My brother Eric—a director, playwright, screenwriter, filmmaker, festival founder and author based in Los Angeles—is always working on something. Usually, several somethings. And you’re never quite sure what’s the next project to shoot out of the pipeline. Recently, he casually mentioned he had finished a new documentary and asked if I would give it a look.

This was news. Because, among his many accomplishments, Eric won an Oscar back in 2005 for the short documentary A Note of Triumph: The Golden Age of Norman Corwin, about the famed radio artist of the 1930s and 1940s. Five years earlier, he had been nominated for an Oscar for the short documentary, On Tiptoe: Gentle Steps to Freedom, about the South African musical group Ladysmith Black Mambazo. So the arrival of a new documentary by him was something of note.

The new work, called Going for Home, strikes rather closer to home for Eric than those previous works. It concerns the Central Altadena Little League, from near his home in Glendale, CA, which picked up and carried on with its season, even after the devastating Eaton Canyon fire left many of the involved families displaced. The project was a family affair, with Eric’s wife, actress Sue Cremin, and son Henry Simonson pitching in.

The Mix spoke to Eric shortly before Going for Home had its premiere at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival. The conversation is below.

THE MIX: How did the idea for this film come about?

ES: I live in Glendale, which is very close to Altadena. My son, Henry, went to school in Altadena and played on the Little League there while he was growing up, so we have lots of friends in the community. The Eaton Canyon fire affected us in a real way—we didn’t lose anything but knew many who had. When my wife, Sue, and I heard that the Central Altadena Little League was going to be going ahead with their season despite the fact that between 60% and 90 % of the families there had lost their homes, we thought immediately this would make an interesting story. I grabbed a camera and we started shooting.

THE MIX: How long after the fires did you start filming it?

ES: We began shooting on opening day, which was March 1st, 2025, so that was about 7 weeks after the fires.

THE MIX: How did you choose who to talk to?

ES: We talked to anyone who would talk with us. We didn’t know which families or players were going to emerge as contenders, and we had to get everyone’s story regarding the fire, which took tons of time. There are over 200 players in the league, which means 200 whole families. As we continued to shoot, some stories stood out more than others, and we started to see which teams were having the most interesting seasons. It really was a slow process of winnowing down to our key subjects.

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THE MIX: Did you know some of the people in the film before you started this project? Did your son Henry know any of the kids?

ES: Henry’s a sophomore in college now, so he didn’t know any of the kids, but there were at least three coaches he knew from his days playing, and these coaches remembered Henry, who actually worked on the film as an assistant editor and PA. So he got a chance to reunite with some of his former coaches.

THE MIX: Was it difficult interviewing the kids?

ES: In a word, yes. A lot of kids wanted to be interviewed, but when they got in front of of the camera, they froze, and all their answers tended to be “Yes,” “No” or “I don’t know.” But we shot a lot of film, and we were around a lot. They got used to us and we were able to cobble together enough footage to get a dimensional look at some of these kids. And they are fascinating.

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THE MIX: What was the hardest part of making Going for Home?

ES: Finding a home for the film. Many buyers today won’t even look at it because it’s not True Crime, which is about 90% of what’s being distributed these days. Places like Netflix and Amazon over-bought a few years back, when they were looking for content to beef up their libraries. They’ve put the brakes on that the past couple years, so the market is tough. And we need to think about getting the film out ; there in more creative ways.

ES: It's been 21 years since you won an Oscar for A Note of Triumph and 17 years since your Studs Terkel documentary. Why did it take so long for you to make another documentary?

I came from theater, and after a few years doing docs, I realized, “Hey, this is just like doing theater: you work really hard and get paid practically nothing for it.” So I moved over to writing for television, which is just as fun, but pays a living wage. Also, I never start a documentary from the question, ”What should be my next subject?” I only ever started a doc when I was inspired to make one. And that’s what happened with Going for Home. The opportunity presented itself, and I had a feeling it would be a good story. So I acted on it.

THE MIX: How did you get Gordon Gano of The Violent Femmes to compose the soundtrack?

ES: I sent him the film and he responded to it. I think Gordon has this natural proclivity to support story with his music, which at its essence is very pure and spare. I thought it would be a good match for the film.

THE MIX: The film just had its premiere at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival. What was the reaction?

ES: By now, I’ve seen the film about one-hundred times, but always by myself or with Sue. This was the first time I’d seen it with an audience and I was surprised by how vocal the reactions were. There were lots of big laughs, and some very audible sobs. I don’t think I could have asked for a better reaction.

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If you want to see Going for Home, it will have a second and final screening at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival on Feb. 14 at 6 p.m. Tickets are available here.

Odds and Ends…

Phil Ward of Long Island Bar is up to his usual Martini-mixing tricks. During a recent visit to the bar, we were treated to not one, but two new Martini variations. The first was the Nordic Gibson, made partly the aquavit and garnished with a cocktail onion and a celery ribbon—notable, in that Ward almost never bothers with garnishes. The second was called the Birthday Martini (by us), because it was Mary Kate’s birthday on the night in question. It was a simple mixture of Hayman’s gin, plus both dry and blanc vermouths… Holiday, the later Richard Greenberg’s modern-day adaptation of Philip Barry’s 1928 play, opened Feb. 9 at the Goodman Theater in Chicago, which is currently celebrating its centennial. Look for a review of the production, directed by Robert Falls, on The Milwaukee Mix in the days to come… Achilles Heel, the remote cocktail bar opened by Andrew Tarlow in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, has closed after 13 years in business… It was a bad week for music. Greg Brown, the original guitarist for the band Cake and the composer of their song “The Distance” died on Feb. 7 at the age of 56. And Fred Smith, the original bassist for Blondie, who later joined the group Television, dies on Feb. 5 at the age of 77… Sfingi season has arrived in Brooklyn. The special Italian pastries, which commemorate St. Joseph’s Day, are now available at Court Pastry Shop… On The Milwaukee Mix last week, I wrote about the amusing and mysterious history of Hamdingers, a ham product produced by Patrick Cudahy in the 1970s and 1980s… The British pop group Squeeze will release a new album on March 6. It is a collection of songs that songwriters Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook wrote when they were teenagers, years before they found fame. It will be called Trixies, and the songs are a collection of stories set in a fictional night club… F & F Pizzeria, the popular Brooklyn pizza parlor, will open a Manhattan location at Shaver Food Hall, inside the former Lord & Taylor department store.

