guys: It's The Comic Book History of the Cocktail: Five Centuries of Mixing Drinks and Carrying On.
• 7:39
  The Restaurant Guys: It's hardcover novel by Dean Coates, and we have him on the show to talk about it today.
• 7:45
  The Restaurant Guys: David Wondrich, welcome to the show
• 7:47
  Speaker 15: so great to be here Uh nice to see you gentlemen as always I I wish we were in a room together with glasses in our hands uh but this will do in the meanwhile we'll just have to make an appointment to do that too
• 8:00
  The Restaurant Guys: My guess is that that'll happen soon enough.
• 8:02
  The Restaurant Guys: Yeah, that happens on occasion.
• 8:03
  Speaker 15: hope so Always a pleasure
• 8:06
  The Restaurant Guys: it's been a year since this book has come out, it's taken us a year to get you on here.
• 8:10
  The Restaurant Guys: It's a totally beautiful book.
• 8:12
  The Restaurant Guys: why a comic book?
• 8:13
  Speaker 15: It's something I I've been considering in some like kind of back of my brain way since I started writing about drinks in the early 2000s I thought it would be kind of fun to do a superhero comic book about bartenders or something like that But I didn't really act on it you know I've got a whole list of projects that I'll never do and that was one of them and then I got asked to do this I w I pitched a different book and the editor Julie Bennett said Well I don't think that's right for us right now but we've got this series of comic book histories and I had the beer one already And the she says uh Would you be interested in doing one on cocktails And yeah I was it turns out It just woke up that little idea in the back of my head I'm always trying to reach out to new audiences if I can different audiences You know I'm trying not to just keep doing the same thing over and over again And so this was a chance to reach a different audience and I said Why not Let me uh let me give it a try one of those projects that turns out to be way more complicated than you think when you say yes
• 9:24
  The Restaurant Guys: Well, David, I, just want you to know I'm really hoping and looking forward to volume two of this, The Cocktail History of the Comic Book.
• 9:33
  The Restaurant Guys: That'll be
• 9:33
  Speaker 15: I love it I love it Yeah considerably easier I'll draw it on the back of cocktail napkins
• 9:40
  The Restaurant Guys: Well I I think I want I book It is a graphic book, it's a comic book history.
• 9:47
  The Restaurant Guys: But it's 195 pages It's I don't wanna say It's dense but it packed really good information I mean, there's David Wonderich's scholarship in this book.
• 9:57
  The Restaurant Guys: it's beautiful and pleasant to read as a graphic novel, but it, you got some pretty serious stuff in here, and you have some new takes on...
• 10:03
  The Restaurant Guys: read a lot- There, there's a lot of information, as
• 10:05
  Speaker 15: There's a lot
• 10:06
  The Restaurant Guys: being presented in a way where it keeps you engaged and interested
• 10:11
  Speaker 15: Well that was that was my mandate from uh Ten Speed that you know their s their comic book history of things their beer one is quite a serious book And they said You know we want this to be like a real history I've got footnotes in the back some I've got uh you know a bibliography I've got all that stuff And I didn't want to like dumb down the history I wanted to respect people while while making it as easy to absorb as possible It ended up being a little wordier than I had hoped because it's just complicated There's a lot of complicated stuff that if you want to explain it properly you've gotta use your words
• 10:53
  The Restaurant Guys: Yeah Well th- let's talk about the structure of the book,'cause the structure
• 10:56
  Speaker 15: yeah
• 10:57
  The Restaurant Guys: go through eras.
• 10:58
  The Restaurant Guys: There's mixology and then a chaser.
• 11:00
  The Restaurant Guys: tell us about that, how that works
• 11:03
  Speaker 15: Yeah so we we've got the illustrated history with characters and vignettes most of them from history A lot of them we didn't know what they looked like so uh Dean basically took a took a flyer he and I together uh on these people But then at the end of each chapter you get a cocktail with a fictional bartender We we came up with two an old American guy with an eye patch for the US drinks and an Afro-Caribbean woman from London for the European drinks And just the two of them kind of split the world up and make drinks in their own way Just because I w I I didn't wanna do just like a step-by-step I wanted to make it a little breezier than that Uh we tried
• 11:49
  The Restaurant Guys: done it
• 11:50
  Speaker 15: Well thank you Uh so we've got that and then at the end there's a little couple pages of teaching you about a spirit or an aspect of the cocktail world that relates to that chapter But this is more kind of y you're stepping outside and you've got this little box where it teaches you about like rye and bourbon or something or the history of brandy or uh how distillation works i just information that's useful if you're gonna be making these drinks and if you want to understand what's going on in the chapters
• 12:23
  The Restaurant Guys: I wanna come back to the bartending history in a serious discussion about the individuals, but I would like to have first a non-serious- I just saw the page Francis opened to.
• 12:31
  The Restaurant Guys: Where, my favorite illustration of the whole book is where you explain fermentation, which is yeast consumes sugar and produces alcohol and carbon dioxide, and you have little beasties illustrated as the yeast
• 12:43
  Speaker 16: Yeah
• 12:44
  The Restaurant Guys: on and farting dioxide And I thought"I'm gonna remember that forever I'm definitely gonna remember that forever
• 12:51
  Speaker 15: That's how it works you know Uh I I I believe in you know a lively approach to technical issues if possible uh just because then you'll remember it And that's basically what they do
• 13:05
  The Restaurant Guys: That is what they do the one little part you left out though is they fart so much that they create a noxious gas that kills them.
• 13:12
  The Restaurant Guys: Eventually kills themselves, but they
• 13:14
  Speaker 15: eventually yeah There's I I I had to keep the details fairly sparse but
• 13:21
  The Restaurant Guys: I love and I can see and hear you channeling bartenders that you know in some of these mixology sections where you're writing it.
• 13:29
  The Restaurant Guys: And there's, one where you, the young lady makes a Blue Blazer and teaches us how to make a Blue Blazer.
