This was a LOT of fun and we covered some of my favorite cocktails, and some great esoteric stuff too! (Skip the first three minutes to get into the convo) Check it out!
Live Stream on Arnemancy Replay!
Social (experiment) Drinking
We are currently part of a social experiment. Now, before you think I have gone off the conspiracy deep-end, it’s a de facto social experiment. I don’t believe that a shadow government of the new world order is behind the current pandemic, but a tidal wave of never-before-seen data is coming. Scientists from every field imaginable will study this moment in history for centuries. So, yes, this is a social experiment.
This little statistic went to market, this little statistic stayed home..
Personally, still riding high on the free time. Burning through Duolingo ‘high school’ level Spanish so I can get to the stuff I that actually need to practice. Their Chinese (Mandarin) lessons have improved quite a bit, so dusting off the neurons and synapses from that semester of it I took twenty years ago too. Man, time flies. SO THAT’S about twenty minutes of the day. Started a video series on cocktails and cocktail history with my roommate, since we’re uniquely qualified for that- he does the spirits knowledge and I focus on the cocktail history. It’s a good chance to practice video editing, even if I only have iMovie, it’s more than enough for my needs. It’s called 2BoredBartenders, and it’s on YouTube. Check it out. Even got a weird ghostly EVP that definitely was not either of us.. it’s about seven minutes in. Not surprised, there is some sort of power vortex around here or something.
Reading some Gurdjieff and Ouspensky through the filter of a fellow named ‘Red Hawk’, and thinking it’s getting to me at the right time. There is a lot of practical advice in his book “Self Observation” that I am trying to put to good use- I recommend it. The thesis of it being that self-observation without judgment as the key to making any progress in the ‘Great Work’ (he just says ‘Work’ but my Crowley side can’t resist). He writes with a great deal of humility, which is refreshing for the genre. Realizing through that book, and meditating daily at least once (using the Headspace app, which I was very resistant to at first, but it has been beneficial at breaking me out of a meditation rut), that the body and its tension are the best indicators of other problems. Working on noticing that more.
On a totally different note, I have also gone back to research some history on drinks that are so part of the canon at this point one hardly thinks about them. The Margarita, for instance, can claim its name from three (or more) different women- but was likely originally named after none of them. Being that ‘margarita’ is a word for daisy, and the drink is basically a tequila daisy (with salt), I agree with David Wondrich (as usual) that this is the most likely scenario. Being a bartender, I also know how bartenders think, and believe it was also actually named after all three ladies (one being Rita Hayworth!). In fact, every pretty woman named Margarita probably ‘had the drink named after them’ for the first two decades of its existence, when a bartender could still pretend he made the damn thing up and she would be none the wiser. Here’s my (pretty standard) take on the drink..
2 parts tequila, 3/4 part each triple sec and fresh lime, quarter part of simple
Shake, salted rim
Simple and effective, and if you want to throw it in a blender, just this once, I won’t tell.. perks of social distancing.
Podcast is a go!
After months, many many months, of staring at a microphone in my room I finally managed to summon up the courage to talk into it. Then I erased it and made a slightly less ‘lip-smacking meandering’ version.
I touch on Gnosticism and why, perhaps, we craft bartenders get so bothered by people who order trendy drinks.. or at least I do sometimes. I want this project to be about personal growth, whether or not I always live up to my own advice. So here it is, warts and all, and excited to do bigger and better as I go!
Retrograde Lemonade (well.. tea)
Mercury retrograde is upon us, when the little things in life suddenly turn on us in irritating ways. Don’t ask me why, there is no scientific explanation (yet) why the perceived backwards travel of a small planet millions of miles away would affect our communication here on Earth. Yet, anecdotally I can tell you it does seem to have an effect, and patience is a virtue during these times.