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Bar Shot: Old Hillside Harlem Hellfighters Bourbon

Featured on the Simonson/Murray home bar this week is Old Hillside Harlem Hellfighters Bourbon. It is a limited-edition Bourbon from the North Carolina-based, Black-owned Old Hillside Bourbon Company, released in honor of Black History Month. It pays tribute to the 369th Infantry Regiment and African-American soldiers of World War I.

“This partnership isn’t just about whiskey. It’s about honoring a legacy of valor, sacrifice, and resilience,” said Jesse Carpenter, chief product officer of Old Hillside Bourbon. “The Harlem Hellfighters fought longer and harder than nearly any American unit in WWI, and this collaboration allows us to preserve their story while supporting veterans who continue to serve today.” The unit was awarded a Congressional Gold Medal in 2025.

The whiskey was finished in French oak, Pinot Noir wine barrels for 191 days, and bottled at 55% abv. These choices weren’t random. 191 is the exact number of days the regiment spent on the front lines in France. The barrels themselves originate from the same region where the Hellfighters fought. Only 150 cases will be released across three unique commemorative labels.

Old Hillside Harlem Hellfighters is a robust Bourbon, yet complex in flavor, with toasty barrel notes and sweet red-fruit notes coming through equally. The influence of the wine barrels is not overwhelming, hanging in the background and lending a touch of subdued elegance to the dram. Probably best enjoyed on its own, we did nonetheless made some very successful Manhattans with it.

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In all my writings on hot dog culture, I have relied on photographs to communicate the pictorial reality of what I was eating. Little did I know there was be a visually oriented counterpart to myself out there.

Then, last December, a man named Hawk Krall sent me an email. “NEW Hot Dog Map & Holiday Sale!” read the subject line.

Hot Dog Map? Could such a thing exist?

Yes, it could! And not just any hot dog map. A map of all the dozens of hot dog stands in the state of Pennsylvania, from Erie to Scranton, Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, all rendered in a cheerful, bubble-letter style that reminded me a little of the work of R. Crumb. Among the chaos of words and pictures, I spied a few that I had been to: Jimmy John’s Pipin’ Hot Sandwiches in West Chester; Original Coney Island in Scranton; Yocco’s Hot Dogs in Allentown; and Pott’s in the Lehigh Valley, among others.

In the bottom right corner were tributes to food writer Holly Moore and hot dog historian Joey Spivak. Above them was a drawing of a man in glasses and a backwards baseball cap holding a hot dog. Beside it were the words, “Map created in 2025 by Hawk Krall, eating and drawing hot dogs since 2006.”

As that line indicates, the PA Hot Dog Map (which is a limited edition and is available for purchase here) is not an anomaly in the career of Krall, who has provided artwork for Lucky Peach, Philadelphia Magazine, Rachael Ray Magazine, Serious Eats and other publications, as well as custom work for various businesses. He has created artistic tributes to hot dog styles and cultures everywhere on the map, from the mini-hot dogs of Troy, NY, to the cream-cheese slathered Seattle Dog. If there’s a regional style of frankfurter, he has immortalized it in paper and ink. (Also: various styles of hoagie, pizza, and cheesesteaks.)

The Mix caught up with this kindred spirit to talk art, regional food, and, of course, hot dogs. The interview is below.

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THE MIX: How did your interest in drawing and illustration come about?

Hawk Krall: I was raised in a family of artists, so there was never really any question. My grandparents were both Illustrators and professors at UArts in Philadelphia. My mother is an art teacher and formerly a food/photo stylist; my father was an art director and designer. I worked in restaurants for many years before doing illustration full time, but art has always been a part of my life.

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Thanks to the renewed interest in cocktails over the past two decades, the number of new cocktail books published every year had increased perhaps 1000% over what it was in 2005. However, the percentage of those books that are serious studies of mixology and cocktail history has plummeted during the last five years.

Between 2000 and 2020, the publishing…

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Cocktail historians were critical to the advent of the cocktail renaissance. Without their research and writings, there were no classic cocktails to recreate, no great bartending tradition to reclaim. And there has been no cocktail historian more prominent, more complete in his influence than David Wondrich.

I doubt there’s been a craft cocktail program launched over the past 18 years where the creators haven’t, at some point, consulted one of Wondrich’s books, be it his seminal study of American mixological history, Imbibe!, published in 2008; Punch, his singular study on the mother beverage of all cocktails, from 2010; or the monumental Oxford Companion to Spirits and Cocktails, written with Noah Rothbaum and brought out in 2021.

Now, Wondrich is back with arguably the most surprising volume of his long career. It’s a graphic novel. The Comic Book History of the Cocktail tells the centuries-long story of mixed drinks in illustrations (by Dean Kotz) and captions. The Mix caught up with Wondrich to discuss the new work. After our Q&A, you’ll find a pictorial excerpt of the book.

THE MIX: How did this book come about?

David Wondrich: Julie Bennett at Ten Speed Press asked me if I’d be interested in adding a cocktail book to their Comic Book Story of X series. I had been thinking about doing something in the comic-book vein for a really long time, and so I jumped at the chance. Plus it was a way to write a connected, Punch-to-Pegu Club history of the cocktail that focused more on the big picture than the minute details. After doing the Oxford Companion to Spirits and Cocktails, I was ready for that.

THE MIX: Obviously, this was a very different book project for you than all your previous works. Can you describe what the process was like? How did you and Dean Kotz put together the puzzle of the text and illustrations?

DW: The way it worked is I wrote a script with stage directions, so to speak, for each page: so may panels, as the individual drawings are known, and what should be portrayed in each, plus dialogue and captions. This went to Dean, along with pictures of everything and everybody I could find a picture of: a typical early American barroom, for instance, or Ada Coleman of the Savoy. Dean would then roughly sketch it out, we’d adjust what needed adjusting—and there was precious little of that—and then he’d do a formal version in ink. As one can imagine, that took some time.

THE MIX: Do you think this book will bring a different sort of reader to the world of cocktails than would a traditional work of cocktail scholarship?

DW: I certainly hope so, although I realize it’s still a pretty heavy lift for someone who is coming to the topic cold, so to speak. It’s really aimed at people who already have an interest and want to learn more, but not to the extent of reading something like Imbibe or A Proper Drink. For the cocktail curious, let’s say. But the Comic Book History is also the first detailed, researched beginning-to-now history of the cocktail in a generation, since William Grimes’ groundbreaking Straight up or on the Rocks, and a whole lot of information has been turned up since then; a whole lot of people hauled out of the shadows. So even if you’re deep into the culture, there’s something to be learned here—even if it’s just that Joseph Heller’s Milo Minderbender in Catch 22 was largely based on Don the Beachcomber.