• 13:35
  The Restaurant Guys: the very last paragraph you to know as I read it,
• 13:39
  Speaker 16: Uh-huh
• 13:40
  The Restaurant Guys: I heard Dale DeGroff's voice
• 13:42
  Speaker 16: Okay
• 13:42
  The Restaurant Guys: I and I wanna read I wanna read it to you it it reads,"So practice, yeah, prattle it look like dottle Welcome to showbiz, baby I felt you channeling Dale as you wrote that just like would say
• 14:00
  Speaker 15: Spent so much time listening to Dale you know gladly enjoyed every minute of it yeah I tried to bring in how bartenders I've known would explain things and uh to make it make these people as bartenderly as possible
• 14:15
  The Restaurant Guys: I think one of the things
• 14:15
  Speaker 15: yeah no go ahead
• 14:16
  The Restaurant Guys: I I found really enjoyable a- about the book is you you you kind of alluded to it before, but there was a, a group illustration bartenders of new generation 10 people and you read through people are and they're all numbered and you go through them.
• 14:29
  The Restaurant Guys: And then at the bottom it says,"We actually have no idea how these people look like- so we imagine this is what they might look like." And it s I was like That's abs I love that That was wonderful
• 14:38
  Speaker 15: that that was one of the great advantages of doing this kind of history as a comic book and that was something I'd never been able to do before is to take these people and give them some kind of physicality You know you hear about Cato Alexander right You you hear about him Uh African American in New York City He was very famous There's descriptions of him but y they don't really gel They don't agree with each other and it's hard to form an image in your head of what he looked like And this is a way of kind of like it's like w in champagne the bubbles need something to nucleate on for them to come out of solution And this is a way gives you a way to for your ideas to work like that It gives you something to start uh with in thinking about these people as not just names on a page or or you know kind of nebulous semi-human figures but as actual individuals that's what bartending history has always lacked
• 17:05
  The Restaurant Guys: I wanna come back to the bartending history in a serious discussion about the individuals, but I would like to have first a non-serious- mention of page seven on your book.
• 17:14
  The Restaurant Guys: I just saw the page Francis opened to.
• 17:15
  The Restaurant Guys: Where, where it, my favorite illustration of the whole book is where you explain fermentation, which is yeast consumes sugar and produces alcohol and carbon dioxide, and you have little beasties illustrated as the yeast
• 17:28
  Speaker 16: Yeah
• 17:29
  The Restaurant Guys: on and farting dioxide And I thought"I'm gonna remember that forever I'm definitely gonna remember that forever
• 17:36
  Speaker 15: That's how it works you know Uh I I I believe in you know a lively approach to technical issues if possible uh just because then you'll remember it And that's basically what they do
• 17:50
  The Restaurant Guys: That is what they do the one little part you left out though is they fart so much that they create a noxious gas that kills them.
• 17:57
  The Restaurant Guys: Eventually kills themselves, but they
• 17:59
  Speaker 15: eventually yeah There's I I I had to keep the details fairly sparse but
• 18:06
  The Restaurant Guys: when we talk about the people, and I, and I think there's a a
• 18:08
  Speaker 15: yeah
• 18:09
  The Restaurant Guys: to slice up this book,'cause it's really chock-full of a lot.
• 18:11
  The Restaurant Guys: But y- one of the things I found really interesting is I have read a lot of books on cocktail history.
• 18:18
  The Restaurant Guys: I have read a lot of your books on cocktail history.
• 18:20
  The Restaurant Guys: we've attended lectures together and gone to seminars together for decades and I, I think I'm fairly knowledgeable on cocktail history.
• 18:28
  The Restaurant Guys: But it was interesting, in this book, you highlighted some people that that I didn't know about, right?
• 18:34
  The Restaurant Guys: So I think you spent a decent amount of time on African American bartenders.
• 18:38
  The Restaurant Guys: and everybody knows Cato.
• 18:39
  The Restaurant Guys: Well cocktail geeks know Cato Alexander and and, we know Tom Bullock.
• 18:43
  The Restaurant Guys: Um but you talk about, the mixology club that happened that I wanna talk about in a second and the bartenders that made that up.
• 18:50
  The Restaurant Guys: And you talk about, when you deal with tiki, you talk about the, Asian American, bartenders who worked for Trader Vic and Donn Beach, who went off to open their own places,
• 19:01
  Speaker 16: Mm-hmm
• 19:02
  The Restaurant Guys: generation names that weren't to me until I read in book a goal of yours, to include some people who hadn't been in other cocktail histories as prominently before?
• 19:11
  Speaker 15: Absolutely because I wanted to to include the people who were actually mixing the drinks you know And and a lot of those names were not well-known or a lot of them I involved really some pretty deep research as with all of my books I researched everything fresh for this I didn't just go back to my other books and pull stuff out I I went back and you know I looked for new information on everybody I was talking about and for new names and uh people I hadn't written about tiki before but uh s and there were a couple areas that were new to me for this book and those I had to basically research not from scratch but pretty close I'd written one long article about tiki in the past but not really any anything comprehensive that was also fun for me But I think it's really important to get people like Taka Yamaguchi let's say uh who was the head bartender at the Royal Hawaiian a uh Japanese American served in World War II in the US Army uh went back and was the head bartender and Trader Vic taught him how to make mai tais And he stuck with Trader Vic's recipe for 20 years behind the bar there making mai tais He was the great evangelist of the mai tai as it was properly made and he probably made way more of them than Vic ever made you know
• 20:37
  The Restaurant Guys: you and I know people drink a lot, uh, drink mai tais all the time, but a well-made mai tai is absolutely delicious.
• 20:45
  The Restaurant Guys: Yeah
• 20:46
  Speaker 15: Oh it's one of the greatest of all drinks It is
• 20:49
  The Restaurant Guys: of all drinks I totally agree
• 20:50
  Speaker 15: Yeah yeah you can't be unhappy if you're drinking a good Mai Tai you know life is better
• 20:57
  The Restaurant Guys: the but the link in the history of this is, you know, Trader Vic, Vic Bergeron and Donn Beach it their their had come and gone the was on the decline c was being snuffed out And, you know, it was the next generation of bartenders that kept that alive They didn't publish a lot of books and teach a lot of people how until Berry went and found the recipes from them.
• 21:21
  Speaker 16: Yeah
• 21:21
  The Restaurant Guys: And and if it been them because wasn't written down cause everyone was so secretive about recipes uh, if they hadn't them going long enough divulged them with help, or at least allowed Jeff to deconstruct them th- those tiki recipe- pies would've been lost to time.
• 21:40
  The Restaurant Guys: A whole era of American bartending would mostly be gone.
• 21:42
  The Restaurant Guys: Am I right about that?
