Grumpy's New Invention
By Ryan Oakley. Filed in booze, me me me |
And Sorry. It’s not that owlish looking Beer Bot. You can look at this page to see more of those. No, friends, I did what all people who work in bars do when they’re really bored. I started experimenting.
That’s how we get new drinks. (Did you think there was a lab?) Your humble bartenders, waiters, dishwashers and cooks, when bored, start mixing chemicals like a hippie at some wacky hippie music festival.
Where I work, a popular concoction is the “Car Bomb.” It’s a three quarter shot of Irish Whiskey, topped with Baileys and dropped into half pint of Guinness. Drink it all in one go. It tends to curdle.
The night I had my stroke of genius -and once you taste it, you will certainly agree that genius is not too strong a word – I had not had a single one of these devilish concoctions. It is true, however, that I had been reading a 1952 bartender’s book that recommends Abstinthe as a good breakfast drink and mixing myself Gin Juleps according to its recipes. But, unlike my arrests, I cannot give all of the credit to the gin.
Yes. There must have been magic in those Gin Juleps. But, perhaps there was also some magic in me. Being comprised of two great winter drinks, my, as of yet, unnamed cocktail will go down well on those dark January nights. You pull a half pint of Guinness, pour in a shot of brandy while the beer cascades, and finish your pour as normal. Drink it as if it’s a regular, though fantastic tasting, pint of stout. Repeat as necessary.
Sadly, friends, it is unnamed. So I’m calling upon you (that’s right, All five of you who leave comments) to recommend a name. If you don’t usually leave comments, feel free to chime in too. This is your chance to become a minor celebrity in certain bars in Toronto. And, as the Spanish say: “Better to be a well known drunkard than an anonymous alcoholic.”
Although Ryan Oakley began his career as a simple rake (drunk) he has since become Toronto’s most renowned flaneur (no car) and notorious dandy (overdresses). A misanthropic composer of psycho-geographical fictions (bad science fiction), he is also a server of food, a tender of bar and a washer of dishes. While performing all these functions with efficiency and elegance (disdain and malice), he somehow finds the time to publicly criticize friends, strangers and cultural crap. He's a bit of a dick.
Sunday, June 11th 2006 at 3:01 pm |
I think you should call it “Midwinter Suicide”.
It’s really more like a long, black, post-Christmas depression, but that doesn’t have much of a ring to it.
-PD