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Excerpt - The So-Called Dark Ages:

Odds and Ends…

From Sept. 22 through Sept. 25, I will be serving drinks at the Door Kinetic Arts Festival (DKAF), as I have for the last several years. It promises to be a blockbuster line-up this year, with performances by the Chicago dance group Lucky Plush, Deaf West Theater and playwright Rick Cleveland. This year, my son Asher Simonson will be helping out… On Sept. 27, I will be in Kansas City at the J. Rieger & Co. Distillery talking Martinis and Negronis with legendary gin distiller Tom Nichol (for many years the master distiller at Tanqueray and creator of Rieger’s excellent gin)… Negroni Week, an annual celebration of the Negroni hosted by Imbibe magazine, will take place Sept. 22-28… Solly’s Grille, the iconic hamburger joint in Milwaukee that invented the Butter Burger, is up for sale… Ryan Chetiyawardana, the founder of the sprawling family of high-concept Mr. Lyan cocktail bars, is opening his first bar in New York. It will be the second location of his London bar Seed Library… Film Forum will screen a retrospective of actor Peter Sellars’ career in honor of what would have been Sellars 100th birthday. It began Sept. 19 and will run through Oct. 2. Featured films include The Party, I’m All Right Jack, Being There, Dr. Strangelove, Lolita and The Ladykillers… Nicole Ciampino, the head bartender at the swanky Clemente Bar in side Eleven Madison Park, has left that post after less than a year. Her last day will be Oct. 1… Bespoke, Robby Dow's new all-day café and aperitivo bar located in Wilmington, NC, will on Sept. 23 stage a pop up & full menu takeover at Grand Army, his old stomping ground… Composer Nann Steffens will host a release party of her latest CD at the Great Hall in Memorial Union in Madison, WI, on Nov. 1… Cape Town Cocktail Week, a new seven-day cocktail safari that aims to position Cape Town as a global cocktail hotspot, will run from December 10-16. The event is the brainchild of South African cocktail writer and consultant Leah Van Deventer… Adam Reiner’s new book The New Rules of Dining Out was published on Sept. 19… Finally, The Martini Expo, the first staged event produced by The Mix—as well as the first convention devoted to the culture of the Martini cocktail—took place at Industry City Sept. 12-13, and was a resounding success. We extend our heartfelt thanks to everyone who participated and everyone who attended. We are still very tired, but look to this space for a thorough recap of the proceedings in the weeks to come.

Few writers have been covering the spirits and cocktail beat as long as Noah Rothbaum. He began his work in the booze field in the late ‘90s and has held several significant editorial posts since then, including inaugural editor-in-chief of the website Liquor.com, cocktail columnist at Men’s Fitness, editor of the…

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I first met Laurie Woolever, the author of the new best-selling memoir Care and Feeding, in 2012 at Donovan’s Pub in Woodside, Queens. She was there to attend a gathering of food and drink writers I had put together. I knew she was the personal assistant of food-world eminence Anthony Bourdain. For all that glamour-by-proxy positioning, she seemed very pleasant and approachable.

Four years later, I shot an arrow in the air by asking Woolever if Bourdain might possibly furnish a blurb for the back cover of my new book, A Proper Drink. I was not surprised when he passed—I’m sure I was the 112th person to make such a request that month. But Woolever couldn't have been nicer about the whole thing. After that, I assumed the role of Instagram follower, where I enjoyed her unusually mordant wit.

None of these encounters prepared me for the Laurie Woolever I found in the pages of Care and Feeding. In her warts-and-all telling of her career in fine dining and food media, she is a needy, boozing, sometimes-self-loathing “hot mess” (The New York Times) whose personal life amounts to a series of increasingly bad decisions, and whose professional life isn’t much more organized. As Woolever joked during a seminar this past Monday at the Chefs Conference in Philadelphia, her editor, after she read the first draft of the book, said “There is so much vomiting in this book! Can we cut back on the vomiting by a third or maybe half?”

But between those explosive private episodes, Woolever paints a vivid, dry-eyed portrait of the early, bawdy, free-wheeling years of the celebrity chef era of the first two decades of the current century. During that time she had a ringside seat as the assistant to not one, but two of its most towering figures: Mario Batali and Bourdain, with whom she co-authored the books Appetites and World Travel.

The stories of both men ended suddenly and dramatically. Batali was felled by the Me-Too movement in 2017, when he the subject of multiple accusations of sexual misconduct. Bourdain was yanked from his perch by his own hand in 2018, committing suicide at the height of his fame. Woolever’s time of reckoning—when marriage, career, and the general consequences of her lifestyle all hit the fan—came not soon after. She got sober, got divorced and lost her mother all in quick succession.

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Woolever is currently on a book tour in support of Care and Feeding. The Mix caught up with her recently to talk about vodka and tonics, the changing world of food media, her famous bosses and why The Phantom Thread is so divisive. The interview is below.

THE MIX: Late in the book (on page 301), you say that you probably knew you would write about all this someday, even as it was happening. How long have you known you’d write this book?

Laurie Woolever: I have long thought about writing down the stories of the jobs and relationships and adventures I’ve had, though there were plenty of times when I thought I’d never actually do it, because I couldn’t concentrate long enough, or I thought no one would care, or I couldn’t imagine sharing the specifics of my intimate life or my experiences with my high-profile bosses. A few years ago, after I finished World Travel and Bourdain, I knew that I wanted to keep writing books, and by then I had enough sobriety, some perspective on my failings as a married person, the death of Tony Bourdain and the end of Mario Batali’s career to take a shot at writing it all down.

THE MIX: You’re from a small town in upstate New York and came to the city with no connections or leverage in terms of background or schooling. I can relate. I am from a small town in Wisconsin and arrived in New York in similar fashion. In the book, you write, “With magazines, there was a complex equation of education, skill and experience, inside connections, generational wealth, the right BMI, facility with a blow-dryer, good clothes without rips and oil stains, and an aptitude for knowing which asses to kiss and how much shit to eat, and when.” To what extent do you think the media world in New York is still ruled by who you know, how you look and where you come from?

LW: Before I answer the question, I want to correct part of it: I believe that having graduated from Cornell University did give me some “leverage in terms of background or schooling.” I’m quite sure that my early employers, the Smiths, who had a deep snobbery about the Ivy League, wouldn’t have wanted me as their private cook if not for my education. As for whether the media world still runs on connections, background and having a certain look? It’s true to a degree, but maybe less so than in the 1990s and 2000s, as salaries and perks and even publications and websites have shrunk or disappeared altogether. It’s still a field with more demand than supply of paid opportunities, so I’m certain that social connections and other forms of leverage are still very much in play.