• 21:43
  Speaker 15: I I think you are yes Absolutely Uh they were very competitive Uh they were mostly Filipinos and they kept the knowledge of the recipes within the Filipino community because it meant work for them you know and these were good jobs they didn't wanna give these recipes out in the first wave of tiki it didn't matter People took the names and just made up their own recipes You see the names all over the country for for Donn Beach's drinks being used for drinks that obviously would have had nothing to do with his because uh he never told anybody how to make them Uh
• 22:18
  The Restaurant Guys: in the 80s and I made some drinks to actual of the
• 22:23
  Speaker 15: Oh I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure
• 22:26
  The Restaurant Guys: punch was just a whole bunch of juice and some rum
• 22:28
  Speaker 15: Yeah Works for me I used to drink those
• 22:34
  The Restaurant Guys: One of point out book that these were guys who, uh, for uh the long periods of time might face discrimination uh, out in their regular world.
• 22:44
  The Restaurant Guys: But when you had a tiki bar, th- that's who you wanted behind your bar.
• 22:47
  The Restaurant Guys: Mm-hmm Like you the you walked in behind the bar and you wanted to see a Filipino guy bar
• 22:51
  Speaker 15: Oh absolutely
• 22:52
  The Restaurant Guys: you dealt a lot with the Black bartenders in the 1800s and you know we we I remember we were on cruise in uh Orleans You I were on the river, and we were, it was the year that The Ideal Bartender by Tom Bullock re-released
• 23:10
  Speaker 15: That's right
• 23:11
  The Restaurant Guys: and we both had that book, and we were both thrilled about hadn't known him before that real know about how Black bartenders work and there was a, it was a mixology club that was run by and for Black bartenders Mm-hmm that was in the heyday Can you tell us little about that
• 23:27
  Speaker 15: Yeah uh Before the Civil War Black bartenders were some of America's top bartenders Some of them were enslaved some of them were free uh but they worked especially in the South in all the top places and uh w they were the ones who made American drinking fancy as far as I can tell who took the mint julep and turned it into this showpiece because you know that was how they ate Uh they had to do better than anybody They had to be better than average Uh you know and and if you were better than average and if you were very versatile you could survive in a very uh in a system that was heavily stacked against them to say the least And and a and a lot of these people were truly exceptional they probably were responsible for the performative nature of American bartending for the for the flashiness and for a lot of stuff like that after the Civil War they lingered in the South for a while and they uh there were several in the North but uh there was competition from immigrants the service jobs started to get some dignity to them that they hadn't been perceived as having Uh you got white-coated bartenders uh making very good money they weren't as sporty as they had been before the Civil War Now they were professionals and suddenly Black people were not as welcome behind the bar uh at least in bars that catered to white people But in some cities there was a thri there were thriving large Black communities uh like Washington D.C where there were a lot of bars that catered to middle-class Black taste and were elegant with accomplished bartenders And those guys got together in D.C in 1899 and started the Colored Mixologists Club they would throw balls you know they'd have mixers and and club meetings and exchange knowledge et cetera It didn't last very long but as a formal thing but their sense of community lasts up until Prohibition
• 25:36
  The Restaurant Guys: Yeah, I thought that little section you did on how the mint julep came about just a really cool little addendum that you put in there.
• 25:44
  The Restaurant Guys: I, thought it was great
• 25:45
  Speaker 15: Yeah I mean the mint julep we we only think of it as bourbon with a one sprig of mint in it these days and a little bit of like you know a big splash of simple syrup on the rocks It was a much more uh impressive drink uh uh especially before the Civil War where it wa it didn't use bourbon it used imported French brandy thank you very much You know It it used Madeira wine on top of the French brandy and a float of the best Jamaican rum It was it was it was very uh It was a showpiece drink with a forest of mint sticking out of the top of the glass just just to to make it glorious
• 26:26
  The Restaurant Guys: I think it's time to bring that old julep back I think I
• 26:29
  Speaker 15: Oh I agree I agree I agree
• 26:32
  The Restaurant Guys: idea I think we should do that when the wea- We're gonna have a mint julep party when the weather gets nicer.
• 26:36
  The Restaurant Guys: Will you come?
• 26:37
  Speaker 15: Yeah of c of course I will I'll I'll come and I'll make juleps I'll bring my huge ice mallet
• 26:42
  The Restaurant Guys: I love that so I just wanna recommend, folks, we have mentioned this book, and we mentioned it in another episode within the last month or two, but The Ideal Bartender by Tom Bullock is a slim volume that was reprinted psht in the, 2000s.
• 26:56
  Speaker 16: Mm-hmm
• 26:57
  The Restaurant Guys: and there are so many great, cocktails in there.
• 27:00
  The Restaurant Guys: Um, but also what I, I failed to mention when we last time on the show, I couldn't remember s- I knew someone famous had written the preface to his book.
• 27:07
  The Restaurant Guys: He's one of the few Oh
• 27:08
  Speaker 15: That's right That's right
• 27:10
  The Restaurant Guys: you reminded me in your book.
• 27:11
  The Restaurant Guys: So the preface to Tom Bullock's book was written by, George Herbert Walker Bush's grandfather
• 27:16
  Speaker 15: That's right
• 27:18
  The Restaurant Guys: That's that's pretty
• 27:19
  Speaker 15: it that's pretty serious Uh he was bartender to the American aristocracy you know Uh yeah in in St Louis which was a big thriving city back then I mean that's where they had the World's Fair in 1904
• 27:36
  The Restaurant Guys: And that he wrote a book and that the preface was written by think
• 27:39
  Speaker 15: Yeah
• 27:39
  The Restaurant Guys: that really speaks to just how important it was.
• 27:41
  The Restaurant Guys: And you and I have made a lot of cocktails out of that book, and almost every cocktail in that book, you gotta adjust it a
• 27:45
  Speaker 15: Oh yeah but yeah I mean it's one of the last books before prohibition also so it kind of rounds up all the latest drinks
• 27:54
  The Restaurant Guys: know long as we're going back in time, I wanna go back just a little further.
• 27:57
  The Restaurant Guys: I wanna go back to Jerry Thomas,'cause I thought the way you handled Jerry Thomas really gave people insight into a who was bigger than life, but succeeded, failed succeeded, failed, succeeded, failed, succeeded failed a all of these great things.
