Latest / The Restaurant Guys / Reviving Gage & Tollner and Reinventing Tropical Cocktails | St. John Frizell & Garret Richard

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Reviving Gage & Tollner and Reinventing Tropical Cocktails | St. John Frizell & Garret Richard · The Restaurant Guys

0:34
Speaker 39: You can do the thing?
0:35
Speaker 14: Uh-huh
0:36
Speaker 39: Do the thing.
0:36
Speaker 39: I'm gonna do the thing?
0:38
Speaker 14: I gonna do the thing?
0:38
Speaker 14: Do the thing.
0:39
Speaker 3: Do the thing.
0:39
Speaker 14: I'm gonna do the thing.
0:40
Speaker 14: Yeah.
0:40
Speaker 39: go ahead
0:40
Speaker 14: You guys ready for the thing?
0:42
Speaker 14: Ready.
0:42
Speaker 14: Hello everybody, and welcome.
0:43
Speaker 14: You are here with The Restaurant Guys.
0:46
Speaker 14: I'm Mark Pascal, he's Francis Schott.
0:47
Speaker 14: Together we own Stage Left and Catherine Lombardi Restaurants in New Brunswick, New Jersey.
0:51
Speaker 14: We're here to bring you the finer things in life.
0:54
Speaker 14: Hi.
0:55
Speaker 4: Hi.
0:55
Speaker 14: Hey.
0:56
Speaker 39: You know, that is so-
0:57
Speaker 14: I changed it a little bit.
0:58
Speaker 14: Yeah.
0:58
Speaker 14: It messed him up.
0:59
Speaker 14: I changed him just a little bit
1:01
Speaker 4: these live
1:01
Speaker 15: Shows are some of our favorite things to do.
1:01
Speaker 15: These, uh, recorded in front of live audience shows are, are some of our favorite things to do.
1:01
Speaker 15: To those of you listening- But we only do them with people we like
1:02
Speaker 4: of our favorite things to do.
1:03
Speaker 4: For those of you listening- But
1:04
Speaker 3: we only do them with people we
1:06
Speaker 25: we like.
1:07
Speaker 14: And garum
1:08
Speaker 39: And Garrett.
1:10
Speaker 4: So for those of you
1:10
Speaker 25: those of you who are listening, uh, at home, everybody here has cool cocktails made by Garrett.
1:14
Speaker 25: We're at the Sunken Harbor Club and, uh, Gage&Tollner here in Brooklyn.
1:18
Speaker 25: Um, and we'll talk about our two guests in a moment.
1:20
Speaker 25: Uh, if you are listening at
1:22
Speaker 4: At home, we suggest
1:23
Speaker 25: you
1:23
Speaker 4: you make a drink
1:23
Speaker 25: because Mark and I are way more interesting if you're drinking while listening
1:26
Speaker 39: to us.
1:27
Speaker 25: to us.
1:27
Speaker 25: Uh, if you're driving, don't do that.
1:29
Speaker 25: That'd be bad.
1:30
Speaker 25: Uh, but
1:31
Speaker 4: So we're gonna
1:32
Speaker 15: So we're gonna introduce
1:32
Speaker 25: you to our
1:33
Speaker 14: if you're driving, just drink the one you already have
1:34
Speaker 4: Yeah.
1:35
Speaker 39: one you already have.
1:35
Speaker 39: Yeah.
1:36
Speaker 25: Uh, and we're gonna introduce you to our guests.
1:38
Speaker 4: and we're
1:39
Speaker 25: those of you who aren't
1:40
Speaker 4: gonna introduce you to our guests.
1:40
Speaker 25: probably
1:40
Speaker 4: know these guys
1:42
Speaker 25: Uh, we're guests in their home, but they're guests on our
1:44
Speaker 4: So Garrett is the author of"Tropical Standard."
1:46
Speaker 39: He's
1:46
Speaker 4: the CCO, that's the chief cocktail officer of the Sunken Harbor Club, and he's VinePair's Next Wave Bartender of the Year 2024
1:54
Speaker 25: 2024.
1:54
Speaker 25: Um, we've known him since Existing
1:56
Speaker 4: Shins, Lily Shirley, The Monkey Bar
1:57
Speaker 25: Monkey Bar, great journey through some of the best cocktail places in
2:00
Speaker 4: In America and
2:01
Speaker 25: And his book is"Tropical Standard" that he wrote with Ben
2:03
Speaker 15: Shafer, he's also an author.
2:03
Speaker 15: Also an award-winning writer.
2:03
Speaker 15: Sinjin,
2:04
Speaker 25: who's also an author.
2:05
Speaker 25: Also
2:05
Speaker 4: an award-winning writer, Sinjin,
2:07
Speaker 15: co-founder of Gaijin-
2:09
Speaker 4: Uh, his writing you can read in Bon Appétit, Saveur, Punch,
2:12
Speaker 15: by, um, and of course, G&T is recognized by VinePair as well,
2:15
Speaker 25: We'll
2:16
Speaker 15: which is
2:16
Speaker 25: use that as the...
2:17
Speaker 4: So many awards, but that'll be the anchor.
2:18
Speaker 4: best food and beverage
2:20
Speaker 25: award.
2:20
Speaker 25: and this is easily one of the most innovative and unique
2:23
Speaker 15: Resurrections and openings of
2:24
Speaker 4: openings
2:24
Speaker 25: any restaurant anywhere in America.
2:26
Speaker 25: And, uh, we couldn't be happier to
2:28
Speaker 14: So glad to have you guys on the show.
2:30
Speaker 14: Yeah.
2:30
Speaker 27: on the
2:30
Speaker 25: show.
2:30
Speaker 25: Great
2:30
Speaker 26: to be
2:31
Speaker 14: Welcome to the restaurant, guys.
2:32
Speaker 14: All right, I'm gonna start today's show with a little confession.
2:36
Speaker 39: But I'm gonna start today's show with a little confession.
2:36
Speaker 39: Uh-oh.
2:37
Speaker 14: Sinjin, this is a confession to you.
2:39
Speaker 26: Okay.
2:40
Speaker 14: So over the years, we've met a bunch of times, and I'm gonna say it was on our third or fourth, fourth meeting where I realized that Sinjin and St.
2:51
Speaker 14: John Frizell were the same guy.
2:53
Speaker 26: John Frizell all the time.
2:54
Speaker 26: My question is, who did you have the higher opinion of?
2:54
Speaker 26: So, uh, just a quick explanation of- Yeah
2:54
Speaker 39: like, I read this guy St.
2:55
Speaker 39: John Frizell all the
2:57
Speaker 26: St.
2:58
Speaker 5: My question is who did you have the higher opinion of?
3:04
Speaker 14: So, uh, just a quick explanation of Sinjin and St.
3:07
Speaker 14: John and- Okay, sure and why I'm s- and why I'm so stupid.
3:10
Speaker 14: My
3:13
Speaker 16: mom's in the audience.
3:13
Speaker 26: but,
3:14
Speaker 6: I'm gonna ask her.
3:14
Speaker 6: But, um, i- it's like the name Sinclair is sometimes, uh, pronounced, uh, Sinclair even though sometimes it's spelled St.
3:20
Speaker 6: Clair.
3:21
Speaker 6: You're just supposed to say Sinclair.
3:23
Speaker 6: If you're on the London Tube, you go by St.
3:25
Speaker 6: Pancras Station.
3:28
Speaker 6: It's, It's, just, it's an old English thing.
3:30
Speaker 6: It's usually a middle name.
3:32
Speaker 6: was a James Bond film where he used it as an alias.
3:35
Speaker 6: This was, uh,
3:36
Speaker 26: A,
3:36
Speaker 6: A View to a Kill,
3:37
Speaker 40: he used it as an alias.
3:37
Speaker 40: This was A View to a Kill
3:38
Speaker 6: and I saw him say...
3:40
Speaker 6: They asked his name in the movie, and he said,
3:42
Speaker 26: "Sinjin Smythe.
3:43
Speaker 6: James Sinjin Smythe." And I
3:46
Speaker 26: I
3:46
Speaker 6: thought,"Oh my God, my life
3:48
Speaker 26: has
3:49
Speaker 14: Your life has changed forever
3:49
Speaker 6: forever.
3:50
Speaker 6: Now everyone will know how
3:52
Speaker 26: to pronounce my name."
3:53
Speaker 14: That's amazing.
3:54
Speaker 14: I did not know you were born on the London Tube.
3:57
Speaker 15: We
4:01
Speaker 39: at the Pegu Club- Yeah
4:02
Speaker 15: actually said our first meeting was you were bartending at the Pickwick Club.
4:02
Speaker 15: Yeah.
4:02
Speaker 39: Saunders, like the first year or so of the Pegu Club, and, uh, it was amazing.
4:06
Speaker 39: I also, had read your work and didn't know that that was the guy I knew was a bartender.
4:10
Speaker 39: I
4:10
Speaker 25: I
4:10
Speaker 39: I literally
4:10
Speaker 25: found it like seven years later- Yeah and it was the same guy.
4:13
Speaker 26: Yeah.
4:13
Speaker 25: so
4:14
Speaker 4: So anyway
4:14
Speaker 25: Garrett and we met, and Garrett holds a d- d- serious place in our heart because before you were the famous bartender you are now, and before we were the famous podcasters we are now um,
4:24
Speaker 15: Um, we were maybe a few years in.
4:28
Speaker 15: It was 2009, I think we were a few years into doing the, the radio
4:30
Speaker 25: uh, show and the pod-
4:31
Speaker 39: podcast.
4:32
Speaker 39: I don't know if you remember this, but we were at Tales of the Cocktail,
4:36
Speaker 25: And, you know, we
4:37
Speaker 39: weren't
4:37
Speaker 25: weren't as Instagram
4:38
Speaker 39: video
4:39
Speaker 25: photograph friendly as we are today.
4:42
Speaker 25: This guy says, um
4:43
Speaker 39: "E- excuse me.
4:45
Speaker 39: may sound crazy, but I think I recognize your
4:48
Speaker 25: "Are you'The Restaurant
4:49
Speaker 39: Guys?"
4:50
Speaker 4: The restaurant guys?
4:51
Speaker 39: It's
4:51
Speaker 25: Guys?'" It was the
4:51
Speaker 14: Boys, are you the
4:52
Speaker 39: we were
4:52
Speaker 25: we were ever recognized by anyone.
4:53
Speaker 25: And so thank
4:54
Speaker 14: restaurateur guys?
4:54
Speaker 14: The first time we were ever recognized by anybody.
4:54
Speaker 14: And the third time was last week
4:56
Speaker 5: last week
4:58
Speaker 28: So anyway,
5:00
Speaker 39: we've
5:00
Speaker 28: been friends ever since.
5:01
Speaker 28: Well, it
5:01
Speaker 5: Well, it was funny because I was working in radio at the time.
5:04
Speaker 5: I was a college student working at WFUV, worked a year after graduating, and I started
5:11
Speaker 18: Looking for radio shows
5:13
Speaker 5: and podcasts that were talking about this, and there really weren't any other than
5:17
Speaker 28: really weren't any other
5:18
Speaker 5: you, and
5:19
Speaker 18: And then I think maybe episode
5:21
Speaker 5: one
5:21
Speaker 18: of Damon Balti's show and Dave Arnold's show, but there really I knew I liked cocktails.
5:28
Speaker 18: I got Jeff Berry's books
5:29
Speaker 5: I didn't know where to go.
5:30
Speaker 5: And
5:31
Speaker 18: The Restaurant Guys really was, for me, a guide to
5:31
Speaker 5: Restaurant Guys really was, for me, a guide to like, okay,
5:36
Speaker 18: go to
5:36
Speaker 5: Paegu, go to
5:37
Speaker 28: go
5:37
Speaker 5: Flatiron Lounge, like hit up these people that these guys interviewed and, you know, have their drinks.
5:42
Speaker 5: So you're kind of responsible for all this.
5:44
Speaker 5: I prefer to be
5:45
Speaker 4: irresponsible,
5:46
Speaker 14: Lounge, like hit up these people that these guys interviewed and, you know, have their drinks.
5:46
Speaker 14: So you're kind of responsible for all these people.
5:46
Speaker 14: I prefer to be irresponsible, just so you know.
5:48
Speaker 5: be
5:48
Speaker 4: a nuclear physicist, but instead-
5:51
Speaker 5: Yeah.
5:51
Speaker 25: gonna be a
5:52
Speaker 5: Thanks, guys.
5:53
Speaker 25: made drinks.
5:54
Speaker 25: Sorry.
5:54
Speaker 25: Thanks, guys.
5:54
Speaker 25: So, uh, we wanna talk about a number of things, and we're gonna talk with each of you
5:57
Speaker 39: of you
5:57
Speaker 25: about different things and where this comes together,'cause this is a, the coolest fucking restaurant cocktail bar concept outside of Stage Left and Capon Lombardi in America.
6:05
Speaker 25: Um, those are our restaurants
6:06
Speaker 39: those of you who couldn't,
6:07
Speaker 15: those are our restaurants we're opening.
6:07
Speaker 15: Right.
6:07
Speaker 39: get that from context.
6:08
Speaker 39: Um, but w- w- why don't you tell
6:10
Speaker 25: for those of you who couldn't, couldn't get that from context.
6:10
Speaker 25: Um, but w- why don't you tell us, we've had two drinks so far.
6:12
Speaker 25: Yeah.
6:12
Speaker 25: Sorry
6:12
Speaker 4: Yeah.
6:13
Speaker 25: at home,
6:13
Speaker 15: What did, what did we have so far?
6:14
Speaker 15: So we started off
6:14
Speaker 18: with
6:15
Speaker 15: the
6:15
Speaker 5: we started off with the
6:16
Speaker 18: special Daiquiri Number One, which was on our opening menu.
6:19
Speaker 18: it was a drink that was in Tropical Standard, and it was really important
6:24
Speaker 5: when we were initially--
6:25
Speaker 18: when
6:25
Speaker 5: Sinjin and I were talking about
6:27
Speaker 18: we
6:27
Speaker 28: and I were talking about the
6:28
Speaker 5: we really got dialed
6:29
Speaker 18: initially, when
6:30
Speaker 5: the idea of like, let's
6:31
Speaker 18: Sanja
6:31
Speaker 5: the sections
6:33
Speaker 18: I were talking about the menu, we really got dialed into the idea of like, let's do the sections of by strength of alcohol, like a low strength, medium, high strength, The original Dawn menu was before sunset, sunset, later were the three sections.
6:40
Speaker 18: For some reason, the zombie
6:46
Speaker 5: Sunset.
6:46
Speaker 41: sunset.
6:47
Speaker 18: was sunset.
6:47
Speaker 18: I
6:47
Speaker 14: don't know
6:48
Speaker 18: why.
6:49
Speaker 18: Yeah.
6:49
Speaker 18: Pause to sunset.
6:51
Speaker 18: Yeah.
6:51
Speaker 39: why
6:52
Speaker 5: Like some of the logic you question, but, um, was important for us to do these sort of smaller 1930s crushed ice drinks where they were in very petite glassware because that format
7:05
Speaker 18: obviously that format had
7:05
Speaker 5: and the
7:06
Speaker 18: died, and the only place I had seen it was,
7:08
Speaker 5: places
7:08
Speaker 18: like the Mai Tai that were still, like-
7:10
Speaker 5: to the original Don the Beachcomber style.
7:13
Speaker 18: So we had the special
7:13
Speaker 5: Daiquiri Number One
7:14
Speaker 18: Daiquiri Number One to start, and now we're having an El Presidente,
7:17
Speaker 5: which is inspired by Pegu Club
7:19
Speaker 18: is inspired by Pe- Pegu Club because the El Presidente really is
7:20
Speaker 5: the
7:21
Speaker 18: kind of rum answer to the Martini or the Manhattan.
7:25
Speaker 18: And when I was working on this drink originally
7:28
Speaker 5: at my
7:28
Speaker 18: pop-up called
7:29
Speaker 5: Exotica, which was at Raines Law
7:30
Speaker 18: Exotica, which was at Raines Law Room, but then really dialing in the recipe for the book for"Tropical Standard," I realized I wanted this drink to be 50/50'cause the original El Presidente was two ounces of
7:41
Speaker 28: vermouth
7:42
Speaker 18: vermouth and one ounce of spirit, and nowadays it's the exact opposite.
7:44
Speaker 18: It's
7:44
Speaker 5: the exact opposite.
7:45
Speaker 18: more rum forward.
7:46
Speaker 18: And I just went back to that first Pegu Club experience I had,
7:50
Speaker 5: having
7:51
Speaker 18: a
7:51
Speaker 5: fitty-fitty
7:52
Speaker 18: Martini from Audrey, and I was like,"It'd be really cool to do this with the El Presidente." And I remember I brought that idea up to you, and you
7:58
Speaker 5: absolutely have to n- have some sort of nod to the 50/50 on the menu." And doing it
8:03
Speaker 18: were like,"We absolutely have to m- have some sort of nod to the 50/50 on the menu," and doing it with rum
8:03
Speaker 5: was, I think, a really cool idea
8:05
Speaker 39: thank you for the drinks, and they're wonderful.