THE MIX: Do you think being in the service industry caused you to be attracted to transgressive behavior and going over the top? Would your life have rolled out differently if you had become, say, a lawyer or accountant.

LW: I was attracted to the service industry for a handful of reasons, one of which was that I saw the labor within it as more fun, looser and more creative than the handful of experiences I’d had working in offices. There are plenty of moderate, well-behaved professionals in the hospitality business, and there are also plenty of people whose appetites were like mine, and I learned a lot from both types, though I found the boozers much more fun. I wouldn’t have been less of a self-destructive problem drinker had I gone into law or finance or another stereotypically staid profession, where there are also plenty of folks who know how to creatively blow off steam.

THE MIX: Which boss do you think influenced your behavior and views more over the past 25 years, Batali or Bourdain?

LW: I’ve been far more influenced by Tony Bourdain, for a number of reasons. I worked closely with him for nine years, and knew him for several years before that. They were both prolific writers, but Tony’s work was closer to my own sensibility. In the last years of his life, I thought that the intensity of his doomed romantic obsession with his girlfriend was something to be admired and even emulated in my own life. Along with everyone else who enjoys his television work and books, I’ve learned a lot from him about traveling with curiosity and empathy.

THE MIX: You were in the fine dining sector for a quarter century, but it didn’t seem to have an impact on your drinking choices. You pretty much stuck to vodka tonics and rosé and the like. Did the culinary aspects of the bar ever interest you as much as those of the kitchen?

LW: Again, a bit of a correction: I was in the fine dining sector for as long as I worked for Mario, which was roughly three and a half years, after which I was a private cook and worked in catering before transitioning to a full-time media life, where I became an observer and documenter of fine (and casual) dining. It’s true that when I was drinking, I gravitated toward vodka and rosé, both of which went down easy and fast, but I had a professional interest in all kinds of spirits and wine, especially when I was employed by Wine Spectator. I wrote about sake for the New York Times. I developed an awamori-based cocktail recipe for Saveur, and another one that featured bitter gourd. I wrote about Cynar, the artichoke-based amaro for my first-ever issue of Art Culinaire. And now that I’ve been sober for a while, I really appreciate and try to support those bar programs that offer innovative and delicious zero-proof things. The other night I was blown away by two very different NA drinks at Atoboy in Manhattan: a Unified Ferments sparkling tea-based kombucha that was flinty and elegant, and a still red “wine,” a collaboration between Muri Drinks and Four Horseman, that’s made from various fruit and vegetable juices, kefir and green peppercorns. It has a truly excellent and really satisfying combination of body, flavor and tannins.

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THE MIX: You mention the Paul Thomas Anderson film The Phantom Thread as having been a sticking point between you and one boyfriend. Over the years, I, too, have found this film to be polarizing. People either adore it or hate it. It is a favorite film of my wife’s, but I admit, while I respect it as a piece of art, the charms of its story escape me. What is it about The Phantom Thread that divides people so?

LW: I first saw the film when I was in the throes of a doomed obsession with a fastidious and cranky older man who only occasionally deigned to enjoy my company, so I felt a deep sense of my painful but sometimes rapturous life being reflected onscreen, only in far more elegant circumstances. My initial response to the film was deeply emotional, irrational and personal. I can see how anyone rational, or with rock-solid self-confidence, might find the love story preposterous. And I can see how some people might be bothered by the harm that one main character does to another, in order to force the intimacy she craves. The movie isn't a comedy, but I find parts of it so incredibly funny, too, such as the way Reynolds is so bothered by Alma dragging a butter knife across and then crunching her toast, and the extremely polite and yet wholly vicious little fight between Reynolds and his sister Cyril over breakfast. The story is slight, it's true, and I'm not sure that the film would hold up without the intense beauty of the cinematography and the performances, but it just floors me every time I watch.

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Odds and Ends…

Tequilas, the trailblazing Mexican restaurant in the Rittenhouse Square neighborhood of Philadelphia, which is run by the influential Tequila evangelist and Beard-award-winning author David Suro—and which recently reopened, two years after suffering a devastating fire—will open a second restaurant concept in the next few weeks. Called La Jefe, it will be located in the back of the Tequilas space and have a separate entrance on Latimer Street. The cuisine will be based on that of Suro’s native Guadalajara. Danny Childs, the Beard-Award-winning author of Slow Drinks, will collaborate on the cocktail menu… More than 100 new restaurants are set to open in Philadelphia in 2025… Meadowlark, the vaunted cocktail bar in the Logan Square neighborhood of Chicago, has decided upon the theme of its next cocktail menu. It will be the universe, with drink inspired by planets, moons, asteroids and everything else up in the sky. And, yes, there will be a Saturn cocktail on it… Good Guy’s, the aperitivo-style bar that the Attaboy team recently opened next door to its iconic cocktail bar, will soon sell its own branded version of tinned fish. It will be a smoked trout and will be a limited-time-only product… Philadelphia now has its own culinary book store. It’s called Binding Agents and it opened in the Italian Market neighborhood in October. Cookbook and cocktail book authors, take note: they do author events!… Dad’s Hat, the Philadelphia-area maker of find Pennsylvania-style rye whiskeys, now makes excellent bottled cocktails. There is a bottled Old-Fashioned and Manhattan, but they are currently only available in Pennsylvania. Dad’s Hat has also started making an apple brandy… 6 Restaurant, a new eatery from chef Nico Bouter, is now open in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn… American Coney Island, the Detroit hot dog legend, has opened a location in Las Vegas at the D Las Vegas, located under the outside escalator next to D Bar… Chef Michael Mina’s Manhattan restaurant Bourbon Steak New York has launched two tableside cocktail experiences, in partnership with Macallan Scotch. The more interesting to this newsletter is the “Pick Your Rob Roy” cocktail, where you can choose from Macallan Double Cask 15 Years ($60); Macallan Rare Cask ($90) and Macallan Sherry Oak 18 years ($120)… The New York Historical (Society) has found a new in-house restaurant, after previous tenant Clara, run by the Rucola folks in Brooklyn, didn’t work out. The restaurant will still be called Clara, but will be run by Food Network star Alex Guarnaschelli… Tomorrow, April 10, is the centennial of The Great Gatsby. How far are you into your current reread of the F. Scott Fitzgerald classic?

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In the wake of the cocktail book bonanza of the last decade, it can seem like we’ve got all bases covered, subject-wise. Whatever nichey mixology topic you’re interested in, rest assured: there’s a book for that. Maybe even two.

