After a glass of absinthe enjoyed streetside at a cafe table: “The world seems fairer, the people more interesting, the ladies better dressed and every sound and motion have their charm and value.” — “How to Tipple,” a report from the front line of Parisian cafe drinking, 1895.
How to Tipple
An 1895 dispatch from the Paris with advice on how to drink alone in a crowd
thelongbar.substack.com
”We only do classics - none of that mixology stuff” said the server at one my new favorite Mexico City bars.
10 Cocktails: Mexico City Edition
From pulque Mai Tais to grasshopper brine, a drinking tour of Roma Norte, Condesa, Polanco, and Coyoacán
thelongbar.substack.com
I love digging into newspaper archives when researching early cocktails. And sometimes I stumble upon stories only marginally related to cocktails that I want to write about anyway. This piece about a caper gone bad is one of those.
Frozen Assets: How an Ice Machine Helped Crack a 1927 Swindle
A portly elevator operator, a $150,000 forgery, and the girlfriend who couldn't stop talking about her refrigerator.
thelongbar.substack.com
Be honest: when did you last order an Amaretto Sour? And if the answer is "never," what's your excuse?
Almond, Lemon, and a Little Love
The improbable life of the Amaretto Sour
thelongbar.substack.com
On Oct 1 new British regs award "English whisky" official status. Or is it "whiskey?" From the new regs: “In English, the Geographical Indication allows for two spellings, ‘ENGLISH WHISKY’ and ‘ENGLISH WHISKEY.’” Gentlemen, draw your swords! thelongbar.substack.com/p/whiskey-vs...
Whiskey vs. Whisky: A Debate about Nothing, Argued by Everyone
Elijah Craig has called a referendum. I propose a third option nobody asked for.
thelongbar.substack.com
I’ve been with @wwozneworleans.bsky.social since 1994, 32 years volunteering, cause I love sharing music. 🎶 With federal funding gone, WWOZ has a $400K annual gap to fill. If you also love community radio, please become a member during our Fall Pledge Drive (and my show tonight 8-10p CT): WWOZ.org
A tiny brewery on a small Canadian island tried to escape the tariff war by moving 3 miles down the road and across the border. After getting pummeled figuratively and literally, a week later they were selling off their last cans. thelongbar.substack.com/p/the-worlds...
The World's Stupidest Trade War Claims Its Smallest Casualty
Canada's tiniest brewery wanted to relocate three miles across a bridge. The internet had other plans.
thelongbar.substack.com
In 1979, a commuter lamented that losing his train's bar car felt like "the loss of another human touch on this railroad." It's only gotten worse since. My latest article, on the rise and fall of the bar car: thelongbar.substack.com/p/last-call-...
Last Call on the 5:14
Bar cars once turned trains into rolling social clubs. Then the spreadsheets won.
thelongbar.substack.com
A cocktail road trip up the Maine coast: Portland, Camden, Stonington and ten drinks along the way. thelongbar.substack.com/p/10-cocktai...
10 Cocktails: Maine Coast Edition
Cocktails are better with a view
thelongbar.substack.com
Every decade invents a cocktail making ritual that seems absolutely essential — until it isn't.
You Again! The Return of the Japanese Hard Shake
How one of cocktail culture's past obsessions resurfaced unexpectedly at Tales of the Cocktail
thelongbar.substack.com
Picon Punch has been the drink of Basque shepherds in California for a century. The problem: you can't get the real thing here. Campari bought a key ingredient in 2022. Whether they'll do anything is an unanswered question. More on the history here: thelongbar.substack.com/p/could-pico...
Napping on the couch while watching the World Cup and thinking you should probably be working counts as multitasking, right?
The other World Cup (of rum): Cuba won against Bermuda last week, although a rematch this Saturday may give Bermuda's Bacardi a final victory. After thirty years of legal wrangling, is the fight over the Havana Club name may be at last entering its final match.
Cuba’s Havana Club Finally Won its Battle with Bacardi, Right?
Don’t count on it
thelongbar.substack.com
This dates to 1879, and is far as I know is the first published "walks into a bar" joke. (The Sumerian "joke" that's often cited as the proto-joke is a stretch.) Will it endure another century-and-a-half? I have thoughts in this week's post on The Long Bar. thelongbar.substack.com/p/why-the-lo...
Remember when Dan Quayle couldn't spell "potatoe" and that was considered disqualifying for being president? No? You should have been there. Good times.
I scanned thru my spam folder and found many, many possible names for your metal band: Legal Boner Tea You, Pervert Deadly Artery Crystal Toenail Fungus Top Urologists Unusual Account Actuvity
Hey, if I can round up a few dozen friends and we storm the US Capitol and smash some windows next week is it too late to get in on that $1.8 billion?
"It's the audacity of the afternoon that matters." A few notes on day drinking, with helpful hints for those just beginning their journey into genteel debauchery. thelongbar.substack.com/p/a-field-gu...
A Field Guide to Day Drinking
The art of the unhurried cocktail
thelongbar.substack.com
The Aviary opened in Chicago 15 years ago and made molecular mixology mainstream — rotovaps, flavored ice nuggets, cocktails aged three ways. Most of that didn't survive. What did is more interesting. thelongbar.substack.com/p/the-bar-th...
The Bar That Changed Everything (Except Itself)
Fifteen years on, the Chicago bar that made molecular mixology famous has left an enduring legacy — and it has nothing to do with the rotovap
thelongbar.substack.com
Dear algo: what do you know about me that I don't know mysel?
Leans forward to ask taxi driver: "Where exactly are we headed?"
The best story I've read to date on Graham Platner, who is up 27 points in primary polls for the US Senate. "Organizing is central to Platner’s vision...'This kind of campaign and kind of politics, with an organizing focus, this doesn’t work if you just run TV ads,' he said."
I went to school with Graham Platner. Here's a look at his success
Graham Platner, a candidate for U.S. Senate in Maine, is possibly the most remarkable political story in the country.
themainemonitor.org
You meet only five types of people at craft cocktail bars. Prove me wrong. thelongbar.substack.com/p/the-5-drin...
"None of these people, including our own, very disappointing, NATO, understood anything unless they have pressure placed upon them!!!” A sentence is trying to find its way out of a atrophied brain. Maybe next time!
A court ruled one whiskey bottle looked too much like another. Which would be more convincing if most whiskey bottles didn’t already look like they came from the same 19th-century saloon. thelongbar.substack.com/p/who-owns-t...