8:07
Speaker 39: this is a
8:08
Speaker 25: It's a cool audience
8:08
Speaker 39: Uh, for those of you who ar- aren't here, or some of you are here may not know, uh, we have old restaurant friends who've run some of the best restaurants in Manhattan.
8:16
Speaker 39: We have, uh,
8:17
Speaker 25: The
8:17
Speaker 15: The owners
8:17
Speaker 25: of Yanques de Pisco, which just got a launch in the United States are here
8:21
Speaker 39: this evening.
8:21
Speaker 39: our friend Corey, who taught Audrey Saunders how to bartend, is sitting right over there, um, years ago.
8:26
Speaker 39: Uh.
8:27
Speaker 39: That's
8:27
Speaker 5: He's, he, he's shaking his
8:28
Speaker 14: He's, he,
8:29
Speaker 5: no, but Hey, just
8:30
Speaker 14: he's shaking his head no.
8:30
Speaker 14: And just so you know, we are leaving that in the podcast.
8:33
Speaker 4: know, we are leaving that in the podcast.
8:33
Speaker 4: Yeah.
8:33
Speaker 39: says.
8:33
Speaker 25: That's what she says.
8:34
Speaker 25: We are leaving that in the podcast.
8:34
Speaker 39: Uh, uh, we have our, friend Katie from th- the Dead-- who works for
8:37
Speaker 25: The Dead Rabbit, and why The Dead Rabbit came to mind is, um, Dead Rabbit, our, our friends Jack and Sean, who we knew back in Belfast before they came here, they came and they many years get ready to open The Dead Rabbit, and it was like tragedy, like day one, like hurricane
8:50
Speaker 39: tropical storms, fires,
8:52
Speaker 25: All kinds of crazy stuff.
8:53
Speaker 25: And it was crazy how they came about.
8:56
Speaker 25: But
8:56
Speaker 39: nothing
8:57
Speaker 25: tops the
8:57
Speaker 15: Story of the place we're in, I wanna read you, uh, from our friend- Oh
8:58
Speaker 25: of the place we're in.
8:58
Speaker 25: I wanna read you, uh, from our friend Robert- Oh...Simonson, uh, what he wrote in The New York Times.
9:04
Speaker 25: this appeared on March
9:05
Speaker 39: 4th,
9:05
Speaker 25: 4th, 2020.
9:08
Speaker 25: The
9:08
Speaker 4: The return of Gage Tollner, a
9:08
Speaker 25: of
9:08
Speaker 39: Gage
9:08
Speaker 25: Gage Tollner, a
9:09
Speaker 4: Victorian haunt with a new vibe.
9:10
Speaker 4: The owners of Good Fork, Insa, and Fort Defiance are reviving
9:14
Speaker 25: the 19th
9:14
Speaker 15: Century New York dining institution.
9:14
Speaker 15: From further in the article,"Degen Tolner, one of the most storied restaurants in the New York, in New York food history, is finally reopening." Yay
9:15
Speaker 4: New York dining institution.
9:16
Speaker 25: institution."
9:17
Speaker 39: From
9:17
Speaker 4: further in the article, Gage Tollner, of the most storied restaurants in New York food history, is finally
9:22
Speaker 25: reopening-" Yay
9:24
Speaker 4: Yay
9:24
Speaker 25: March 15th."
9:25
Speaker 4: 15th.
9:27
Speaker 39: Um.
9:28
Speaker 39: Wow.
9:30
Speaker 14: ended.
9:30
Speaker 14: Wow.
9:31
Speaker 15: The 16th.
9:31
Speaker 15: It ended up 16th.
9:32
Speaker 14: So did you actually get to serve a drink before they closed
9:35
Speaker 3: the whole world?
9:35
Speaker 14: the whole world?
9:36
Speaker 6: So we,
9:37
Speaker 26: we
9:37
Speaker 6: actually hosted before
9:40
Speaker 26: March,
9:40
Speaker 6: uh, 15th, a, a great series of super spreader events here.
9:45
Speaker 6: Oh, yeah.
9:45
Speaker 6: For,
9:45
Speaker 26: for for, for
9:49
Speaker 6: press and for investors.
9:51
Speaker 6: Um, I, I, I remember I went to, like, the Duane Reade that's across the street here, and,
9:56
Speaker 26: uh,
9:57
Speaker 6: I realized that one of the bar sinks
9:58
Speaker 26: didn't
9:59
Speaker 6: a hand
10:00
Speaker 16: So
10:00
Speaker 6: And so I was like,"Oh, what if the DOH sh- shows up?" So I went over there and
10:04
Speaker 26: I was like,"Where's
10:04
Speaker 6: I
10:04
Speaker 26: the hand soap?
10:05
Speaker 6: was
10:05
Speaker 26: going on here?"
10:06
Speaker 6: like,"Where's all the hand soap?
10:06
Speaker 6: What's going on here?" Oh, no.
10:06
Speaker 6: Like, the
10:07
Speaker 26: the
10:07
Speaker 6: whole shelf was empty.
10:08
Speaker 6: I really didn't know what was happening'cause I was opening a restaurant, and so it's like,
10:12
Speaker 26: you know,
10:13
Speaker 39: You
10:13
Speaker 26: was
10:14
Speaker 15: Yeah, exactly.
10:14
Speaker 15: So, so, so what happens?
10:14
Speaker 15: So the, they, the you were about to open and the governor says
10:14
Speaker 6: Opening
10:17
Speaker 39: you were about to open and the governor
10:20
Speaker 4: a restaurant.
10:20
Speaker 4: Yes, exactly.
10:20
Speaker 4: Yeah.
10:20
Speaker 4: So, so, so what happens?
10:20
Speaker 4: It-- So the, they, the, you were about to open and the governor says
10:20
Speaker 39: more restaurants for an in- indefinite period of time." How did you guys survive?
10:24
Speaker 39: What was the impact to...
10:25
Speaker 39: You know, give us a little
10:26
Speaker 14: 'Cause now you're not available, you could lay people off and they collect unemployment.
10:30
Speaker 14: You didn't get any of that
10:31
Speaker 6: Luckily, we had applied for an SBA loan, um, about six months earlier'cause I realized that we were running out of money.
10:36
Speaker 6: We, we're not gonna have enough to get through the first months.
10:40
Speaker 6: So that loan came in right after, COVID happened, and also our landlords here gave us a really good deal.
10:46
Speaker 6: They said,"If you can't use the building for
10:48
Speaker 26: you wanna use it
10:49
Speaker 6: what you wanna use it for, we're not going to charge you rent for it." Wow.
10:51
Speaker 3: Wow.
10:51
Speaker 3: That's
10:51
Speaker 14: That's amazing
10:53
Speaker 26: it
10:53
Speaker 6: was, it was the best deal that I heard of-
10:55
Speaker 26: Yeah
10:56
Speaker 6: Yeah from a landlord in the city.
10:57
Speaker 39: was the best
10:57
Speaker 3: no,
10:57
Speaker 6: we
10:57
Speaker 3: got a
10:58
Speaker 6: similar
10:58
Speaker 4: deal, but we own our
10:59
Speaker 39: building, so
10:59
Speaker 4: we
10:59
Speaker 26: own our building, so
11:00
Speaker 39: ourselves the same
11:01
Speaker 3: gave ourselves a deal.
11:01
Speaker 14: Francis, we're not paying.
11:03
Speaker 14: Okay, we're not paying
11:04
Speaker 39: we're not paying.
11:05
Speaker 39: Okay.
11:05
Speaker 39: that
11:06
Speaker 25: is
11:06
Speaker 39: it.
11:06
Speaker 25: a
11:06
Speaker 4: For administrator
11:06
Speaker 25: tr-- that you have come through with that.
11:08
Speaker 25: Now, when did you finally get the doors open?
11:10
Speaker 6: April, uh, 2021
11:12
Speaker 4: Wow.
11:12
Speaker 4: God bless you.
11:12
Speaker 4: So a little round of
11:13
Speaker 14: That's a long year.
11:14
Speaker 39: A
11:14
Speaker 3: Yeah.
11:15
Speaker 14: a long year, man.
11:16
Speaker 3: year,
11:16
Speaker 14: But
11:17
Speaker 3: But
11:17
Speaker 14: when you initially funded Gage Tollner, some of your funds came from unusual sourcing.
11:23
Speaker 14: I, I love that story.
11:24
Speaker 14: The- Yeah
11:26
Speaker 6: I mean, so we,
11:27
Speaker 26: huh.
11:28
Speaker 6: it--
11:28
Speaker 16: All right.
11:28
Speaker 16: So I do have to
11:28
Speaker 14: go back to the beginning.
11:29
Speaker 14: So I was-- we were-- I was trying to open this on the Harbor front
11:29
Speaker 6: we...
11:29
Speaker 6: All right.
11:29
Speaker 6: So I may as
11:30
Speaker 26: well
11:30
Speaker 6: well go back to the beginning.
11:31
Speaker 6: So I was, I was trying to open the Sunken Harbor Club-
11:34
Speaker 26: when
11:34
Speaker 6: we found the space for Gage and Tollner.
11:38
Speaker 6: Um, I was in the neighborhood...
11:39
Speaker 26: in
11:40
Speaker 6: 2015, I got divorced, and
11:42
Speaker 26: if you know anything about a divorce,
11:44
Speaker 6: know anything about a divorce, s-sometimes you end up with less money
11:46
Speaker 26: at the end of a divorce than you
11:47
Speaker 6: at the end of
11:48
Speaker 4: a divorce.
11:48
Speaker 4: Hold on a
11:49
Speaker 6: second.
11:49
Speaker 6: Hold on a second.
11:50
Speaker 6: No.
11:50
Speaker 6: No, it's true.
11:51
Speaker 6: It's true.
11:52
Speaker 6: So I realized that, my revenue at, Fort Defiance, which was my neighborhood bar-
11:56
Speaker 26: was
11:57
Speaker 6: was not going to be sufficient to support myself, so I had this other concept called the Sunken Harbor Club, which started as a weekly
12:05
Speaker 26: pop-up
12:05
Speaker 6: or like a weekly event
12:07
Speaker 26: that we would do
12:07
Speaker 6: that we would do at the Fort.
12:08
Speaker 26: I'm sorry, I just wanna interrupt you for one second.
12:08
Speaker 26: Yeah.
12:09
Speaker 14: I'm sorry, just wanna interrupt you for one second.
12:10
Speaker 14: Yeah.
12:10
Speaker 14: For those of you out there who are thinking about increasing your revenue by opening a restaurant, it, it, it's not the way.
12:19
Speaker 6: He's right.
12:20
Speaker 26: He's
12:20
Speaker 14: If
12:21
Speaker 18: I, if I may pop for a second.
12:26
Speaker 5: about
12:26
Speaker 18: the pop-up culture about 10 years ago, I think is very different than what it is now.
12:29
Speaker 18: Mm-hmm.
12:30
Speaker 5: like now it is much more product driven, and I think to give the listeners and everyone in the room just some context, back
12:39
Speaker 18: Then there were pop-ups that were sort
12:41
Speaker 28: like
12:42
Speaker 18: crimes of passion, I guess, where, where it's like th- I don't have the money to do X, but I can get one day to do, like one day a week to do it.
12:48
Speaker 5: X, but I can get one day to d-
12:51
Speaker 18: for Brian Miller and
12:54
Speaker 5: that
12:54
Speaker 18: Tiki
12:54
Speaker 5: that was the case for Brian Miller and Tiki Mondays.
12:57
Speaker 18: Mondays.
12:57
Speaker 18: Mm-hmm.
12:58
Speaker 15: That was the case for Millie
12:58
Speaker 25: way to lose money on a small scale before you- Yeah.
13:02
Speaker 28: E-
13:02
Speaker 5: E- exactly.
13:03
Speaker 25: graduated and
13:03
Speaker 5: yeah.
13:04
Speaker 28: on a
13:05
Speaker 6: Yeah.
13:05
Speaker 26: Yeah.
13:05
Speaker 6: So there was, there was a very, devoted, bartender at The Fort named Zach Overman, who's now out in, uh, Seattle.
13:12
Speaker 6: He has a place called LorSan,
13:12
Speaker 26: San,
13:13
Speaker 6: is great, and I would recommend
13:15
Speaker 26: to anyone that goes out there.
13:16
Speaker 26: His, uh, drinks are
13:17
Speaker 6: to anyone that goes out there.
13:17
Speaker 6: His, uh, drinks are still fantastic.
13:18
Speaker 6: He was a tiki nut.
13:20
Speaker 6: I was not.
13:21
Speaker 6: I was a- Skeptic Audrey Saunders.
13:23
Speaker 6: was a skeptic.
13:24
Speaker 40: Saunders.
13:24
Speaker 40: I
13:24
Speaker 26: we th-
13:24
Speaker 6: we thought, back in those days, we thought tiki drinks were not serious enough.
13:29
Speaker 6: We were into Manhattans and martinis-
13:30
Speaker 26: martinis
13:30
Speaker 6: and classic drinks.
13:31
Speaker 40: drinks.
13:32
Speaker 40: And,
13:32
Speaker 6: uh, and he worked on me for about six months just bringing me tiki drink after tiki drink until they finally got
13:38
Speaker 16: Good enough where
13:39
Speaker 6: I was like,"Okay, let's do this."
13:41
Speaker 16: I was like,"Okay, let's do this." So we did it one day a week.
13:42
Speaker 16: We did it on, uh, Thursday nights.
13:44
Speaker 16: Garrett was a guest.
13:45
Speaker 18: I was.
13:45
Speaker 18: I did it once.
13:46
Speaker 16: Yeah.
13:46
Speaker 18: Yeah.
13:47
Speaker 16: And, it was great fun.
13:48
Speaker 16: So in 2015,
13:49
Speaker 40: 2015,
13:50
Speaker 16: the only idea I had was to start a podcast
13:52
Speaker 6: the Sag Harbor Club,
13:53
Speaker 26: and
13:53
Speaker 6: and I was like,"Well, this is it.
13:54
Speaker 6: This is the concept.
13:55
Speaker 6: I'm gonna take this around."
13:56
Speaker 16: So I tried to find some, uh
13:58
Speaker 6: partners and ended up with two of my favorite, people in the world, my, uh, partners-
14:03
Speaker 14: funny, I did the opposite.
14:04
Speaker 3: I I, I partnered with- Thanks, buddy one of
14:05
Speaker 14: I partner with
14:06
Speaker 3: Anyway, so cut to
14:06
Speaker 14: one of my least favorite people in the world
14:09
Speaker 26: Anyway, so
14:10
Speaker 6: 2017.
14:12
Speaker 6: I knew Downtown, uh, Brooklyn was where I wanted to open because there was nothing here.
14:17
Speaker 6: I got divorced in the, uh, courthouse that's like like
14:20
Speaker 26: a f- a
14:20
Speaker 6: a few steps away, and after, after the divorce, I walked out and wanted a martini or something, and ended up getting a prickly pear margarita
14:30
Speaker 26: at
14:30
Speaker 6: at Rocco's Tacos, which was the only restaurant around.
14:33
Speaker 16: A very authentic Mexican,
14:35
Speaker 6: from South
14:36
Speaker 16: chain from South
14:38
Speaker 14: Beach What?
14:39
Speaker 14: Rocco makes some bitching tacos, I'll tell you
14:42
Speaker 5: does.
14:42
Speaker 5: Yeah.
14:43
Speaker 6: So anyway, so I'm in the neighborhood and we're looking at a site.
14:47
Speaker 6: I dragged, uh, Ben along'cause he knows everything about, buildings and-
14:51
Speaker 26: construction.
14:52
Speaker 6: and there was rain coming through the roof of this space that I had
14:56
Speaker 26: seen
14:56
Speaker 6: seen earlier, and I was like,"Well, this isn't going to
14:58
Speaker 26: work."
14:59
Speaker 40: to
14:59
Speaker 6: And
14:59
Speaker 16: realtor was
15:00
Speaker 6: like,
15:00
Speaker 26: I've
15:00
Speaker 16: I've got one
15:00
Speaker 6: one more thing to show you, but it's not what you're looking for." she starts to walk us around the neighborhood, and she's heading straight for the door
15:08
Speaker 26: of,
15:08
Speaker 6: of Gage Tollner, this
15:10
Speaker 26: historic
15:11
Speaker 16: restaurant that
15:11
Speaker 6: that my partner and I knew of
15:13
Speaker 26: the,
15:13
Speaker 6: the legends
15:14
Speaker 40: of,
15:14
Speaker 6: of but had never been to.