There are books about gin mixology, agave mixology, whiskey mixology and vodka mixology. There are books about frozen drinks, tiki drinks and highballs. There are books solely devoted to the Old-Fashioned, Manhattan, Negroni and Margarita. There are several about the Martini! The are books dedicated to high-tech potions and ones devoted to drinks with only three-ingredients. There are books that capture the house recipes of dozens of different famous cocktail bars.

Cocktail writer Philip Greene, however, has miraculously found a hole in this blanket coverage. His new book, Sours, which comes out today (Feb. 25), takes a look at one of the oldest and most ubiquitous cocktail categories out there—drinks with juice in them—a genre that has somehow never received the book treatment.

Do you need a book just about Sours? Well, I don’t know. Do you like Margaritas? Cosmos? Daiquiris? Chances are one of your favorite drinks is a Sour; you just don’t think of it that way. Greene’s book has recipes for those classics and more, as well as plenty of original cocktails of recent vintage, all served up with a dollop of history and his usual entertaining writing style.

We caught up with Greene recently to talk about all things Sours. The conversation is below.

The Mix: How did the idea for this book come about?

Philip Greene: The short answer is that my agent and I were brainstorming about book ideas, and I’ve presented some pretty fun cocktails seminars over the years on the topic of Sours, and we thought it was worthy of a book proposal. But it’s a topic that I’ve been fascinated with for more than 20 years.

See, way back in 2004, I attended the Tales of the Cocktail festival in New Orleans for the first time, and in particular I went to a seminar by the legendary Audrey Saunders, who would later go on to run the iconic Pegu Club in Manhattan, which launched so many great bartenders. Anyway, Audrey had this whiteboard (pre-PPT, I guess!) where she charted out all the great drinks that are based on the Sour formula. She was like, “Here’s a Daiquiri. OK, swap out the rum for Tequila, and sub in an orange liqueur for the simple, and wham, it’s now a Margarita. Or take that Daiquiri, add ice, mint and seltzer water, now it’s a Mojito. Do something similar with a basic gin sour, sans mint, and it’s a Tom Collins, or it’s a Gin Fizz, depending on whether it’s served up or on the rocks. Or take that Gin Sour and top it with Champagne and it’s the classic French 75. Or take that basic Daiquiri again, use two types of rum and two types of sweeteners, and it’s the Mai Tai. The list goes on and on.”

My mind was pretty well blown. But it’s true, go into any good craft cocktail bar and you’ll see some of the classics, but also original riffs on the classics, meaning that the category is pretty much limitless. Pair something strong with something sweet and something sour, maybe add some additional ingredients (the Jungle Bird takes the Daiquiri, adds pineapple juice and Campari, and makes a new modern classic), and you’re on to something. I simply felt that it was a category of drinks that demanded a somewhat deeper dive, both from an historical and practical perspective, a compendium of classics and modern classics, and a healthy number of drinks you’ve never heard of that are worthy of your attention.

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The Mix: It seems such a natural idea for a cocktail book, yet a book about Sours has never been done before now. Why do you think that is?

PG: Because you and I never thought of it previously? Seriously, that’s a good question. I mean, after all, in his iconic 1948 book The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks, David Embury gave us his list of the “six basic drinks,” something of a Mount Rushmore of cocktails. And three of them are Sours! You’ve got the Manhattan, the Martini, and the Old Fashioned, then you’ve got the Daiquiri, Jack Rose and Sidecar, the latter three being Sours. (Between you and me, I wonder why the Jack Rose is there and not the Whiskey Sour.) That tells you the prominent role that the category plays in the pantheon of bartending.

And while it can be tricky for a home bartender (or a pro, for that matter) to master the right formula, in terms of balancing the sweet, sour and strong, once it’s mastered it can serve as a platform for inventing drinks of your own, or, as Embury called it, “rolling your own.” But why has it never been a stand-alone book? Who knows? I know that other books have touched on the platform, such as Dale DeGroff’s essential Craft of the Cocktail, Gary Regan’s The Joy of Mixology, Alex Day’s Cocktail Codex, Dave Arnold’s Liquid Intelligence: The Art and Science of the Perfect Cocktail, your 3-Ingredient Cocktails, of course, and others, I felt it was worthy of a standalone book, and thankfully, my publisher, Union Square, agreed with me.

The Mix: How did you decide how to structure the book?

PG: That’s a good question. Since it’s my fifth book, I have a little experience with this sort of thing, so I had some examples to fall back on. With the Hemingway and Paris books (To Have and Have Another: A Hemingway Cocktail Companion, and A Drinkable Feast: A Cocktail Companion to 1920s Paris), it was alphabetically arranged by drink, with as much background, biography, history, literary excerpts, etc., as I could fit in there for each drink.

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I decided, however, that this book should be more like my book The Manhattan: The Story of the First Modern Cocktail. See, that book was somewhat similar, since both books are an examination of a “cocktail trinity,” meaning a combination of three ingredients as the platform, and all of the drinks that flow from that trinity. With the Manhattan, it’s a combination of spirit, vermouth, and bitters. With the Sour, it’s sweet, sour and strong. With both books, I wanted to initially delve into how and under what circumstances the marriage took place. For the Manhattan, it was the introduction of vermouth in the mid-19th century that was the catalyst. Some bartender, probably in New York City, likely looked at the Old Fashioned and said “let’s try this new eye-talian vermouth stuff in place of the sugar and see what happens.” Further, the Manhattan has several “creation stories” that I wanted to address. So, the first one-third of the Manhattan book dealt with history, then it got into recipes. I thought I’d do it the same way with this one, since both topics, the Manhattan and the Sour, have a ton of history and folklore leading up to the creation of the actual drink. And if you’re not interested in such things, you can skip right to the recipes.

For the Sour, you have to go all the way back to the 17th century, when punch was invented by British colonists in East India. So, getting back to your question, I decided to structure it with an examination of the role played by citrus in drinks, a short history of punch, a wave-top discussion of the evolution of communal drinking (fathoming a punch bowl over a long evening) to the idea of individualized drinks, the birth of the cocktail (spirits of any kind, sugar, water and bitters), then the creation of, as David Wondrich calls it, “punch on a small plan,” namely, the Sour.

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The Mix: What is the most surprising thing you learned in your research?

PG: Not being a professional bartender, I learned a ton about new trends in bartending that are found in and around the creation of Sours. I discovered new (to me) ingredients like aquafaba (the liquid found in a can of chickpeas is a great substitute for egg white in drinks like the Pisco Sour, to bring about that mouthfeel and foaming effect), pea-flower powder (the fact that it’s pH activated, it can change the color of a drink!), and things like oleo citrate, aka “Super Juice,” where bartenders like Nickle Morris in Louisville came up with a way to not only increase the yield from the fruit, but also increase its stability and shelf life, by making use of the outer layer of the peel. I learned about similar secret trick used by Havana bartender Constante Ribailagua which made his Daiquiris legendary (he’d boil the lime hulls after juicing them, creating a concentrated lime oil he’d dash into his many Daiquiri variations).