• 28:14
  The Restaurant Guys: But one of the things I really learned was there's a Jerry Thomas book that was lost, that we don't that we don't have I that to me
• 28:23
  Speaker 15: Is that a book review of it I wish I mean this book just tantalizes me because it was illustrated by him and He w he started out life he wanted to be an artist and he was very good at drawing the illustrations for the book we do have are his uh as far as we can tell they're not credited but uh he was famous for that it's has this lost book He published it self-published it in San Francisco in uh 1863 It it had illustrated biographies of America's prominent bartenders in it an autobiography of him and all of his new drinks Somebody went and plagiarized all the drinks and published them a few years later and we know this because the somebody reviewed the book when it came out and mentioned in detail the names of the drinks and they turn up again in 1867 in San Francisco stripped of his name with somebody else's name on the on the thing so
• 29:27
  The Restaurant Guys: of the book Let's find him
• 29:28
  Speaker 15: yeah Yeah right Yeah I mean I'm not gonna say a copy isn't gonna turn up but what I suspect happened is Jerry Thomas uh moved to Virginia City in Nevada and uh Virginia City burned down when he was living there And he might have he must have taken the copies of the book with him because he did self-publish it and I suspect that most of the copies were lost then a few copies survived in into the late 19th century but I haven't seen one I haven't seen one mentioned anywhere since
• 30:04
  The Restaurant Guys: Do we find it ironic at all that most of those books were lost in a fire by the guy who invented the blue blazer?
• 30:10
  The Restaurant Guys: Does that, that does that
• 30:14
  Speaker 15: Yeah it serves him right I suppose Uh
• 30:17
  The Restaurant Guys: who don't know the Blue Blazer the cocktail I referred to earlier is a cocktail where you basically throw flaming liquid in from one mug to another mug, and it's, it's a big show.
• 30:28
  The Restaurant Guys: Wouldn't it be wild if that's how the fire started Maybe and burned down the whole city?
• 30:31
  The Restaurant Guys: I, I mean, that'd be
• 30:32
  Speaker 15: Right It was Mr Thomas blazer not Mr and Mrs O'Leary's cow
• 30:37
  The Restaurant Guys: Yeah exactly all right, so let's move the timeline forward.
• 30:41
  The Restaurant Guys: obviously I love the book but it's, it's interesting to see the illustrations in the story go from David Wondrich the historian to David Wondrich the contemporary historian and chronicler, and journalist of what happened in your lifetime- Right in my lifetime that we were a part of.
• 30:56
  The Restaurant Guys: Where from historian to to the person who's literally about what he saw and what he lived.
• 31:02
  The Restaurant Guys: So I have a few ideas for where it starts, from your book.
• 31:05
  The Restaurant Guys: So I think the, the shot heard round the world was a combination of either Dale DeGroff getting behind the bar at the Rainbow Room or the Cosmopolitan meeting Madonna's lips.
• 31:15
  The Restaurant Guys: Somewhere around there that's where the renaissance begins
• 31:18
  Speaker 15: I I I think you're right It was Oh let's drink out of a cocktail glass not like like the the late great our dear friend Gary Regan uh used to work in a bar on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in the late 70s and they got rid of every glass except for small white wine glasses and they put every drink into those They're like Screw this We don't need all this stuff Let's be practical And there was so much of the 80s drink culture was like that tradition went out the window We don't care Nobody cares cocktail glasses no just put it in a wine glass Martini on the rocks you know who cares The uh
• 32:01
  The Restaurant Guys: let's talk about that for a second So before about the Renaissance we should take a moment to talk about the Dark Ages, which
• 32:06
  Speaker 15: Yeah we should
• 32:07
  The Restaurant Guys: Yeah And a martini on the rocks s- I, just so you know, I don't think that means the same thing to all of our listeners that it means to we in the cocktail world.
• 32:16
  The Restaurant Guys: The dark a- anathema?
• 32:16
  The Restaurant Guys: The Dark Ages.
• 32:17
  The Restaurant Guys: Oh, I was w
• 32:18
  Speaker 15: yeah
• 32:19
  The Restaurant Guys: So the Dark Ages, when would you peg the Dark Ages?
• 32:21
  The Restaurant Guys: 1968 to, to 88
• 32:25
  Speaker 15: I w I would go a little earlier probably 1962 to about 1990 something like that
• 32:33
  The Restaurant Guys: it's funny because bartenders today, if you order a martini or a Manhattan, you assume it's up.
• 32:40
  The Restaurant Guys: Y- I
• 32:40
  Speaker 15: Right
• 32:41
  The Restaurant Guys: on the floor don't ask Mm-hmm would you like that up or on the rocks?
• 32:44
  The Restaurant Guys: When Mark and I started bartending in 1986- We used to if it was a martini or Manhattan, martini or Manhattan, you would say,"Would you like it up or on the rocks?"
• 32:51
  Speaker 15: Yeah absolutely
• 32:53
  The Restaurant Guys: but 20 years prior to that, a martini or Manhattan was always up.
• 32:57
  The Restaurant Guys: Am I right
• 32:58
  Speaker 15: It started in the 60s to s you started to see more and more of that And by that point there was no vermouth in the in it either So so all all you got if you ordered a martini uh was a big glass of gin or vodka on the rocks Done where's the bartending there I mean it's uh uh uh
• 33:18
  The Restaurant Guys: it was an easier time to make drinks back then Yeah I will say that
• 33:22
  Speaker 15: It was but it hurt the reputation of the bartender let's say because people saw what you were doing and they knew it that there was no skill involved
• 33:31
  The Restaurant Guys: I think the mystique of the bartender was kinda held up.
• 33:33
  The Restaurant Guys: I remember I got a bartending job at a pretty nice place, I got the slow shifts, like the month of my 21st birthday.
• 33:40
  The Restaurant Guys: look, the, the fresh juice, there was no fresh juice.
• 33:43
  The Restaurant Guys: You know?
• 33:43
  The Restaurant Guys: The grenadine was
• 33:45
  Speaker 16: Now
• 33:45
  The Restaurant Guys: was red food coloring, cor- Corn syrup corn syrup, uh, sweet stuff.
• 33:49
  Speaker 16: Yep
• 33:50
  The Restaurant Guys: and the martini was, you know, a glass of gin.
