Category: Deep Thoughts
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Nog Thoughts…
Anyone else notice how popular egg nog was this year? Shit, every company, even goddam Eggo came out with a nog. It seemed to replace pumpkin spice during the 2023 holidays. Every bar manager with any sand has a nog, and probably a damn good one. It’s one of those things that’s pretty hard to…
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Through the Looking Glass…
Some profound thoughts upon waking this morning…Just gonna go full stream of consciousness here…Not much of it pertaining to my jobs, cocktails, buildings, all of that. I stretched myself a bit, wanted to write something with meaning about the cocktail world but the problem is that it isn’t profound…Cocktails aren’t life changing but not much…
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Christmas Movies Ranked
Yes, it’s that time of the year…No, not just Jesus’ birthday coinciding with so many nogs coming out of the woodwork (did this happen last year?) but the annual ranking of best Christmas movies. Once finished you’ll notice many not on the list and I’ve left notes for those after as well as the why…But…
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Citrus Season Approaches…
Just like that, a snap of the fingers, a blink of the eye, and we’re almost into 2024 which, to me, means blood oranges, tangerines, kumquats, pomelos (pummellos?), and of course, Meyer lemons. Yeah, it’s raining, dismal, and depressing out there. Grim. Foreboding. Wet. Beyond, beyond the colorful, knobby oil filled orbs we await cherries…
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The Modern Dionysus?
Thousands of years ago, the Greeks called him Dionysus, the god of wine, fertility, festivity, madness, song, frenzy, etc (they all go hand in hand), in other words, the god of self destruction and rebirth. He continues to reign in today’s day and age due to people always wanting to listen to music, get drunk,…
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Falling from Grace
It was a bit of a miracle that I even got a job at Rustic in the first place. This was back in 2015 and my first couple of months in L.A. was a complete nightmare. I had so much experience but no one wanted to hire me. I also flubbed a bunch of job…
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Thoughtful Usage Comes Down to more than just Produce
More thoughts. I was brought up in my public schools, good ones, to be cognizant of the environment. We learned about recycling, reducing our waste, etc. and the narrative of our generation was that we were the ones to issue change in the world in regards to how we treated our planet…Yes, this was Vermont…Fast…
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R.I.P. Shane MacGowan
I first encountered The Pogues, you guessed it, in a bar. Here’s the scene and time: My early twenties, The Three Needs Taproom, Burlington, VT. It was winter, and their most famous song came on called, “Fairytale of New York.” My buddy, Donny, sang along to it…”It was Christmas Eve, babe, in the drunk tank,…
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An Ode to the Raspberry
Sweet, acidic, owning a unique flavor, capable and easily lending it’s blood to nay cause, the common raspberry is so often overlooked because of it’s penchant for always hanging around like an unwanted houseguest. It is it’s own fault for being so reliable and steadfast, always available and I’m guessing easy to grow, that its…
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No Lime, No Lemon, No Chance, Dude
Caught in the wave of scrolling and damaging my own brain yesterday, I came across some jackass who mentioned something about how bars that use too much lemon and lime in their drinks on their menus aren’t thinking hard enough and he went on to say we should be using different products such as verjus,…
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One of These Days
That’s the chorus from an old Neil Young tune from the 1992 album Harvest Moon. A song oozing with soul. The lyrics of which deal with a man looking back on his life, thinking of his old buddies from over the years, and the places he’s lived, and how it’s one of those things in…
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The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills
You blink one day and look back and wonder what the hell and where it all went. I went north yesterday for a coffee and as I approached Hollywood I saw a dead rat on the sidewalk and a person on a bench bundled from head to toe in sheets like a corpse about to…
The Aging Bartender 