I also learned about juices I’d never heard of before, like yuzu, sudachi, kabosu, calamansi, kaffir limes, fingerling limes, and loquat juice. Then you’ve got things like hydrosols and aromatic mists, super-concentrated flavor compounds made from the distillation of the essential oils of a given plant, flower, or other botanical offering, that bartenders are using in drinks today. Lastly, I learned about any number of commercial juice offerings that are available today, which make it so much easier to make Sours for a crowd or to take on vacation where you’re likely to be making a lot of drinks.

The Mix: What is the most underrated Sour cocktail?

PG: That’s a tough question, but one drink that I serve often to friends and guests would be the Southside, which is essentially a gin sour with mint. Think of it like a gin Mojito but without the seltzer water (which of course you could add if you wanted to make a tall drink). And, like any great drink, it has some fun backstories that are of dubious authenticity.

The Mix: What is the Sour that is easiest to screw up?

PG: Any number of cocktail writers, Embury among them, will tell you it’s the Sidecar, where you’re really going to be disappointed with the drink if the balance is off. I cannot argue with that. Another one might be the Bees’ Knees, where you’ve really got to make sure you’ve made your honey syrup correctly (honey doesn’t cooperate as easily as sugar when it comes to dissolving). You might notice my punctuation, “Bees’ Knees,” I try to be faithful to how the creator of the drink, Frank Meier, head bartender of the Paris Ritz from 1921 through to the end of World War II, spelled it. Unfortunately, I lost the battle with my copyeditor over it; they insisted I depict it as “Bee’s Knees,” since, after all, that’s how everyone has done it for decades. Ugh, just because everyone has it wrong, I have to join them?

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The Mix: What is your favorite Sour, and why?

PG: It might be a tie, one is the Jungle Bird, which I discovered in Stockholm, Sweden, in the fall of 2014 when one of our daughters was studying abroad there. I love the backstory how my good friend Jeff “Beachbum” Berry found it in an obscure cocktail book in the bargain bin of a bookstore, saw an aperitif (Campari) in a tiki drink, and was intrigued. I love that drink. The other one is a creation of my own, the Lion of Baltimore. It’s basically a Daiquiri meets a dark rum Manhattan, but with orgeat as the sweetener and some of my friend and mentor Dale DeGroff’s pimento bitters. I invented it after sailing with my dad on Chesapeake Bay circa 2013, and named it for an American fighting ship during the War of 1812 which was sunk by the British in the waters near where we keep our sailboat.

The Mix: We all know we should use freshly squeezed juice in a cocktail. What’s the second biggest rule of thumb when it comes to making Sours?

PG: I think it’s all about the balance, just recognizing that formula of 1½-2 ounces of spirit, and something around ½ ounce of sweet and sour, and fine-tuning it to the taste of your guest. My wife, for example, doesn’t want it to be too sweet; in fact, her favorite summertime drink is the Gin Rickey, which isn’t even a sour because it has no sweet component!

The Mix: Among modern cocktail bartenders, are there any Masters of the Sour in your opinion?

PG: In my book, and it’s likely something I should have mentioned in the “what did you discover?” question, above, I have any number of what I call “21st-Century Smashes,” and that’s a category created by Dale DeGroff in the mid-1990s. If you look at Jerry Thomas’ iconic 1862 book, The Bar-Tender’s Guide (also going by the title How to Mix Drinks: The Bon-Vivant’s Companion), he had a drink called the Smash, which was simply a “Mint Julep on a small plan.” Well, Dale had been working with legendary restauranteur Joe Baum at Aurora in Manhattan, and decided that a new spin on a classic was in order. “I thought the julep could use some help,” DeGroff told me, “especially the Thomas Smash version ‘on a small plan.’ Bourbon, sugar and water didn’t float my boat.” So, he not only made one simple addition to the ingredients, lemon, he also took a quite literal approach to the category’s name. Indeed, he took the classic “small plan” Mint Julep, picked up his muddler and “smashed” some lemon wedges along with sugar and the mint. He added ice and the bourbon, and shook it well, then strained it over crushed ice. A star was born. He not only created a delicious new cocktail, he launched a whole new category of drinks, which I’ve taken the liberty of calling the 21st Century Smash. Before long, bartenders all over the world would be smashing their own variations.

So my book has any number of 21st Century Smashes from some of today’s best bartenders, notably Jackson Cannon, H. Joseph Ehrmann, Audrey Saunders, Jason Kosmas, Dushan Zaric, Sam Ross, Vincenzo Errico, Jeorg Meyer, Nick Jarrett, Abby Gullo, Martin Cate, Toby Maloney, Phil Ward, Justin McKenzie, Naren Young, Deke Dunn, Marco Dionysos, Jillian Vose, Charlotte Voisey, Frank Caiafa, and so many others.

Meanwhile you’ve got bartenders like Jeffrey Morgenthaler reinventing the classics of yesterday like the Amaretto Sour by adding bourbon to it, and you look at some of the great drinks being made by Shannon Mustipher, Julie Reiner, Giuseppe González, and so many others. You’re going to get me in trouble, I cannot…

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The Lion of Baltimore

Philip Greene, 2013.

• 2 ounces Jamaican dark rum (such as Smith & Cross or Appleton)

• 1 ounce sweet vermouth (Dolin or Martini work well)

• 3⁄4 ounce fresh lime juice

• 1⁄4 ounce orgeat

• 2 or 3 dashes Dale DeGroff’s pimento bitters

Combine all the ingredients in a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Shake well and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

