Cocktail of the Week: Up In Mabel’s Room

The Academy Awards are on Sunday, so why not spotlight another cocktail named after a movie? Even if I’ve already featured one that’s damn near identical.

Up In Mabel’s Room is a 1919 play co-written by Wilson Collison and Otto Harbach, better known as a lyricist (“Smoke Gets In Your Eyes”) and mentor to Oscar Hammerstein. You can hear the plot mechanics creaking from the description: a wife divorces her husband upon discovering he’s secretly bought ladies’ unmentionables only to learn they were intended as her anniversary gift, so she sets out to woo him back. It’s like a navy strength episode of Three’s Company.

The stage smash was adapted to the screen twice. The 1926 film starred Marie Prevost, who was for a time Ernst Lubitsch’s leading lady of choice, and Harrison Ford. No, not him. The other Harrison Ford. (Admit it. You didn’t know there was an other Harrison Ford.) Allan Dwan directed the 1944 version, starring Marjorie Reynolds, Jack Oakie and Dennis O’Keefe. Here’s where things turn weird. In addition to being the author of the novel that spawned the Maisie series of comedies, Wilson Collison proved himself to be the laureate of lingerie. He co-wrote another farce revolving around an article of women’s underwear with one of history’s greatest titles: Getting Gertie’s Garter. That play was also filmed twice. The star and director of the 1926 Mabel’s Room reteamed one year later for Garter – and so would Dwan and O’Keefe in 1945.

Both stage and screen incarnations of Mabel’s Room are largely forgotten. The drink deserves a better fate. Its initial appearance came in the Cocktail Guide and Ladies Companion by Broadway producer and bon vivant Crosby Gaige. The recipe, at least as it appeared in the book’s 1944 edition, called for rye, grapefruit juice and honey. In other words, it’s a Brown Derby (aka a De Rigueur) with a different base spirit (rye instead of bourbon). While the Brown Derby still has its adherents – I spotted it on a restaurant’s cocktail list this week – its doppelganger has fallen out of circulation. I rediscovered it thanks to Dark Spirits by A. J. Rathbun. The modern take uses simple syrup in place of honey; while I would never make that substitution in a Brown Derby given bourbon’s inherent sweetness, it works fine with a typically drier rye. In Mabel’s Room the citrus and the sweetener come in generous, equal portions that still allow the grapefruit’s tartness to shine through. Personally I prefer the Brown Derby, but that one doesn’t have any scanties in its scant history.

Up in Mabel’s Room

1 ½ oz. rye
¾ oz. grapefruit juice
¾ oz. simple syrup

Shake. Strain. No garnish.

Want more Cocktail of the Week? The first fifty-two essays are available in the Kindle bestseller DOWN THE HATCH: ONE MAN’S ONE YEAR ODYSSEY THROUGH CLASSIC COCKTAIL RECIPES AND LORE. Buy it now at Amazon.com.

Cocktail of the Week: Tales of the White Negroni

At the heart of this week’s entry lies a temptress known as Suze. Her wiles are such that I haven’t actually tasted the drink this post is putatively about, much less prepared it myself. Instead I offer two variations that attempt to carry on in her absence.

Suze is made with a species of the flowering plant gentian. According to Amy Stewart’s The Drunken Botanist, gentian’s use for medicinal purposes dates back to 1200 BC. The plant is harvested at an age when its roots weigh several pounds. The bitterness of those roots informs a host of liqueurs including Campari and Aperol, but in Suze it’s the whole show. I’ve tasted Suze. The best word for its flavor is funky. Additional tidbits about Suze –

- It’s beloved in France, where gentian grows in the mountains, but has only been commercially available in the United States since 2012.

- It comes in a bottle approximately the size of the torpedoes from which Joaquin Phoenix got his squeezings in The Master.

- In Washington State, one of those bottles will run you about seventy dollars.

- As the product of a Catholic union household, I cannot in good conscience drop seventy dollars on a mammoth bottle of liqueur possessing a taste I am inclined to describe as funky.

- Craft cocktail bartenders in Washington State are also galled by that price, particularly when they know you can pick up a bottle of Suze in Parisian supermarkets for the spare Euros found in the couch cushions. So plenty of craft cocktails bars don’t have Suze, either.

The Fatty 'Cue White Negroni

All of which comes as a disappointment in light of the growing popularity of a drink called the White Negroni. Created by U.K. bartender Wayne Collins in 2002, the drink riffs playfully on the basic structure of the Negroni: gin/aromatized wine/potable bitters. The relative scarcity (and high price) of Suze has led others to tinker with that formula even further. Several of those later innovations, mercifully, all use ingredients I happened to have on hand.

First up was a variation from Michael Dietsch of Serious Eats. Dietsch used Cocchi Americano in place of Lillet Blanc, which is now my default substitution, along with dry vermouth. My contribution: grapefruit bitters. The drink certainly qualifies as white – I’ve had martinis that aren’t as clear as this – and its crisp, cool taste is bolstered by the presence of grapefruit. But I longed for some additional bitterness.

More to my liking was the White Negroni credited to the New York restaurant Fatty ‘Cue. As in Dietsch’s drink, they use gin (favoring Plymouth), Cocchi Americano, and dry vermouth. They also throw in my old favorite, celery bitters, then push the result more toward the Negroni camp with the addition of the artichoke liqueur Cynar. (Fatty ‘Cue also garnishes the glass with a fennel frond, which is the kind of flash I leave to the professionals.) It’s more herbal than Dietsch’s cocktail but still possesses a bright, clean taste. This is the one I’ll make when I wonder what a White Negroni with Suze might be like.

The White Negroni I’ve Never Actually Had

Wayne Collins, London

2 oz. Plymouth gin
1 oz. Lillet Blanc
¾ oz. Suze

Stir. Strain. Garnish with a lemon twist.

The White Negroni, Variation #1

Michael Dietsch, Serious Eats

1 oz. gin
1 oz. Cocchi Americano
½ oz. dry vermouth
2 dashes grapefruit bitters

Stir. Strain. Garnish with a lemon twist.

The White Negroni, Fatty ‘Cue Edition

Fatty ‘Cue, New York

1 ½ oz. gin
¾ oz. Cocchi Americano
½ oz. dry vermouth
¼ oz. Cynar
2 dashes celery bitters

Stir. Strain. Garnish with a lemon twist, or a fennel frond if you have that kind of time.

Want more Cocktail of the Week? The first fifty-two essays are available in the Kindle bestseller DOWN THE HATCH: ONE MAN’S ONE YEAR ODYSSEY THROUGH CLASSIC COCKTAIL RECIPES AND LORE. Buy it now at Amazon.com.

Movies: It Always Rains on Noir City Seattle

A scant two weeks after the big top folded in San Francisco, the Noir City carnival rolled into Seattle. Much of the Bay Area’s company of players reassembled: ringmaster Eddie Muller, the redoubtable Daryl Sparks working her usual magic behind the scenes and at the swag table, Tokyo’s stylish noir aficionado supreme Etsuko Tamazawa, the missus and yours truly. Also on hand was this year’s program, a cherce complement of films from around the world attesting to the fact that film noir, even in the middle of the last century, was a truly global phenomenon.

Amidst the filmgoing, there were copious amounts of socializing and strategizing. The latter has heaped quite a bit more on my plate, so herewith are truncated highlights. There is a twist ending, though, because it just ain’t noir without a sting in the tail.

Death is a Caress (Norway, 1949). The first half of what is surely the most perverse Valentine’s Day double bill ever programmed. A Scandinavian riff on James M. Cain (note the note on the homme fatale’s doorbell to “ring twice”), directed by a woman (Edith Carlmar) and made in a country with no production code and a more tolerant attitude toward infidelity. Aimless young man takes up with sexually aggressive, wealthy older married woman. Murder is never plotted, yet doom hangs in the air. A bracing lesson in gender politics. It took a while to recover from the shock of seeing characters in a 1940s film speak openly about abortion.