15:15
Speaker 6: And, and sure enough, she pulls out
15:16
Speaker 26: the keys and we go inside,
15:18
Speaker 6: we go inside, and everything changes,
15:20
Speaker 26: you
15:20
Speaker 39: So
15:20
Speaker 25: what was here when you--
15:21
Speaker 39: here
15:21
Speaker 15: No.
15:21
Speaker 15: So in, in 2004, it closed.
15:21
Speaker 15: It was open-
15:21
Speaker 39: you-- What, what
15:22
Speaker 4: you
15:22
Speaker 39: when you came into-- This wasn't, it wasn't an operating steakhouse, it wasn't a restaurant?
15:25
Speaker 6: know?
15:26
Speaker 6: So what was here when you-- What, what did you find when you came into this?
15:26
Speaker 6: It wasn't, it wasn't an operating steakhouse, it wasn't a restaurant.
15:26
Speaker 6: No.
15:26
Speaker 6: So in, in
15:27
Speaker 40: 2004
15:28
Speaker 6: closed.
15:29
Speaker 6: It was open for 125 years,
15:30
Speaker 26: years
15:31
Speaker 6: and it closed i-in 2004 and became a, uh, TGI Fridays.
15:36
Speaker 6: Oh.
15:36
Speaker 6: And then that- that closed after three years and it became an Arby's.
15:39
Speaker 40: after
15:39
Speaker 6: And it was an Arby's for a year,
15:41
Speaker 40: an Arby's for a
15:41
Speaker 6: and then it was a series
15:43
Speaker 16: those are kind
15:43
Speaker 6: down-market
15:44
Speaker 16: retailers.
15:45
Speaker 16: I remember sneaking in here when it was basically a flea market inside.
15:48
Speaker 16: They were- Yeah, it was like
15:49
Speaker 18: a mini
15:50
Speaker 16: mall.
15:50
Speaker 16: Yeah, it was like a mini mall.
15:52
Speaker 16: Yeah.
15:52
Speaker 16: They were selling, uh, clothing,
15:53
Speaker 6: jewelry,
15:54
Speaker 14: those places at the Jersey Shore on the boardwalk
15:57
Speaker 5: the T-shirts are
15:57
Speaker 14: Yeah,
15:58
Speaker 5: funny,
15:58
Speaker 14: T-shirts are 99 cents.
15:58
Speaker 14: Yeah.
15:58
Speaker 5: though, here.
15:59
Speaker 5: Yeah.
16:00
Speaker 6: So anyway, it was that.
16:01
Speaker 6: And but I remember looking behind the false walls that they put up and noticing that the mirrors were
16:06
Speaker 26: were still there, the woodwork was
16:07
Speaker 6: still there, the woodwork was still there, and thinking like,"Oh, this place still exists." When we walked in...
16:09
Speaker 6: Because it's landmarked, uh, by the way.
16:10
Speaker 6: It's a- Oh, is that
16:10
Speaker 40: 'Cause it's landmarked,
16:11
Speaker 6: why they still existed?
16:12
Speaker 6: Yes, it's an interior landmark.
16:13
Speaker 26: uh, by the way.
16:14
Speaker 26: It's a- Oh, is that why they
16:14
Speaker 29: still existed?
16:15
Speaker 26: Yes,
16:15
Speaker 6: Yes.
16:16
Speaker 4: Oh.
16:19
Speaker 6: They couldn't take them down.
16:19
Speaker 6: Amazing.
16:19
Speaker 6: That works.
16:19
Speaker 6: It was the third interior landmark in
16:21
Speaker 26: city
16:21
Speaker 40: after
16:22
Speaker 6: New York, Public Library and Grant's Tomb.
16:24
Speaker 26: Wow.
16:24
Speaker 39: Wow.
16:26
Speaker 39: Who's buried there again?
16:27
Speaker 39: I'm
16:27
Speaker 6: Yeah.
16:27
Speaker 39: sorry.
16:28
Speaker 6: Who's buried
16:28
Speaker 5: there again?
16:28
Speaker 5: I don't know.
16:29
Speaker 5: I heard it a few times.
16:29
Speaker 5: I wanna do a bar in Grant's Tomb.
16:30
Speaker 5: It'd, it'd have to be a
16:31
Speaker 28: That would be cool.
16:32
Speaker 28: It would
16:32
Speaker 26: have to be a
16:32
Speaker 5: ci- It, it would have to be a cigar bar, though,'cause he's a
16:34
Speaker 14: And there is smoke And the,
16:35
Speaker 39: lot of,
16:36
Speaker 14: and the cocktails there are deadly
16:37
Speaker 28: cause
16:37
Speaker 25: he's
16:41
Speaker 39: so how do we get from there
16:42
Speaker 15: I gotta get them there to-
16:42
Speaker 4: how do we get from there to we get a bar open?
16:43
Speaker 25: and how do you fund it?
16:44
Speaker 25: And
16:45
Speaker 39: we'll take some of
16:45
Speaker 25: we'll take
16:46
Speaker 26: some of those.
16:46
Speaker 26: So the
16:46
Speaker 6: So
16:46
Speaker 41: the-
16:46
Speaker 39: Those are the cocktail.
16:47
Speaker 39: For
16:48
Speaker 14: The show gets better at the end.
16:49
Speaker 14: There's just, you
16:50
Speaker 39: the
16:50
Speaker 14: the
16:50
Speaker 39: were
16:51
Speaker 25: the
16:51
Speaker 4: just so you know the cocktails were about to pass us by, and
16:53
Speaker 25: If
16:53
Speaker 39: you're not
16:53
Speaker 25: you're not here and you don't know Gage Tollner,
16:55
Speaker 4: if you're not here and you don't know Gage and Toller, if you come anywhere
16:56
Speaker 25: within
16:57
Speaker 4: striking distance
16:57
Speaker 25: of, of the borough of Brooklyn, and
16:59
Speaker 39: and
16:59
Speaker 25: don't have a drink at Sunken Harbor Club-
17:02
Speaker 39: and
17:02
Speaker 25: steak in this unbelievably historic steakhouse,
17:06
Speaker 39: you're crazy.
17:07
Speaker 39: Um, and the food's good, and the cocktails are good.
17:09
Speaker 15: But so how do we get from you spy this r- this diamond in the rough, how do we get it back to what it is now, which is amazing?
17:11
Speaker 15: Yeah.
17:11
Speaker 15: So-
17:12
Speaker 4: this ro- this diamond in the rough
17:13
Speaker 25: rough, how do we get it back to what it is now, which is amazing?
17:16
Speaker 6: Yeah, so it
17:16
Speaker 14: Which is a diamond
17:17
Speaker 40: a
17:17
Speaker 6: It's--
17:18
Speaker 39: diamond.
17:18
Speaker 26: Thank
17:18
Speaker 6: you.
17:18
Speaker 6: It's a diamond.
17:18
Speaker 6: Thank you, guys.
17:19
Speaker 6: It took a year and a half to raise the money to sign
17:21
Speaker 26: lease.
17:22
Speaker 6: the lease.
17:22
Speaker 6: Mm-hmm.
17:22
Speaker 6: And in the meantime, there were other people kind
17:24
Speaker 26: sniffing
17:24
Speaker 6: around.
17:25
Speaker 40: around.
17:25
Speaker 6: We knew instantly that we wanted to put the Sunken Harbor Club upstairs and resurrect Toa, the most famous restaurant in
17:32
Speaker 26: Brooklyn history.
17:33
Speaker 6: Uh, but we needed a lot more money than we would need to open a little, uh, cocktail bar.
17:38
Speaker 7: Yep.
17:38
Speaker 6: No one wants to give us money.
17:39
Speaker 26: not,
17:39
Speaker 6: We're not, we're but we're not that proven yet.
17:43
Speaker 6: We're not,
17:43
Speaker 40: yet.
17:43
Speaker 6: Meyers.
17:44
Speaker 40: know, Danny Meyers.
17:45
Speaker 6: these town restaurateurs
17:47
Speaker 40: from Red Hook,
17:47
Speaker 6: from Red Hook, Brooklyn.
17:48
Speaker 40: So,
17:49
Speaker 6: we
17:49
Speaker 26: c- crowdfund.
17:50
Speaker 6: crowdfund.
17:50
Speaker 26: So
17:51
Speaker 6: we do regulation, crowdfunding, which is you're making a real investment.
17:55
Speaker 6: You're gonna be paid back in real money and not just a tote bag or something.
17:59
Speaker 26: And,
17:59
Speaker 6: um, we have some
18:00
Speaker 16: Crowdfunders in the
18:01
Speaker 6: in the room.
18:02
Speaker 14: room Raise your hand if you're a crowdfunder.
18:03
Speaker 14: How cool is that?
18:04
Speaker 14: All right.
18:04
Speaker 6: All right.
18:04
Speaker 26: All right.
18:05
Speaker 14: Loving that.
18:06
Speaker 6: Nice.
18:06
Speaker 6: Thank you,
18:07
Speaker 16: Nice.
18:07
Speaker 16: Thank you, guys.
18:07
Speaker 16: So we-
18:08
Speaker 26: So
18:08
Speaker 14: Why am I not surprised right there?
18:09
Speaker 6: I not surprised right
18:10
Speaker 26: started,
18:10
Speaker 6: now?
18:10
Speaker 26: started the crowdfunding
18:12
Speaker 6: effort,
18:12
Speaker 26: basically
18:13
Speaker 6: to raise some money, but also to create some buzz, to get people talking
18:17
Speaker 26: it.
18:17
Speaker 6: about it.
18:17
Speaker 6: Yeah.
18:17
Speaker 6: and it worked, and then we were able to bring in the,
18:20
Speaker 26: the
18:20
Speaker 6: bigger equity investors.
18:21
Speaker 6: But we had
18:22
Speaker 26: 450 crowdfunding
18:23
Speaker 6: investors.
18:24
Speaker 6: That's
18:24
Speaker 14: That's awesome.
18:25
Speaker 26: $450,000
18:26
Speaker 14: great
18:27
Speaker 4: you know of any other restaurants, like for-profit restaurants that-
18:27
Speaker 39: equity investors.
18:28
Speaker 39: But we had 450, um, 450 crowdfunding investors.
18:29
Speaker 39: Well- And we raised about$450,000 so do you know of any other restaurants, like for-profit restaurants that were raised like half a million dollars from crowdfunding?
18:33
Speaker 5: I mean, Death Co.
18:33
Speaker 5: eventually
18:34
Speaker 14: Yeah, about right.
18:36
Speaker 5: Yeah.
18:36
Speaker 5: I-- But
18:36
Speaker 14: I, uh- I'm, I'm crowdfunding for my next house, if anybody would-
18:39
Speaker 3: If
18:40
Speaker 14: anybody's interested in that,
18:41
Speaker 3: I'm
18:41
Speaker 14: I'm looking for a house on a beach
18:43
Speaker 25: We
18:43
Speaker 4: Came with some friends that we dine out with
18:45
Speaker 14: About three years ago, I guess we came in and
18:46
Speaker 25: I guess we came in.
18:47
Speaker 4: And, uh, we're like
18:47
Speaker 39: like,
18:48
Speaker 25: "It's ama- it's everything we heard," but then we found out how you put it
18:50
Speaker 39: together,
18:51
Speaker 25: And our show,"The Restaurant Guys,"
18:54
Speaker 4: it's always, uh, customer facing.
18:55
Speaker 4: It's-- you don't have to be in the restaurant business like our show.
18:57
Speaker 4: But I hope that it's interesting to people in the restaurant business and to people in small business and people around community.
19:02
Speaker 25: community.
19:03
Speaker 4: people talk about doing
19:04
Speaker 15: all the time.
19:04
Speaker 15: Mark and I do some consulting.
19:05
Speaker 15: We don't company.
19:06
Speaker 15: I always feel bad'cause we're the honest consultants, right?
19:11
Speaker 15: Like, whatever check you wrote me for the first meeting, my
19:13
Speaker 4: piece
19:13
Speaker 15: piece of advice is,
19:14
Speaker 39: "Don't
19:14
Speaker 15: spend any more money even on me.
19:16
Speaker 15: It's a terrible idea.
19:17
Speaker 15: Don't
19:17
Speaker 39: do this,"
19:18
Speaker 25: do this," right?
19:18
Speaker 25: Yeah.
19:18
Speaker 25: And people
19:18
Speaker 4: do it.
19:18
Speaker 25: like,"Oh,
19:19
Speaker 14: do it."
19:19
Speaker 25: crowdfund I'm like,"No, you're not gonna crowdfund
19:22
Speaker 14: Go home, make some paella.
19:23
Speaker 27: Yeah,
19:23
Speaker 25: yeah.
19:24
Speaker 14: Go
19:25
Speaker 4: but you actually pulled this off,
19:27
Speaker 14: Not just pulled it off, it's wonderful place.
19:29
Speaker 25: yeah.
19:29
Speaker 25: Yeah.
19:30
Speaker 26: Thanks.
19:30
Speaker 26: Thank you.
19:30
Speaker 25: And it's not, and it's-
19:31
Speaker 4: Okay.
19:31
Speaker 39: a
19:32
Speaker 25: a
19:32
Speaker 4: a responsible business and not a pipe dream.
19:33
Speaker 4: So
19:33
Speaker 25: So
19:33
Speaker 4: any advice for anybody else who wants to do this and separate themselves from the
19:37
Speaker 25: daydreamers
19:37
Speaker 6: I mean, it's tough.
19:38
Speaker 6: The crowdfunding thing is like, it did help us because it it generated a lot of buzz, and to have
19:44
Speaker 26: 450
19:45
Speaker 6: investors, most of whom live within a couple miles of the restaurant- Yeah really helped with the word of mouth-
19:51
Speaker 16: Mm-hmm
21:20
Speaker 6: out there.
21:20
Speaker 6: But it is expensive money.
21:22
Speaker 6: We paid it back at a rate of 1.5X, to the investment, and that
21:27
Speaker 26: was
21:28
Speaker 16: What is rough on it?
21:28
Speaker 6: for the first couple years.
21:30
Speaker 6: And,
21:31
Speaker 4: and to get in the weeds a little bit, do the crowdfunding retain any equity in the
21:35
Speaker 15: Do the crowdfunding investors retain any equity in the business
21:36
Speaker 16: or do they get bought out?
21:37
Speaker 16: No, that's
21:37
Speaker 40: the
21:38
Speaker 6: that makes it like super clean.
21:39
Speaker 6: So they get paid back
21:41
Speaker 26: like
21:42
Speaker 6: like the investment, and then it's like, Thank you.
21:45
Speaker 6: Our business here is, uh,
21:50
Speaker 3: and-""Thank you.
21:50
Speaker 3: Can I get you a drink?" Yeah.
21:50
Speaker 3: And yeah,"Hope to see you again."
21:50
Speaker 14: I, I just wanna stop what we're doing for a second right here,'cause those of us who are in the room are drinking a spectacular cocktail-
21:59
Speaker 38: Yeah.
21:59
Speaker 38: Yeah
21:59
Speaker 14: is, uh, and I, not to disparage the first two cocktails, but easily my favorite drink of the night.
22:05
Speaker 14: Oh.
22:05
Speaker 14: Wow, this is delicious
22:06
Speaker 5: Um, this just left our menu, and actually, I think this points
22:10
Speaker 14: Bring it back
22:12
Speaker 5: Bring it back.
22:12
Speaker 5: Uh, for the summer.
22:14
Speaker 5: May come back in the fall.
22:16
Speaker 5: But this is kind of our goodbye to this.
22:18
Speaker 5: This is called the Cross Current.
22:19
Speaker 5: But I think this sort of, uh, is a emblematic of the philosophy of Second Harbor Club, which is
22:25
Speaker 18: Just to sort of take a bird's-eye view of the tropical drink and look
22:28
Speaker 5: at
22:29
Speaker 18: at it from its entire history.
22:31
Speaker 18: So from
22:32
Speaker 5: the
22:32
Speaker 18: the age of punch and sail all up until today.
22:35
Speaker 18: And the focus here is actually the 1990s
22:37
Speaker 41: the 19
22:39
Speaker 18: and its
22:39
Speaker 5: Dick
22:40
Speaker 18: Bradsells until-
22:40
Speaker 14: Oh, hold on.
22:41
Speaker 14: Hold on.
22:42
Speaker 14: 1990s cocktails sucked.
22:43
Speaker 18: Yeah.
22:44
Speaker 41: Mm.
22:44
Speaker 14: Okay?
22:45
Speaker 5: But Dick Bradsell, you know, in London was creating a lot of modern classics like the Bramble and the Espresso Martini, which to some people may be the devil.
22:54
Speaker 5: But,
22:54
Speaker 14: There's a place for the espresso martini, Okay?
22:57
Speaker 3: Okay?
