january budget

[by john]

i haven't written about hitting my booze budget target lately because, well, i had been hitting it. but, as evidenced by all the dc posts, i blew way past it in january. the trip to julio's liquors for rum, apricot liqueur, rye, vermouth, and genever certainly didn't help, either.

we're talking a factor of two in overspending. (that's not so bad for astronomers usually, but...) a couple things salvaged january from going down in the cautionary-tale-of-profligacy or cut-up-my-credit-card categories. first, i had plenty of xmas and birthday money to blow through, so i knew the size of my cushion. and second, i reminded myself that a budget is not a hard limit as much as a guideline; E[x], not max(x). i'm already well under for february, so things will average out nicely.

moreover, budgets are flexible. i just ran through my 2009 spending and found, for instance, that i overestimated zipcar and clothing expenses, so i redistributed them to other pleasures, like dining out.

well, until i can experiment enough with those bottles from julio's, this will be my budget-saving drink of choice:

parsimony

2 oz italian vermouth

pour on the rocks. add a dash of bitters if feeling adventurous.

september budget

[by john]

it's getting to be the same old story, but i managed another month under budget. to get more fine-grained about it, though, i spent roughly $90 on schmancy cocktails, $45 on wine and beer to bring to friends' parties, $30 on a new bottle, and $15 at the beer-after-work sort of places.

huh, that's a 6:3:2:1 ratio; is that a common one for drinks? some people swear by a 2:1:1 spirit:citrus:syrup portioning for sours, or a 4:3:2:1 weak:strong:sweet:sour for punches, so perhaps. well, not really. after looking through my recipes, the 6:3:2:1 really isn't in vogue. i did find one drink, however, from a weekly blogger think (drink?) tank:

1 1/2 gin

3/4 green chartreuse

1/2 orgeat

1/4 carpano antica

1 dash angostura

(call the tiny portion of bitters extra tips or something, if you want to be strict about it.) what kismet, though - it uses carpano antica vermouth, the bottle i just got. unfortunately, this one goes down in the average column, despite looking so tasty on paper. too sharp and too sweet, i'm afraid.

at least my spending was in tasty proportion...

To Each His Own (Bar)

[by Mike]

As John just wrote, new inductees into cocktail culture are always curious about the best way to start their own bar. But $100? You're never going find a solution that placates everyone, and John's recommendations certainly raised my eyebrow halfway to the ceiling.

The reason? No tequila! My own tastes hold tequila above the other base spirits, and I think a good bottle (Azul, Sauza Hornitos, Milagro) opens a world of cocktail possibilities more appealing to a beginner. Good tequila, for example, blends wonderfully with fruit (from berries to melons to stone fruit), encouraging experimentation while introducing seasonal ingredients. When the bar is ready for expansions, moreover, tequila provides an ideal base for new spirits. Benedictine, Maraschino, Cointreau - they're all prime additions to the agave liquor.

But where does tequila fit in? Honestly, I think gin can be overwhelming to new enthusiasts. Save the gin drinks for the professions, at least until you've trained your wrists for brisk stirring, and start with sweeter drinks that can be more forgiving in their ratios and exact preparations.

My list, then, goes as follows:

Tequila - $25 (Azul, Sauza Hornitos, Milagro if you can find it cheap)

Rye - $20 (Rittenhouse, etc)

Rum - $20 (Sailor Jerry, Old Monk)

Sweet Vermouth - $10 (I think Martini and Rossi is fine to start)

Bitters - $15 (Angostura and Peychauds, for comparing and contrasting)

Citrus Juicer - $10 (In the Mexican style)

Pick up some limes, whip up some simple and ginger syrups, and you'll have plenty with which to play. Oh, and my hardware goes as: bar spoon, Oxo 2 oz measuring cup, Boston shaker, julep strainer, muddler (I'm currently using the end of a rake handle), and a set of Tovolo ice cube trays.

Now I'm off to go brainstorm uses for my bottle of Midori. When it's tequila time, it's Suntori time?

a bar of one's own

[by john]

in the span of just a few days i received two requests - nay, cries of help from the depths of impoverished abstemiousness - for advice on stocking a bar. hyperbole or not, i felt honored, since these two guys have greatly shaped my attitude towards cocktails. tony, in sf, who defines classy debauchery, made me my first ever mixed drink, and steven, in nyc, gives me field reports on (and occasionally entry into) the best bars in new york. and so, i was obliged.

let's set the constraint: $100 to stock a bar from scratch. thankfully, the simplest and most classic cocktails enjoy a large intersection, and can be made with a minimal set of ingredients. think the martini, the manhattan, a gimlet, a pegu club, or a julep. minus the cheap, background cost of fresh citrus and simple syrup, my initial list would be:

gin - $30 (plymouth, greylock, junipero, beefeater...)