Death of a Cyclist (Spain, 1955). Think working for the studios in the heyday of the Hays Office was a tricky proposition? Try making societal critiques under Generalissimo Francisco Franco. Part two of the Nobody’s Getting Laid This Valentine’s Day line-up, this film from director/co-writer Juan Antonio Bardem (uncle of Javier) is a scathing critique of bourgeois privilege. Returning from a tryst, a married woman and her ex-fiancé are involved in a hit and run accident. An oily hanger-on in their circle (the spectacular Carlos Casaravilla – think a sinister Oscar Levant) insinuates that he knows all. The film eventually gets bogged down in philosophizing en route to an ending at once predictable and brazen, but its opening forty-five minutes is supple, modern, and brimming with both style and righteous anger.

Hardly a Criminal (Argentina, 1949). Bank clerk José (Jorge Salcedo), addicted to gambling, isn’t above dipping into the till to cover his losses. When he realizes Argentine law means he’ll serve the same six-year sentence no matter how much he steals, he goes for broke and deliberately gets caught, planning to do his time then live high. What he doesn’t figure on is how his actions will affect his family – and how his fellow inmates will cotton to his clever crime. A blast of pure, straight-ahead noir that you could easily see being made Stateside. Little wonder the chops on display here brought director Hugo Fregonese to Hollywood.

The Murderers Are Among Us (Germany, 1946). A day of films shot from 1946 to 1948 as war clouds were dissipating began with a landmark, the first movie made in Germany after Berlin fell. (As Eddie said when introducing Japan’s Drunken Angel, contemplate what noir means in the countries that lost World War II.) A concentration camp prisoner (Hildegard Knef) returns to her ruined flat to find an alcoholic doctor squatting there. Even as her presence awakens something in him, it also leads to the discovery that his brutal former commanding officer is prospering as Germany starts to rebuild. An astonishing artifact filmed guerilla-style in the rubble, it’s only slightly compromised by its compelling history. (Production had to be backed by one of the city’s occupying powers. Only the Soviets stepped up, but they insisted on changes in the script. Later the Americans arrested lead actor Wilhelm Borchert for falsifying information on his papers, jeopardizing imposed reshoots.)

It Always Rains on Sunday (England, 1947). A movie I’d missed in repertory screenings for years, finally viewed on a Sunday – when it was raining! Kismet! The revelation of the festival, Sunday captures a day of supposed rest in London’s East End as the city copes with war’s aftermath. The script by director Robert Hamer, Hitchcock collaborator Angus MacPhail and Henry Cornelius weaves together a mosaic of stories all anchored by the tale of an escaped convict seeking temporary sanctuary at the home of his now-married former flame played by a magnificent Googie Withers. A powerhouse of a film.

I promised a twist, didn’t I? Turns out master of ceremonies Muller would not be available to present the President’s Day roster of French noir. Not wanting to disappoint the crowd, he asked Rosemarie and me to stand in for him. A tall order, considering he was just named a host on Turner Classic Movies, but who could deny the man who’s done so much to preserve film noir? We suited up – I put on a tie, people, I got my shoes shined – and set about our task in earnest.

What made it easier than expected was the quartet of movies we were fortunate enough to introduce. Pépé Le Moko (1937), with Jean Gabin incarnating the essence of la belle France as the gangster who yearns for home from his aerie in the Casbah of Algiers. Rififi (1955), perhaps the definitive heist film. Une si jolie petite plage (Such a Pretty Little Beach, aka Riptide, 1949) the wild card of the bunch, a bleak, elliptical story of a mysterious young man who haunts an off-season resort village with a memorable lead performance by Gérard Philipe, France’s James Dean. And finally, one of my personal favorites, Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Quai des Orfévres or Jenny Lamour, a saucy tour of the demimonde of Paris music halls. This movie has everything: sex, love, suspense, humor, and an inspired ending. It was the perfect way to ring down the curtain. To have some small part in bringing this peerless gem to a new audience was an honor. But honestly, I don’t understand how Muller does this night in and night out. Rosemarie and I were exhausted at the end of our tour of duty, and we were sharing the workload. Still, we’d do it again.

Austin, you’re up next. Get ready.

Cocktail of the Week: The Blood and Sand

They’re not many in number, Scotch cocktails, and understandably so. Scotch whisky, whether smoky or peaty, is a lonely, Brontë-esque figure on the moors, demanding to be savored in solitude. The one or two drinks I’ve spotlighted using this spirit don’t stray far from the Manhattan. But the cocktail that shows Scotch to its best advantage moves in a completely different direction, and is in my personal pantheon. Naysayers who don’t believe Scotch mixes well be warned: no less an authority than Ted Haigh, in Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails, calls the drink “revelatory.”

Blood and Sand began as a 1908 novel by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez. The tale of a young bullfighter undone by success, it would be brought to the screen by the author himself in 1916. Six years later, a Paramount Pictures adaptation would cement the fame of Rudolph Valentino; the actor later identified the role as his favorite and the performance as his best. A 1941 remake starring Tyrone Power and Rita Hayworth was also a hit. As for the 1989 Spanish-made version inexplicably starring Sharon Stone, this much can be said: it exists. Both the 1922 and 1941 films spawned comic send-ups by name talents, first Stan Laurel’s “Mud and Sand” (in which he plays Rhubarb Vaselino) then the Three Stooges’ immortal “What’s The Matador?”

Valentino’s triumph also gave rise to the cocktail. Its exact origin is unknown, but the recipe first appeared in Harry Craddock’s Savoy Cocktail Book (1930). The inspiration carries over to the ingredients, with orange juice representing the sand and the rich red of Cherry Heering serving as sanguinary element. Springing for a bottle of this extraordinarily flavorful brandy has allowed me at last to make this drink at home.

The Blood and Sand was initially an equally parts cocktail, and many bartenders still prepare it this way; A.J. Rathbun in Dark Spirits cleverly suggests making it as a punch. The redoubtable gaz regan ups the OJ ante and serves it as a brunch highball. I prefer it with an emphasis on the whisky, leading to the question of which brand to use. You’ll want a light single-malt or a blended. Famous Grouse is the default choice at the bars where I regularly order it, but following a run on the product at my local liquor store I sent Bank Note Blended (containing a higher than usual 40% single malt yet at a price that won’t gore you) into the ring in its suit of lights and it brought the crowd to its feet waving white handkerchiefs. A sterling replacement.

The Blood and Sand

1 ½ oz. Scotch
¾ oz. orange juice
½ oz. Cherry Heering
½ oz. sweet vermouth

Shake. Strain. No garnish.

Want more Cocktail of the Week? The first fifty-two essays are available in the Kindle bestseller DOWN THE HATCH: ONE MAN’S ONE YEAR ODYSSEY THROUGH CLASSIC COCKTAIL RECIPES AND LORE. Buy it now at Amazon.com.

Cocktail of the Week: The Queens

Years after leaving the city, I still identify myself as a New Yorker. My latent municipal pride extends to highlighting drinks named for the Big Apple’s boroughs. I’ve covered the Manhattan. I’ve showcased the Bronx in its bitters-blessed form, the Income Tax. I paid homage to an array of Brooklyn-inspired cocktails until I was finally able to feature the original.

Yet I’d never honored the borough of my birth. (Sorry, Staten Island. You’re on your own.) Queens is the most ethnically diverse urban area in the world. Think of it as an EPCOT Center with two airports and a baseball team to which I remain inexplicably devoted. The lapse wasn’t caused by neglect but ignorance; I didn’t even know there was a Queens cocktail. Then I discovered there was, and didn’t want to try it.