22:57
Speaker 3: There's
22:58
Speaker 14: a place in my life
22:59
Speaker 38: life
23:00
Speaker 14: the espresso martini, and it's- I think for some people and it's
23:02
Speaker 5: some people, not,
23:03
Speaker 14: that point in the night where you're starting to go down, but the party's starting to go up.
23:07
Speaker 18: Yeah.
23:07
Speaker 14: Okay,
23:09
Speaker 18: but the, the sad part-
23:09
Speaker 5: is he created a brilliant rum cocktail that never really crossed over.
23:14
Speaker 5: The Bramble had its moment.
23:16
Speaker 28: that
23:16
Speaker 5: Espresso Martini is still having its moment, but
23:18
Speaker 28: is
23:19
Speaker 5: Treacle
23:19
Speaker 18: was his
23:19
Speaker 5: his drink in the 1990s that was a rum old fashioned with a float of apple juice on the top,
23:25
Speaker 28: juice on the
23:26
Speaker 5: we reconstructed this with Blanche Calvados
23:30
Speaker 18: Constructed this
23:31
Speaker 5: apple juice because more booze is
23:32
Speaker 18: with Blanche
23:34
Speaker 14: Calvados instead of apple juice because more booze is always better.
23:34
Speaker 14: And- Be- and Calvados is always better.
23:36
Speaker 14: There's nothing wrong with some Calvados in, uh, in your life
23:38
Speaker 5: In my life have been times where I feel like certain genres, we, we hit them and then we move on.
23:45
Speaker 5: And when we opened Sunken Harbor, we had a different old fashioned on the menu that was
23:50
Speaker 18: provided to us through David Wanderich,
23:50
Speaker 5: to us through David Wondrich,
23:52
Speaker 18: which was a, a really interesting story
23:53
Speaker 5: a, a really interesting story of a admiral, his name is Admiral McMorris, who
23:57
Speaker 18: served in the Pacific Fleet,
23:59
Speaker 5: and
24:00
Speaker 18: he had a very specific scotch old fashioned that
24:02
Speaker 5: he liked with honey
24:03
Speaker 18: and Angostura, and then his second officer would always
24:06
Speaker 5: add
24:07
Speaker 18: the naval rum
24:08
Speaker 5: it.
24:09
Speaker 18: And that was our first old fashioned.
24:10
Speaker 18: That was on the menu for forever.
24:12
Speaker 18: And then just looking at the history of Dick
24:14
Speaker 5: Dick Bradsell
24:15
Speaker 18: and realizing that our
24:16
Speaker 5: program
24:18
Speaker 18: looks at the entire scope of the tropical drink, we should really pay tribute to the treacle.
24:22
Speaker 5: Treacle.
24:23
Speaker 18: Like I've worked at a couple other places.
24:24
Speaker 18: I worked at ZZ's
24:26
Speaker 5: Clam
24:26
Speaker 18: where Brian Miller had a version of the treacle.
24:29
Speaker 18: We served the, the actual like two spec
24:32
Speaker 5: Treacle at Slowly
24:33
Speaker 18: at Slowly Shirley.
24:33
Speaker 18: But this one, I wanted to do a reconstruction.
24:36
Speaker 18: We made the bitters for this.
24:37
Speaker 18: Um, this is
24:38
Speaker 5: based
24:38
Speaker 18: called Abbott's,
24:39
Speaker 5: formula called Abbott's,
24:41
Speaker 18: which was the original bitters that was in every cocktail bar before Angostura.
24:42
Speaker 5: that was in every cocktail bar before Angostura.
24:45
Speaker 18: And Abbott's
24:45
Speaker 5: Abbott's
24:45
Speaker 18: is really rum friendly.
24:47
Speaker 18: It's
24:47
Speaker 5: It's made
24:47
Speaker 18: with
24:47
Speaker 5: chamomile, clove, anise
24:49
Speaker 18: chamomile, clove, anise seed, and it just kind of has a sharpness- Right that Angostura doesn't have.
24:52
Speaker 18: Quick recipe.
24:52
Speaker 18: Yeah.
24:52
Speaker 18: You have 30 seconds.
24:53
Speaker 18: This is me
24:54
Speaker 5: and this actually goes into an interesting topic, which is-
24:56
Speaker 18: and YouTube channel.
25:06
Speaker 28: online
25:06
Speaker 5: his Patreon and his YouTube channel.
25:08
Speaker 28: channel.
25:08
Speaker 18: the foundation of what Sunken Harbor Club is in terms of like mixology was based on my time with Megan Dorman
25:10
Speaker 5: Sunken Harbor Club is in terms of, like, mixology
25:13
Speaker 18: and, Dave Arnold and Don Lee at Existing Conditions.
25:25
Speaker 18: That was the foundation.
25:26
Speaker 18: But then at a certain point, I was
25:30
Speaker 5: non-alcoholic drinks have become way more of a priority for every cocktail
25:36
Speaker 18: I need to start teaching myself new stuff." And I started looking at Darcy's work mostly for non-alc stuff, because non-al- non-alcoholic drinks have become way more of a priority for every concept- We're gonna get, we're gonna get, we're gonna get to that later.
25:42
Speaker 18: But the thing that I found out is that soda fountain technique informed all of what Don the Beachcomber did for his first bar.
25:44
Speaker 18: All right.
25:44
Speaker 18: We're gonna...
25:44
Speaker 18: I wanna- Yeah.
25:44
Speaker 18: 'Cause
25:44
Speaker 15: another
25:45
Speaker 25: no, no.
25:45
Speaker 25: But honestly, all of that is
25:46
Speaker 15: came-
25:46
Speaker 25: but I, I wanna not get away from the l- the line we're going on.
25:49
Speaker 5: Yeah
25:50
Speaker 25: brought us to the next topic, which I think is really fascinating.
25:54
Speaker 25: two parts, and we can go in any way we want to, but let's do one and the other.
25:57
Speaker 39: One
25:58
Speaker 25: is okay, so Mark and I, we have, by the way,
26:00
Speaker 39: Stage
26:01
Speaker 25: Restaurant,
26:02
Speaker 39: ac-
26:02
Speaker 25: according to the same Robert Simonson, is the
26:04
Speaker 4: Oldest
26:05
Speaker 25: modern craft cocktail bar in America.
26:07
Speaker 26: Yeah.
26:07
Speaker 39: So yeah.
26:09
Speaker 25: 92 we started.
26:11
Speaker 25: are
26:11
Speaker 39: also
26:12
Speaker 25: That's awesome the first...
26:13
Speaker 25: craft cocktails used to-
26:14
Speaker 39: used to happen at cocktail bars, and you
26:16
Speaker 25: You wouldn't go to a f-
26:16
Speaker 15: Wouldn't go to a fancy restaurant, wouldn't have a cocktail bar, and a regular restaurant wouldn't have a cocktail bar.
26:20
Speaker 15: A regular restaurant-
26:20
Speaker 14: A regular restaurant wouldn't have cocktails
26:22
Speaker 15: Right,
26:22
Speaker 4: No.
26:23
Speaker 4: We were Stage Left s-
26:24
Speaker 39: Restaurant
26:24
Speaker 4: first,
26:24
Speaker 25: and then we started with cocktails.
26:26
Speaker 4: and then we started the cocktails.
26:27
Speaker 4: I remember that was a-
26:28
Speaker 25: thing, right?
26:28
Speaker 39: It
26:28
Speaker 25: It we were the
26:29
Speaker 4: First cocktail bar in a restaurant.
26:29
Speaker 4: We started with a restaurant
26:29
Speaker 39: cocktail
26:30
Speaker 25: bar in a restaurant, You have the steakhouse and the Sunken Harbor Club, and when I think of steakhouses, we used to
26:36
Speaker 39: be in a group
26:37
Speaker 25: the Red Meat Club with some of the other guys who are in
26:39
Speaker 39: this
26:39
Speaker 14: There are some folks here from the Red Meat Club
26:41
Speaker 15: Um,
26:44
Speaker 25: We'll go on Mondays to different steakhouses.
26:45
Speaker 25: But
26:46
Speaker 4: There were allow-
26:46
Speaker 15: and the steakhouse cocktail, you know, we should resurrect it.
26:46
Speaker 15: We'll go on Monday to Stephanie's.
26:47
Speaker 15: There were
26:47
Speaker 25: cocktails that were considered the steak cocktails.
26:49
Speaker 25: So when you think steakhouse, you think martini,
26:52
Speaker 4: Manhattan,
26:53
Speaker 39: Bloody
26:53
Speaker 4: Mary
26:54
Speaker 25: straight whiskey, a highball.
26:58
Speaker 25: You guys
26:58
Speaker 4: You guys open
26:59
Speaker 25: a very forward-looking cocktail menu to begin with, and a tiki, element.
27:05
Speaker 25: I think it works beautifully.
27:07
Speaker 25: how, do, those two
27:07
Speaker 4: Things work together.
27:08
Speaker 4: And
27:09
Speaker 39: was
27:09
Speaker 15: there a tension between, okay, it's Gage and Toller on a Bloody Mary, a Bloody Bull and a martini
27:15
Speaker 39: versus,
27:16
Speaker 15: Garrett is upstairs in the craziest looking
27:18
Speaker 14: sports coat- Yeah, exac- exactly.
27:19
Speaker 14: And I-- and there are guys coming from Wall Street
27:21
Speaker 27: Street
27:22
Speaker 14: suits walking in and sitting downstairs and ordering big steaks, and there are people coming in their Hawaiian shirts and going upstairs
27:29
Speaker 39: I'm
27:29
Speaker 25: I'm gonna tell you something
27:30
Speaker 14: for tiki cocktails
27:31
Speaker 25: and
27:31
Speaker 39: just
27:31
Speaker 25: I'm just gonna turn this one back to you guys to have a
27:33
Speaker 4: going upstairs- Well, and also I'm gonna tell you something that we didn't happen early, and then we're just how does the whole
27:39
Speaker 39: beverage
27:39
Speaker 4: program work in
27:41
Speaker 15: how do, how does, how does the whole beverage program work in Gage Tollner?
27:41
Speaker 15: 'Cause you
27:45
Speaker 4: the steakhouse thing, which seems...
27:46
Speaker 25: Is there
27:47
Speaker 4: Is there a tension
27:47
Speaker 39: between the two?
27:48
Speaker 39: How's that all work?
27:49
Speaker 40: Yeah.
27:49
Speaker 26: the two?
27:50
Speaker 26: How's that all work?
27:50
Speaker 26: Yeah.
27:50
Speaker 26: So when we were
27:51
Speaker 6: between the two?
27:52
Speaker 6: How's that all work?
27:52
Speaker 6: Yeah.
27:52
Speaker 6: So when we were opening Gage Tollner, I went to the Brooklyn Historical
27:55
Speaker 16: have this great asset that's cocktails, but you also have the steakhouse thing, which seems...
27:55
Speaker 16: Is there a tension between the two?
27:55
Speaker 16: How does that all work?
27:55
Speaker 16: Yeah.
27:55
Speaker 16: So when we were opening Gage Tollner, I went to the Brooklyn Historical Society
27:56
Speaker 6: over in Brooklyn Heights and found 13 boxes of ephemera that
28:01
Speaker 26: that
28:01
Speaker 6: the Dewey family, who operated the restaurant for 70 years, had left, to the, uh, society.
28:07
Speaker 6: In these boxes were menus going back to the 1930s.
28:10
Speaker 6: Wow.
28:11
Speaker 14: Wow
28:11
Speaker 6: So,
28:12
Speaker 26: So,
28:12
Speaker 6: So, what I was able to do was build a spreadsheet.
28:16
Speaker 6: I pulled all the cocktails off of the menu, put them on a spreadsheet, what years they appeared, what prices they were, and
28:22
Speaker 16: And then
28:22
Speaker 6: I had this, uh, database of probably 55 cocktails throughout history, throughout post-Prohibition history that I could, uh, draw from.
28:33
Speaker 6: And
28:33
Speaker 16: the post-Prohibition history that I could, uh, draw from.
28:33
Speaker 16: And so ev-
28:33
Speaker 40: that I could,
28:34
Speaker 6: cocktail on the menu
28:35
Speaker 40: every
28:35
Speaker 6: downstairs
28:36
Speaker 40: the
28:36
Speaker 26: is
28:37
Speaker 6: from one of these old menus.
28:38
Speaker 14: Wow
28:39
Speaker 39: what are those cocktails?
28:39
Speaker 39: That's amazing, first of
28:40
Speaker 15: all those cocktails, that's amazing.
28:41
Speaker 39: for that.
28:41
Speaker 39: That's awesome.
28:42
Speaker 39: So what are, what are
28:43
Speaker 25: what are these, what are those cocktails?
28:43
Speaker 25: That's amazing, first of all.
28:43
Speaker 25: Round of applause for that.
28:43
Speaker 25: Yeah.
28:43
Speaker 25: That's awesome.
28:43
Speaker 25: So what are, what are the
28:43
Speaker 39: what kind of cocktails were there?
28:45
Speaker 26: I
28:45
Speaker 14: People, but just so you know, people who are drinking can't clap.
28:47
Speaker 14: Okay.
28:51
Speaker 6: it's a steakhouse, but really to be like,
28:55
Speaker 26: to
28:55
Speaker 6: be more specific, it's an oyster and chophouse.
28:57
Speaker 6: Okay.
28:57
Speaker 6: So it's
28:58
Speaker 40: of...
28:58
Speaker 26: mean, it
28:58
Speaker 6: was known as a seafood house for a long time.
29:00
Speaker 6: Really?
29:01
Speaker 6: In the, from the
29:02
Speaker 26: '50s
29:02
Speaker 6: to the
29:03
Speaker 26: '70s,
29:04
Speaker 6: I wanna say.
29:04
Speaker 6: It was- I
29:05
Speaker 4: didn't know
29:05
Speaker 6: that primarily known as a seafood house.
29:06
Speaker 26: house.
29:07
Speaker 6: so you've got your martinis on there.
29:09
Speaker 6: You've got your Manhattans.
29:10
Speaker 6: You've got your whiskey sours.
29:12
Speaker 6: Then you have, like, these drinks I really love that have vanished but were popular at one point, like a pink lady, like a- Oh.
29:20
Speaker 40: hand for
29:20
Speaker 26: hand for the pink lady.
29:21
Speaker 26: Here we go.
29:21
Speaker 26: Nicole, Nicole, you are the pink lady.
29:23
Speaker 39: the pink lady.
29:24
Speaker 39: You, y- Nicole, Nicole Desmond, you are the pink lady of, of cocktails.
29:27
Speaker 39: I
29:28
Speaker 38: am today.
29:28
Speaker 38: Yeah, yeah.
29:28
Speaker 38: I'm sorry
29:28
Speaker 14: I remember making a Pink Lady in, 1986.
29:31
Speaker 3: there-
29:31
Speaker 39: That wasn't a pink lady.
29:32
Speaker 39: That was-
29:33
Speaker 14: That wasn't a Pink Lady.
29:34
Speaker 14: Uh, there- There was no lady in that Pink Lady.
29:35
Speaker 14: There
29:36
Speaker 39: It was
29:36
Speaker 5: Well,
29:37
Speaker 14: was pink.
29:37
Speaker 5: her, her name was Rose, right?
29:39
Speaker 5: Roses.
29:40
Speaker 14: Rose's Serenity.
29:40
Speaker 5: was, that was Roses- Yeah
29:42
Speaker 39: which is
29:43
Speaker 14: yeah
29:43
Speaker 39: corn syrup and
29:44
Speaker 25: that was Rose's grenadine-
29:45
Speaker 26: Yeah.
29:45
Speaker 26: which is high fructose- Right corn yeah, you've got that.
29:46
Speaker 6: You've got
29:47
Speaker 40: you've got that.
29:47
Speaker 40: You've got the
29:47
Speaker 6: the perfect martini, which is, uh,
29:49
Speaker 26: you know,
29:49
Speaker 6: it's a martini with a little sweet vermouth in it.
29:51
Speaker 6: Oh.
29:51
Speaker 6: It's very good.
29:52
Speaker 6: You got the turf- cocktail.
29:53
Speaker 6: I mean, these are, these are, old drinks with a history that just have
29:57
Speaker 26: fallen
29:57
Speaker 6: of favor.
29:58
Speaker 4: Okay,
29:58
Speaker 39: so
29:58
Speaker 4: right, so I think it's great that you recreated that, but you have two different missions here in cocktail world, right?
30:03
Speaker 39: So
30:03
Speaker 4: you have these historical cocktails and steakhouse cocktails,
30:06
Speaker 39: cocktails,
30:06
Speaker 4: and you and Gary
30:07
Speaker 25: Garrett together have the Sunken Harbor Club, which is-
30:09
Speaker 39: is
30:10
Speaker 15: A different
30:11
Speaker 39: set
30:11
Speaker 15: of history.