Odds and Ends…

Bruce Joseph, who joined Anchor Brewing Company 45 years ago, has retired. He assumed the position of Master Distiller Emeritus and distillery consultant for San Francisco’s distillery, Hotaling & Co., beginning February 13… The Silver Dollar in Louisville will transform itself into a month-long tiki pop-up called The Sand Dollar from Feb. 25 through March 6. Drinks include a Hemingway Daiquiri, Rye Tai (Rye Whisky blend, rum, orgeat, lime) and Big Green Daiquiri (Midori, rum, Chartreuse, lime)… The Peerless Distilling Company in Louisville has released its new Toasted Rye whiskey bottling. The juice is aged in two separate oak barrels. It is initially aged in a char-level-3 barrel and then transferred to a toasted barrel… Danny Meyer has opened his rooftop Time Square restaurant and bar, called The View. The location is familiar to any regular theatergoer of the past 40 years. It’s the 48th floor of the Marriott Marquis Hotel at 1535 Broadway. Cocktails include a Gin Martini made with Ford’s Gin and a Manhattan made with Jaywalk Rye. The dinner menu leans toward classic steak house fare… Romeo’s, the East Village cocktail bar, will for the next three months feature a Weenie & Tini special. For $20, you get a Basil Martini (Ford’s gin, Centerbe genepy, blanc vermouth, toasted almond) and a Dye Hot Dog (topped with vodka sauce, mozzarella and pesto)… Chris Moore, most recently the beverage director at The Ned, is now at Crane Club Restaurant in West Chelsea. He is back behind the bar full-time for the first time in 10 years… A collection of never-before-seen items belonging to writer Joan Didion and her husband, writer John Gregory Dunne, are now accessible to researchers at the New York Public Library. The library acquired the archive in 2023 and spent the last two years processing the material… Beefeater gin has introduced into the Spanish market a new product, Beefeater Black. The gin sports the same botanical mix as regular Beefeater, with the addition of lemon verbena and thyme… The Cafe in Louisville sells a Hot Brown Bloody Mary, meant to mock the flavors of the local casserole delicacy known as the Hot Brown. It is composed of vodka, sliced tomato, pepper jack cheese, peppered bacon, and seasoning salt… Nieman Marcus, the Dallas-based department store, is closing its historical flagship store in downtown Dallas after failing to reach an agreement with its landlord. The department store has been at the location for 111 years. The last day of business is March 31… Bartender Damon Boelte will launch a limited, seasonal edition of his own Buddha’s Hand Bitters in the coming week. Boelte developed the bitters while he was bar director of Prime Meats in Brooklyn in the late aughts. The product is called King Floyd’s Buddha’s Hand Bitters… Leyenda, the Brooklyn bar, is bringing back some of its former bartenders for its last month of business at its current location. On Tuesday, Feb. 25, from 6-10, Alisha Neverson will bartend… Strange Delight, the bar in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, will hold a Mardi Gras party on Fat Tuesday, March 4. There will be gumbo, po-boys, Hurricanes and King Cake!… The controversial history of the Barclays Center in downtown Brooklyn will be revisited on Feb. 28 when a screening of the new documentary Battle for Brooklyn will be held at Pioneer Works in Red Hook. Relive how much Brooklyn hated developer Forest City Ratner in the aughts!… Fernando’s Focacceria, a longstanding Sicilian restaurant in Brooklyn that was founded in 1904, has closed its doors. This restaurant was very important to us here at The Mix and I will post a more lengthy appreciation of it on Friday.

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No figure of the last decade has had a bigger impact on the world of American whiskey than Fawn Weaver, the co-founder, CEO and chief historian of Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey. Her story is something out of a fairy tale. Weaver was having breakfast on the top floor of the Four Seasons hotel in Singapore when she read a June 25, 2016, story in the New York Times written by whiskey writer Clay Risen. It told the story of Nathan “Nearest” Green, a former slave who was the first master distiller at Jack Daniel’s and taught a young Daniels how to make whiskey. Like much of the rest of the world, Weaver first learned from that article of the existence of Nearest Green and the important role he played in American whiskey history.

Her reaction was not small. Weaver moved to Tennessee, did exhaustive research on Green; convinced Brown-Forman, which owns Jack Daniel’s, to formally recognize Green’s contribution; bought the farm where Green and Daniel first worked together; built a distillery in Shelbyville, Tennessee; and, by 2017, produced the whiskey that she named after Green. She basically rewrote the history of America’s most famous whiskey brand. This made Weaver the first African-American woman to head a major spirits brand, and she did it with an all-female executive team. Today, Uncle Nearest produces seven whiskeys, including multiple expressions of Tennessee Whiskey and Rye.

The distillery, now worth more than $1 billion, is the fastest-growing American whiskey brand in history.

The Mix caught up with the busy Weaver to talk about the American whiskey business and her passion for it. The interview is below.

Here at The Mix, we are grateful to have a large group of subscribers—and quite a few new free subscribers who have all joined within the last few weeks.

We appreciate all of you and hope that you really are enjoying the Bourbon and Rye articles, interviews, recipes and round-ups we are posting this week, some of this content available to free subscribers. That being said, we need your support to continue this substack and hope that you will become a paid member. We cannot do it without your paid subscriptions.

So, during Bourbon and Rye week, if you decide to become an annual member, we are offering 20% OFF if you click on the link below. The secret password is WHISKEY.

That’s $40 for the year. $3.33 a month.

Bourbon and Rye Week Annual Subscription Sale!!

Thanks from The Mix!

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The sheer number of cocktail books published in recent years exceeds that of any period in history. Dozens of books about drinking and bartenders have been released in the last year alone. And yet, at the same time, media coverage of these books is on the decline. I can tell you this from first-hand experience, both as a cocktail book author who has sought media attention for my recent books, and a journalist who has pitched stories about new cocktail books that have fallen on deaf editorial ears.

The Mix hopes to remedy this situation by providing a forum for new cocktail books and cocktail book authors. Last week we spoke with John Maxwell Hamilton, the author of The French 75. This week, we talk to Dr. Nicola Nice, whose pioneering new book, The Cocktail Parlor, was published this week.

I have a particularly close connection to The Cocktail Parlor. I wrote the foreword to the book. In it, I told of the unusual circumstances of how Nice and I met, and how I subsequently wrote a profile of her for The New York Times. The article told of her mission to draw attention to the unsung role women authors and entertainers played in the popularization of cocktails in the American home in the 19th and early 20th centuries. That research and that article led to the book we now have. It explores areas of cocktail history that have been all but ignored by the many cocktail books that have preceded it. In it you’ll learn about pre-Prohibition versions of influencers like Eliza Leslie, Florence Williams and Alma Whitaker—names you likely don’t know, but will be hearing more about from now on.

I spoke with Nicola Nice about her new book. The conversation is below.

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The Mix: I know from previous conversations how your interest in women authors' roles in the popularizing of cocktails came about. How did this book come about?

Nicola Nice: This book basically happened when I realized that my hobby of collecting women-authored drinks books had turned into an obsession!  Initially, I had just wanted to prove the hypothesis that women had been writing about drinks and cocktails in the home environment for as long as men and bartenders had; however, what started out as a handful of such books soon turned into a library of more than 200.  It was at this moment that I realized it’s not simply that women have not been properly credited in the historical narrative of the cocktail, it’s that the story of the cocktail itself might not even be halfway told.  