The Queens is made with pineapple, the fruit that is, of course, synonymous with the borough. Queens is lousy with them. The impossibly fragrant ones of Bayside, the hearty stripe grown in Jackson Heights, the dense, almost smoky variety found only in darkest Maspeth. For generations pineapples were accepted as currency from Astoria to Flushing. Legend has it that before the epochal Game Six of the 1986 World Series, a towering effigy of Boston Red Sox closer Calvin Schiraldi made entirely of pineapples was erected in the barren auto yards of Willets Point and set ablaze, to be consumed by hordes of Mets fans – rinds, fronds, and all. Neither I nor my gastroenterologist will vouch for this story.

What is known is that the Queens cocktail, like the Bronx, is a perfect martini with fruit juice. It has long been assumed that some uppity barkeep on the wrong side of the East River decided the neighborhood needed a libation of its own and simply swapped the Bronx’s orange for pineapple. Or so said the few articles on this neglected drink.

I consulted Harry Craddock’s Savoy Cocktail Book and made an alarming discovery. A drink with the same ingredients (calling for a slice of crushed pineapple instead of the juice) does appear in its pages – where it’s listed as the Queen’s Cocktail. As in possessive. As in belonging to Her Majesty. Such is the way of history; first you lose your apostrophes, then your empire. Being affiliated with royalty still doesn’t explain why pineapple is involved. I can only assume Captain James Cook presented one of the fruits at court and when asked what should be done with it replied, “Beats me. Soak it in gin and serve it to the old broad?” (For the purposes of this historical reenactment, Captain Cook is a graduate of Archbishop Molloy High School.)

So the drink in all likelihood has nothing to do with my old stomping grounds, and the combination of pineapple and dry vermouth calls to mind the Algonquin, of which I am not a fan. But something, perhaps this recent article on the evolution of the store where I used to buy my comic books, compelled me to sample the Queens anyway.

While some recipes suggest equal parts, I chose proportions closer to those of the Bronx. Your mileage will most definitely vary, considering the potency of pineapple’s flavor. My immediate reaction was to say if I wanted fruit in my perfect Martini I’d rather have a Bronx, and even then I’d still prefer a Manhattan. It’s not a bad drink; its taste grew on me as it settled. But it wouldn’t occur to me to order one, and I’m from Queens. I could see tinkering with the balance, though, out of perverse loyalty to my birthplace.

Shame about Staten Island not having a drink, though. Did you know the borough was originally called Richmond?

Wait, there’s a Richmond cocktail? Hmm ...

The Queens, or The Queen’s, or The Fuhgeddaboudit

1 ½ oz. gin
1 oz. pineapple juice
¾ oz. sweet vermouth
¾ oz. dry vermouth

Shake. Strain. No garnish.

Want more Cocktail of the Week? The first fifty-two essays are available in the Kindle bestseller DOWN THE HATCH: ONE MAN’S ONE YEAR ODYSSEY THROUGH CLASSIC COCKTAIL RECIPES AND LORE. Buy it now at Amazon.com.

Cocktail of the Week: The Frisco

As a child, I was addicted to Encyclopedia Brown-style mysteries. At the end of each story you’d be instructed to flip to another page or turn the book upside down for the solution, which typically involved some verbal miscue by the guilty party. Favorites included Michael Avallone’s Five-Minute Mysteries and the Two-Minute Mysteries series by Encyclopedia Brown creator Donald J. Sobol. (About the titles: what can I say? Even in my youth I was extremely conscious of time management.)

In one of those books, a crime was committed on a West Coast-bound train with the culprit eventually revealed as a counterfeit conductor. How did the phony tip his hand? By referring to San Francisco as “Frisco,” which no railroad professional would ever do. The moral never left me: only reprobates used that diminutive. Yet there’s a drink called that, and a damn good one. It gets the spotlight this week because I’m just back from San Francisco, where the Noir City Film Festival is having its closing weekend.

The Frisco first appeared in World Drinks and How to Mix Them (1930) by William Boothby. Before being elected to the California State Assembly “Cocktail Bill” tended bar at several San Francisco hotels, which likely explains the drink’s name. Boothby’s recipe couldn’t have been simpler: three-quarters “whiskey” and one-quarter Bénédictine, the French liqueur. For decades the first ingredient was taken to mean bourbon, although of late rye has become the preference. Over time some bartenders began adding lemon juice in equal proportion to the Bénédictine, turning the drink into a sophisticated gloss on the whiskey sour. I find the citrus a necessary bulwark against Bénédictine’s aggressive sweetness ... and then I throw in a lemon twist on top of that, because I’m a showman at heart. Balance remains key with this drink; depending on the brand of rye, you may opt for half an ounce less. (The ratio below uses Rittenhouse Bonded.)

The Frisco is the cocktail that brought home the impact of double-straining to me. For years when I made drinks at home I’d strain them once, through a Hawthorne or Julep strainer. But at the Swig Well Academy Bartending 101 course I took taught by Anu Apte of Seattle’s Rob Roy, it was impressed on me that pouring a drink through a second, finer mesh removes ice shards and excess pulp. That’s a fancy trick for your industry types, I figured. The thought didn’t stop me from ordering a tea strainer anyway. The Frisco was one of the first drinks I prepared once it arrived, and the difference was immediate. The technique eliminated some of the lemon’s sourness while leaving its tartness intact, improving the taste markedly. This how-to video features Erik Hakkinen of the Zig Zag Cafe, who will be tending the bar at Noir City tonight in Frisco San Francisco.

The Frisco

2 oz. rye
½ oz. Bénédictine
½ oz. lemon juice

Shake. Double-strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with a lemon twist.

Want more Cocktail of the Week? The first fifty-two essays are available in the Kindle bestseller DOWN THE HATCH: ONE MAN’S ONE YEAR ODYSSEY THROUGH CLASSIC COCKTAIL RECIPES AND LORE. Buy it now at Amazon.com.

Noir City: The Streets of San Francisco

Film noir is an organic American cinematic movement, but its DNA contains elements from elsewhere: the visual motifs of German Expressionism, the fatalistic viewpoint of artists fleeing the war in Europe. It’s only fitting, then, that the twelfth annual Noir City Film Festival cast its net wide and showcased noir from around the globe. Programmer, master of ceremonies and impresario extraordinaire Eddie Muller has assembled an amazing line-up including several films that have never screened theatrically in the United States before. Rosemarie and I attended the opening weekend in San Francisco.

The festivities kicked off with international intrigue in a duo of films dominated by Orson Welles even though he didn’t direct either one. Journey Into Fear (1943) would mark the end of Welles’ sojourn at RKO. Norman Foster is credited as the director but Welles’ fingerprints are everywhere, starting with the cast of familiar faces. Joseph Cotten is the munitions engineer passing through Turkey at the start of World War II. Cotten puts his patrician bearing to excellent use playing one of those WASPish Americans overly concerned with propriety, which becomes an impediment when he’s targeted by Nazi agents and must flee the country by boat. A truncated 68 minute running time owing to a troubled production nonetheless preserves the leisurely, almost comedy of manners feel of the Eric Ambler novel. Minor but engaging. Welles plays a Turkish cop. His hat earned a round of applause from a packed Castro Theatre.

What can I say about The Third Man (1949), other than this movie directed by Carol Reed and scripted by Graham Greene is one of the few perfect things in this world? The Ferris wheel scene is its best-known moment, but on this viewing (I couldn’t guess how many times I’ve seen the film) I was mesmerized by what came just before it, as Holly Martins (Cotten) sees his friend Harry Lime (Welles) approaching from a distance. Welles moves with uncanny brio; Harry, like Welles himself, is a star in the world of post-war Vienna. Rosemarie’s succinct analysis: “At the start of the movie Cotten bounds off the train an American, full of purpose. At the end he’s slumped against a broken down cart, smoking, wishing for something he knows will never happen to happen. He’s become European.”