30:12
Speaker 15: I don't think, you tell me, we saw
30:14
Speaker 39: the
30:14
Speaker 15: kind of cocktails that
30:15
Speaker 4: that
30:15
Speaker 15: you're serving here,
30:16
Speaker 39: some
30:17
Speaker 15: of the best in the country,
30:18
Speaker 4: but we didn't see them historically at steakhouses
30:20
Speaker 39: in the past.
30:21
Speaker 15: but we didn't see them historically at steakhouses in the past.
30:22
Speaker 26: It's
30:22
Speaker 15: And what's the tension
30:22
Speaker 16: there?
30:22
Speaker 16: I would say
30:23
Speaker 26: the
30:23
Speaker 6: idea
30:24
Speaker 16: the Southern Art Club,
30:24
Speaker 6: Club,
30:25
Speaker 16: once Garrett got-
30:26
Speaker 6: involved, I consider, uh, Garrett to be
30:28
Speaker 26: to be, an extremely talented, a
30:31
Speaker 6: singularly
30:31
Speaker 26: uh,
30:32
Speaker 6: a talented person I agree.
30:33
Speaker 6: the-- thank you.
30:33
Speaker 6: The idea was, the concept upstairs was a
30:36
Speaker 26: the concept upstairs was a
30:38
Speaker 6: little muddled
30:39
Speaker 26: to
30:39
Speaker 6: begin, but it quickly became
30:41
Speaker 26: bring in
30:42
Speaker 6: the best talent that exists and let him do whatever he wants.
30:45
Speaker 16: Bring in the
30:45
Speaker 26: l- let him
30:46
Speaker 16: best talent that exists and let them-
30:46
Speaker 15: And we'll figure out how to-
30:47
Speaker 14: And we'll keep an armed guard at the bottom of the stairs and make sure they can't get up there, yeah.
30:51
Speaker 14: I gotta tell you though
30:51
Speaker 25: tell you,
30:51
Speaker 39: Noah, so I gotta
30:52
Speaker 25: Noah, so I gotta tell you.
30:52
Speaker 25: So if you, if you try to come here, and you should do everything you
30:54
Speaker 39: should do everything you
30:54
Speaker 25: can to become a member
30:56
Speaker 39: and,
30:56
Speaker 25: come to the Sunken Harbor Club.
30:57
Speaker 25: But we came once with some friends, Mark and I, and we,
31:00
Speaker 14: It was a spur of the moment thing
31:01
Speaker 25: of the moment thing.
31:02
Speaker 25: And we should call ahead.
31:03
Speaker 25: And we went with some friends.
31:03
Speaker 25: you guys really tried hard to get us in.
31:04
Speaker 4: Yeah
31:05
Speaker 25: a seat for four, and Mark was number five.
31:08
Speaker 14: so I sent-
31:09
Speaker 25: game of rock, paper, scissors.
31:13
Speaker 14: Re-playing the rock, paper, scissors game.
31:14
Speaker 14: How come I always get the rock?
31:15
Speaker 5: here's the interesting thing, is if you go look at the menus of sort of these older, time were called like Polynesian palaces, large
31:24
Speaker 18: Tiki restaurants, they considered themselves steakhouses.
31:27
Speaker 28: Oh,
31:28
Speaker 18: Trader Vic's- Oh, okay considered themselves a steakhouse.
31:30
Speaker 18: Okay.
31:31
Speaker 18: The Mai Kai considered itself a steakhouse.
31:33
Speaker 5: So
31:33
Speaker 18: So like, when I signed on for this project, I didn't think it was weird having those two things next to each other, because many times they were all under the same roof in the,
31:44
Speaker 5: '50s and'60s as
31:45
Speaker 18: as what was known as continental dining at the time.
31:48
Speaker 5: definitely
31:49
Speaker 18: there was
31:50
Speaker 5: a businessman
31:51
Speaker 18: in
31:51
Speaker 5: Chicago
31:52
Speaker 18: that went to, you know, get a huge Chicago steak and then went to Trader Vic's and had a navy grog in the same
32:00
Speaker 15: night.
32:00
Speaker 15: Yeah.
32:01
Speaker 18: And I saw that- In the same place?
32:03
Speaker 5: Yeah,
32:04
Speaker 18: No.
32:04
Speaker 18: the Mai
32:04
Speaker 5: Kai it's-
32:05
Speaker 3: Same
32:05
Speaker 14: guy, different place.
32:06
Speaker 18: Yeah, same guy, different place
32:06
Speaker 5: guy, different place, and I thought it-- we're just packaging this sort of like mid-century experience in one environment.
32:13
Speaker 4: Well, okay.
32:14
Speaker 4: So that makes sense
32:14
Speaker 25: sense to me.
32:16
Speaker 15: That makes perfect sense
32:16
Speaker 25: do wanna bring it back to something that we put a pin in earlier on.
32:18
Speaker 25: I,
32:19
Speaker 18: that we could have pinned in earlier.
32:19
Speaker 18: Uh, let me just humor
32:20
Speaker 25: everyone.
32:20
Speaker 25: I wanna come back to it.
32:21
Speaker 25: Yeah.
32:22
Speaker 25: You mentioned non-alcoholic
32:23
Speaker 14: First time he's ever gone back to the pin in the history of the show.
32:27
Speaker 14: I crafted,
32:27
Speaker 4: time
32:27
Speaker 14: pin though.
32:27
Speaker 4: ever gone back to the pen in the history of the show.
32:28
Speaker 4: Two more drinks and I wouldn't have remembered that
32:28
Speaker 5: I craft-
32:29
Speaker 39: but-
32:29
Speaker 25: cra-
32:29
Speaker 28: I, I,
32:30
Speaker 5: I, crafted a really good pen, though.
32:31
Speaker 5: So,
32:31
Speaker 25: a good pin.
32:32
Speaker 25: It was a good pin.
32:33
Speaker 25: So, uh, you talked about
32:34
Speaker 39: about
32:34
Speaker 25: soda fountain
32:35
Speaker 39: uh,
32:35
Speaker 25: techniques.
32:36
Speaker 4: you talked about soda fountain techniques.
32:36
Speaker 4: Yeah
32:36
Speaker 25: Uh, and you talked about non-alcoholic cocktails, and I wanna throw something out there because, I
32:41
Speaker 4: I spend personally
32:42
Speaker 25: during COVID, I don't know what mark was, two years that I was obsessed with creating a non-alcoholic cocktail section of our-
32:49
Speaker 14: yeah.
32:50
Speaker 38: yeah.
32:50
Speaker 14: mean, it's, uh, you, you dedicated a lot of time and effort to that
32:53
Speaker 39: And Mark was ready to beat the crap out
32:55
Speaker 4: We stop.
32:56
Speaker 4: And we- Well, I
32:57
Speaker 14: I was like,"We have five.
32:58
Speaker 39: We have five.
32:58
Speaker 39: Yeah, yeah.
32:58
Speaker 39: Can it be
32:59
Speaker 14: Okay, do we need 10?"
33:00
Speaker 4: 10?
33:00
Speaker 4: We literally,
33:01
Speaker 14: Yeah,
33:01
Speaker 4: literally- Yeah, five is pretty
33:02
Speaker 14: five is pretty good.
33:02
Speaker 14: I know.
33:03
Speaker 4: You gotta be honest.
33:03
Speaker 14: I know
33:04
Speaker 39: nine or 10, and I'm gonna
33:05
Speaker 25: Say, so we've been doing cocktails,
33:07
Speaker 39: like
33:07
Speaker 25: we're the oldest craft cocktail bar in America.
33:09
Speaker 25: I've
33:09
Speaker 4: I've never worked
33:09
Speaker 25: worked
33:10
Speaker 4: harder
33:10
Speaker 25: to get fewer drinks that I think are really great and that,
33:14
Speaker 3: It's
33:14
Speaker 14: harder.
33:14
Speaker 14: Uh, to be honest with you,
33:15
Speaker 38: harder.
33:15
Speaker 38: Uh, to be honest with you, I-
33:16
Speaker 14: making non-alcoholic drinks is harder than making alcoholic drinks that are really good
33:20
Speaker 5: I agree.
33:21
Speaker 4: Yeah.
33:21
Speaker 4: And I want to make them-
33:22
Speaker 25: I have to make them t- till I think they're good, and then I have to show them to Mark, and he has to think they're good.
33:25
Speaker 25: So that's like the double whammy.
33:27
Speaker 4: But I'm gonna say it
33:28
Speaker 39: say
33:28
Speaker 4: was really hard and really worth it, and
33:30
Speaker 25: and I
33:30
Speaker 4: I think it's really important
33:31
Speaker 25: really important, though it's not, this is for the restaurant operators out there, it's not a big source of
33:36
Speaker 4: revenue
33:37
Speaker 25: for us.
33:38
Speaker 25: I, think it, takes away a lot of vetoes, it takes
33:41
Speaker 4: It takes away a lot of
33:41
Speaker 25: no's, and in a party of six, who's gonna say-
33:44
Speaker 15: Yeah
33:44
Speaker 25: another one?""Nah, I'm gonna go home." Oh, I'll have a non-alcoholic drink.""Oh, I'll have one.""Okay, then we'll all stay." You know, or the one person who doesn't drink,
33:51
Speaker 4: They have an
33:51
Speaker 15: They have an adult beverage
33:52
Speaker 39: beverage
33:52
Speaker 3: in
33:52
Speaker 14: lot of people come with groups of eight, right?
33:55
Speaker 14: Well, not to Sunken Harbor Club.
33:56
Speaker 27: a lot of people come out with
33:57
Speaker 14: but a lot of people come out with a, with a group of eight, and seven of the people drink and, and one of the person doesn't drink.
34:02
Speaker 14: So having something to offer that person makes you their favorite place.
34:07
Speaker 3: and-
34:07
Speaker 14: And they're gonna drag your other seven people to your place.
34:10
Speaker 14: want-
34:10
Speaker 38: Garrett's.
34:11
Speaker 14: Garrett's, they're gonna drag your other three people to your place.
34:14
Speaker 39: three
34:15
Speaker 3: so I-
34:15
Speaker 39: So, a
34:16
Speaker 25: A non-alcoholic drink has to have an adult feel to it.
34:18
Speaker 25: It has to have a stop.
34:19
Speaker 25: It has to have something that is not gulpable.
34:21
Speaker 25: It's
34:21
Speaker 14: The stop
34:22
Speaker 25: is super important in
34:22
Speaker 14: is super important in the drink
34:23
Speaker 4: whether it's a, or a bitterness or a spice
34:26
Speaker 39: or
34:27
Speaker 4: a,
34:27
Speaker 25: a
34:27
Speaker 4: something.
34:28
Speaker 25: So
34:28
Speaker 4: you have spent a lot of time
34:29
Speaker 25: spent a lot of time creating non-alcoholic drinks that really make a lot of sense, that aren't just a pretty glass with juice in it, right?
34:34
Speaker 5: Yeah, and we, we opened with a few.
34:36
Speaker 5: but at Existing Conditions it was,
34:39
Speaker 18: conditions,
34:39
Speaker 5: very important part.
34:40
Speaker 18: it was like a very important part.
34:40
Speaker 18: I feel like Existing Conditions was like super ahead of
34:42
Speaker 5: curve on
34:43
Speaker 18: the curve on this, and that's mostly because of,
34:45
Speaker 28: of,
34:45
Speaker 18: uh, Bobby Murphy, who was one of the head bartenders at Existing who came from Next
34:51
Speaker 5: in Chicago.
34:52
Speaker 18: in Chicago.
34:52
Speaker 18: Uh, and they were, you know, like pretty advanced,
34:52
Speaker 5: and they were, pretty advanced, uh, in
34:55
Speaker 18: terms of
34:55
Speaker 5: of
34:56
Speaker 18: seeing where things were
34:56
Speaker 5: going.
34:57
Speaker 18: But
34:58
Speaker 5: when
34:58
Speaker 18: we opened, we had a few non-al
35:00
Speaker 5: drinks, but I
35:02
Speaker 18: I think the struggle was figuring out, okay, what is the direction of this?
35:07
Speaker 18: And generally speaking, like, when we have a struggle on our menu, we try to go back to source.
35:13
Speaker 18: We try to go back to, like,
35:14
Speaker 5: primary...
35:15
Speaker 18: like what is the original non-alc cocktail?
35:19
Speaker 18: And for us, it was the everything from the soda fountain movement because it was the reaction to, you know, the whole Harry Johnson super
35:27
Speaker 5: boozy
35:28
Speaker 18: boozy movement, and they had to make something
35:30
Speaker 5: equally
35:31
Speaker 18: to people that were interested in prohibition
35:34
Speaker 5: and interested
35:34
Speaker 18: in being sober.
35:35
Speaker 18: And looking at all those drinks, you realize that they could be, like, as complex and as interesting as a cocktail, once we figured That, out,
35:44
Speaker 5: it
35:44
Speaker 18: was a matter of representing sort of the icons of the soda fountain movement.
35:50
Speaker 5: So
35:51
Speaker 18: on our menu right now, we have The Elixir, which is based on Moxie
35:55
Speaker 5: soda, which was the
35:56
Speaker 18: soda, which was the first original-
35:58
Speaker 5: branded
35:58
Speaker 18: soda in a bottle, Teddy Roosevelt was a fan of.
36:01
Speaker 28: basically a gentian
36:01
Speaker 18: it's basically a gentian root beer, which if you talk to any cocktail person,
36:06
Speaker 5: they're
36:06
Speaker 18: they're like,"I like Suze.
36:08
Speaker 18: I like root beer." And then-
36:10
Speaker 14: But gentian has that stop.
36:11
Speaker 14: That's exactly what Francis was talking about, right?
36:13
Speaker 18: It
36:13
Speaker 5: that bitterness.
36:14
Speaker 18: has that bitterness.
36:14
Speaker 18: Yep.
36:14
Speaker 5: through it, and we make all the flavorings for it.
36:16
Speaker 5: We make the extracts for it.
36:18
Speaker 5: We make the essences for it.
36:20
Speaker 5: And once you understand that sort of you can make
36:24
Speaker 28: these
36:25
Speaker 5: flavorings that can exist in,
36:27
Speaker 28: like
36:27
Speaker 5: a small window, then you
36:29
Speaker 18: can make really good non-alcoholic drinks.
36:31
Speaker 18: Basically, you have 0.5% alcohol
36:34
Speaker 5: by
36:34
Speaker 18: volume that you can work under to be technically non-alcoholic
36:38
Speaker 39: I also think there's a, there's a parallel I think that when you take coffee, which is an adult beverage, which is a bitter beverage, and you
36:45
Speaker 15: Put, you know, seven pumps of caramel, two pumps of chocolate, three big dips of cream, and some whipped cream on top.
36:45
Speaker 15: You juvenileize
36:45
Speaker 25: know, seven pumps of caramel, two pumps of chocolate, three p-pits of cream and some whipped cream on top.
36:51
Speaker 25: You an adult beverage.
36:54
Speaker 39: Whereas
36:55
Speaker 25: with
36:55
Speaker 15: Soda, like Italian sodas and bitter sodas and Suze, non-alcoholic Suze, like Suze Zero is fantastic.
36:55
Speaker 15: Um, you can a- you can adultify
36:55
Speaker 25: like Italian sodas and bitter sodas and Suze, non-alcoholic Suze, like Suze Zero is fantastic.
37:01
Speaker 25: Zero a- you can adultify a drink without it being necessarily alcoholic.
37:04
Speaker 27: something first?
37:05
Speaker 14: I just wanna jump in a little bit and realize that, that Garrett's coming at this from a, from a different perspective than most people who are in restaurants come at the non-alcoholic movement.
37:15
Speaker 14: and I think that the rest of the, restaurateurs have to change their, their point of view a little bit, because what they're thinking about is, What do I give the 15-year-old who wants, uh,
37:28
Speaker 3: who-
37:28
Speaker 14: who wants to pretend they're drinking?" Instead of,"What do I give the adult who wants something that's savory and delicious and is cocktail-like but doesn't have alcohol?" The restaurateur and the bar t- bar owner have to change their perspective a little bit most of these cocktails are not for the 15-year-old, they're for the adult
37:50
Speaker 25: bit of advice to restaurateurs and bartenders out there,
37:52
Speaker 39: here's the
37:52
Speaker 25: here's the advice: when you have a non-alcoholic cocktail program, invite a bunch of kids in, and as long as they hate it, you're
37:57
Speaker 5: Yeah,
37:58
Speaker 25: right.
37:58
Speaker 25: Yeah.
37:58
Speaker 25: Yeah, you're doing
37:59
Speaker 5: you're golden.
38:00
Speaker 25: I,
38:00
Speaker 5: Yeah
38:01
Speaker 25: to say, and it's funny, I always look at school teachers
38:03
Speaker 39: I think,"I
38:04
Speaker 25: and I think I could never do that.
