PTSOTL: How to front like you know what you're talking about at a bar

at 12:33 PM

^{Photo: CONOR DOHERTY}

Cocktails are hard, man. They printing up these cocktail menus in ancient hieroglyphics these days or what? I picked out ten common spirits terms you need to know to not sound like a fucking idiot when you're out drinking this year. Check it below, plus more on the science and magic of drinking, which you should probably skip until later if you're actually drunk right now, and knowing you I'd say that's a distinct possibility.

Have we mentioned that cocktail lists are getting more complicated than ever? Someone should write about that. Savvy drinkers like the ones who read this column will have no doubt memorized the etymology, country of origin, and flavor characteristics of the hundreds of spirits in the contemporary cocktail bullpen, but a refresher never hurts. And while a good bartender will always be happy to elaborate, sometimes you don't want to risk looking like a philistine (or, if you're like me, talk to people in public). So study up on this glossary of some of the still-lesser-known terms increasingly turning up on menus at Boston's best cocktail bars. You'll be drunk with knowledge — and regular drunk, probably.

Read the rest here.

Indecipherable glyphs on the menu is one one thing, but super weird evil science shit going on behind the bar is a bit more complicated. I talked to a couple of drunken Dr. Frankenstein's about their science magic. Wasn't it Arthur C Clarke who said "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." I think he was talking about getting drunk.

Culinary movements have often trickled down to the bar — hence why so many locavore-leaning restaurants are increasingly pouring New England brews and spirits, for instance. “The great thing about the bar and kitchen is that there is so much crossover and opportunity to collaborate,” says Vincent Stipo of Deuxave (371 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, ). But Boston bartenders' intense focus on a return to the basics of pre- and post-Prohibition cocktails made the prospects for molecular mixology seem less certain. For a while, its forerunner, molecular gastronomy, turned playing Mr. Wizard in the kitchen into the hottest thing since sliced bread — if you sliced that bread with a laser, dehydrated it, sucked out its essential bread-ness, blasted it through an atomizer, and breathed it in through a gas mask in an anti-gravity chamber. But some of that shit got old quick. Foam is not food, people. Also, get off my lawn.

But it's far too soon to write the obit for such experimentation behind the bar, say some of Boston's more inventive mixolo — err, bartenders. Some might even argue that a scientific approach lends itself to cocktails more than cuisine. Molecular gastronomy may be art, but it doesn't necessarily fulfill the primary function of food, which is to provide nourishment. (And serve as emotional comfort for those of us without any friends.) On the other hand, no matter how much you screw with them, cocktails are still going to do what they're intended to do: satiate thirst and get you drunk. (And, you know, serve as emotional comfort for those of us without any friends.)

Read the rest here.

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Monday, March 19, 2012

How to front like you know what you're talking about at a bar

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