rye - $20 (rittenhouse, old overholt [sazerac for a bit more])

french vermouth & italian vermouth - $30 (-not- martini & rossi - go for dolin or noilly prat)

bitters - $10 (start with angostura)

barspoon - $10 (try to seek out a nice one)

all the essentials are there - spirits, vermouths, bitters, and barware. i'm not trying to cover the gamut of base spirits, nor liqueurs. those can all come later. and don't forget about the barware. i'm assuming there's already a pint glass handy, but with each paycheck acquire, in order, a boston shaker metal tin, an oxo hawthorne strainer, an oxo 2 oz slanted measuring cup, and a citrus reamer.

above all, though, a bar should be stocked drink by drink. find a cocktail you like enough to make it regularly at home, then get the cointreau or benedictine or rum or even absinthe necessary to make it. put aside some money each month to get a new bottle to expand your repertoire. for instance, steven, with his penchant for last words and variants thereon, might consider splurging on some chartreuse and maraschino liqueur. and then last words will cost $3 instead of $12.

if only i had given my callow past self the same advice - then i wouldn't have that damn useless bottle of midori sitting around...

august budget

[by john]

after a raucous july, my alcohol spending took a break while i played with a bunch of new bottles leftover from the party at home. more on that soon. in all, i spent $115, and a good chunk of that was on a book! i picked up a reproduction of jerry thomas' 1862 compendium 'a bon vivant's companion' from adam at the boston shaker. more on that soon, too.

my reduced spending helped absorb the excess from some other categories, however. a lovely dinner at no. 9 park during restaurant week, plus some enthusiastic splurging at the grocery store (on $10/pound butter, for instance. possibly inspired by 'julie & julia'?) put me over the edge. totally worth it, though.

in other monetary news, our graduate stipend has gone up to $2130 per month, a $60 increase. but like any conscious spender, i won't let it affect my budgeting; rather i'll save the excess for my ira and a flight to bkk.

how to throw a cocktail bash in four easy steps

[by john]

this past weekend, i threw a two night cocktail fête. it was perhaps the closest i will come to opening a bar, with different guests every night, waves of drink orders, and gourmet bar food. (mad props to mike and andy for the crispy shredded pork awesomeness, gravlax, and bone marrow.) i had tremendous amounts of fun without drinking anything, save for a few dozen milliliters from test-straws. homing in on each guest's taste proved to be a delightful challenge. i will certainly do this again.

now, easily:

create a menu

i put up my menu last time, but gave no indication of how hard it was to make. i tested tens of drinks over the course of a week to see which would appeal to a wide sample of palates. and, in addition to the pet pet, i created two originals - a st. germain/applejack marriage (la pomme rouge), and a constantly varying - popular, too, it turned out - tequila cocktail (the ho[a]rfrost).

everything on the menu got great attention and compliments, except for the poor martinez. being the oldest drink on there, maybe it couldn't hang with this hip crowd. noted. but otherwise, i am elated for converting many guests to the wonders of sloe gin, regular gin, spicy finishes, and flamed chartreuse.

go into debt

having settled on a menu, i then biked around boston/cambridge for another week trying to gather the necessary ingredients. the word is out on rittenhouse, quality bourbon, and old monk rum, apparently, because i had to discover several new liquor stores to hunt them all down.

after all my shopping, i went (a predicted) $200 over my normal budget for the month. i calculated the cost of each drink: usually around $3, and $4 for the tipperary. i figured each guest would go through ~3 rounds, so asked for $10 donations. in the end, i recouped exactly $200, perfect!

for the nth time, i'd like to reiterate how cheap home bartending is, compared to going out.

focus on the freezer

at some point, maybe 10 days before the party, i realized with growing dread that i would need a lot of ice. like, 200 cubes per night. only the brute force solution was viable: i bought two more tovolo trays and pushed out batches each day and night into ziploc bags. by friday morning, i was satisfied with five gallon bags, four trays in reserve, and five non-cubical trays in super-reserve.

some further creative maneuvering allowed me to fit cocktail glasses in there, too, so they could chill before service. good thing we weren't serving gelato or something.

stand around

the hard parts are done. now you only need to stand in one place for three hours and shake or stir the shit out of lots of drinks. stand, and also listen, steer, cajole, charm, engage, introduce, rinse, muddle, crack, and pour.

i had not expected the rush i got from bartending. it's like being on a kitchen line, but colder and solo. some hardcore multitasking - remembering orders, mixing, chatting people up, and monitoring the glassware situation all at once, with outward aplomb. and the repeated delight on guests' faces with the first sip made it even better.

restocking

[by john]

finishing a bottle is one happy, recurring consequence of stocking a bar. it affords the opportunity to try a new spirit, and congratulate oneself on beating the system of expensive drinks at a bar.

our collection has recently seen the demise of some french vermouth, benedictine, and two kinds of rye. all three of these are essential to my bar. french vermouth and rye are featured in nearly every classic cocktail (though rarely together in one drink), while benedictine has become indispensable to my herb-loving palate.

i'm anxious to pick up some dolin vermouth, which is even more delicate than the noilly prat we finished. as for the rye, i think i'll stick with the cheap-and-good-as-hell rittenhouse 100. the restocking will hit my bar-going habits a bit, but that's fine since i'll have new toys to play with.

