Cocktails: Class of the Glass

The New York Times devotes today’s Dining section to cocktail culture, even seeing fit to give my man Murray Stenson at the Zig Zag Café his very own action shot. I was astounded at how many of the bars mentioned I’ve been to, and was filled with both pride and shame. An experience that is not entirely new to me.

The lead article is on the resurgence of the White Russian, spurred by The Big Lebowski. I confess that as much as I love Lebowski, I have never ordered a Caucasian, nor do I intend to.

I was more interested in this piece on cocktail geeks. I’m not sure if I could call myself one of them. I have never made my own vermouth, and set the bar pretty low when it comes to ice. (If it’s cold, that’s good enough for me.) On the other hand, I too have little use for vodka and can pinpoint my own moment of conversion: entering the Zig Zag for the first time, telling Ben that I wanted to learn about rye whiskey, and being poured a Red Hook. From then on, I was a new man.