• 33:52
  The Restaurant Guys: But there was always, even through the worst times, it was cool to be a bartender, and we just weren't doing the cool stuff anymore, and we, I'm glad we got it back But it was always cool
• 34:05
  Speaker 15: Well yeah I I talk about this in the book in several ways be because I remember those days very well I worked in bars I wasn't a bartender I was a musician but you know I played in bars and uh nightclubs for for 10 years and spent a lot of time hanging out you know after soundcheck with the bartender as they were setting up the bar that kind of thing And happened in the 60s is bartenders became more interested in the social aspects of their of their job uh and less interested i in the mixology The mixology got very simplified so that instead of using lemon juice and sugar or lime juice and sugar you'd either use sour mix or you'd use pineapple juice or orange juice both of which have a little bit of acidity and and sweetness Those are impossible to un-balance you know Uh so you you'd use those and that's fine It's easy Everything was done so you couldn't screw it up uh because they didn't trust What what what had happened is bartending got a huge brain drain I I think it was after the G.I Bill personally when uh and after World War II Originally the G.I Bill covered bartender school and then in like 1948 or 47 or 48 pressure from various conservative social interests made them cut that out you could get your culinary school covered but you couldn't get that covered
• 35:39
  The Restaurant Guys: I mean, one of the things I remember back in the, early'80s and, that time period, the bartenders were not super skilled at making drinks, they weren't mixologists, but most of the great bartenders I knew, they knew a ton about sports knew a ton about the world The great bartenders were super interesting people.
• 36:01
  The Restaurant Guys: that kinda started coming back into the fore, and I guess it was because they didn't have to know that much about cocktails, so they had to be interesting in another way.
• 36:10
  The Restaurant Guys: and so they were these great conversationalists.
• 36:12
  The Restaurant Guys: And then there was a little bit of time as, this whole cocktail revolution came online where there was a little bit of concern, I was a little bit concerned, that, we were gonna go all the way to mixology and you were gonna stop having interesting people behind the bar.
• 36:27
  The Restaurant Guys: They were just gonna be cocktail nerds- who weren't interesting in other ways.
• 36:31
  The Restaurant Guys: And some bars did that.
• 36:32
  The Restaurant Guys: And some
• 36:32
  Speaker 15: Yeah some bars did that
• 36:34
  The Restaurant Guys: but for the most part, your bartender's still an interesting person, I
• 36:38
  Speaker 15: we went through
• 36:39
  The Restaurant Guys: important thing
• 36:40
  Speaker 15: uh we went through a period I like to say is uh in the 70s 80s we had bartenders who knew all the jokes and none of the drinks We went to bartenders who know all the drinks and none of the jokes And what we really want is bartenders who know a lot of the drinks and a lot of the jokes And uh but but it's yeah I'm saying exactly what you said you know It's it's it's true though It's like you need both in the in the 70s they got rid of the mixology part That wasn't interesting to people And uh the drinks I mean you had drinks like the upside down margarita where you lay your head back on the bar and they pour out of uh three bottles into your mouth and then you then you stand up to shake it
• 37:30
  The Restaurant Guys: Head shake head shake
• 37:31
  Speaker 15: Yeah
• 37:32
  The Restaurant Guys: let's also look at, let's not blame all the bartenders too harshly because this was a time when the people who were drinking drinks, I think, had less of a demand for...
• 37:41
  The Restaurant Guys: Cocktails became
• 37:42
  Speaker 15: Absolutely
• 37:44
  The Restaurant Guys: and then this is the time when we went from, I remember my mom would make dinner, wasn't a great cook, but she could make a nice steak under the broiler, and I would be thrilled if instead of having a good steak and mashed potatoes she made at home know, I want, at the TV dinner, I can have Salisbury steak in a TV dinner and eat it on a s snack table I that was cool you know my parents
• 38:04
  Speaker 15: very exciting
• 38:05
  The Restaurant Guys: Yeah Well and my Oh absolutely my parents went when I was small, we, they'd get the bread from Koel's Bakery, and then we had Wonder Bread.
• 38:14
  The Restaurant Guys: So it's not just the bartenders, uh, were I
• 38:17
  Speaker 15: It's everything It's
• 38:18
  The Restaurant Guys: was, you know, look for bland, and sweet, and simple
• 38:24
  Speaker 15: This is the culture I mean the bartending followed the culture and the culture went too far in that direction let's say And it started to correct and parts of it have corrected Parts of it will never correct because there are a lot of people who still prefer convenience and uh there's a lot of packaged food that's you know still gets eaten But now at least it's that's not the only thing you see
• 38:48
  The Restaurant Guys: we're Americans and we really are very good at going too far in one direction yeah yeah that's what
• 38:54
  Speaker 15: Oh yeah We tend to s
• 38:57
  The Restaurant Guys: one direction
• 38:58
  Speaker 15: yeah we we swing this way we swing that way Uh you know uh we're living through a pretty swingy time
• 39:05
  The Restaurant Guys: I was having a political discussion with some friends, ah, 15 years ago in Austria, and, um, it was a couple of mostly Europeans and me at the table, and my one friend said to me, he said,"So why is it that Americans react?
• 39:18
  The Restaurant Guys: They either don't react or they overreact." And I was like,"Oh, that's uh that's kind of true
• 39:23
  Speaker 16: That's about right That's a that's about right Uh
• 39:28
  The Restaurant Guys: was something I noticed about the book, and I, and I wanted to know if it was a political statement or not.
• 39:32
  The Restaurant Guys: Oh.
• 39:33
  The Restaurant Guys: This
• 39:34
  Speaker 15: Okay
• 39:34
  The Restaurant Guys: more in Canada
• 39:37
  Speaker 15: Well the Canadian you know the Canadian dollar is It's worth a little less than the US dollar but uh I suspect that's gonna change
• 39:46
  The Restaurant Guys: All right, so let's let's bring let's bring the conversation to the current time.
• 39:50
  The Restaurant Guys: first of all, I wanna say thanks, and I also wanna humble brag that you put a little list of, like, people who were pioneers in the cocktail renaissance, and we were thrilled that you listed Mark and I among a small number of people.
• 40:00
  The Restaurant Guys: And New Brunswick, New Jersey.
• 40:01
  The Restaurant Guys: We, we...