Saturday afternoon brought forth a pair of unsung films from Mexico. 1951’s En la palma de tu mano (In the Palm of Your Hand) features one of my favorite noir tropes: the bogus psychic. “Professor” Karin relies on his beautician wife to acquire information about the upper crust which he then deploys to his advantage. When he deduces an industrialist was murdered by his spouse, he horns in on the scheme – only to become enmeshed in the newly rich widow’s plot to eliminate her lover. Featuring glossy, high-toned storytelling that wouldn’t be out of place in a studio film of the era shot through with a brooding Catholic sensibility that is distinctly Mexican. Up next, a screening of the only subtitled print of the astonishing Victimas del pecado (Victims of Sin, 1951) in the U.S. Starring “The Golden Venus” Ninón Sevilla, it’s an example of the rumberas or nightclub film and compresses an entire telenovela into ninety unhinged minutes with time to spare for some of the sexiest dancing ever before a movie camera (Exhibit A and Exhibit B). A piñata that never empties, Victims communicated directly with the audience’s reptile brain. We didn’t care about motivation or coherence. We only wanted, craved, demanded MORE. These two movies, produced when the Production Code still held sway over Hollywood, demonstrated the freedom filmmakers elsewhere had when addressing adult subject matter. A scene in Palm has a married couple in the standard separate beds of the 1950s only to have the husband slip in beside his wife, while Victims is breathtakingly forthright about prostitution.

Me ruining a perfectly good book.

A personal milestone came on Saturday evening. The sixth Noir City Annual, collecting work published in the 2013 editions of the Film Noir Foundation’s magazine, debuted, and a host of contributors including yours truly were invited to a gala signing. It was a pleasure to be seated alongside ace designer Michael Kronenberg – the man responsible for the gorgeous cover of Down The Hatch – and talented writers like Steve Kronenberg, Imogen Sara Smith, Dan Akira Nishimura, Anne Hockens and Carl Steward among others. The annual will be sold at other Noir City festivals and soon through Amazon; please note that my signature on a copy of the book actually makes it worth less.

For the last few years Eddie has been keeping festgoers apprised of the status of the FNF’s latest project, a restoration of the independently made 1949 film noir Too Late For Tears. The new 35mm print, financed in part by a contribution from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s trust, was unveiled on Friday night. Having seen it, I should just toss the two public domain DVDs I own. Roy Huggins’ casually diabolical script prefigures A Simple Plan as young L.A. marrieds Lizabeth Scott and Arthur Kennedy accidentally come into possession of a hefty extortion payoff. As Scott’s avaricious tendencies get the better of her, the blackmailer (Dan Duryea) comes calling. It’s unquestionably Liz Scott’s finest hour, but good luck taking your eyes off Duryea who saunters onto the screen all rancid insouciance and ends up timid and broken before La Scott. How successful was Saturday’s screening? People were turned away from a theater that seats over 1400 people.

Our gaze shifted to the Far East on Sunday with a twin bill from Japanese master Akira Kurosawa. The Drunken Angel of the 1948 film’s title is Takashi Shimura’s doctor, toiling amongst the poor of occupied Japan. He patches a bullet wound for brash yakuza Toshirô Mifune and insinuates himself into the younger man’s life, a relationship that becomes more critical once Mifune’s callous boss is spring from prison. A masterwork of humanism made more impressive when followed by Stray Dog (1949), with the same actors reteamed as Tokyo cops pursuing a stolen police gun through a sweltering summer. Maestro Muller, never missing an opportunity, arranged for culturally appropriate libations to be poured throughout the festival. On this night we enjoyed sake served up by Beau Timken, owner of San Francisco’s True Sake and author of Sake: A Modern Guide. A second round came courtesy of the woman Eddie dubbed “the ichiban of noir,” our very good friend Etsuko Tamazawa. The impossibly stylish Etsuko has a film noir blog in Japanese, and beautifully provided Eddie’s introductions in her native tongue.

Alas, that was it for us, but Noir City Seattle starts in only two weeks. Not every title that screened in San Francisco will play in the Northwest; the Mexican films we saw won’t make the trip, for instance, and neither will The Black Vampire, a 1953 Argentine remake of Fritz Lang’s M unspooling at the Castro on Friday.

Miss Noir City 2014 Evie Lovelle. Also pictured: me.

There are so many people to thank for our experience at the festival, which continues through Sunday. First and foremost is Muller. The other big piece of news out of Noir City is that Eddie will be joining Turner Classic Movies as a regular on-air host. Eddie’s knowledge and above all his passion for film makes him the perfect addition to America’s repertory theater. This year’s Miss Noir City is burlesque performer and long-time friend of the festival Evie Lovelle, who performed her duties with aplomb and her usual drop-dead flair. There’s also the utterly essential Daryl Sparks and the army of volunteers who make Noir City a one of a kind event.

Cocktail notes ... on this trip I finally made it to the highly touted Rickhouse, where I enjoyed a Fort Point (bourbon, grapefruit, tart cherry, falernum) and a Rye Smile with rye, lemon and mint. I’d heard nothing but raves for the drinks at Nopa so I ventured there for brunch with David Corbett. I can thus sing the praises of the California perfect Sunshine Fix (aperol, gin, lemon and Angostura bitters). If you’re dining around the corner from the Castro at Poesia – and you should – order yourself a La Dolce Vita made with Jack Daniel’s and Amaretto. My primary contribution to this year’s Noir City will come on Friday night when, naturally, I won’t be there. Cocktails at the Castro that evening will be made with Giffard liqueurs and by Erik Hakkinen, the Giffard rep in the U.S. whose secret identity is bartender at my haunt the Zig Zag Café. Should you find yourself at the theater, be sure to sample his handiwork – then tell him to get back up here and make me a drink.

Cocktail of the Week: The Bensonhurst

What better way to follow up the Brooklyn than with one of the many innovative tributes to that occasionally elusive classic? Particularly one that makes use of that bottle of Cynar I cracked open a few weeks back.

Chad Solomon, formerly of New York’s Milk & Honey and the Pegu Club and one of the founders of the catering and consulting firm Cuffs & Buttons, crafted this concoction in 2006. By then twists on the Brooklyn had already become a cottage industry. Unlike most of its Kings County brethren, the Bensonhurst honors its progenitor by keeping the dry vermouth. In place of Amer Picon Solomon opted for the artichoke liqueur Cynar to acknowledge the long Italian-American history of the namesake neighborhood.

In his quest to create what he dubbed “a tough-guy drink,” Solomon also devised a true connoisseur’s cocktail. The Bensonhurst is rye forward, but the other flavors remain very much in evidence. You’ll find more maraschino in a Red Hook – Solomon called for a very precise two tablespoons in his original recipe – but its presence is a constant. The vermouth smoothes the edges and permits Cynar’s herbaceous quality to sneak in for a bow. One variation suggests merely rinsing the glass with the liqueur, but I prefer to have Cynar’s bitter complexity in every sip down to the last. The traditional version doesn’t have a garnish. I tossed in a cherry because I had one and nobody got hurt.

The Bensonhurst

Chad Solomon, New York City

2 oz. rye
1 oz. dry vermouth
1/3 oz. maraschino
1/4 oz. Cynar

Stir. Strain. Garnish with a cherry if you feel like it.

Want more Cocktail of the Week? The first fifty-two essays are available in the Kindle bestseller DOWN THE HATCH: ONE MAN’S ONE YEAR ODYSSEY THROUGH CLASSIC COCKTAIL RECIPES AND LORE. Buy it now at Amazon.com.

Cocktail of the Week: The Brooklyn

It’s one of the great ironies of the classic cocktail renaissance that the drink best showcasing the movement’s ingenuity does so because of how often it can’t be made.