In the Western (whatever that ever meant) magical tradition, this is a good time for being a little, umm, deceptive if that’s something that is required for the task at hand. So what more appropriate cocktail than the Long Island Iced Tea? It looks like a simple glass of iced tea, but whoa does it pack a punch! Here’s an updated version that is easy to make at home (pro tip- just buy the airplane bottles of any spirit you don’t have in your home bar) to get you through any electronic malfunctions or deception thrown your way.
- 1/2oz each vodka, gin, rum, tequila, and triple sec (all the clear stuff typically found in a typical bar)
- 3/4oz simple syrup
- 1oz lemon juice
- splash of cola
shake all ingredients except for cola, pour over ice and top with cola
Oh, and there maybe some deception involved in the origin of this dive bar classic, you can read all about it here..
retrograde schmetrograde
Making a Daiquiri
The Dark Watchers..
Ever feel like you’re being watched? Well you are, but let’s leave the NSA, Russia, Amazon, Facebook, etc, out of it for awhile (hi guys!). If you find yourself in the Santa Lucia Mountains of coastal California, perhaps in search of a nice Pinot Noir, you may end up with some company. According to Jason Offutt in his book Chasing American Monsters, the Chumash Indians were the first to see mysterious silhouettes standing on the mountain ridges, silently staring. [edit 03/22/21 Ken Layne on his Desert Oracle podcast clarified the tribe as the Essalen, a tribe nearly wiped out by the Spanish, and from whom the Essalen Institute took its name.] Spanish settlers recorded seeing these vigilantes oscuros, and a quick search online (specifically the comments section of the Weird California page on the subject [unsecure link, not sharing it]) shows that these things are still being seen regularly today. Back to Offutt, “Legend has it these humanoid creatures rarely appear to anyone who is carrying a gun, or is dressed in weatherproof clothing; they only reveal the themselves to people who wander the mountains in more old-fashioned garb.”
Pepé, the protagonist of the John Steinbeck short story ‘flight’ had a gun, and little good it did him shortly after seeing the Dark Watchers.
Once, on a white barren spur, he saw a black figure for a moment, but he looked quickly away, for it was one of the dark watchers. No one knew who the watchers were, nor where they lived, but it was better to ignore them and never to show any interest in them. They did not bother one who stayed on the trail and and minded his own business.
…
Pepe looked up to the top of the next dry withered ridge. He saw a dark form against the sky, a man’s figure standing on top of a rock, and he glanced away quickly not to appear curious. When a moment later he looked up again, the figure was gone.
John Steinbeck, ‘Flight’
Steinbeck was interested enough in these mysterious beings that his son, Thomas, collaborated on a book (In Search of the Dark Watchers) about the subject with artist Benjamin Brode. Apparently lore of the Watchers was deeply ingrained in his upbringing, his grandmother even claiming to have traded with them- which is lore altering if true.
Poet Robinson Jeffers, in his poem ‘Such Counsels You Gave to Me’ also mentioned “the watchers, who are often seen in this length of coast range, forms that look human to human eyes, but certainly are not human. They come from behind ridges to watch.”
So, what are these ethereal observers? Are they like the ‘shadow people’ many observe in their bedrooms at night? Are they ghosts, or the remaining vibrations of a people long passed on? Perhaps it is a form of alien intelligence, curious about our hiking habits? Whatever they are, I thought they deserved a cocktail of their own. Luckily the boys at Bootlegger Tiki were up to the task and helped me whip up “The Dark Watcher aka the Poor Pepé”.
1 1/2 oz Singani 63
1/2 Demerara syrup
1/2 lime juice
1/4 oz fallernum
barspoon grenadine
barspoon açaí pureé
shake with crushed ice, Collins glass, garnish with edible flowers to accentuate the floral aspects
It’s refreshing and dangerous, and just dark enough to add a sense of mystery. If you ask the bartenders at Bootlegger nicely, I am sure you could get them to make you one.
..and if you see something dark watching you on the horizon, just leave it be.
Cryptic Cocktails 