38:04
Speaker 25: I literally-
38:05
Speaker 14: I, you know, it's funny, I look at school teachers and think,"Francis could never do that."
38:08
Speaker 15: A
38:12
Speaker 14: lot of business or unique business people in the door.
38:12
Speaker 25: Um, so here's the, here's a
38:14
Speaker 39: c- thing that I
38:15
Speaker 25: thing that
38:15
Speaker 39: crazy,
38:16
Speaker 25: and I think is pretty wonderful,
38:18
Speaker 39: and
38:18
Speaker 25: it, it mirrors the country
38:20
Speaker 39: that's ripping itself apart that we live in right now.
38:22
Speaker 39: We have the two hottest categories in
38:25
Speaker 25: ripping itself apart that we live in right now.
38:29
Speaker 39: and
38:29
Speaker 25: the two hottest categories in cocktails are the non-alcoholic sphere and the martini.
38:31
Speaker 5: Mm-hmm.
38:31
Speaker 4: Yeah
38:32
Speaker 25: that to me?
38:32
Speaker 25: are you seeing that
38:33
Speaker 39: that here at Cajun
38:34
Speaker 25: here at Gage Tollner as well?
38:34
Speaker 26: I mean, w- we've seen
38:36
Speaker 6: seen that from
38:36
Speaker 26: day one.
38:37
Speaker 26: When people go downstairs, there's
38:39
Speaker 6: Just something about the
38:40
Speaker 16: you seeing that here at Gage
38:42
Speaker 14: Tollner in South Harbor?
38:42
Speaker 14: I mean, we've seen that from, uh, day one.
38:42
Speaker 14: When people go downstairs, there's just something
38:43
Speaker 16: about the atmosphere just screams martini.
38:43
Speaker 16: Mm-hmm.
38:43
Speaker 6: Yeah.
38:43
Speaker 6: It's like you just need to have one
38:44
Speaker 26: in your
38:44
Speaker 6: in
38:44
Speaker 26: quickly as possible, and that it's by far-
38:47
Speaker 39: for
38:47
Speaker 14: But I,
38:48
Speaker 26: that's
38:48
Speaker 27: Tuesday for
38:48
Speaker 25: me.
38:48
Speaker 27: Yeah.
38:48
Speaker 27: I
38:49
Speaker 14: I was thinking that's half an hour from now for me
38:51
Speaker 16: Later
38:52
Speaker 26: Like,
38:53
Speaker 6: it's not a trend for us.
38:54
Speaker 6: It's always
38:55
Speaker 4: been
38:59
Speaker 39: are, egghead-y, smart, you're both
39:01
Speaker 4: part of the business plan.
39:01
Speaker 4: Yeah, but, but, but for now- Thank, thank you, Brendan I just think'cause you guys
39:01
Speaker 39: you've, you're well-read, How is it
39:03
Speaker 4: How is it that the martini was not the of
39:06
Speaker 39: drinks, uh, before COVID?
39:08
Speaker 39: And everybody's writing about martinis.
39:10
Speaker 39: Ev- freezer
39:11
Speaker 14: There's a martini expo now, right?
39:13
Speaker 25: martinis, every freezer martinis- There's a martini expo now nitrogen martinis.
39:16
Speaker 25: Yeah.
39:16
Speaker 25: Robert's Martini
39:17
Speaker 4: martinis.
39:17
Speaker 4: Yeah.
39:17
Speaker 4: Robert's Martini Expo, and also non-alcoholic drinks
39:17
Speaker 25: and also non-alcoholic drinks weren't heard years ago.
39:19
Speaker 25: And now
39:20
Speaker 39: are
39:20
Speaker 25: I...
39:20
Speaker 25: Would
39:21
Speaker 4: Biggest
39:21
Speaker 25: are two of of, of beverages for adults in America right now?
39:24
Speaker 25: Or am I wrong?
39:25
Speaker 26: Yeah, I
39:26
Speaker 6: I mean, I think the, I think the non-alc thing is, is important to talk about, but I, I feel like
39:30
Speaker 40: it,
39:30
Speaker 6: it can--
39:31
Speaker 26: it's
39:31
Speaker 6: probably the, like the market share of the non-alc drink has probably
39:34
Speaker 26: grown,
39:35
Speaker 6: you know,
39:35
Speaker 26: 3X, but it's
39:36
Speaker 40: but it's
39:37
Speaker 14: Yeah, from.2 to.6,
39:38
Speaker 26: pretty...
39:38
Speaker 6: but it's like,
39:38
Speaker 14: right?
39:39
Speaker 6: it's still- Yeah, from.2 to.6 still pretty-- exactly.
39:40
Speaker 6: It's still pretty small.
39:41
Speaker 6: Yeah.
39:41
Speaker 6: But I like, I love the way that Garrett thinks about it.
39:42
Speaker 6: I
39:43
Speaker 40: we
39:43
Speaker 6: really do take the time to try to craft something that's really good.
39:48
Speaker 6: Uh,
39:48
Speaker 40: we have not had a lot to work with, like the,
39:50
Speaker 26: the
39:50
Speaker 6: the quote-unquote, uh, spirits that they sell that are
39:53
Speaker 26: like,
39:53
Speaker 6: uh, non-alcoholic, I don't understand them for the most part.
39:57
Speaker 6: I don't get it, I I really like, uh, the Pathfinder.
40:00
Speaker 14: Pathfinders.
40:01
Speaker 3: Yeah.
40:01
Speaker 14: it's funny, I was just about to yell at you and say,"No, Pathfinder's delicious." That is the only one that anything else you're making
40:08
Speaker 5: But the Pathfinder is fantastic.
40:10
Speaker 26: it kinda
40:10
Speaker 6: but it opens the door.
40:11
Speaker 6: So I think that, I think there's there, and I can't
40:14
Speaker 26: wait to
40:15
Speaker 6: see what comes next.
40:16
Speaker 6: But we're still waiting for those- Mm-hmm...those
40:18
Speaker 26: great
40:18
Speaker 6: great non-alcohols.
40:19
Speaker 26: spirits to exist
40:20
Speaker 39: wanna, I wanna weigh in on that just'cause w- and I want, Garrett, I wanna hear what you have to say about this.
40:24
Speaker 39: What I found is that, the problem with non-alcoholic spirits is to make a good one, they generally wind up being more expensive to produce than the alcoholic spirits, right?
40:31
Speaker 14: Well,'cause you go all the way to alcoholic spirit and then you do something to it to make it
40:34
Speaker 27: not
40:34
Speaker 3: it not, not alcohol.
40:34
Speaker 3: Right.
40:35
Speaker 4: So,
40:35
Speaker 14: not alcoholic
40:35
Speaker 4: you make a-- So we have a gin and-- I think Ransom makes a great, uh
40:39
Speaker 25: gin replacer, right?
40:40
Speaker 25: And, so there's a Ransom non-alcoholic gin.
40:42
Speaker 25: Now, you can't
40:43
Speaker 4: You can't make a martini
40:44
Speaker 39: out
40:44
Speaker 25: that.
40:44
Speaker 25: It'll never give you the texture, the bite, the alcohol.
40:47
Speaker 25: But if you make a bee's knees with it, a non-alcoholic bee's knees with honey and the like, it will give you the aromatic.
40:52
Speaker 39: It's
40:53
Speaker 25: a
40:53
Speaker 4: It's a hydrosoluble
40:53
Speaker 25: with juniper and other aromatics, so it will give you that...
40:56
Speaker 4: It'll feel like there's gin in it.
40:58
Speaker 4: There's gin in the nose and, uh, and then we-- I, I use that and I like it.
41:01
Speaker 4: And I think that non-alcoholic beers are amazing.
41:03
Speaker 4: I think non-alcoholic, the spirits like
41:05
Speaker 25: Pathfinder, like the vermouths and
41:08
Speaker 15: that were moves and things they've
41:08
Speaker 25: get
41:08
Speaker 4: get
41:09
Speaker 25: character from herbs and the like are doing great.
41:11
Speaker 25: Guinness Zero is 90% of a Guinness.
41:14
Speaker 25: Yep.
41:14
Speaker 25: I'm sorry, it is.
41:15
Speaker 39: And
41:15
Speaker 25: if you're, and if you're in Ireland, bar that has Guinness- Has Guinness on draft on draft
41:19
Speaker 4: Sarah?
41:19
Speaker 25: Guinness Zero on draft.
41:21
Speaker 25: Mm-hmm.
41:21
Speaker 39: Um, and what I find that what people are doing is they're
41:24
Speaker 25: Zebra striping
41:25
Speaker 39: Yep.
41:25
Speaker 25: And I find
41:26
Speaker 15: Do
41:26
Speaker 14: you, everybody know what zebra striping is?
41:28
Speaker 14: Where you alcoholic,
41:30
Speaker 3: alcoholic, non
41:30
Speaker 14: non-alcoholic
41:31
Speaker 39: But what I
41:32
Speaker 25: think is crazy is that, the martini has...
41:35
Speaker 25: you know, we're, we do a lot of shows on
41:37
Speaker 39: the martini.
41:37
Speaker 14: In Chicago in October, by the way, Martini Expo.
41:40
Speaker 14: In September, just like I said the first time.
41:42
Speaker 25: Jennifer's there to keep us on track.
41:44
Speaker 25: Uh, but you guys, I mean, you guys are known for your martini.
41:46
Speaker 25: You were
41:46
Speaker 4: said the first time.
41:46
Speaker 4: Sandra's there to keep us on track.
41:47
Speaker 4: Uh, but you guys, I mean, you guys are known for your martini.
41:47
Speaker 4: You were semifinalists in the-
41:48
Speaker 5: Yeah recent 2024 Sunken Harbor Club, I feel like once we decided,"Okay, we need a
41:55
Speaker 18: genie on the menu because there are people running this program, there are people that come into Sunken Harbor Club that don't understand that it's specified- You
42:02
Speaker 14: mean they're
42:02
Speaker 5: you know, they're waiting to go downstairs.
42:04
Speaker 5: And, like, at the
42:05
Speaker 18: Beginning, I feel like the program
42:06
Speaker 28: Program
42:08
Speaker 5: a little more towards that, where we had a lot of crossover
42:10
Speaker 18: over drinks, like the old fashioned that we were talking about-
42:13
Speaker 5: that Dave
42:13
Speaker 18: Wanders helped us at a certain point, we realized people are
42:17
Speaker 5: are
42:18
Speaker 18: going to ask for a martini no matter what, and we need to figure out what is the thing that we put our stamp on and say,"This is our martini." Because we had the El Presidente
42:27
Speaker 41: El Presidente
42:28
Speaker 18: earlier, that's a,
42:28
Speaker 5: a,
42:29
Speaker 18: maybe a bridge too far for people that want gin and vermouth.
42:32
Speaker 18: and Tom Wolfson, who is now, helping me run the program, really wanted to go
42:39
Speaker 5: "Hey,
42:40
Speaker 18: what if we do a dirty martini that has,
42:43
Speaker 28: like
42:43
Speaker 18: some brine in it?" And then, uh, Shannon Lynch, who used to work here, also was like,"I wanna do a sesame martini." And I told them, I was like,"You need to R&D together because you're basically talking about the same thing." And their collaboration ended up being this martini that's now called The Immortal Martini, and the name comes from
43:03
Speaker 5: a
43:03
Speaker 18: legend that sesame oil would basically make you immortal when people first discovered that they could press
43:10
Speaker 5: oil out
43:10
Speaker 18: of sesame.
43:11
Speaker 18: And I thought it would be a really fun name yeah, it ended up being this sort of unique, weird thing where we did a freezer martini that had all these sort of layers from the kitchen, like gochujang and sesame oil.
43:24
Speaker 18: But it was very different than what
43:25
Speaker 5: was going on
43:26
Speaker 18: was going on downstairs.
43:27
Speaker 18: I'm proud of both of them for making it so far with such a weird martini last year.
43:31
Speaker 15: We're I gotta say
43:34
Speaker 39: you know, the first time we met, you were like,"You're
43:37
Speaker 25: You're the celebrities.
43:37
Speaker 25: We're like,
43:38
Speaker 15: You're the first guy that ever recognized us.
43:38
Speaker 15: Yeah, but it's crazy that it's so many years ago.
43:38
Speaker 15: My first time I met you was behind the bar at the Pagan Club in Wisconsin.
43:38
Speaker 15: We've all come so far
43:38
Speaker 39: guy that ever recognized us." Uh, but it's crazy
43:40
Speaker 25: guy that ever recognized us." Uh, but it's crazy that so many years have gone by.
43:41
Speaker 25: First time I met you was behind the bar of the Pagan Club in Spokane.
43:44
Speaker 25: We've all come so far.
43:46
Speaker 39: none of us have gotten rich, sadly, but we've come very- we've come very, very
43:51
Speaker 14: We went into the restaurant and bar business.
43:52
Speaker 14: It is not, that is not the answer
43:54
Speaker 39: I know.
43:54
Speaker 39: I'm still hoping.
43:55
Speaker 39: I play the lottery every week.
43:56
Speaker 39: but one of the things I wanna, touch on is, there's history to this.
44:01
Speaker 25: I think the reason we care is we are part of a story, and this is part of our culture, and I think that's really important.
44:07
Speaker 15: Important.
44:07
Speaker 15: Um
44:08
Speaker 25: We have to
44:08
Speaker 39: acknowledge a few people i- in talking about this.
44:10
Speaker 39: We have to acknowledge, for the tiki and
44:12
Speaker 25: tropical cocktails, we have to acknowledge Don Beach and Victor Bergeron
44:16
Speaker 5: And Jeff Barry And, and Jeff Barry
44:17
Speaker 4: without-
44:17
Speaker 25: and Jeff Berry- Yeah without whom all those recipes would've died.
44:21
Speaker 25: Um, uh, but we also wanna acknowledge Charles Baker, and we talk a lot about Charles Baker, who wrote"The Gentleman's Companion." And I
44:28
Speaker 27: think if- Hey, hey, Francis
44:29
Speaker 14: we're acknowledging, can, can, we acknowledge Diplomatico and Brown-Forman since they sponsored today?
44:34
Speaker 3: we're
44:34
Speaker 4: all
44:34
Speaker 14: Since
44:35
Speaker 5: we're all doing that
44:35
Speaker 39: the booze.
44:36
Speaker 39: So to Diplomatico Rum
44:38
Speaker 14: we're all here today'cause of them.
44:40
Speaker 14: Thank you.
44:41
Speaker 39: today
44:43
Speaker 5: but you were talking about Charles H.
44:45
Speaker 5: Baker.
44:46
Speaker 5: Mm-hmm.
44:47
Speaker 5: And Sinjin has written a lot about Charles H.
44:50
Speaker 5: Baker and helped bring back things like the Remember the Maine and all that.
44:53
Speaker 5: But Sinjin, did some
44:56
Speaker 41: Research
44:57
Speaker 5: about Charles H.
44:58
Speaker 5: Baker that is brand new.
44:59
Speaker 5: Nobody knows about
45:00
Speaker 25: I wanna lead into this with just a moment.
45:04
Speaker 25: so this is Charles H.
45:05
Speaker 25: Baker,
45:05
Speaker 15: He's one of the most important people in the survival of the cocktail.
45:06
Speaker 15: He's not as well known, and for a while he was just forgotten.
45:06
Speaker 15: For a while he-
45:06
Speaker 25: of the most important people in the survival of the cocktail.
45:08
Speaker 25: He's not as well known, and for a while he was just forgotten.
45:12
Speaker 25: For a while, he was the most important guy writing about food and drink.
45:15
Speaker 25: Um, anyway, so he wrote an amazing book, um, which I picked
45:19
Speaker 4: Stop at the
45:19
Speaker 25: the Far Hills Rummage Sale in 1987-
45:22
Speaker 39: "The Gentleman's
45:23
Speaker 25: Oh.
45:23
Speaker 25: "The Gentleman's Companion." Wow.
45:24
Speaker 25: And
45:25
Speaker 4: This was, uh, this was the
45:25
Speaker 39: second
45:26
Speaker 4: edition
45:26
Speaker 15: How about the'46 version
45:30
Speaker 4: '87, this was-- it was 10 cents for paperbacks and 25 cents for hardcovers.
45:35
Speaker 4: What?
45:35
Speaker 4: You sprung?
45:35
Speaker 4: And they tried to charge me 50
45:36
Speaker 25: 50
45:36
Speaker 4: cents'cause it has two books in it.
45:38
Speaker 4: I was like,"Come on, that's one
45:39
Speaker 15: of
45:39
Speaker 4: can have it for a, for a quarter." Anyway, so
45:42
Speaker 39: th-
45:43
Speaker 4: th- these are,
45:43
Speaker 14: it?
45:43
Speaker 3: literally
45:44
Speaker 14: Far Hills Rummage Sale in'87, this was-- it was 10 cents for paperbacks and 25 cents for hardcovers.