Once upon a time the Brooklyn might have given the Manhattan, named for a neighboring borough of New York City, a run for its money in terms of popularity. The cocktail allegedly devised at Kings County’s Hotel St. George riffed on its better-known predecessor, adding maraschino to the mix of rye and dry vermouth. One curiosity regarding that last ingredient: PDT’s Jim Meehan cites Jack’s Manual, a 1910 book by Jacob A. Grohusko, as the earliest appearance of the Brooklyn. But the recipe as it appears in Grohusko’s guide calls for equal parts rye and Italian (sweet) vermouth, pushing the formula even closer to that of the Manhattan. The vermouth was listed as the now-standard French variety in 1930’s Savoy Cocktail Book, playing second fiddle to the whiskey (Canadian Club in the Savoy, but trust me, you’ll want rye). When this change occurred is a mystery to me.

It’s what replaces the Manhattan’s bitters that is the Brooklyn’s elusive element. Amer Picon is a dense orange liqueur created by France’s Gaéton Picon in 1837. Picon (the amer, not the Frenchman) wasn’t all that easy to acquire back in the Brooklyn’s heyday and has not been exported to the United States in some time; as I have recounted, it can be difficult to put your hands on a bottle in la belle France. The stuff was scarce enough in 1948 for David Embury to suggest in The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks substituting Angostura bitters – which would mean you were making a dry Manhattan with a whisper of maraschino. Further complicating matters was the reformulation of Amer Picon in the 1970s, reducing the alcohol content and altering the flavor.

Bartenders rose to the challenge by improvising. Some deployed Torani Amer syrup seasoned with orange bitters. Seattle’s own Jamie Boudreau concocted his own version based on the amaro Ramazzotti. But the greatest flowering of creativity came simply by working around Picon’s absence. The previous decade spawned a host of Brooklyn-inspired drinks christened after the borough’s neighborhoods, among them the Greenpoint and my all-time favorite cocktail the Red Hook. You can even head across the river for an applejack variation in the Newark, provided of course you can clear the George Washington Bridge.

But now there’s another option that gets you closer to what Jack Grohusko would have whipped up prior to Prohibition. The amer China-China was cooked up by Felix and Louis Bigallet in 1875 at the family’s Lyon distillery. Like Amer Picon, it combines orange peels with cinchona, gentian and other spices. Unlike Amer Picon, it is being sold in the United States as of 2013. It’s also 80 proof, compared to the original Picon’s 78 proof formula. Think of it as a boozier, more viscous variety of present-day Picon with a more pronounced orange flavor. The ready availability of Bigallet’s China-China – I picked up my bottle at Whole Foods – means that a host of vintage libations that in recent years had been solely the province of craft cocktail bars can now be prepared at home. The Brooklyn is the ideal place to start.

The Brooklyn

2 oz. rye
¾ oz. dry vermouth
¼ oz. maraschino
¼ oz. Bigallet China-China amer (in place of Amer Picon)

Stir. Strain. No garnish.

Want more Cocktail of the Week? The first fifty-two essays are available in the Kindle bestseller DOWN THE HATCH: ONE MAN’S ONE YEAR ODYSSEY THROUGH CLASSIC COCKTAIL RECIPES AND LORE. Buy it now at Amazon.com.

Miscellaneous: Youngman with a Horn

It’s a side effect of being obsessed with show business. Every time I meet someone who shares the same last name as somebody famous, I think, “Maybe they’re related!” Just a way to make my humdrum life more exciting. It never turns out to be true.

Until my first day in the video game business. I was introduced to the project’s lead designer Jim Youngman and thought, “Maybe he’s the grandson of Henny Youngman, the legendary comedian! The King of the One Liners! The featured attraction at the end of that spectacular tracking shot through the Copacabana in Goodfellas!” Not that I asked him about it. I knew how ridiculous the idea was.

But over the next few weeks, Jim would say things that kept me wondering. The clincher was when he mentioned that his father had edited The Horror of Party Beach, which had turned up on Mystery Science Theater 3000. I did some research and came to our next meeting flabbergasted. “You are Henny Youngman’s grandson!”

Jim happily acknowledged the connection. “Not a lot of people my age know Henny,” he said. But Jim and his father Gary, an accomplished editor and documentarian, are trying to change that.

They’ve launched a Kickstarter campaign to finish a documentary about one of the all-time great comics. Take My Life ... Please! features classic Henny Youngman performances, new interviews with contemporaries like Milton Berle, Jan Murray and Stiller & Meara, and exclusive footage of Henny shot late in the comedian’s life. I’m backing it. So is Mark Evanier, your one-stop shop for all things showbiz. And so should you.

The Good Stuff: 2013, Recapp’d

First, the year in me. Rosemarie and I moved to a deluxe apartment in the sky. We won an award. And I published a book. All in all, not a bad twelve months.

2013 was the least active year in the history of ye olde website, and most of the posts were about cocktails. But blogs are dead anyway, as Jason Kottke was the most recent to remind us. Still, I feel bad that I didn’t manage to rattle on about everything I watched, read, listened to or otherwise ingested. Hence, this rambling roster of recommendations, in the order consumed. It is by no means complete; there are highly touted titles I have yet to catch up with, others I’ve seen and am still chewing over. But such lists are always written in the sand, aren’t they? Consider this a snapshot of how I feel on New Year’s Eve. Come New Year’s Day I’ll be another person entirely. And so will you.

Drinking with Men, by Rosie Schaap. A heartfelt memoir about the pleasures and occasional perils of being a regular in a bar near you. My favorite book of the year.

Side Effects. New age noir, slyly updated for the era of prescription drugs. In the words of my friend Ray Banks, “classically sleazy.” And with that, Steven Soderbergh retires.

Noir City. A high point every year. Saw it in both Seattle and Portland this annum!

Claire DeWitt and the Bohemian Highway, by Sara Gran. Miss Gran continues to toy with the conventions of the mystery novel even as she probes the deepest mystery. This entry in the best series going is, sadly, the only novel on this year’s list. It was a strange reading year for me.

Behind the Candelabra (HBO). And with that, Steven Soderbergh returns! (I never bought that retirement story for a minute.) Featuring a bravura performance by Michael Douglas as Liberace, it doesn’t stint on the dirt or the garish period details while proving to be a riveting portrait of a long-term relationship falling apart.

Pacific Rim. The movie I always wanted to see when I was eight years old made me feel eight years old again.

The Hitchcock 9. Seeing the Master of Suspense’s first directorial efforts, completely restored and with live musical accompaniment, was an event of the first order. Kudos to the British Film Institute – and to Seattle’s SIFF Cinema, for innovative musical choices and following the series with several days of Hitchcock’s early U.K. sound films.

Hollywood and Hitler, 1933-1939, by Thomas Doherty. Engaging social history looking back at how the studios and the predominately Jewish moguls who ran them did and did not respond to the rise of Nazism in the years before World War II. Doherty has a thorough understanding of movies and of Hollywood as a business and a community. (Would that the same could be said for Ben Urwand. His shoddy and sensationalistic The Collaboration, which covers much of the same ground, is the worst book I read in 2013.)

Drug War. You can have your superheroes. Give me bad-ass cops. Johnnie To goes to mainland China and makes an epic thriller.

This Town, by Mark Leibovich. The one book that almost makes me say “The one book you have to read.” It serves up in clinical detail why American politics is broken – because once elected, the people who run this country essentially move to a separate realm, one without connection or consequence. Told with the gleeful abandon that only comes when an insider (Leibovich is a longtime political correspondent for the New York Times) decides to set the palace walls ablaze himself.

Blancanieves. A bewitching black-and-white silent film that retells the tale of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves in 1920s Spain. With bullfighting. I can’t believe it wasn’t more popular.

The Bling Ring. In a year of movies about the hollowing out of the American Dream, Sofia Coppola’s up-to-the-minute look at fame-obsessed teenagers turned bandits takes the prize. Also deserving of consideration in this category: Michael Bay’s underappreciated Pain & Gain.