• 40:02
  The Restaurant Guys: I love that New got included Yeah as places Yeah that it
• 40:06
  Speaker 15: guys were early It it you know I was I was doing George Herbert Walker Bush's uh points of light uh so to speak Uh so where are the points of light for the cocktail uh revolution You know I couldn't fit everybody but I tried to fit as many people as I could who were there very early upholding you know the standards of like let's do this better Let's let's make better drinks Let's uh recover some of our traditions here So uh I thought that was fun
• 40:37
  The Restaurant Guys: I love that it's like New York, London, New Brunswick, New Jersey.
• 40:40
  The Restaurant Guys: Uh and it's just Yeah it's good good company I I
• 40:43
  Speaker 15: Well
• 40:43
  The Restaurant Guys: I also love what you just said, you said people who are trying to make the standards better.
• 40:49
  The Restaurant Guys: and I think one of the things that gets in the way of people constantly now is either has to be at this super heightened level, or care.
• 41:00
  The Restaurant Guys: And,
• 41:00
  Speaker 15: Yeah
• 41:01
  The Restaurant Guys: why can't have gradations of that?
• 41:03
  The Restaurant Guys: Why can't we have this place that's trying to do better, maybe, you know, doesn't have the staff to create the new cocktail that no one's ever heard of, but just wants to make really fine cocktails that maybe have been made before with really good ingredients?
• 41:19
  The Restaurant Guys: There's nothing wrong with that.
• 41:20
  Speaker 15: I I mean
• 41:21
  The Restaurant Guys: places like that
• 41:22
  Speaker 15: everybody right now it seems like uh wants to be although it is starting to change thank God they all wanna be singer-songwriters rather than like blues musicians who just really dig into kind of a standard something they've inherited and don't worry about like making it so uh radically different They worry about the execution you know I'm gonna I'm gonna get the most out of this blues I can possibly get out of it I really appreciate that when I see a bartender making standards with love rather than with Now I gotta make a sidecar I'm so sick of sidecars
• 41:59
  The Restaurant Guys: There's nothing wrong with going to see a great cover band,
• 42:02
  Speaker 15: that's absolutely true
• 42:03
  The Restaurant Guys: executes
• 42:04
  Speaker 15: I mean that's what jazz does you know That's like what they what you know Thelonious Monk would play April in Paris for Christ sake you know
• 42:14
  The Restaurant Guys: so in the contemporary situation we find ourself in, you say, or you write in the book that peak cocktail was 2005 to 2015.
• 42:24
  The Restaurant Guys: What is it about that 10-year period, and if that's peak cocktail are we in now?
• 42:29
  Speaker 15: I'm always really bad at predicting the future and s and I don't know what the future is gonna call this era but it's clearly different from 2000 you know 5 to 2015 when everybody was like Oh my God cocktails what a revelation Now it's like young people are drinking like 70s revival drinks Suddenly the dirty martini is back in its uh usual unlovely form Uh the espresso martini is is taking over The these retro drinks from from what I think is kind of the pre-cocktail revolution or the early you know especially the the dirty martini goes back to like 1900 but uh which they don't know Uh We'll see It's starting to Again we don't react we overreact and that's an overreaction but we are seeing I'm seeing increasing numbers of new bars opening who are dialing back the absolutely crazy hyper-creative but uh irreproducible mixology that took over in 2015 and and kind of wiped the floor with uh the we-make-classic-cocktails-exquisitely here It's starting to move back to making some basic drinks again and enjoying them partly because they're cheaper to make Cost of goods is a real problem these days
• 43:52
  The Restaurant Guys: Well cost of labor as well
• 43:53
  Speaker 15: Yeah
• 43:53
  The Restaurant Guys: you have a bartender spending four a some super syrup in the back,
• 43:58
  Speaker 15: Yeah that's a bartender who's not serving customers yeah
• 44:01
  The Restaurant Guys: I remember seeing for a for a while there on YouTube, you would see a lot of shorts.
• 44:05
  The Restaurant Guys: They were all the rage on like,"Here's the setup of rooftop York and we, and we were not allowed to use the elevator after 3:00 PM, so, you know, four people come in early and start, use the rotovap and then hang themselves upside down and shoot it off into space then it comes back down again then they homogenize it then they un-homogenize it then they turn it into sand then they hydrate it back into liquid again And and I so...
• 44:25
  The Restaurant Guys: I watched a couple of these videos I'm like What a fucking waste of time Yeah I mean it just it was too much and it didn't occ to no good end Didn't problem is it didn't make the drink better it didn't make it a better drink
• 44:37
  Speaker 15: And they all kind of taste very similar E you look at the list of ingredients and they've got eight or nine ingredients and once you've got that you have ba basically end up with the color brown you know There's n no flavor really s beige No flavor really sticks out They're they're they're too complicated Uh they're additive I'm half Italian I grew up with Italian cooking where you keep it simple but you know your ingredients really well So you're gonna use the ingredient to maximum effect So if you have a mezcal drink you don't also have amaro and sherry and 12 other house infused chamomile vermouth in the same drink You know each one of those drinks gets its own thing and uh you let it shine You you set off the ingredients You don't blend them all together into some uh hyper mix of almost comical level of sophistication But uh ultimately they're those drinks don't have much impact and you can't reproduce them in other bars so they'll never be famous
• 45:43
  The Restaurant Guys: That's a really important thing.
• 45:45
  The Restaurant Guys: what you both of you gentlemen are talking about, coming back to simpler things.
• 45:48
  The Restaurant Guys: I think that's what's behind the current...
• 45:50
  The Restaurant Guys: I have never seen martinis so important and central as they are now and people want martinis and caviar.
• 45:57
  The Restaurant Guys: Simple and I think that's what that's from.
• 45:59
  The Restaurant Guys: and there's nothing like a pristine martini, right?
• 46:02
  The Restaurant Guys: Right.
• 46:02
  The Restaurant Guys: There's
• 46:02
  Speaker 15: Al also there's nothing like it Also we're living in very tough times and in very tough times you tend to shove the bullshit aside and go for like you know what's the most bang for my buck Uh what's g what's what's gonna fix me now You know And it's and it's gonna be a martini It's not something that's garnished with dried grasshoppers Uh s
• 46:26
  The Restaurant Guys: y you know I think one of the- You, you know what's really funny that you say that?