45:44
Speaker 14: You sprung?
45:44
Speaker 14: And they tried to charge me 50 cents'cause it has two books in it.
45:44
Speaker 14: I was like:"Come on, that's one book." She's like:"Okay, you can have it." You can have it for a quarter.
45:44
Speaker 14: Anyway, so th-these are, these are- He literally bought that book for a quarter, and I'm not-- he's not kidding
45:45
Speaker 25: These
45:46
Speaker 4: are...
45:46
Speaker 4: And I r-
45:47
Speaker 25: r-
45:47
Speaker 4: and here's the thing about,
45:48
Speaker 39: what the,
45:48
Speaker 25: the difference between
45:49
Speaker 4: the difference between you and me, and Dale DeGroff and me, is I read this book and I tri- I was like,
45:53
Speaker 39: "Uh,
45:54
Speaker 4: This seems,
45:54
Speaker 39: important,
45:55
Speaker 25: but
45:55
Speaker 4: but I can't...
45:56
Speaker 4: I try to make these drinks and they fucking suck," right?
45:58
Speaker 4: Cause I didn't know how to read the book, and I didn't know how to put it in context.
46:02
Speaker 4: And Charles H.
46:03
Speaker 4: Baker is one of
46:05
Speaker 25: of the most
46:06
Speaker 4: important and authentic guys around, and kind
46:08
Speaker 25: a
46:09
Speaker 4: artist.
46:09
Speaker 4: And
46:09
Speaker 39: And
46:10
Speaker 4: so what I have provided you was the
46:12
Speaker 14: So you're actually channeling him
46:14
Speaker 4: him.
46:14
Speaker 4: I am.
46:14
Speaker 39: yeah.
46:14
Speaker 39: See what I did there?
46:15
Speaker 39: So what I've provided
46:16
Speaker 25: So what I provided you here is I provided the Remember the Maine
46:18
Speaker 4: recipe, which you will find.
46:20
Speaker 4: It's still a contemporary cocktail.
46:21
Speaker 4: It's a great cocktail.
46:22
Speaker 39: And
46:23
Speaker 4: two of the books that appear, one is from
46:25
Speaker 25: an article
46:25
Speaker 4: an article that you wrote,
46:25
Speaker 25: wrote,
46:26
Speaker 4: which is with fucking Hemingway and a big fish, okay?
46:30
Speaker 4: So totally legit.
46:31
Speaker 25: The second is
46:32
Speaker 4: The second is the inside cover from his
46:33
Speaker 25: cookery
46:34
Speaker 4: cookery book, which is
46:35
Speaker 15: inside cover from his
46:35
Speaker 25: horseshit-
46:36
Speaker 4: from and being like-- And here's the thing.
46:37
Speaker 4: I have a fr- we have a
46:38
Speaker 39: fr- We
46:38
Speaker 25: we have a
46:38
Speaker 4: friend like this.
46:39
Speaker 4: I have a friend who's like, so Francis, I'm-- And he'd be telling me these crazy stories.
46:43
Speaker 4: He wrote freelance for"The New York Times,"
46:44
Speaker 39: "I'm
46:45
Speaker 4: write an article in'The New York Times' about your wine class if you let me take, just sit in on."
46:49
Speaker 25: I'm like, Yeah, okay, Peter, you can sit in on my wine class fine, no problem at all." Fucking above and below the fold in the food section
46:56
Speaker 15: section of the Times is
46:57
Speaker 4: article on
46:57
Speaker 25: on
46:57
Speaker 15: the article on our wine class." I'm like...
46:58
Speaker 15: And he's like,"I'm gonna be a war correspondent
46:59
Speaker 25: And he's
46:59
Speaker 4: He's like,"I'm gonna be a war correspondent in, uh, in the Middle East." I'm like,
47:02
Speaker 25: like,
47:03
Speaker 4: "Oh, sure." And then
47:04
Speaker 25: And I'm like,
47:04
Speaker 4: "Yeah, whatever." I'm watching the news
47:06
Speaker 25: there's fucking Peter reporting from Beirut." Burn a
47:08
Speaker 39: blowing up behind him.
47:09
Speaker 25: of what comes out of that guy's mouth is bullshit, but you
47:12
Speaker 4: but they don't know which 10% is which.
47:15
Speaker 4: And his life is really
47:16
Speaker 15: I agree,
47:20
Speaker 6: is.
47:21
Speaker 26: So Charles Baker,
47:23
Speaker 16: it's fucking interesting.
47:23
Speaker 16: Is that the case with this guy?
47:23
Speaker 16: Yeah, it is.
47:23
Speaker 26: the, the
47:24
Speaker 6: photo that you referred to, it's him, like, laying in a hammock being fanned by a woman in a grass skirt and being served a cocktail by a little girl
47:32
Speaker 26: in a grass skirt.
47:33
Speaker 26: And
47:33
Speaker 6: the older woman with the fan is his wife, And the young girl with the tray is his daughter.
47:40
Speaker 39: Ah.
47:41
Speaker 6: And the,
47:41
Speaker 26: the,
47:42
Speaker 6: the photo was taken in'39, when he was about 44 years old.
47:45
Speaker 6: And I got in touch with his, uh, daughter, and she helped me research
47:50
Speaker 40: his-
47:50
Speaker 6: his- Oh, that's awesome his life.
47:51
Speaker 6: And I really got to know her and got to know him through her, and she gave me the shaker that's in that, uh, photo.
47:57
Speaker 14: Oh, how cool is that?
47:59
Speaker 25: Which
48:00
Speaker 26: I have
48:00
Speaker 6: was cool.
48:00
Speaker 6: Wow.
48:00
Speaker 6: Was that- Amazing.
48:01
Speaker 14: drink was shaken in that shaker, in
48:03
Speaker 4: Yeah in that very
48:04
Speaker 14: very shaker
48:05
Speaker 26: drink
48:06
Speaker 25: was shaken in that- that You're the m- most
48:07
Speaker 4: Expert guide
48:08
Speaker 25: I've ever met on Charles H.
48:09
Speaker 25: Baker, who was everywhere.
48:11
Speaker 25: I mean, he's literally
48:13
Speaker 39: dining
48:13
Speaker 4: with Errol
48:14
Speaker 25: Flynn
48:14
Speaker 4: Flynn and,
48:14
Speaker 25: you know- writing
48:15
Speaker 4: writing every
48:16
Speaker 25: he's
48:17
Speaker 39: the
48:17
Speaker 25: the authority on...
48:18
Speaker 25: Wait, I have a quote.
48:19
Speaker 39: um, this is from Esquire,
48:21
Speaker 4: No.
48:21
Speaker 4: Okay.
48:21
Speaker 4: But yeah, yeah, yeah.
48:21
Speaker 4: Yeah.
48:21
Speaker 4: He says, um, this is from Esquire Baker fished with Hemingway off the Bimini coast, downed flaming apple brandy in the back room of a New Jersey inn with Bill Faulkner,
48:31
Speaker 39: joined
48:32
Speaker 4: Errol Flynn and Robert
48:33
Speaker 39: Frost
48:33
Speaker 25: for a beachfront dinner south of Miami- Yeah featuring
48:36
Speaker 4: Featuring four-inch steaks and potatoes
48:38
Speaker 25: boiled in pine resin- Yep better than any
48:40
Speaker 39: potato
48:41
Speaker 4: ever baked in a mortal oven.
48:42
Speaker 4: If you-- This is live.
48:43
Speaker 4: If you ever-- This is in Esquire.
48:44
Speaker 4: If you
48:45
Speaker 25: line.
48:45
Speaker 25: If you ever-- This is in
48:47
Speaker 4: ever wondered whose oyster the world is, meet
48:50
Speaker 15: Carl Inc.
48:50
Speaker 15: I mean, that's it.
48:50
Speaker 15: That's what I want on my headstone.
48:50
Speaker 15: Pisco sour was his true love
48:51
Speaker 4: H.
48:51
Speaker 4: Baker.
48:53
Speaker 25: I
48:53
Speaker 39: mean, I, uh, that's it.
48:56
Speaker 25: that's it.
48:56
Speaker 25: That's what I want on my headstone.
48:57
Speaker 25: So how
48:57
Speaker 39: of that is bullshit?
48:58
Speaker 39: How
48:58
Speaker 25: much
48:59
Speaker 39: is true?
48:59
Speaker 39: What's the story?
49:00
Speaker 39: What, what happened with that-
49:01
Speaker 40: I
49:01
Speaker 26: of that- Yeah is bullshit, how much is
49:02
Speaker 6: True?
49:02
Speaker 6: What's the story?
49:02
Speaker 26: happened?
49:02
Speaker 6: happened?
49:02
Speaker 6: I
49:02
Speaker 26: it's
49:02
Speaker 6: it's all pretty true as it turns out.
49:03
Speaker 6: He,
49:04
Speaker 26: he
49:04
Speaker 6: was from a f- family of like northern industrialists,
49:07
Speaker 26: industrialists,
49:08
Speaker 6: who moved down to Florida.
49:09
Speaker 6: He was born in a very small town called
49:11
Speaker 26: Zellwood, Florida,
49:12
Speaker 6: Zellwood, Florida, and considered himself a, Floridian.
49:15
Speaker 6: He, came into some money in
49:17
Speaker 26: 1926,
49:18
Speaker 6: took a cruise around the world,
49:19
Speaker 16: Got hooked on the, the around the world cruise experience, ended up working for the cruise line.
49:20
Speaker 16: And in 1931
49:20
Speaker 6: hooked on the, the
49:21
Speaker 26: around
49:22
Speaker 6: the world cruise experience, ended up working for the cruise line.
49:26
Speaker 6: And in 1931,
49:27
Speaker 26: 32,
49:28
Speaker 6: '32, he met, Pauline, uh,
49:29
Speaker 26: Paulson,
49:30
Speaker 6: who was the heiress of the Hercules Silver Mine up in Spokane, Washington, one of the biggest
49:36
Speaker 14: heiress of the Hercules Silver Mine up in Spokane, Washington's biggest load- Jennifer, I am so mad at you right now.
49:38
Speaker 14: I am so mad
49:38
Speaker 3: am single.
49:39
Speaker 3: I
49:39
Speaker 6: just
49:39
Speaker 4: want
49:39
Speaker 3: to let you know.
49:41
Speaker 3: He was-
49:41
Speaker 39: the audience, I am single.
49:43
Speaker 6: He was, uh, 36.
49:44
Speaker 6: She was
49:45
Speaker 26: 19 at the time, traveling with her mother.
49:48
Speaker 6: But they fell in love, they got married in a weird, uh, ceremony in Hong Kong, um, and then got married for real when they got back to the US and
49:57
Speaker 26: were t-
49:57
Speaker 6: were together.
49:58
Speaker 6: I mean, it sounds like a,
49:59
Speaker 40: a, crazy
50:00
Speaker 6: story until now.
50:01
Speaker 6: I
50:01
Speaker 26: they
50:01
Speaker 6: were together for the rest of their lives, and they lived till, till very old age.
50:04
Speaker 6: Probably.
50:05
Speaker 39: John Bl-
50:05
Speaker 26: And-
50:06
Speaker 39: right?
50:06
Speaker 29: they
50:07
Speaker 26: were 87, right?
50:07
Speaker 26: 80,
50:07
Speaker 14: Yeah, in the'80s
50:08
Speaker 6: the'80s.
50:08
Speaker 6: And they, and, and they loved each other, and they had kids, and, um,
50:12
Speaker 26: they
50:12
Speaker 6: lived, uh, very happy lives.
50:14
Speaker 6: I got you know, I got really fascinated with, uh, Charles H.
50:17
Speaker 6: Baker in 2000, which, or yeah, 2000
50:20
Speaker 40: kind of a long time ago.
50:22
Speaker 26: time ago.
50:22
Speaker 26: Yeah.
50:23
Speaker 6: And, up writing an article for"The Oxford American" that was the only long form, uh, biographical article ever about him.
50:29
Speaker 6: I was working at, Bon Appétit at the time, and the New York Library was right down the street, so I'd go there on my lunch break
50:34
Speaker 26: and research.
50:35
Speaker 6: I was always, uh, fascinated with him, and like you said,
50:38
Speaker 26: it's the contextualizing.
50:40
Speaker 6: it's the contextualizing.
50:40
Speaker 16: The recipes often don't work.
50:41
Speaker 16: That's not what it's about.
50:42
Speaker 16: It's about the story around
50:43
Speaker 6: the
50:44
Speaker 16: the
50:44
Speaker 6: and
50:45
Speaker 16: recipe and about the setting and who- Travelogue you're sort of drinking with.
50:49
Speaker 16: Right.
50:49
Speaker 16: It's more about travel and setting than-
50:49
Speaker 6: than anything else.
50:50
Speaker 6: And, and, and I've always approached sort of restaurants and bars that way, which is the what's in your
50:56
Speaker 16: Your glasses
50:57
Speaker 6: is really important, but what's happening outside of your glass is
51:00
Speaker 26: is
51:00
Speaker 6: equally important
51:01
Speaker 26: the
51:01
Speaker 6: to the experience.
51:02
Speaker 26: what
51:03
Speaker 6: uh, Garrett is referring to is I recently met this guy named,
51:05
Speaker 16: Jeremy Lopez, who
51:10
Speaker 6: and,
51:11
Speaker 16: um, is the new Baker historian on the scene.
51:13
Speaker 6: historian on the scene.
51:15
Speaker 4: Wow.
51:16
Speaker 26: He's
51:16
Speaker 6: the chair of the English, department there.
51:18
Speaker 26: He's
51:19
Speaker 6: a great guy.
51:19
Speaker 6: He doesn't know anything about cocktails,
51:21
Speaker 26: So,
51:21
Speaker 6: Oh for,
51:22
Speaker 26: for
51:22
Speaker 6: me to interact with him and to introduce him to other cocktail, uh,
51:26
Speaker 16: Wow.
51:26
Speaker 16: He's the chair of the English, uh, uh, department there.
51:26
Speaker 16: He's a great guy.
51:26
Speaker 16: He doesn't know anything about cocktails.
51:26
Speaker 26: he's
51:27
Speaker 6: terribly
51:27
Speaker 16: terribly interesting.
51:28
Speaker 16: So
51:28
Speaker 6: the other night, he
51:29
Speaker 16: the other night, he came by the club, drove in from, uh, Jersey, uh, w- took a drink because he had a few drinks here at the club.
51:35
Speaker 16: And, uh,
51:36
Speaker 26: We were talking
51:37
Speaker 6: We were talking about stuff, and he was like,"Oh, did you ever hear of this bar in
51:40
Speaker 16: we were talking about stuff, and he was like,"Oh, did you ever hear of this bar in Cambridge, Massachus-"
51:40
Speaker 6: that was like a Charles H.
51:41
Speaker 6: Baker themed bar?"
51:42
Speaker 16: And I was like,"No, I was-"
51:43
Speaker 6: No." I
51:44
Speaker 16: There's a what?
51:45
Speaker 6: what time are we talking about?" He's
51:46
Speaker 26: like,
51:46
Speaker 6: "Oh, this is
51:46
Speaker 26: like in the
51:47
Speaker 6: like in the'60s." And I was like,"No, I'm pretty sure I would've heard of it if that's
51:50
Speaker 26: the
51:51
Speaker 6: the case." And so
51:52
Speaker 40: And
51:52
Speaker 26: the
51:53
Speaker 6: next day, he sent me a PDF of a bunch of articles from, the Boston Globe,
51:57
Speaker 26: three
51:58
Speaker 6: articles about a bar in the Brattle Theatre in Cambridge, in Harvard Square, they had a restaurant downstairs called Club, Casablanca, which was, based on,
52:10
Speaker 40: Rick's American
52:11
Speaker 6: Cafe
52:11
Speaker 16: the Raddall Theatre called- Does this sound familiar?
52:11
Speaker 6: the movie, that everyone loved, and they decided to open this other bar above the
52:15
Speaker 26: projectionist
52:16
Speaker 6: booth in the Brattle Theatre-
52:19
Speaker 5: this sound familiar at all?
52:22
Speaker 26: called
52:22
Speaker 6: The Grand Turk.
52:23
Speaker 6: It was named after a boat that-
52:25
Speaker 26: sailed from, uh, Cambridge, Mass to somewhere.
52:27
Speaker 14: it sink?
52:29
Speaker 6: No,
52:29
Speaker 26: but the...
52:30
Speaker 6: the...
52:30
Speaker 6: So the bar had three rooms.
52:31
Speaker 6: It had the Rangoon room, it had the East India room, and it had another room that was built to look like a, captain's
52:39
Speaker 26: quarters.
52:40
Speaker 6: And I'm like, tell me more." They piped in the sound of waves breaking- Wow.
