Book review: Ultimate Bar Book
Those hardy few who read my entries might have noticed one of my New Year's resolutions was to get acquainted with alcohol. It seems like a weird thing to me for a 43 year old person to do who is primarily interested in clean living, staying sober and level-headed, and making sure I don't develop alcoholic patterns like my father. But it's an important part of our culture meaning that a basic literacy in it is useful for anyone to be properly socialized, and I'm done with being intolerant and afraid of something that brings pleasure to many. Plus, I want to be a badass and being a badass (to me) includes a familiarity with alcohol (and exercising proper self-control in imbibing it).
I'm not a teetotaler even before I made this resolution. I tend to drink something alcoholic about once a month. Usually it's a Mike's hard lite lemonade. They make a great basis for a rocking fruit smoothie. Plus, alcohol takes the tension out of my muscles better than any painkiller I've yet tried. I can feel the improvement, which I NEVER can with acetometaphin or ibuprofen. Sometimes I can with aspirin, but generally at doses that cramp my stomach. Sometimes I can with naproxen sodium, but again, it's hit or miss with whether I have to take enough to get a belly ache before the other pain subsides. With alcohol, it always works. The only downsides are the poor judgment/impairment from driving and the calories. So I'm selective about when I use it. I also use alcohol when I have a cough or sore throat that won't subside. With the cough, it used to be that I'd cough hard and piss myself. Every. Single. Time. So annoying. I'd wear menstrual pads, but if I had a bad coughing fit and hadn't gone to the bathroom in the last hour, that might not be enough. The incontinance is a side effect of having had my daughter. The plumbing never worked right after that. However, I can happily say that a year and a half now of Brazilian jujitsu has done wonders for my pelvic floor muscles (among others) and I have much better control than I used to. Another year of this level of improvement and I'll say I'm back to 'normal'. Let's hear it for BJJ! Anyway, about alcohol - if I didn't have to be at work or drive or actively care for kids/others, then I'd drink whiskey/honey/lemon juice until either the cough subsided or I quit caring about the cough. Worked a hell of a lot better than cough syrup, which like the painkillers, I've only rarely been able to notice an effect from medication. But I always notice the effect of the alcohol.
So - not a teetotaler, but I don't consider myself a heavy drinker, either. Or even a moderate one. Possibly not even a 'light' drinker. Part of this also is that I detest the taste of beer and most of the strong liquors that I'd tried (whiskey, vodka, everclear, etc.) were nasty beyond. Since I had no understanding of mixers or cocktails, I'd always tried these things straight. Since I had no tolerance or experience of them, they were always nasty tasting that I didn't try it again.
That logical, but simultaneously unreasoning aversion is what I want to overcome this year. Based on reading this bar book, I think it will be pretty easy. For one thing, once I got to reading it became clear to me that I'm woefully ignorant on the subject and had missed a lot of the point of this stuff. What I'd been doing was like tasting flour and then rejecting bread. The bar book had a starting section on basics - nomenclature, equipment, standard components of any well-stocked bar, etc. Then a little on presentation, which is always important when dealing with food and appetite. I get that. There's a little section on how to streamline and organize entertaining with alcohol as a component of it. As a process-oriented supply chain professional, I appreciate that. :)
After that, it got into sections each oriented around a basic type of liquor - Beer, Brandy, Champagne, Gin, Liqueurs, Rum, Tequila, Vodka, Whisk(e)y, Wine, Hot Drinks, Punches, Shooters, Nonalcoholic, and Hangover Remedies. Each section has an intro bit several pages long about the history of the type, how it's made, what distinguishes it from others, major brands, and how to tell quality. This is followed by an alphabetical list of popular cocktails, with breakout sections for the wildly popular ones (like Martini, or Manhattan, or Sidecar). The breakout sections were a miniature version of the standard liquor section with a history, trends, major variations, etc.
Reading the book got me to writing down the few drinks I've had over the years that I've liked - white russians, grasshoppers, mudslides, anything with irish cream, a few brandy drinks, mixtures of orange or pineapple juice with champagne or a tiny bit of vodka, etc. (Not that there's much 'etc' to the list - that's about it.) It also inspired me to try a few new combinations on my own, making a chocolate orange and a hot buttered rum, or putting a bit of creme de cacao to beef up my hot chocolate. So far, so good! I think to myself about my early fumblings in trying to teach myself to cook. It was a big struggle and took TONS of practice and a fair lot of ruined food. I expect a similar learning curve here. Along the way, I'll keep an eye on not consuming too many calories (alcohol is about as bad as chocolate). I need to organize a party with some of my local imbibing friends so they can 'help' me out on my journey. I have these full bottles and I'm drinking only a shot or two a week at my current, elevated rate for this year. According to the book, there are quite a few liquors that lose vibrancy as they age. I'd do best to have the stuff appreciated while it was at its peak than to let it go off.
