Thursday, August 08, 2013

Adult Beverages

1950 vs 2013, A Visual Comparison
I think one of the charms of the TV show, Mad Men, is that everyone drinks cocktails you can recognize.  (My pal Andrew says the other reason is that children on the show know how to mix cocktails, well.)

I recently dined out twice, and each time was confronted with a list of cocktails, the only one of which I recognized was a mojito.  This continues a long-standing trend; for years what establishments pedal as a "martini" has no more relationship to the actual beverage that a daisy to a crocodile other than being served in a martini glass.  Please be informed, that a martini is made of either gin or vodka and dry vermouth, garnished with an olive, or - if you're daring - a cocktail onion.  Mixing creme de banana, campari, and triple sec and pouring it into a martini glass does not make it a martini anymore that standing in a garage makes you an automobile.

At one time, so I have been told, a person could look at a cocktail menu and find gibsons, and old-fashioneds, and martinis; now however, every cocktail menu is a special, limited-edition, one-of-a-kind deal.  The other night, I was out with some friends - my pal Jamie got something-or-other, served in a wine glass, and garnished with a cherry on a toothpick.  Andrew, whom I mentioned earlier, got something I mistook for a mojito with a wad of spinach in it.  However, it was no more a mojito than I am, and the thing I took for spinach was a blackberry.  (The joint was fairly dark.)  I, for the sake of simplicity, ordered a beer.  It took me ten minutes to choose from among their summer beers, micro-beers, macro-beers, wheat beers, and near beers.

The cocktails and my beer arrived and everyone seemed satisfied with their concoctions of blue-berry infused rum, liquid smoke, sweet vermouth, and sparkling muscatel.  Only one person didn't get her drink in a timely manner.  She had to wait thirty minutes because she'd ordered a scotch and soda.

The bartender didn't know the recipe.