Tag: Gin

By Any Means Necessary

Preservation

The 2020 Presidential election is a little more than 23 weeks away, and the death toll from the COVID-19 pandemic is approaching 100,000 Americans. Preservation is the watchword of the day. This is not only true with regard to preserving health against the virus, which is only made harder by the President* leading his cultto ignore the masks and social distancing that could help preserve health. As always preservation is a guiding principle for Trump, but self-preservation, not the fight against the virus.

As the number of Coronavirus cases and deaths mounted over the past couple of weeks, Trump has been focused on keeping his finances and activities with the Russians hidden from the public now that the cratering economy has forced a change in his re-election strategy. Trump’s focus on preserving his hopes for re-election are at the heart of the impeachment case against him, and now his minions in the Senate will continue that cause for him.

For the rest of us, this points to how the American system and institutions are in need of preservation, if it’s not too late already. The Lincoln Project ad that has really gotten under Trump’s skin, Mourning in America, asks the right question at the end regarding preservation. On this Memorial day weekend, a time originally set aside to remember the Union soldiers who died to preserve the United States during the Civil War, have a Means of Preservation cocktail and make your plans for Nov. 3. From the Boston bar Drink, via Frederic Yarm at cocktailvirgin the Means of Preservation is:

2 oz Beefeater Gin
1/2 oz St. Germain Liqueur
1/2 oz Dolin Dry Vermouth
2 dash Celery Bitters

Stir with ice and strain into a coupe glass. Garnish with a grapefruit twist.

Cheers!

The Getaway

Escape Hatch

Even before the COVID-19 Pandemic, 2020 was shaping up to be a pretty crazy year, we could all use a vacation by now. Of course with all the social distancing and cancellations of cultural and sporting events that draw any sizable number of people together, it will be hard to take a break.

Going out for dinner or a drink has even become taboo. Despite the fact that my favorite NYC bars (Amor Y Amargo and Blue Quarter) are small, and could never physically be accused of holding a mass gathering, my home bar will be my watering hole for the Duration. Air travel is certainly too risky right now, and don’t even think about taking a cruise, we’ll have to find our escapes where we can.

If we had an accurate picture of where the Corona virus is, it would be easier to avoid it while searching for our escape. Trump, however, is still getting his taxpayer-funded trips to Mar-a-lago for golf, but he keeps running into COVID-19 infected people there. While we have no baseball, hockey or March Madness to watch, Trump has his golf escape hatch while his pals in the shale oil industry who are hurting in the price war between Trump buddies in Russia and Saudi Arabia will get a Corona virus related bailout. We just have to stay healthy enough until Jared figures it all out like he did Mideast peace.

In the meantime, create your own Escape Hatch. The Escape Hatch cocktail via Kindred Cocktail is:

1. 66 oz Bombay Gin

.5 oz Lychee liqueur

.5 oz Cointreau (triple sec)

.66 oz lime juice

Shake over ice, strain into a chilled cocktail glass, garnish with an orange twist

Cheers!

Hide & Seek!

Evidence

The Articles of Impeachment against President* Trump are due to be sent to the Senate so the trial may begin. Since the Articles passed the House, more evidence has come to light of Trumps direct involvement in holding up aid to Ukraine and former national Security Adviser Bolton has agreed to testify. Whether either of those things appear in the senate trial has yet to be determined, but it seems unlikely.

In a separate, but not unrelated development, the Administration is being to provide the evidence (and therefore a legal justification) in the killing of Iranian General Qasem Suleimani. Trump’s aversion to transparency is on full display in the shifting reasoning that is filled with hedging weasel words. “We believe he could have perhaps maybe been imminently targeting four of our embassies, but we don’t know where or when.”

Whether Iran or Ukraine, Trump says he has the evidence and we should trust him. Nevermind that no American politician in history has lied as much as Trump. To fill the gap of the information he is not providing, may I suggest an Evidence cocktail. Via Kindred Cocktail, the Evidence is:

1.5 oz gin (earl grey infused) – or you can take the shortcut like I did and use the Earl Grey Gin from Jersey City distillery Corgi Spirits

1 oz Lillet Blanc (Cocchi Americano)

.5 oz lemon juice

1 oz ginger ale

Combine ingredients other than ginger ale in a shaker and shake over ice, then add some of the ginger al and stir, strain into a chilled cocktail glass, add the rest of the ginger ale to top it up. Lemon garnish

Cheers!

