I'll explain what I mean by that in due time - it was really just a hook to get things rolling. I want to first start by taking you away from Carthay for a moment and visiting two of my favorite locals.
We start first with The Spirit Room, the weekend nighttime lounge found at The Cellar in Fullerton, featuring classic cocktails and prohibition-era tunes. If you've never visited I cannot recommend a better place for either a meal or a drink. If you eat there and order the lobster bisque you will be compelled to write poetry about it. If you request a glass of wine from the sommelier or a cocktail from the bartender there is zero chance they will disappoint you.
On a recent visit the bartender recommended I try the Negroni, a cocktail I had tried once before and was not impressed with.
Gin, campari, vermouth, orange peel, stirred and strained over ice.
As it turns out, I simply hadn't had a properly made negroni in the past. And this one was utterly delightful and well-balanced, not the bitter, pungent mess I thought this drink normally is.
But my favorite cocktail to have at The Cellar - my standby - is definitely the Sazerac. Apparently it's the oldest cocktail in America.
I've failed to jot down its exact constituents as they prepare it at The Cellar - the only place where I order it - but I can tell you that it involves rinsing the glass in absinthe. Now that's cool.
There's another place I would normally not feel compelled to tell you about were it not for the fact that on a recent impulsive visit the place was all but empty.
When I normally visit Twisted Vine I merely pass through, the place being bustling and nary a chair to be found. Of course, I haven't made the attempt in quite some time because I became fatigued with the clientele. Why? Because I go to Twisted Vine to have a glass of wine (or seven) and a snack and read my book in peace. Not to be interrupted by some inebriated, bored bourgeois clown whose meandering attention inevitably provokes them to repeatedly come between me and my book so as to impart their sagacious platitudes. Why do normal people find the presence of literature so offensive in public spaces?
On this recent, meandering walk I found the same, familiar faces behind the bar with nary a task to work on, as the place was much slower than I'd expected. It had been quiet lately, one of them told me.
The entire staff at Twisted is excellent. Every one of them has always made me feel welcome and been accommodating. So I sat down to have some savory snacks and sample a couple flights.
The summer white flight is always a delight on a warm day. I like pairing it with some of their crab cakes - it's not easy to find good crab cakes, it is? The image above would show you said cakes were it not for the fact that I devoured them before it occurred to me to capture them for posterity.
The second flight was a product of factors I'd never expected to coalesce: wines grown and made in Arizona as the brain child of Tool's Maynard James Keenan. Yup, that happened.
The one in the middle, the 2010 Nachise, is particularly good. 47% syrah, 19% grenache, 15% mourvedre, 13% petite sirah, 5% couniose.
They also pour generously with their flights, so yes, I do endorse a visit, especially now that beer is so en vogue that the place no longer apparently captures the imagination of the trendy. Perhaps now my book and I can go back and enjoy ourselves in peace, free from the mental molestation the blessed peasants in dive bars rarely impose on me.
No comments:
Post a Comment