• 46:29
  The Restaurant Guys: Cause we were literally at a bar the other day where it was an extra$4 for the crunchy crickets.
• 46:36
  The Restaurant Guys: So
• 46:38
  Speaker 15: that stuff believe me But uh at the same time such niceties I think we're we're kind of uh moving beyond right now
• 46:46
  The Restaurant Guys: you know, and again, like we talked about before, the consumers will drive what the bartenders do,'cause if the consumers don't
• 46:51
  Speaker 16: Yeah
• 46:52
  The Restaurant Guys: can work all afternoon.
• 46:54
  The Restaurant Guys: one of the things that happened are always drinks made like this bartender is known for this drink, or this house is known for this specialty drink that they make.
• 47:04
  The Restaurant Guys: But in through even the golden age of the cocktail, or the beginning of it, or the
• 47:08
  Speaker 15: Mm-hmm
• 47:09
  The Restaurant Guys: call it?
• 47:09
  The Restaurant Guys: Peak cocktail.
• 47:10
  The Restaurant Guys: Um, there were drinks that entered the canon penicillin was invented.
• 47:14
  The Restaurant Guys: we had drinks that exist and then they became popular, and they kinda went around the world to the point where if you go to any good bar where there's a good mixologist g- bartender they'll make you a penicillin, right?
• 47:28
  The Restaurant Guys: They, they can probably make penicillin But
• 47:30
  Speaker 15: It's a simple drink
• 47:31
  The Restaurant Guys: Well it also doesn't utilize any drinks the pomegranate syrup through Roto-Fermenter which make in-house and have on hand to make a drink.
• 47:41
  The Restaurant Guys: So what you said before, the drink can't get famous, or I would say, join the canon drinks that Americans drink.
• 47:49
  The Restaurant Guys: I think that's what bartenders want to do You know Like if we have a couple of drinks that survive us because they got written down in the great, the Parasol Mm-hmm and the Belfast cocktail, and the Autumn Leaves which Robert Simonson's book If cocktails are somebody after we're I will consider that.
• 48:06
  The Restaurant Guys: Or, you know, if one of them, you know, there are a few bars you can go into and, and order a of those drinks and they'll make it for you.
• 48:12
  The Restaurant Guys: I, I promise, Francis, after you're dead, I will toast you with one of those drinks I promise and cover book W- if you wanna make a drink that's gonna go somewhere, you have to make a drink that you can make with readily available ingredients
• 48:26
  Speaker 15: have to be like boring readily available ingredients You know A again I think of Italian food where where you are really goddamn careful when you go and choose your ingredients you know And you know the difference between this herb and that herb and and you look at it in the store and you get this sprig not that sprig because you It really does matter But it's choice It's not just piling everything in you know It's it's discrimination
• 48:56
  The Restaurant Guys: Hey try and make a paper plane with Braulio Amaro instead of Nonino Amaro- Yeah and and you're
• 49:02
  Speaker 15: It's
• 49:02
  The Restaurant Guys: you're not gonna like it as much
• 49:03
  Speaker 15: you're not gonna like it as much Exactly
• 49:06
  The Restaurant Guys: it's called The Train Wreck We call it
• 49:07
  Speaker 15: Yeah
• 49:10
  The Restaurant Guys: So in this book, David not You some recipes not primarily a recipe book with stories attached This is an actual history, but you include some recipes.
• 49:20
  Speaker 15: I do
• 49:20
  The Restaurant Guys: about to include and and why and how
• 49:24
  Speaker 15: Well for the main chapters I included obvious drinks how to make a bowl of punch how to make a mint julep just some pretty basic stuff because that's for the purpose of illustration You've just read the history of this period This is the drink from that period you should be trying So I did that but then at the end of the book I tucked in like 10 recipes that I just really liked and a couple of them were drinks that I made up on pretty simple lines I mean nothing nothing revolutionary And others were drinks that in you know my years of prowling through old cocktail books and stuff that had kind of stuck with me that I that I that I like to make so there's one with scotch and white port from Buenos Aires that's an absolutely lovely drink Uh it's super pleasant to drink why not give people I thought a couple drinks to keep in their back pocket that they can pull out when people said Yeah I I've had sidecars I don't want that you know or I I've had some of some of these other drinks So uh I tried to put some of those in there
• 50:31
  The Restaurant Guys: Well, the book's a fun read, and the way I suggest you read it is, uh, f go to the back of the chapter that cocktail and then sip while you that chapter You'll find it much more fulfilling I, I'm gonna tell you, this book is, I mean, it's strikingly beautiful across the room as well as what's between the pages.
• 50:49
  The Restaurant Guys: picking a Christmas present or for yourself.
• 50:51
  The Restaurant Guys: I think it's gonna make a great Christmas present.
• 50:52
  The Restaurant Guys: Yeah.
• 50:53
  The Restaurant Guys: And I and we'll show notes where to buy it places Left Wine Shop.
• 50:59
  The Restaurant Guys: we always have, several copies on hand become a bartender here, you, get a copy of this book now, David.
• 51:04
  The Restaurant Guys: I didn't, I don't know if you know that
• 51:06
  Speaker 15: Oh fantastic I love to hear that That makes me very happy
• 51:10
  The Restaurant Guys: is here go a this is something you need to read.
• 51:13
  The Restaurant Guys: Uh, and you know what's a great way, uh, just on a side note, a great, great present to get somebody if you get them a cocktail book or if you get them...
• 51:19
  The Restaurant Guys: I've given people, like, the ingredients to make a cocktail.
• 51:23
  The Restaurant Guys: Like, to- Mm-hmm a bottle of this, a bottle of that, and a bottle of that.
• 51:26
  The Restaurant Guys: and a recipe, you know?
• 51:27
  The Restaurant Guys: It's kind of a fun thing to give as a gift, and you could do that with a book.
• 51:29
  The Restaurant Guys: Uh, congratulations on this book.
• 51:31
  The Restaurant Guys: It's terrific.
• 51:32
  The Restaurant Guys: It's great to see you again.
• 51:33
  The Restaurant Guys: Lovely hanging out.
• 51:33
  The Restaurant Guys: Thanks for coming on the show, man.
• 51:34
  The Restaurant Guys: Thanks, David.