The Kurds of 5th Avenue

5th Avenue

At a campaign rally in Iowa, in January 2016, Donald Trump said, “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters,” and then folded his fingers into the shape of a gun.

But Trump’s abandonment of our Kurdish allies, and their subsequent attack by Turkey,  may have more of an impact than just some random guy Trump might shoot on a street in New York City.

This move comes at a time when Trump’s foreign policy moves are already under scrutiny for being less about America’s global interests than his own.

The stunning betrayal of our closest ally in the fight against ISIS is cause enough for a strong rebuke of the President*, but the way Trump’s withdrawal of U.S. troops in Syria played into the hands of Erdogan, Assad and Putin, just adds an extra bitterness that is even hard for Republicans to swallow. The Russian flags raised over bases in Syria that were just vacated by U.S. troops only adds to the evidence for Trump as an asset of the Kremlin.

This particular 5th Avenue-moment for Trump has finally cost him with Republicans in Congress, as a majority of the House GOP sided with Democrats to voice opposition to the move in Syria.

Trump has a history of not paying contractors, and the Kurds did the heavy lifting in the fright against ISIS, so there would be some poetic justice if his betrayal of the Kurds (not paying an important contractor) led to his downfall.

The Kurds are in the middle of 5th Avenue and Trump handed the gun to Erdogan, now we’ll see whether it costs Trump.

So Have a 5th Avenue Cocktail created by Jim Roundall and taken from Brad Parson’s great book Bitters, the 5th Avenue Cocktail is:

1.5 oz London Dry Gin (Martin Miller’s is called for, I used Ford’s)

.5 oz Dolin Blanc vermouth

1 teaspoon yellow Chartreuse

1 dash absinthe

2 dashes lemon bitters

Garnish with lemon twist

Stir with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

Cheers!

Air Raid Destroys the Wall

aviation

After 35 days, Trump’s government shutdown over funding for his border wall (that Mexico was supposed to pay for) ended yesterday when air traffic controllers (who had now missed two paychecks) called in sick in great enough numbers to impact air travel.

Pressure had been building on Trump and the Republicans as stories of safety and national security issues grew alongside tales of human tragedies due to the shutdown, a problem which the public put squarely on their shoulders.

That pressure became too great, however — especially for some Republican senators — when flights began being delayed and cancelled, and a ground stop was called at New York’s LaGuardia Airport. Trump appeared at the White House to announce a “deal” to reopen the government for three weeks, but came away with nothing (except, perhaps, pleasing Putin).

Though it did prove once again that fixed barriers, such as walls, are no match for airpower.

The only potential benefit Trump got out of this humiliation at Nancy Pelosi’s hand was its potential to distract from the news of the arrest of his long-time friend and advisor Roger Stone who was indicted by Robert Mueller in the Russia probe.

The seven-count indictment against Stone clears for takeoff the connection between the Trump campaign and the WikiLeaks dissemination of the Russian-hacked DNC and Podesta emails.

Between the right-wing Trump base fuming over the complete cave he pulled on the wall and the ever-tightening Mueller noose, Trump has become such a lame duck he may only have one more flight left in him, the one seeking asylum in Moscow.

To celebrate the job action by air traffic controllers, who finally got a bit of payback for Reagan busting PATCO nearly 38 years ago, have an Aviation cocktail.

Although it has fallen out of favor a bit, the Aviation helped kick off the cocktail renaissance when Eric Seed at Haus Alpenz brought back the liqueur Creme de Violette.

After Prohibition, this ingredient went missing, which kind made the drink originated in the nineteen teens a bit of a head scratcher. It needs the blue tint from the Creme de Violette to make sense as an ode to the sky from the early days of flight.