Rush. Ron Howard returns to his Grand Theft Auto roots and makes the film of his career and my favorite of 2013. Peter Morgan’s script transforms the battle for the 1976 Formula One championship into the essential existential question: how do you live your life? Magnificently photographed by Anthony Dod Mantle, with Daniel Brühl giving the performance of the year as Niki Lauda.

Captain Phillips. Harrowing all the way through, never more so than when the damage has been done; the closing scenes depicting shock are impossible to shake. Tom Hanks at his finest.

Frances Ha. The great dilemma of your twenties – finding your own music to dance to – put on screen in a truly unique way. Greta Gerwig beguiles even while she maddens. Thinking of the final shot puts a smile on my face even now.

A Life of Barbara Stanwyck: Steel-True 1907-1940, by Victoria Wilson. At times frustratingly thorough, the first of this two-volume biography gives our greatest movie actress the treatment she deserves.

Collision Low Crossers, by Nicholas Dawidoff. A confession: I didn’t watch a single snap of the 2013 NFL season after skipping January’s Super Bowl for the first time in years. One unpleasant story after another – too many deaths of former players with signs of serious brain trauma, the New Orleans Saints bounty scandal, a rash of player suicides culminating in Jovan Belcher’s death by his own hand at the Kansas City Chiefs’ practice facility after he murdered his girlfriend – had drained all pleasure from football for me. Dawidoff’s book chronicling his 2011 season embedded with the New York Jets coaching staff thus came along at an interesting time. Beautifully written and packed with inside info, it perfectly captures football’s grind both on the field and off; George Will was not wrong when he said the sport combines the two worst aspects of American life, namely violence and committee meetings. Coaches and players alike acknowledge the risks inherent in the game and undertake them willingly, but don’t care to discuss them in depth. I feel better about football knowing that. I’m still not planning to watch the Super Bowl, even if the Seahawks are in it.

Six by Sondheim (HBO). A biography in the form of half a dozen songs, and one of the best treatments you’ll ever see of a writer writing.

Nebraska. Alexander Payne’s film (written by Seattle’s own Bob Nelson) is an elegy for a life and an entire way of life – as well as a reminder that time passes for the young as it does for the old. Will Forte should be getting more love for his performance here.

Inside Llewyn Davis. In many respects the evil twin of Frances Ha. Structured like a folk song, which is why it’s going around and round in my head. What happens when you’re good enough to make it – and you don’t make it? It’s also a meta, there-but-for-the-grace-of-God-go-we self-portrait by Joel and Ethan Coen, two artists dogged by questions of likability who may only be able to create with a partner.

Here’s wishing all of you the best in 2014. Thanks for stopping by on occasion. I’ll leave the light on. Odds are I’ll still mostly be talking about cocktails, though.

Cocktail of the Week: That Bubbly Burden

Of all the first world problems, a glut of champagne may be the first worldiest. But there’s no denying the stuff flows like a river come the holidays. As a change of pace, may I suggest a champagne cocktail? In fact, may I suggest three?

Speaking of the season, my favorite gift was the inclusion of Down the Hatch in Seattle Magazine’s gift list for spirit and cocktail lovers. Here’s the redoubtable A. J. Rathbun:

Written by Seattleite Vince Keenan, this tipsy and jolly book features more than 50 helpful cocktail recipes. But it’s much, much more than a recipe book; it’s really a memoir to the joys of drink and of creating delicious drinks. In it, Keenan tells of a year of learning to make and love cocktails, with many stories, histories and more. You’ll find lots of Seattle-ness, as well.

Did you get a Kindle or a bunch of booze for Christmas? Are you planning a New Year’s Eve bash? Then pick up your copy of Down the Hatch at Amazon. Make both our seasons bright.

Miscellaneous: Noir, Poetry, Noir Poetry

A tasty trio of stocking stuffers for your holiday week …

First, an update on the unveilings at last week’s Noir City Xmas in San Francisco. The poster for Noir City 12 was released, and this year the crown of Miss Noir City rests on the lovely head of burlesque artiste extraordinaire and friend of the festival Evie Lovelle. Feast your eyes on this stunner inspired by Will Eisner’s The Spirit.

Also announced: the full program for the next festival, running from January 24 to February 2, 2014 at San Francisco’s Castro Theatre. I’m happy this particular feline has escaped its conveyance; I’ve known about the roster for a while, and couldn’t wait for the wildly ambitious line-up assembled by Film Noir Foundation honcho Eddie Muller to become public knowledge. The centerpiece is the world premiere of the restored 35mm print of Too Late For Tears, one of the truly unsung examples of the form getting the treatment it richly deserves.

This year’s festival is global in scope. The usual complement of classic noir films will be joined by movies from the same era made around the world. Japan, France, Mexico, and other countries will be represented; noir may be an American innovation, but its message travels well. Also on hand will be suitably multicultural music acts and libations; yours truly made a small contribution on that latter front. I’ll be in San Francisco for opening weekend, and at the roadshow version of the fest that hits Seattle a few weeks later.

Second, my lovely wife and writing partner Rosemarie has been keeping herself busy. She’s not averse to verse, having penned this week’s offering at The 5-2, your home for crime poetry. Her tale of Noël nefariousness is called “Holiday Hours.” Read it here.

Third, the missus makes her debut in print this month as well. Silver Birch Press published the Noir Erasure Poetry Anthology, a collection of poems based on the work of hardboiled masters including Dashiell Hammett and James M. Cain. Rosemarie’s contribution, “My Lovely,” is taken from Raymond Chandler. Buy the book here.

Let’s see, I promoted the work of my favorite non-profit and my better half. Have I done anything lately? Well, I wrote a book. You could always buy that.

Cocktail of the Week: The Jack Rabbit

For the last Cocktail of the Week before the holidays – and the final original CotW post of 2013 – I want to break new ground. David Embury observed that “the overwhelming majority of our cocktails are of the Sour type.” Endless invention springs from an elemental formula of spirit, citrus, and sweetener. That third ingredient might seem the most prosaic, but even in the drinks featured here it has come in several forms. Sugar, either as bitters-soaked cube or simple syrup. Grenadine. Honey. Certain liqueurs, like Cointreau.

With the Jack Rabbit, we’re going all Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys on the sour. That’s right. Time to bust out the maple syrup.

The Jack Rabbit, originally known as the Applejack Rabbit, turns up in 1927’s Here’s How! by the pseudonymous “Judge Jr.” Much of that guide was cannibalized by Harry Craddock for his Savoy Cocktail Book three years later. Early recipes called for equal parts maple syrup and apple brandy, astonishingly “one hooker” or approximately two and a half ounces of each. Tastes and syrups were obviously different then, but this is a ratio right out of Super Troopers. Embury, in The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks (1948), offered a spirit-forward version. He deemed it “not half bad” and also noted that the drink is sometimes known as the Applejack Dynamite “for no reason at all.” Perhaps because it’s better than not half bad.

Jim Meehan helped restore the Rabbit’s glory (as well as its longer name) by including it in The PDT Cocktail Book. He specifically recommends Grade B maple syrup, the darker, thicker variety with a more intense flavor that makes it superior in cooking and baking. I don’t do much cooking and baking. I do eat a lot of pancakes, though, so what I had on hand was Grade A dark amber syrup – think of it as the highest level of the maple minor leagues – and that served me in good stead.

The recipe below comes courtesy of Erik Hakkinen of the Zig Zag Café. The Jack Rabbit practically demands to be served at brunch; maple and apple pair as wonderfully in the glass as they do on the breakfast plate, with the zing of lemon an added bonus. Not that you should limit this cocktail to sprawling midday repasts. Enjoy one anytime this season, while chestnuts roast on an open fire, or you draft the litany of half-truths that constitutes your holiday newsletter, or you search feverishly for the Allen wrench that’s supposed to be in the box. It’s too good a drink to pass up.

PS. My holiday newsletter will be a little late this year. But it’ll be worth waiting for.