speaking of budgeting, i hit april and may right on the nose. taken together, i spent about $397 of the allotted $400. solid.

passing and punting

[by john]

i passed my third and final qualifying exam last week, marking not only the start of my candidacy for a phd, but, more notably, the end of a horrendous month of extreme teetotalism. what better way to celebrate than beers, bourbon, burgers, and a trip to craigie for tom's cocktails? in response to my plea for a drink to erase volumes of astrophysical trivia, he whipped up some strange stepchild of a recipe, which included galliano, rye, tequila, and becherovka. whoa. uncanny light color, foreign flavor, and all too drinkable.

now, as i predicted before, my budget fared well in the month of may. that means i can give myself a $100 present for jumping through that flaming, spinning, glass-shard-encrusted academic hoop.

first on the list: punt e mes. this guy was (still is) the darling vermouth of boston bartenders for a while, and for good reason. it blows the socks off of martini & rossi. i just picked up a bottle this evening at the wine and cheese cask (where mike got his bottle) on my bike ride home from lab. they also had both kinds of dolin vermouth there, so i might have to go back...

to break in the bottle, i decided to give it a spin in one of my all time favorite cocktails, the cocktail à la louisiane:

cocktail à la louisiane

1 oz rye [rittenhouse]
1 oz benedictine
1 oz italian vermouth [punt e mes]
1 barspoon absinthe [st. george]
1/2 barspoon bitters

stir with cracked ice and strain into a cocktail glass.

the punt e mes has a gentle bitter finish, so i was most curious to see how that would play in the drink. and, voila, it shows through! first, it races to cut the sweet benedictine, then, after the absinthe has had its say, it outlasts with its bitter end. the punt e mes added a layer and a half to this already multifaceted drink. in retrospect, the m&r was only filler.

well, next on that list: st. germain (now that it's popular and can be found in every liquor store), cherry heering, greylock gin (a local distiller), and maybe galliano, four roses bourbon, another rye, bonded applejack, and who knows what else. the burden of choice!

march's budget

[by john]

my budget survived a riotous march spent (in the monetary - not time - sense) mostly in california. i came in under budget in the alcohol category. somewhat surprising, actually, but thanks in large part to declining further rounds at b&b.

one interesting feature: i usually split food expenses 25/75 between dining and groceries, but this month that fraction flipped because of all the travel and time with old friends.

and the april ledger is looking good so far, with a large chunk of studying taking the place of more enjoyable pursuits. small consolation...

the budget

[by john]

like any (obsessive) hobby, drinking well constitutes a nontrivial part of a monthly budget. a graduate student stipend will put food on the table, but not necessarily drink. (thankfully i've grown out of my other expensive hobbies: road biking, numismatics, and owning a car, most notably.)

i learned a good deal of fiscal responsibility from my dad. keep a budget, never carry a balance on a credit card, save, save, save; all basic rules, but all good rules. consequently, i budget each month down to the subcategory.

for full disclosure, here's a rather rough breakdown: each month i earn $2000 after taxes. half of that is rent and utilities (*shake fist* at boston real estate), then after food, my roth ira, and other assortedness, i allow $200 for libations ($40/week and some room for new bottles). that's not much. i can't do after-work drinks every night and i certainly can't go to some of these cool cocktail events around boston. but i've built up a great ~60 bottle bar with a couple bottles a month (or more around the birthday and xmas windfalls, plus help from my like-minded roomie), so most of my liquid experimentation comes from that stockpile.

i'm going to try to report on this $200-a-month limit as i go along - i feel it's a unique boundary condition for an avid cocktailian. this past month, actually, i missed the mark and went over by some $30 (that's three drinks, don't laugh!), which i'll readily attribute to julio's unexpectedly stocking plymouth sloe gin. and visiting friends in nyc...milk & honey and pdt were well worth it, though.

excuses aside, i have developed some means to meet this budget:

• i grow my own bar. you can get 15+ good manhattans (or martinis) out of a $20 bottle of rittenhouse rye (plymouth gin), $5 worth of italian (french) vermouth, and paltry amounts of bitters. can you imagine if your friendly neighborhood bar charged $2 for one of those?
• i make converts. my roomie is now more than willing to put in for cachaça, multiple ryes, st. germain, or sloe gin. the (converted) friends i go out with all share tastes of drinks. (so that now i know what a blue blazer tastes and looks like, without the absolute necessity of finishing ounces of cask strength scotch...)
• i drink slowly. heh, yes, in the end, there aren't really any magical methods to drink less once you're under that certain judgment-hampering spell...so i make it a rule to savor. self-restraint is a skill.
• i tip my bartenders well. okay, this has nothing to do with staying on budget, but these knowledgeable bartenders and bartendresses deserve good money, especially for the knowledge i ply them for.

high class parsimony - ambitious, but i shall endeavor, and drink slowly...