From the recipe page at Haus Alpenz, the Aviation is:

2 oz London dry gin

.5 oz Maraschino liqueur

.5 oz lemon juice

.25 oz Creme de Violette

Shake over ice, strain into a chilled cocktail glass and garnish with a cherry.

Cheers!

Brace for Impact

Tailspin

In the final days of his presidency, Nixon was brooding, unstable and alone in the White House. The parallels with Trump continue over this holiday season, with the “poor me” tweet being Exhibit #1.

Of course Trump is feeling all alone, just look at all of the close advisors in jail or under indictment, unprecedented turnover in the administration, and now he’ll have to deal with Democrats having some power in DC. Trump definitely seems to have lost control. It is hard to tell at this point whether it is due to incompetence, Russian/Turkish/Saudi design, or a combination.

The decision to pull out of Syria, with its ill-conceived and possibly foreign influenced origins, is not helping Trump with Republicans — adding to that lonely feeling. The resulting resignations, and the scathing resignation letter from Defense Secretary Mattis (and Trump’s late realization on the letter’s negativity) only deepened Trump’s spiral.

The one place Trump had tried to find solace, in the economy, is also turning south on him (by his own hand primarily). Shutting down the government to appease right wing commentators over his border wall, threats against the Treasury Secretary and Fed Chairman have created massive volatility in the markets and brought a wipe out of most of the gains for the year.

Trump is clearly in a tailspin and the ground is fast approaching, represented by the Democratic takeover of the House on January 3. While we keep our fingers crossed that the country can pull out even if Trump can’t, have a Tailspin cocktail.

From Death & Co. Modern Classic Cocktails the Tailspin is:

1.5 oz London Dry Gin

1 oz Carpano Antica Formula Vermouth

1 oz Green Chartreuse

1 dash Orange Bitters

Rinse a coupe with Campari and dump. Stir the ingredients over ice, strain into the coupe, garnish with a lemon twist

Cheers!

Real Fake News

Obit

Since election night on November 6, the media has been coming up with narratives about how the midterm results are negative for Democrats. With the vote counting now essentially complete, it is clear these narratives keep proving false.

A few weeks ago, election night began with the story that the Blue Wave™ failed to materialize. While that storyline was reversed relatively early, some high-profile defeats helped that sense of Democratic underachievement to linger.

It turns out that the expected dramatic crashing wave of Democratic victories was actually more of a tsunami — a relentless flow of victories that has brought Democrats into power in the House, and beyond. Democrats picked up 39 seats in the House, needing 23 to gain control of the chamber.

Beyond the number of seats, Democrats saw one of their biggest victories in the House since Watergate, with vote totals giving them a 53% to 45% edge over Republicans, representing an 8.6 million vote margin with a presidential-election year type of turnout.

A telling example of the wave is in Orange County California, the heart of Reagan country, where all seven of the Representatives are now Democrats.

The Democratic wave was not limited to Washington, D.C., either. They flipped seven governorships, control 13 states now compared to seven, and broke Republican supermajorities in three states. These wins will be important moving into a census year to fight against Republican gerrymandering efforts, as well as thwart voter suppression activities in those states.

Perhaps one of the bigger fake news stories to emerge from the midterms was how the Democrats continued to lose rural America. The first piece to debunk this came from Daniel Block at Washington Monthly just a few days after the election. Using election data, Block looked at how rural votes impacted races in Kansas, Wisconsin, and Montana.

“On the whole, Democrats performed better in rural areas during these midterms than in 2016, which helped the party win some of its most consequential victories,” he wrote.

In The New York Times, pollster Stanley Greenberg also picked up on the false rural voter narrative. Greenberg notes that the biggest increase in Democratic votes came not in the suburbs (which saw a substantial increase that brought a number of House victories), but in rural areas. “That was the shocker,” he said.

“Democrats cut the Republicans’ margin in rural areas by 13 points, according to the Edison exit poll and by seven points in one by Catalist. Democrats still lost rural America by somewhere between 14 and 18 points so that left Democrats in a pickle there. That had implications for the Senate, but it shouldn’t conceal the fact that Democrats actually made progress in rural areas.”