The Jack Rabbit

1 ½ oz. Laird’s Bonded Apple Brandy
½ oz. maple syrup
½ oz. orange juice
½ oz. lemon juice

Shake vigorously. Strain. Garnish with a lemon peel.

Want more Cocktail of the Week? The first fifty-two essays are available in the Kindle bestseller DOWN THE HATCH: ONE MAN’S ONE YEAR ODYSSEY THROUGH CLASSIC COCKTAIL RECIPES AND LORE. Buy it now at Amazon.com.

Keenan's Klassics: It's a Shane Black Christmas

Your old favorite, from December 2009. Note that BLAST OF SILENCE will be showing at Noir City Xmas this very night in San Francisco, with writer/director/star Allen Baron in attendance.

There I am at my favorite watering hole, talking with the staff, when the subject of Christmas movies is raised.

First suggestion, not made by me: the traditional double-bill of Die Hard and Die Hard II: Die Harder.

Thus giving me the tenor of the conversation. This is not the time, perhaps, to mention Remember the Night and Holiday Affair, two overlooked films (with noir connections!) that Turner Classic Movies has labored to turn into Yuletide staples. Although a mention of Blast of Silence, full of Wenceslas wetwork, might not be out of the question.

So I lobby for my own Christmas favorite, The Ref. And then observe, not for the first time, that the entire oeuvre of Shane Black – Lethal Weapon, The Last Boy Scout, The Long Kiss Goodnight, and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang – is set at the most wonderful time of the year. (Editor's note, 2013: You can now add IRON MAN 3 to that roster.)

Therefore, as you venture out for that last round of shopping, I offer, by popular demand, what has become a VKDC tradition. (“By popular demand” meaning Rosemarie asked, “Why haven’t you posted this yet?” And she did write most of it.) Here, once again, is Shane Black’s 12 Days of Christmas. Record your church group performing this and we’ll post the video here!

Twelve cars exploding
Eleven extras running
Ten tankers skidding
Nine strippers pole-ing
Eight Uzis firing
Seven henchmen scowling
Six choppers crashing

Five silver Glocks

Four ticking bombs
Three hand grenades
Two mortar shells
And a suitcase full of C-4

God bless us, everyone. Or else.

Extra, Extra!: Noir City

Coming along just in time to chill your Christmas cheer is the latest issue of Noir City, the magazine of the Film Noir Foundation. And what better face to slap on the cover than that of Dan Duryea?

Noir’s most likable heel gets his due with a host of writers considering his contribution to the genre. Plus a look at Peter Lorre’s sole film as director; an interview with Lion Books editor Arnold Hano, responsible for bringing key books from authors like Jim Thompson and David Goodis into print; and fifty years after John F. Kennedy’s assassination, a consideration of the paranoid style in movies.

Closing out the issue: “Keenan’s Korner,” my crime fiction & cocktails column. I review Marisha Pessl’s mammoth, highly touted Night Film, Elissa Wald’s domestic noir The Secret Lives of Married Women, and the latest Crissa Stone caper from Wallace Stroby, Shoot the Woman First. Plus a salute to the real national drink of Mexico, first choice of lamsters everywhere.

All this can be yours for a donation to the Film Noir Foundation, with every penny going to the restoration of America’s noir heritage. C’mon, pony up. It’s Christmas, fer Chrissakes.

Cocktail of the Week: The Diplomat

Following the Journalist with the Diplomat means I’ve accidentally stumbled into a theme: Cocktails Named After Professions My Mother Wishes I’d Gone Into.

There’s another logic to this week’s selection. We’re in the thick of the holidays. During this season of celebration, there may rise occasions when you want to keep the party going without paying the price the next day.

In a bar, never settle for club soda and lime unless that’s what you crave. Experience has taught me that bartenders relish the opportunity to prepare non-alcoholic drinks using the juices, spices and mixers at their disposal. Many cocktail establishments even highlight such selections on their menus, and they’re often among the tastier offerings.

Or perhaps you simply prefer to dial down your consumption without sacrificing complexity. I found myself in such a situation on a recent evening at Seattle’s superb Rob Roy. I’d had a cocktail, didn’t care for another of similar strength, yet was in no hurry to leave. I explained my dilemma to Greg, working behind the bar.

He understood. “You want to pump the brakes,” he said. “I have just the thing.” He fixed me a Diplomat, a drink I’d always meant to try in part because I always have the ingredients.

The Diplomat first appears in the 1922 book Cocktails: How to Mix Them. The author is Robert Vermiere, credited as “‘Robert’ of the American Bar, Casino Municipal, Nice and late of the Embassy Club, London.” His bona fides state that he is “well known as an expert, first at the Royal Automobile Club.” Along with the recipe, ‘Robert’ presents without comment the tidbit that “this drink is very well known in the French Diplomatic Service.” So well known, in fact, that he lists it as the Diplomate. Maybe no comment is required: you don’t want to serve too much of the hard stuff to someone in possession of state secrets.

Robert’s formula calls for twice as much dry vermouth as sweet as well as both cherry and lemon peel garnishes. The modern variation opts for equal parts, omits the lemon peel, and adds bitters (ideally Angostura, but orange works as well). I put my own spin on the drink by using Punt e Mes, the additional bitterness of that sweet vermouth necessitating an extra dash or two of maraschino to compensate.

When David Embury enumerated the functions of a cocktail in The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks he led off the list with, “It must whet the appetite, not dull it.” The Diplomat’s long, dry finish makes it the embodiment of Embury’s ideal and a classic aperitif. At the very least, it’s a wonderful way to slow the tempo of a pleasant evening during the most wonderful time of the year.

The Diplomat

1 ½ oz. dry vermouth
1 ½ oz. sweet vermouth (try Punt e Mes)
2 dashes maraschino liqueur
1 dash Angostura bitters

Stir. Strain. Garnish with a cherry.

Want more Cocktail of the Week? The first fifty-two essays are available in the Kindle bestseller DOWN THE HATCH: ONE MAN’S ONE YEAR ODYSSEY THROUGH CLASSIC COCKTAIL RECIPES AND LORE. Buy it now at Amazon.com.

Book: A Life of Barbara Stanwyck: Steel-True 1907-1940, by Victoria Wilson (2013)

To get my prejudice out of the way up front: I believe Barbara Stanwyck is the greatest actress ever to step before a movie camera. Many of her performances remain startlingly fresh, her presence almost contemporary. It’s at once resilient and sad, marrying the confidence of a thoroughgoing professional with an uneasy watchfulness. Being abandoned by your widowed father at the age of four and having to make your own way in the world as an adolescent can do that to a girl.

Naturally, I couldn’t wait to devour Victoria Wilson’s new biography. But I’d have to pace myself. Wilson’s epic is no ordinary repast but a smorgasbord, tipping the scales at over one thousand pages. And as the subtitle indicates, that’s only volume one.

Stanwyck in 1924

Stanwyck’s history – a Dickensian childhood as Ruby Stevens giving way to a career that spanned the breadth of twentieth century show business – and her status as a performer have long demanded a definitive survey. Wilson dedicated over fifteen years to the task. Her book is exhaustive and on occasion exhausting. She regularly attributes to Stanwyck quotes from studio press books or back issues of Photoplay that were clearly written by some sharpie in the publicity department. The lines not only don’t sound like the actress but scarcely read as human. Here’s Barbara, allegedly, on her character in the 1932 Edna Ferber adaptation So Big: “Selina became a farmer’s wife, and her hands became soil worn. She lost her girlish prettiness, but she became a beauty instead. And there is beauty in fine, strong hands that have not been ashamed to work in the earth.”

Wilson also insists on including every tidbit about Stanwyck reported by Hedda or Louella, no matter how irrelevant or meager the context. It’s a strange choice given Wilson’s genuine talent for concision. She regularly steps away from the framework provided by Stanwyck’s life to offer brief, vivid sketches of her collaborators like Frank Capra (who helped establish the actress’s early persona and fell in love with her), William Wellman and Stella Dallas author Olive Higgins Prouty.