About the book: The Ultimate Bar Book: The Comprehensive Guide to over 1,000 Cocktails, by Mittie Hellmich.
I'm not a teetotaler even before I made this resolution. I tend to drink something alcoholic about once a month. Usually it's a Mike's hard lite lemonade. They make a great basis for a rocking fruit smoothie. Plus, alcohol takes the tension out of my muscles better than any painkiller I've yet tried. I can feel the improvement, which I NEVER can with acetometaphin or ibuprofen. Sometimes I can with aspirin, but generally at doses that cramp my stomach. Sometimes I can with naproxen sodium, but again, it's hit or miss with whether I have to take enough to get a belly ache before the other pain subsides. With alcohol, it always works. The only downsides are the poor judgment/impairment from driving and the calories. So I'm selective about when I use it. I also use alcohol when I have a cough or sore throat that won't subside. With the cough, it used to be that I'd cough hard and piss myself. Every. Single. Time. So annoying. I'd wear menstrual pads, but if I had a bad coughing fit and hadn't gone to the bathroom in the last hour, that might not be enough. The incontinance is a side effect of having had my daughter. The plumbing never worked right after that. However, I can happily say that a year and a half now of Brazilian jujitsu has done wonders for my pelvic floor muscles (among others) and I have much better control than I used to. Another year of this level of improvement and I'll say I'm back to 'normal'. Let's hear it for BJJ! Anyway, about alcohol - if I didn't have to be at work or drive or actively care for kids/others, then I'd drink whiskey/honey/lemon juice until either the cough subsided or I quit caring about the cough. Worked a hell of a lot better than cough syrup, which like the painkillers, I've only rarely been able to notice an effect from medication. But I always notice the effect of the alcohol.
So - not a teetotaler, but I don't consider myself a heavy drinker, either. Or even a moderate one. Possibly not even a 'light' drinker. Part of this also is that I detest the taste of beer and most of the strong liquors that I'd tried (whiskey, vodka, everclear, etc.) were nasty beyond. Since I had no understanding of mixers or cocktails, I'd always tried these things straight. Since I had no tolerance or experience of them, they were always nasty tasting that I didn't try it again.
That logical, but simultaneously unreasoning aversion is what I want to overcome this year. Based on reading this bar book, I think it will be pretty easy. For one thing, once I got to reading it became clear to me that I'm woefully ignorant on the subject and had missed a lot of the point of this stuff. What I'd been doing was like tasting flour and then rejecting bread. The bar book had a starting section on basics - nomenclature, equipment, standard components of any well-stocked bar, etc. Then a little on presentation, which is always important when dealing with food and appetite. I get that. There's a little section on how to streamline and organize entertaining with alcohol as a component of it. As a process-oriented supply chain professional, I appreciate that. :)
After that, it got into sections each oriented around a basic type of liquor - Beer, Brandy, Champagne, Gin, Liqueurs, Rum, Tequila, Vodka, Whisk(e)y, Wine, Hot Drinks, Punches, Shooters, Nonalcoholic, and Hangover Remedies. Each section has an intro bit several pages long about the history of the type, how it's made, what distinguishes it from others, major brands, and how to tell quality. This is followed by an alphabetical list of popular cocktails, with breakout sections for the wildly popular ones (like Martini, or Manhattan, or Sidecar). The breakout sections were a miniature version of the standard liquor section with a history, trends, major variations, etc.
Reading the book got me to writing down the few drinks I've had over the years that I've liked - white russians, grasshoppers, mudslides, anything with irish cream, a few brandy drinks, mixtures of orange or pineapple juice with champagne or a tiny bit of vodka, etc. (Not that there's much 'etc' to the list - that's about it.) It also inspired me to try a few new combinations on my own, making a chocolate orange and a hot buttered rum, or putting a bit of creme de cacao to beef up my hot chocolate. So far, so good! I think to myself about my early fumblings in trying to teach myself to cook. It was a big struggle and took TONS of practice and a fair lot of ruined food. I expect a similar learning curve here. Along the way, I'll keep an eye on not consuming too many calories (alcohol is about as bad as chocolate). I need to organize a party with some of my local imbibing friends so they can 'help' me out on my journey. I have these full bottles and I'm drinking only a shot or two a week at my current, elevated rate for this year. According to the book, there are quite a few liquors that lose vibrancy as they age. I'd do best to have the stuff appreciated while it was at its peak than to let it go off.
About the book: The Ultimate Bar Book: The Comprehensive Guide to over 1,000 Cocktails, by Mittie Hellmich.