Was it difficult finding the right structure for the book, including what recipes to include?

NN: It is tremendously hard to write a book about books in a way that could be interesting and engaging to a wide audience! I had three main objectives in mind as I planned out the structure of the book. First, I wanted the book itself to serve as a living record of the written contributions that women have made to the cocktail and a resource for anyone looking to plan their own research on the topic. Second, I wanted to provide narrative context to the individual writers featured in the book and share more about their inspiring life stories.  And third, I wanted to examine the evolution of the home cocktail menu and how the thousands of cocktail recipes that have been created over the years somehow get whittled down to a much smaller collection of drinks that are popular in homes. This was by no means an easy task! But my hope is that the book will be just as enjoyable and informative whether someone is interested in looking up books, knowing more about social history, or searching for a simple menu of recipe ideas for their next party.

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In the past, I've heard you mainly talk about women authors of the 19th and early 20th centuries. In the book, you decided to extend the narrative to the present days, talking about female cocktail bartenders, bar owners and cocktail writers, people like Julie Reiner, Audrey Saunders and Kara Newman. Why did you think that recent history was important to include?

NN: When reading accounts of the history of the cocktail, I have often seen it stated that the three most important time periods for the cocktail were the pre-Prohibition era, Prohibition, and the recent cocktail revival of the early twenty-first century. The time periods in between are then often glossed over or ignored completely, as if what people were drinking during these periods was somehow not as relevant. In some places I’ve seen the late twentieth century in particular referred to as “the Dark Ages” of the cocktail. Yet, I’m sure very few people who were drinking mixed beverages in bars or at home parties during the 1980s or ‘90s felt that they were in any way living in the Dark Ages! For me, I didn’t want to put any kind of preconceived framework around what constituted a “good” or a “bad” era for the cocktail or judge past recipes based on today’s standards.  For that reason, it didn’t make sense to leave any time periods out of the story, and in many ways, I actually found the in between periods to be more sociologically interesting anyway.

I was surprised to see the inclusion and emphasis of The Cocktail Jungle, a 2003 book by Cosmopolitan editor Nicole Beland, a book I'd never heard of. How did you come across that book and why did you include it?

NN: One of the absolute joys of researching The Cocktail Parlor was that, as I got closer to the contemporary era, I was able to interview many of the authors whose books I was referencing. For example, I spoke to Kara Newman, whom you mention, about her numerous books, and had interviewed Julie Reiner a few years previously, as well. Nicole Beland’s book turned up during one of my many trawls through secondhand online bookstores and as soon as I saw it, I just knew I had to track her down!  Even though she has moved on in her career since writing The Cocktail Jungle, speaking with her and reading the book took me instantly back to being that single, independent woman who first arrived in New York City in the early aughts. It also joined so many dots for me in the story of the cocktail that I had not seen connected anywhere else (the highly symbolic feminine imagery of the Cosmopolitan cocktail and its Martini glass, as an example) and so, it felt like a really important missing piece in the puzzle.

While writing the book, did you discover some additional history that you hadn't known yet?

NN: One of the questions that I wanted to explore in the book was how the phenomenon of the cocktail party first got started, and then how and why cocktail parties eventually fell out of favor. It seems logical to assume that the cocktail party must have started around Prohibition, but as a sociologist I know that social behaviors never appear out of nowhere. Indeed, it seems that the origins of the cocktail party arrived alongside the first wave feminism movement of the early twentieth century and its denouement came with the advent of second wave feminism in the 1960s. The deeper I dug into these parallels between cocktail history and women’s history, the more I realized how intertwined they were—I now strongly believe that cocktails would not be what they are without women’s fight for recognition, independence, and equality over the last 150 years.

What chapter in the book do you expect will provoke the most discussion?

NN: The last chapter of the book addresses the present trend of no and low alcohol cocktails and the so-called sober-curious movement. However, taking a bird’s eye view of this topic over the last two centuries reveals how the theme of responsible drinking is not at all a new one. For as long as women have been writing about drinking alcohol, they have been writing about not drinking alcohol and the importance of moderation, as well. While the movement may have had a few different faces over the years, it can’t be said to be new and there’s a lot the industry can learn from how generations of hosts and hostesses have thought about it in the past.

That's quite a lengthy bibliography at the end, all of cocktail and entertaining books written by women over the past two centuries. Did you draw on all of them when writing and researching the book?

NN: Absolutely, and some! The one hundred or so books that I chose to include in the bibliography are just a selection of what I actually collected and read in researching this book. And of course, that list doesn’t include the hundreds of newspaper articles and other resources that I drew from, or the many that I certainly missed, as well. The really frustrating thing I discovered about writing a narrative history like this one, however, is that new information has a habit of showing up after the fact, making the idea of ever being “done” a virtual impossibility!

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You mentioned to me at your book launch party that you have more writing projects in the pipeline. Can you talk about that?

There was so much excess material that came up in the course of researching this book that with the limited word count I had I really needed another place to put it all. So, I recently launched a new blog site called The Hostess Diaries that is entirely dedicated to the culture of hospitality as told through the lens of women’s history. As well as sharing more stories about forgotten books and their authors, I will be exploring the sociology of hosting and cocktail etiquette through the ages and writing a slightly different style of restaurant and bar review, as well. I also have a couple of new book ideas in the hopper, so there is a lot more to come from me on this topic!

Two recipes from The Cocktail Parlor follow.

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Bar owners usually don’t write books unless they also happen to be bartenders as well. Cedd Moses, co-author with Erik Cardona of the new book Pouring With Heart, has never been a bartender. But, boy, is he a bar owner. He owns 17 bars in the Los Angeles area and can be credited as much as anyone with kicking off the cocktail revival in L.A., as well as…

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If a bartender takes you to a bar you’ve never been to before, you might write it off as an anomaly. But if a second bartender takes you to the same spot, you begin to wonder if there’s something to the place that you’re missing and start paying…

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Any historian of modern cocktail history knows that if you dig deep enough into any story, bartender Dale DeGroff, the godfather of the American cocktail revival, is probably going to make an appearance, either as a major player or a cameo actor. I was reminded of that fact of life recently when I wrote about the history of the famous and beloved Nick &…

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After writing yesterday’s article on the new New York cocktail bar Lullaby, where Boston cocktail godfather Brother Cleve will be a partner, I realized there’s so much left to say about the bartender-musician-DJ-legend Brother Cleve that you can’t fit in 600 words. So here are a few more words on the subject, as well as some photographic…

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