The most vexing figure in Stanwyck’s life is her first husband, vaudeville titan Frank Fay. Their troubled, abusive marriage is thought to have inspired A Star is Born. Wilson skillfully dissects one of Fay’s signature routines on the page, explaining his popularity and demonstrating how his now-forgotten talent influenced (and was copied by) Jack Benny and Bob Hope, and thus every comic who borrowed from them. She even gets mileage out of Stanwyck’s second spouse Robert Taylor, the handsome if one-note actor who was briefly bigger than Gable. (Taylor’s diminished luster is perfectly summed up for me by the blank enthusiasm with which Sarah Jessica Parker says his name when guessing which celebrity her boyfriend met in Ed Wood.)

Taylor and Stanwyck

Wilson chooses to focus more on Stanwyck’s work than her relationships, which is no doubt as the lady would have wanted it. In the time covered here Stanwyck evolves quickly, moving from pre-Code shockers like Baby Face to the tortured mother love of Stella Dallas in less than five years. The book’s greatest asset is Wilson’s understanding of and appreciation for Stanwyck’s abilities as an actress. Wilson also doesn’t stint on how Stanwyck’s regular radio appearances aided her development as a performer. (Another plus: a bounty of photographs, many never before published.)

When Stanwyck provides great copy, Wilson proves more than up for the challenge. The book is particularly strong when dealing with Preston Sturges, who as a writer is responsible for Stanwyck’s first truly great performance in the Christmas dramedy Remember the Night and would direct her in the classic The Lady Eve. Wilson picks up on Night’s Gothic undercurrents, on Sturges’ nuanced dialogue and barbed warmth. She points out the marked contrast with Stanwyck’s previous film, the adaptation of Clifford Odets’ Golden Boy, in which the actress is stilted. Odets doggedly conjures up the real world through details – the cry of the fishmongers satirized in Barton Fink – and as such his “official art” is “artificial and stylized,” while the faded-upper-crust Sturges grounds his realism in “emotionalism, character, people and humor.” He is “high elegance and high sophistication while being banana peel low, and Barbara as an actress is freed up by it.”

The Stanwyck legend was forged in one of the great show business stories, and Wilson tells it in its full glory. Initially the movies didn’t know what to do with Stanwyck, and she in turn was suspicious of them. She was cajoled into making yet another screen test she was sure would prove fruitless. On an evening in 1931 she presented herself at Warner Brothers and found no director, no make-up man, no script. Finally, Alexander Korda arrived. He, too, was adrift in Hollywood, destined to find success back in Europe. He invited Barbara to do what she pleased while the camera rolled. She said to hell with it and performed her key scene from The Noose, the melodrama in which she made her name on Broadway. Korda, briefly struck speechless by her intensity, told her “it’s been a privilege to make this test with a real actress.” It’s a haunting moment, two gifted outcasts briefly commiserating then going their separate ways, expecting nothing. And they’re right; the studio’s assessment is that neither director nor actress has anything to offer. That melancholy punch line gives way to a more astonishing payoff when Frank Fay barges in on Frank Capra and forces him to watch the footage, setting his wife on a path that will quickly eclipse his own.

That tale and the life it produced deserve to be celebrated, and Wilson has done right by them. Steel-True is like a marathon, a long haul requiring time and commitment. When it’s finished, you feel spent and exhilarated – and immediately start planning the next run. The book ends with the world plunging into war and Stanwyck poised to play her greatest parts: Eve, Ball of Fire, and Double Indemnity, not to mention one of my favorites Sorry, Wrong Number. Volume two cannot come soon enough.

If you’re in New York, be sure to attend the Film Forum’s month-long Stanwyck series, at which Victoria Wilson will be a guest.

Cocktail of the Week: The Journalist

LOCAL MAN PREPARES, ENJOYS YET ANOTHER COCKTAIL

Holds Forth on Subject at Slightest Provocation

SEATTLE, WA – Vince Keenan had never tried the cocktail known as the Journalist before, but he had a perfectly valid reason to make one at his home bar.

“I already had the ingredients,” Mr. Keenan said. “Every one of them. Even the lemon. Kind of a lucky break, really.”

Over recent years, Mr. Keenan has developed a taste for mixed drinks, amassing a considerable collection of books dedicated to alcoholic libations and regularly preparing them for himself and his wife, who asked not to be identified by name.

“I wouldn’t say I’m a cocktail expert. More a cocktail enthusiast,” Mr. Keenan said with what he hoped was a twinkle in his eye but was in fact more likely mild astigmatism. “I’m always happy to experiment, especially with what I already have on hand.”

Pictured: A journalist

In this most recent instance, that would include curaçao. “I’ve been raving about Pierre Ferrand Dry Curaçao for a while now. Ever since I bought a bottle, really,” Mr. Keenan said, turning to his sparsely-trafficked website for proof. He added that he had become quite a fan of the orange liqueur, based on a nineteenth-century formulation, because of the presence of brandy, which he described as “stout.” “As in strong, not as in the beer,” Mr. Keenan clarified with a wholly unnecessary chuckle. “I was looking for other drinks I could make with it and came across the Journalist.”

The adult beverage in question first appeared in the storied Savoy Cocktail Book, a compendium of mixed drinks first published in 1930 and assembled by Harry Craddock, an American bartender who emigrated to the United Kingdom during Prohibition to pursue his craft. Unlike many of the other cocktails featured in Mr. Craddock’s book, the Journalist was largely forgotten, seldom appearing in subsequent titles on the subject. “Somehow it survived into my copy of Patrick Gavin Duffy’s Official Mixer’s Manual,” Mr. Keenan said, scrambling to retrieve his edition of the book even though no one had asked him to. “It’s where I first found it.”

To some extent Mr. Keenan was not surprised by the Journalist’s neglected status, because of its similarity to a far-better known concoction. “It’s basically a perfect martini with a sharp citrus kick,” Mr. Keenan said, explaining that by “perfect” he meant the cocktail contained equal portions of both sweet and dry vermouth. The citrus kick comes courtesy of lemon juice and Mr. Keenan’s favored new ingredient curaçao, which are used sparingly but to great effect. Mr. Keenan again credits the brandy present in the curaçao. “I think it tethers the hints of lemon and bitter orange, lets them shine through the gin. The drink retains the crispness and clarity of a martini, but with a burst of citrus that makes it sort of sprightly. I can say that, right? Sprightly? I always feel self-conscious using words like that when talking about drinks. Or any subject, really.” He went on to provide several examples, ending in a protracted crying jag.

Pictured: A different Journalist

Mr. Keenan also appreciated the Journalist’s judicious use of bitters, which he viewed as a nod to tradition. “It’s a variation on a martini, after all, and originally that meant bitters. The recipe calls for Angostura, but any aromatic variety will do. I wouldn’t make this drink without them.”

This experiment proving a success, Mr. Keenan was asked what he planned to do next. “I don’t really know,” he said. “Typically I don’t put much forethought into this. More often than not it’s based on whatever I have lying around. Like the Bénédictine I picked up the other day. Where did I put that?” He went in search of the recently acquired bottle. When he did not return after several hours, the interview drew to a close.

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The Journalist

2 oz. gin
½ oz. dry vermouth
½ oz. sweet vermouth
2 dashes curaçao
2 dashes lemon juice
1 dash Angostura or aromatic bitters

Shake. Strain. Garnish with a lemon peel.

Want more Cocktail of the Week? The first fifty-two essays are available in the Kindle bestseller DOWN THE HATCH: ONE MAN’S ONE YEAR ODYSSEY THROUGH CLASSIC COCKTAIL RECIPES AND LORE. Buy it now at Amazon.com.