As more and more analysis of the 2018 midterm elections is done, those early narratives of doom for Democrats is proving to be just so much fake news. Like Mark Twain, reports of Democrats’ death are greatly exaggerated.

As you savor the the Blue Wave — despite the reports — you can also savor an Obituary Cocktail.

From Robert Simonson’s excellent book 3-Ingredient Cocktails, the Obituary Cocktail is:

2 oz gin

.25 oz dry vermouth

.25 oz absinthe

Stir over ice for 30 seconds, strain into a chilled coupe, garnish with a lemon twist

Cheers!

Flash Flood (of BS) Warning

Bamboozled

The Category 5 storm of bullshit emanating from Trump and the Republicans is expected to continue sweeping across the nation until at least November 7, when it may weaken slightly.

The amount nonsense and crazy is hitting new heights in the final approach to the midterm elections. Daniel Dale, Washington Bureau Chief for the Toronto Star summed it up nicely this evening. His lede:

Democrats will kick seniors off their health insurance. Democrats will end insurance protections for people with health problems. Democrats will destroy the Social Security retirement system. Democrats will give illegal immigrants free cars. Democrats will abolish America’s borders. Democrats are behind the latest migrant caravan from Latin America. That caravan includes people from the Middle East.

False, false, false, false, false, false, false.

At the time Dale was likely filing that piece, Trump was already on to a new lie, claiming Congress would pass a 10% middle class tax cut before the election. The fact that Congress is not in session between now and the election does not matter to Trump.

To paraphrase Capt. Willard in Apocalypse Now, the bullshit piles up so fast with Trump you need wings to stay above it.

Meanwhile, House Republicans who voted 70 times to kill Obamacare are now running as the defenders of a key ACA provision that won’t let insurance companies deny coverage over pre-existing conditions.

That there are many people who are still susceptible to this con game run by Trump and the GOP is human nature (though you still can’t fool all of the people all of the time). But it is imperative for the rest of us to make sure they don’t constitute a majority when the votes are counted.

Fight the flood of BS and lies with a Bamboozled cocktail. This is another from the Cocktail Virgin archives of Frederic Yarm, this one from October 3, 2013. The Bamboozled is:

1.25 oz Amontillado Sherry (Lustau Los Arcos)

1 oz Cocchi Americano

.5 oz Ford’s Gin (Dorothy Parker)

1/8 oz Nux Alpina Walnut Liqueur

1/8 oz Demerara Syrup

1 dash Angostura Bitters

Stir with ice and strain into a cocktail coupe.

The nuttiness of the sherry and the walnut liqueur is perfect for these next two weeks.

Cheers!

Why America Is Polarized

3-1

In the wake of Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court by a 50-48 vote in the Senate, one of the narrowest margins in history according to The Washington Post, “an increasingly polarized nation” is pushed to the brink.

The words polarized and divided have become shorthand for these type of party line votes that end up almost evenly split. But this shorthand misses the bigger picture that helps to explain the polarization — America is not evenly split. Even before the allegations of sexual assault, Kavanaugh was one of the most unpopular Justice nominees ever. He was “rammed through” and installed on the highest court by a group of 51 Senators representing states with 46% of the U.S. electorate. Here are the seeds of the polarization.

It is difficult to admit, but Trump was right about something. In 2016, when he said the election was being rigged, he was right — just not in the way he meant it (unless he meant the Russian meddling).

Putting aside Russian meddling, the election was rigged to maintain a minority rule in our government. In an interesting parallel with the Kavanaugh vote, Trump became president with 46% of the vote, but won the electoral college because of 78,000 votes across three key states.

More importantly, 2016 was another year of a Republican “seat bonus” in the House. After winning just under 50% of the congressional vote, the GOP picked up a little more than 55% of the seats. I have written about this before, including here and here. This has been happening for the past several cycles. Gerrymandering is a part of this, but so, too, is the fact the representation is still based on the 1910 Census. This is increasing the power of rural, lightly populated — and generally Republican leaning — states.