• 51:36
  Speaker 15: Such a pleasure Thank you so much Uh you know you'll always find me a willing guest and uh I look forward to those drinks Uh can't wait
• 51:45
  The Restaurant Guys: Uh, so you can find out more about us and David Wondrich and this book and those cocktail recipes at restaurantguyspodcast.com.
• 51:52
  The Restaurant Guys: We'll be back in just a moment.
• 51:54
  Francis: Okay, now I want a cocktail.
• 51:56
  Mark: I always want a
• 51:57
  Francis: Yeah, that's true.
• 51:58
  Francis: That's true.
• 51:58
  Francis: That's true.
• 51:59
  Francis: Do you think we have a problem?
• 52:01
  Mark: Breakfast, lunch,
• 52:02
  Francis: dinner- Uh, we
• 52:02
  Mark: after dinner, before bed.
• 52:04
  Mark: I
• 52:04
  Francis: got to be old guys, so, uh, you know, uh, at least the problem is a long, slow burn.
• 52:08
  Mark: So David mentioned a cocktail that came about here during the...
• 52:13
  Mark: Well, it came about a long time ago in 1900, but, but really still has its claws in the cocktail world that I don't
• 52:23
  Francis: What cocktail's that?
• 52:24
  Mark: I don't understand the dirty martini.
• 52:27
  Francis: Yeah, you don't like olives,
• 52:28
  Mark: I don't get it.
• 52:29
  Francis: You don't like olives.
• 52:29
  Francis: I,
• 52:30
  Mark: I don't like olives.
• 52:30
  Mark: I don't like brine.
• 52:31
  Mark: I don't...
• 52:32
  Mark: What do you, why are you putting the garbage water in my cocktail?
• 52:35
  Mark: Even
• 52:36
  Francis: We've always thought about that.
• 52:37
  Francis: Even when we were young bartenders at The Frog and the Peach, they're like,"Oh, I want a dirty martini." Oh, you want some of this shit I was gonna throw away in your martini?
• 52:42
  Francis: That'll be 50 cents." and that was a long time ago.
• 52:49
  Francis: Ah, I love it.
• 52:50
  Francis: I, I do get it, Mark, but I get it, like, I remember when we were bartenders at 21 and 22 years old, people asked for a dirty martini.
• 52:58
  Francis: They'd like a little bit of the olive juice- Mm-hmm in the martini.
• 53:01
  Francis: Yeah.
• 53:01
  Francis: I feel like that salty, briny thing, I get it, but now people drink dirty martinis, and
• 53:05
  Mark: half and half.
• 53:06
  Francis: It...
• 53:06
  Francis: Oh, yeah.
• 53:06
  Francis: It's olive juice flavored with gin.
• 53:08
  Francis: I don't...
• 53:09
  Francis: And look, hey, you know what?
• 53:10
  Francis: No shot on you.
• 53:11
  Francis: If you like it, that's great.
• 53:13
  Francis: but it's- I, I'm sorry I mean, good for you.
• 53:14
  Francis: I don't
• 53:15
  Mark: You know how we're not supposed to judge people?
• 53:17
  Mark: Yeah.
• 53:17
  Mark: I judge you when you order a dirty martini.
• 53:19
  Francis: martinis.
• 53:19
  Francis: I don't.
• 53:20
  Francis: I don't.
• 53:20
  Francis: I-
• 53:20
  Mark: I- I'm judging you
• 53:21
  Francis: I get it.
• 53:22
  Francis: I think when it goes too far, I don't understand it, but that doesn't mean that I don't respect you for, you know,
• 53:27
  Mark: No, I can respect you.
• 53:28
  Mark: I, I just don't like your
• 53:30
  Francis: the drink.
• 53:30
  Francis: Well, also, here's the thing.
• 53:32
  Francis: Am I gonna use Procera$75 a bottle African gin and put some 0 cents a bottle, uh, uh, olive juice into it?
• 53:41
  Francis: I mean, it's like, And look, that's, that's not a shot.
• 53:44
  Francis: Like, I don't cook with ground crew Burgundy.
• 53:47
  Francis: You know what I mean?
• 53:47
  Francis: It's like, or I don't make a s- wine spritzer out of a,$200 bottle of Burgundy.
• 53:51
  Francis: And, and the reason is, why that's a$200 bottle of Burgundy, why that's a$75 bottle of gin is there's all sorts of subtlety and nuance and richness that it's gonna get lost if you just throw a bunch of salty olive juice in there.
• 54:04
  Francis: you care about the texture of the gin, but it, it's just, you know, hand grenades and horseshoes.
• 54:08
  Francis: Doesn't matter that much.
• 54:09
  Francis: That's
• 54:09
  Mark: a lot of talk- Just, just say it.
• 54:15
  Mark: It's gross.
• 54:16
  Mark: No.
• 54:16
  Mark: Stop it uh, uh,
• 54:18
  Francis: uh, it applies the same to the, uh, blue cheese filled olives.
• 54:23
  Francis: I think a blue cheese olive martini, I don't drink them, but I get them, but don't use an expensive gin on your blue cheese olive
• 54:31
  Mark: Okay.
• 54:31
  Mark: How about this?
• 54:32
  Mark: Got it.
• 54:33
  Mark: Drink some gin- and eat some blue cheese stuffed olives.
• 54:36
  Mark: How about that?
• 54:37
  Mark: How about you do that instead of grossing me the hell out?
• 54:40
  Mark: I
• 54:40
  Francis: think this is one of those rare instances when you're being a little too fancy and effete, and I'm being the everyman
• 54:46
  Mark: Yeah, okay.
• 54:47
  Mark: You can't call me too fancy and then use a, the word effete in the same sentence.
• 54:52
  Mark: Okay?
• 54:52
  Mark: That's not okay.
• 54:54
  Francis: that- using the word effete makes me effete?
• 54:57
  Francis: I d- that does not compute.
• 54:58
  Francis: I'm gonna have to think about that for the rest of the day.
• 55:00
  Francis: I hope you've enjoyed your time with The Restaurant Guys today.
• 55:02
  Francis: Mark and I are gonna have a fight and a martini in just a moment.
• 55:05
  Francis: I'm Francis Sciatta.
• 55:06
  Mark: I'm Mark Pascal.
• 55:07
  Francis: are The Restaurant Guys.
• 55:08
  Francis: You can always find out more about us, like, follow, and subscribe at restaurantguyspodcast.com.