52:46
Speaker 6: That's
52:46
Speaker 14: That's amazing
52:47
Speaker 6: we do at the Sunken Harbor Club.
52:49
Speaker 6: Oh,
52:49
Speaker 5: yeah.
52:49
Speaker 5: This is crazy coincidence.
52:50
Speaker 5: They
52:51
Speaker 6: were serving- Yeah all Charles H.
52:52
Speaker 6: Baker Jr.
52:54
Speaker 26: drinks
52:54
Speaker 6: at
52:54
Speaker 26: this place,
52:55
Speaker 6: this place, and even ran the recipes in the newspaper, which if you, compare them to the recipes in the book, which I did, they're they're note for note, they're the exact same drinks.
53:04
Speaker 6: So they, th- there was a Charles Baker themed bar in Cambridge, Mass in
53:08
Speaker 26: 1966,
53:10
Speaker 16: Opened by
53:10
Speaker 6: by the guys that owned the Brattle Theatre, who were also the guys who started Janus
53:15
Speaker 26: Films,
53:16
Speaker 6: the film, uh, distribution company that introduced Americans to
53:20
Speaker 26: Fellini,
53:21
Speaker 6: Fellini, Bergman, Godard- Wow you name it.
53:23
Speaker 14: So what, so- The originals So what
53:25
Speaker 3: rich,
53:25
Speaker 14: is it now?
53:25
Speaker 14: Not from the barn.
53:25
Speaker 14: So what is it now?
53:27
Speaker 6: from the bar.
53:28
Speaker 40: I
53:28
Speaker 3: is it now?
53:29
Speaker 3: And let's buy.
53:30
Speaker 6: I know.
53:31
Speaker 40: Well-
53:31
Speaker 26: there's a
53:32
Speaker 6: there's a bar down
53:32
Speaker 26: the
53:33
Speaker 6: the street called Husong Road that, that we need to, we need to talk,
53:37
Speaker 26: we
53:37
Speaker 6: need to figure this out, and figure out how this spiritual predecessor of the Sunken Harbor Club ended up there, and do something with Husong Road to, to bring them back- Pay tribute, yeah if only for a moment.
53:47
Speaker 6: Yeah.
53:49
Speaker 4: One
53:49
Speaker 25: the-
53:52
Speaker 39: Road to, to bring it
53:52
Speaker 14: restaurant
53:52
Speaker 40: Yeah if only for a moment.
53:53
Speaker 5: Yeah.
53:53
Speaker 5: If
53:53
Speaker 14: guys than you
53:54
Speaker 5: exists,
53:54
Speaker 14: could.
53:54
Speaker 14: buy it.
53:54
Speaker 14: Yeah.
53:54
Speaker 14: Just a thought.
53:55
Speaker 4: The
53:55
Speaker 6: Rattletail is still there.
53:56
Speaker 6: The Rattletail is still there
53:56
Speaker 26: there
53:57
Speaker 4: Well, I wanna read
53:58
Speaker 39: to you from the book of, uh, Charles H.
54:00
Speaker 39: Baker, just a, a couple things.
54:02
Speaker 39: His writing was amazing.
54:03
Speaker 39: He was a great writer.
54:05
Speaker 39: And honestly, one of the things about you guys is you're both writers, you're both well-read, and, y-
54:09
Speaker 4: these books were, and there were several books that
54:11
Speaker 15: that these books were, and there were several books that came after
54:11
Speaker 4: that
54:12
Speaker 25: and, uh, many, many articles that came after that, they were
54:15
Speaker 4: they were
54:15
Speaker 25: we talked about contextualizing.
54:16
Speaker 25: Mm-hmm.
54:16
Speaker 25: Yeah.
54:16
Speaker 25: And what, what have
54:17
Speaker 15: Recipe books become for a long time, but a list of ingredients and techniques and a, an encyclopedia
54:17
Speaker 25: books
54:18
Speaker 4: become for a long time
54:19
Speaker 25: but a list of ingredients and techniques and a, an encyclopedia of i-ingredients, techni-techniques.
54:25
Speaker 4: What have they become again?
54:26
Speaker 4: And what have cocktail books become again?
54:28
Speaker 15: What have they become again?
54:28
Speaker 15: And what have cocktail books become again?
54:28
Speaker 15: But a story giving you the context and interspersed in the story of someone's life...
54:29
Speaker 4: giving you the context and interspersed in the story of someone's life or some town or some village,
54:34
Speaker 25: you have the context of the dish.
54:36
Speaker 25: And I wanna--
54:36
Speaker 39: We're
54:36
Speaker 25: gonna bring this, quickly to
54:37
Speaker 4: quickly to a
54:38
Speaker 15: quickly to
54:38
Speaker 4: close, but I wanna
54:38
Speaker 15: a close, but I wanna
54:38
Speaker 25: end with,'cause this was personal to me.
54:40
Speaker 15: So
54:40
Speaker 4: this is his book of cookery, which doesn't really get a lot of...
54:44
Speaker 4: So there's a, the twin, you have a book of exotic cookery and you have the book of,
54:47
Speaker 15: is his book of cookery, which doesn't really get a lot of...
54:47
Speaker 15: So it was a, it's a twin.
54:47
Speaker 15: You have a book of exotic cookery, and you have the book of, um-
54:48
Speaker 25: Cocktails." And the thing about the
54:49
Speaker 15: Exotic cocktails was this was the period of, you know, the expatriate writers who were writing about the exotic France and Italy
54:49
Speaker 4: cocktails was this was in
54:50
Speaker 25: this was
54:50
Speaker 4: the period of, you
54:52
Speaker 25: the
54:52
Speaker 4: expatriate writers who were writing about the exotic France
54:55
Speaker 25: and Italy and, and, uh, not so much Germany.
54:59
Speaker 25: Um, but, but, uh, uh- Spain the
55:01
Speaker 4: Richard Worsfold, Spain.
55:02
Speaker 25: He wrote a lot about the,
55:03
Speaker 4: or just an unfamiliarity.
55:04
Speaker 25: and- Mm-hmm
55:05
Speaker 4: He wrote a lot about the, the, the, Far East and, and, and the Caribbean and sailing destinations.
55:06
Speaker 4: Uh, but the book of cookery
55:07
Speaker 25: "Book of Cookery"
55:08
Speaker 4: never took off
55:09
Speaker 25: and I'm trying to...
55:11
Speaker 25: Mark and I
55:12
Speaker 4: I just came up with
55:12
Speaker 25: the idea earlier
55:13
Speaker 4: the idea earlier that
55:13
Speaker 25: we're gonna try and do something in our restaurant.
55:14
Speaker 25: We may do
55:15
Speaker 39: a
55:16
Speaker 4: Dinner with
55:16
Speaker 25: some cocktails from his cocktail book
55:18
Speaker 15: Mark and
55:18
Speaker 4: some cocktails from his cocktail book
55:19
Speaker 15: I just came up with the idea earlier that we're gonna try and do something in our restaurant.
55:20
Speaker 15: We may do a
55:20
Speaker 14: dinner with some cocktails from his cocktail book and some, some, uh- Some cookery
55:20
Speaker 25: cookery books some cookery from
55:21
Speaker 4: cookery some cookery Some cookery?
55:22
Speaker 25: So keep your eyes peeled for that.
55:23
Speaker 25: But for personal reasons, I have to read you about his, um...
55:27
Speaker 14: I'm sorry, whenever Francis says for personal reasons, I get a little scared.
55:32
Speaker 14: Okay?
55:32
Speaker 14: I don't know about the rest of you, but I've known him a really long time, and I get a little scared.
55:36
Speaker 25: he gives you the context of all the recipes.
55:37
Speaker 25: This is, Mr.
55:39
Speaker 25: Daven's
55:39
Speaker 4: Irish
55:40
Speaker 15: Davin's Irish Colt Cannon.
55:40
Speaker 15: The rest of it's all wrong.
55:42
Speaker 15: I can't,
55:42
Speaker 25: give you many original Irish recipes.
55:45
Speaker 4: There is no great variety of cooking in the island.
55:48
Speaker 39: "Mostly
55:49
Speaker 17: give you many original Irish recipes.
55:49
Speaker 17: There is no great variety of cookie in the
55:49
Speaker 15: island.
55:49
Speaker 15: Mostly baking-
55:50
Speaker 4: and potatoes ad infinitum.
55:52
Speaker 4: They just never think of varying it.
55:54
Speaker 4: Occasionally a bit of lamb, veal, or beef, but only when there's been an accident on the farm.
56:03
Speaker 28: That's
56:03
Speaker 5: That's a rough assessment.
56:04
Speaker 5: Jesus.
56:05
Speaker 14: I
56:07
Speaker 39: I
56:07
Speaker 25: I vaguely hate this
56:08
Speaker 39: guy,
56:08
Speaker 25: he's probably
56:09
Speaker 14: really,
56:09
Speaker 4: Yeah
56:10
Speaker 14: I randomly hate this guy.
56:10
Speaker 39: "City cuisine
56:11
Speaker 25: is, of course, like any other, more or less international and nothing in particular.
56:14
Speaker 25: The only dish I know that's truly Irish is one seldom duplicated elsewhere, colcannon, an old
56:20
Speaker 4: Gaelic name.
56:20
Speaker 4: Just imagine it, will you?
56:22
Speaker 4: One immense mound of mashed potatoes
56:24
Speaker 39: seasoned
56:25
Speaker 4: with pepper,
56:25
Speaker 15: Salt and so mashed and whipped with butter and cream until it is a fine, light consistency.
56:26
Speaker 15: Leaning around the sides of this mound are strips
56:26
Speaker 4: and so mashed and whipped with butter and cream- Mm...until it is a fine, light consistency.
56:30
Speaker 4: Leaning around the sides of this mound are strips of fried Irish bacon cut into edible
56:35
Speaker 15: size.
56:35
Speaker 4: Sunken in the top of this foot-high mound, hollowed out like a crater
56:39
Speaker 15: Sunken in the
56:40
Speaker 4: is
56:41
Speaker 25: a
56:41
Speaker 15: top of this foot-high mound, hollowed out like a crater in Vesuvius, is a half
56:41
Speaker 4: chunk of butter, which is put in while the spuds are
56:44
Speaker 15: Buds are steaming.
56:45
Speaker 15: Cocan
56:46
Speaker 4: is devoured by the whole family from the same
56:48
Speaker 15: is devoured
56:51
Speaker 39: Yeah.
56:51
Speaker 4: Does
56:51
Speaker 39: grabs his piece of
56:53
Speaker 4: anyone else find this racist?
56:54
Speaker 4: Each grabs his piece of bacon, and while munching, this scoops a gob of potato, dips it into the melted butter, and allows this amalgam to glide down the esophagus.
57:02
Speaker 4: Much merriment-- Sounds like he's describing monkeys to me, actually.
57:07
Speaker 4: Much
57:07
Speaker 39: merriment
57:07
Speaker 4: caused by the scrambling for the bits of bacon, a free-for-all usually ensues near the end of the meal.
57:12
Speaker 4: Sounds like an Irish fight, right?
57:14
Speaker 4: Um, when the last of the dwindling remains are scooped with spoons and forks flying like hurley sticks.
57:21
Speaker 4: And it is then that the true
57:22
Speaker 25: colcannon
57:22
Speaker 4: artist begins to show their true mantle.
57:25
Speaker 4: It consists of slithering a portion of
57:27
Speaker 15: This
57:28
Speaker 4: from your competitor's spoon
57:30
Speaker 15: gob of potato, dips it into the melted
57:36
Speaker 14: butter, and allows this malgam to glide down the esophagus.
57:39
Speaker 14: Much merriment.
57:39
Speaker 14: Sounds like he's describing monkeys to me, actually.
57:39
Speaker 14: Much merriment caused by the scrambling for the bits of bacon.
57:39
Speaker 14: A free-for-all usually ensues near the end of the meal.
57:39
Speaker 14: Sounds like an Irish fight, right?
57:39
Speaker 14: Um, when the last of the dwindling remains are scooped with spoons and forks flying like hurley sticks.
57:40
Speaker 14: And it is then that the true ulpanan artist begins to show their true mantle.
57:40
Speaker 14: It consists of slithering a portion of the stuff from your competitor's spoon before it reaches the mouth.
57:40
Speaker 14: Facial expressions of the losers add much to the atmosphere of chaos and excitement.
57:40
Speaker 14: I don't think he thought a lot about the Irish there, Francis.
57:40
Speaker 14: Sorry, buddy.
57:41
Speaker 39: I don't, I, I don't, I
57:43
Speaker 14: I
57:43
Speaker 25: don't, think he thought a lot of the Irish, man.
57:44
Speaker 25: I'm sorry.
57:44
Speaker 25: I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't think he loved
57:44
Speaker 39: the
57:44
Speaker 25: the Irish.
57:44
Speaker 25: And, and he
57:45
Speaker 4: and he left out half the ingredients of cocanot.
57:48
Speaker 39: However,
57:49
Speaker 4: the, the dish is great, and if we do this thing, we're
57:51
Speaker 25: gonna make a colcannon, and we're
57:52
Speaker 4: gonna make a cocanot and we're gonna make it the right way.
57:53
Speaker 39: And
57:54
Speaker 25: are great.
57:55
Speaker 25: This
57:55
Speaker 14: Just so you guys know, we could have done this for another two hours.
57:58
Speaker 14: Do
58:02
Speaker 4: our deal.
58:02
Speaker 4: We'll send you that and then...
58:02
Speaker 4: Never mind
58:03
Speaker 25: your drinks now.
58:03
Speaker 25: That's the whole difference, right?
58:05
Speaker 25: Fine.
58:05
Speaker 25: That's our deal.
58:06
Speaker 39: with Senjen
58:07
Speaker 25: Send in
58:07
Speaker 39: and, uh...
58:07
Speaker 25: and...
58:07
Speaker 25: I-- Never mind.
58:07
Speaker 25: Someone say never mind.
58:08
Speaker 39: somebody say never mind?
58:09
Speaker 39: That's fucking fantastic.
58:11
Speaker 25: That's
58:11
Speaker 39: love you
58:12
Speaker 14: it.
58:12
Speaker 14: Well, you have to start paying for your drinks.
58:12
Speaker 14: That's our deal.
58:12
Speaker 14: Never mind.
58:12
Speaker 14: What do you need to know?
58:12
Speaker 4: Listen, this is great.
58:13
Speaker 4: We, uh
58:14
Speaker 25: I hope that you will listen to"The Restaurant Guys." Please, follow us, subscribe if you can.
58:18
Speaker 25: Um, we're
58:19
Speaker 14: Th- you broke into an Irish brogue somehow.
58:20
Speaker 14: What happened?
58:21
Speaker 3: the cold panic.
58:22
Speaker 3: It
58:22
Speaker 14: What ha-
58:22
Speaker 3: cold panic.
58:23
Speaker 14: what, it was the cold cannon.
58:24
Speaker 39: It
58:24
Speaker 3: wasn't-
58:25
Speaker 14: wanna, I wanna interrupt you for one second.
58:27
Speaker 14: Morgan's standing in the back there.
58:28
Speaker 14: She made these cocktails today-
58:30
Speaker 27: Morgan.
58:30
Speaker 14: Garrett.
58:31
Speaker 14: Thank you
58:34
Speaker 25: thing about this is what we talked about today, this is what cocktails are about.
58:37
Speaker 25: This is what restaurants are about.
58:38
Speaker 25: In an age of AI, when it's gonna come for us all, and everything is digital and everything
58:43
Speaker 4: It's
58:43
Speaker 14: It's not gonna make your cocktails.
58:44
Speaker 25: sir, this
58:45
Speaker 4: This is where-- This
58:45
Speaker 14: It's not gonna listen to your sad stories
58:47
Speaker 25: and I wanna end on this one note.
58:50
Speaker 25: We're super happy that you come patronize your restaurants.
58:53
Speaker 25: We're super happy that you come patronize our restaurants.
58:56
Speaker 25: We're super happy that you listen to"The Restaurant Guys" podcast and are all gonna become paid subscribers in a moment or two.
59:01
Speaker 25: We appreciate that.
59:03
Speaker 25: but the most important thing here, look around.
59:08
Speaker 25: are the most important thing here.
59:09
Speaker 39: We are
59:10
Speaker 25: here together in a room in person.
59:11
Speaker 25: It's not AI, it's not virtual, and this is why we do what we do.
59:15
Speaker 25: And so let's continue the story.
59:17
Speaker 25: Let's
59:17
Speaker 15: have some more drinks
59:18
Speaker 39: and
59:18
Speaker 5: Continue the story.
59:18
Speaker 5: Let's have some more drinks.
59:18
Speaker 5: Yeah.
59:18
Speaker 39: time.
59:19
Speaker 39: Thank you very much.
59:20
Speaker 26: let's have a great night.
59:20
Speaker 26: Hey.