The Senate is different, as it is meant to represent states, while the House represents people. Part of the concern around the disappearing norms of Senate behavior over the past decade or so is the way it has heightened partisanship in what was once a place of comity, that rose above narrow interests for the greater good, that embodied country over party. But that came from the traditional practices of the Senate, not Constitutional mandate. The Founding Fathers warned us about factions.

Now, the minority faction rules and it has stoked the “polarization” the press likes to talk about because the will of the people is not being met. Whether it’s on healthcare, regulating banks, paying to fix infrastructure, or many other key issues of the day, the position of the ruling Republican Party is the opposite of the majority opinion in the country.

For example, look at some of the hot button issues that Kavanaugh may decide on the Court, abortion and gun control. According to Pew Research, by a nearly 60-40 margin Americans believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases. That stat is about the same as it was 20 years ago. On gun control, Gallup polling shows an even starker difference with 67% in favor of more strict laws, while 32% say keep as it is now or make it less strict (28% and 4% respectively).

The installation of Kavanaugh is the culmination of a decades long effort by Republicans to undermine democracy in favor of a “permanent majority” that I wrote about last month and looks to be a similar subject of the new Steve Kornacki book The Red and the Blue: The 1990s and the Birth of Political Tribalism that I am looking forward to reading. For noted conservative Tom Nichols, Kavanaugh represented the “situational ethics” of the GOP that showed the “Republican Party now exists for one reason, and one reason only: for the exercise of raw political power,” as he put it in The Atlantic today as he announced his “divorce” from the party.

As the GOP thwarts the will of the American people and looks to cling to power by any means possible — Gerrymandering, voter suppression, etc (including Russian help?) — it is a good time to remember who is in the majority, make a plan to vote in November, and have a Three To One Cocktail.

This pre-Prohibition drink from the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel comes via Dr. Cocktail Ted Haigh’s Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails book. It is:

1.5 oz 100-proof gin (I used Hayman’s Royal Dock Gin)

.75 oz apricot liqueur

Juice of half a lime (.5-.75 oz)

Shake over ice, strain into a cocktail glass, garnish with a lime wedge.

Cheers!

 

Parting Shot

My Word

Donald Trump is fighting with a dead guy, and losing.

The death of Senator John McCain this past week set off the final spat between the patriotic ex-POW war hero twice defeated in his bids for the presidency, and the current president, a traitor who gained office with the help of Russia. While Trump plays games with flags at the White House, it is clear McCain prepared a brilliant parting shot from beyond the grave.

Beyond the fact that Trump is explicitly not invited to his funeral, McCain has asked George W. Bush and Barack Obama — the two men who thwarted his attempts at the White House — to speak. On Twitter, @Stonekettle put it best:

“McCain asked these men to eulogize him because he knew they would put aside any differences and take the high road, that they would speak to the nation and to the world about duty and service and sacrifice above self.

“And Trump would not.”

In a — what may or may not be — final dig at Trump, McCain has asked Russian dissident and Putin opponent Vladimir Kara-Murza to be a pallbearer. Kara-Murza has survived two poisoning attempts, both believed to have come from the Kremlin.

At this point you may be expecting a suggestion of a Last Word cocktail. However, in a nod to McCain’s chess master level of play to Trump’s checkers game, we need a good Last Word variant. I offer the Oh My Word cocktail.

The recipe comes from the fantastic new book I’m Just Here for the Drinks by Sother Teague @CreativeDrunk. This is an absolutely beautiful book that is personal and accessible, filled with knowledge and wisdom that flows in an easy going style, like a great conversation across the bar. Oh, and a lot of very good recipes from one of the best in the business.

The Oh My Word cocktail is:

2 dashes of orange bitters

.75 oz Maraschino liqueur

.75 oz green Chartreuse

.75 Amaro Montenegro

.75 oz OldTom gin

Stir over ice, strain, serve up, no garnish

So as the band plays Danny Boy for McCain, raise your Oh My Word. And when the funeral is over, to avoid the Trump tantrum designed to regain attention, turn off the TV and curl up with I’m Just Here for the Drinks, cover to cover, this is one of the best cocktail books to come along.

Cheers!