Some dude came over to the bar from a table last night and said, “Hello, I’m European, my English is not so good. Do you have a stout?”

“Yes.”

“Do you have Cynar?”

“Yes.”

Will you pour me two ounces of Cynar into a glass and then put a stout over the top of it?”

“Yes. Go sit down, I’ll bring it right over.”

I had never heard of this until last night but it interests me because I’ve been exploring this on my own a bit lately which I explored in a recent post. The guy at the table told me he learned it from Albanian dudes and used to drink this with them all the time. Hey, hey, I used to drink with an Albanian guy who was the kitchen manager at a place called the Galway House in Jamaica Plain, MA. His name was Albert and we all called him Alby. I know, sometimes you just can’t make this shit up.

It’s funny how you don’t think of things from your past until something jostles it out of you. The Galway House was a revered dive bar in good ol’ JP that also had decent food. One of those places where the bartenders made insane money. I attempted once to get a job there through Alby and spoke to the owner, this old cantankerous Irish guy who wore a newsboy cap. Alby told me there was an opening and he said it couldn’t hurt to come in and talk to the guy. I was a bit unfamiliar with the place at the time but noticed a few things when I got there. For one, all the bartenders were young women. Two, they all were…Let’s say a bit voluptuous…Yeah, I didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell. The owner was polite and we went through the rigmarole of the interview but I knew it was an effort in futility.

Anyway, Alby called me one night at two in the morning but I was already asleep. I woke to this insane message: “Dude come down here right now, we’re drinking out of the fucking Stanley Cup!” What? I got the down low from him later that week. Apparently the Bruins were doing a tour through all the bars in the city after they had won the Stanley Cup in 2011. The Galway House happened to be on their route.

So that’s my story about missing an opportunity to drink out of the Stanley Cup.

Anyway, hops and artichoke look similar to one another and they’re both bitter in different ways but that’s where the similarities cease. Hops is actually related to what you know as whacky tabaccy, yeah, weed, or the Cannabaceae family. You heard that right.

An artichoke on the other hand, is part of the thistle family, Asteraceae, to be exact and the genus is yup, Cynara. Yes, now it all makes sense.

It makes even more sense to add the two together for an added boost of ABV to your beer as well as the bitterness and a touch of sweetness. I haven’t tried it myself…Yet…But the maltiness of the stout must compliment this as well. Hey, it’s yet another way to incorporate Cynar into our lives. Always a good thing.