This is my office. Small. Confined. Dim. Dusky. Orderly. No chairs. Grubby rubber mats on the floor, grime in the corners, otherwise shiny and alluring despite the ailing illumination. Stainless steel surfaces with sharp corners and odd smells from old, poorly operating drains. A messy enterprise, this transference of alcohol, syrups, sodas, and citruses. That…

If you don’t know this already, a cocktail should be put down the old gullet inside five minutes, preferably sooner than that. If it sits too long it’s just no good and the best ones are finished quickly without you really knowing it. The really good ones you can listen to over and over, they…

All the great fighters make a return and most of them go for one final run before they call it all in. The old adage goes like this: Power is the last thing to go. Everything else can fall to the wayside, but power is the great equalizer. There have been many greats who have…

I’m pretty sure the cliche of the mid life crisis is just a simple realization that you’re no longer the best version of yourself and when you were, you had no idea and took it all for granted. It has nothing to do with sports cars and chasing young women or men. I think men…

Big shout out and thank you to every single awesome regular who decided to come in last night when I had no barback…Sarcasm aside, it was nice to see everyone, even the guy with the big hair…The real question of the morning is, who is this Murphy guy and why is he always right? A…

“I was not proud of what I had learned but I never doubted it was worth knowing.” -Hunter S. Thompson, The Rum Diary At the moment we don’t have a seasonal rum drink on the menu at Rustic. I woke early this morning to this grim, sad, and embarrassing realization. You see, rum is the…

I’m pretty sure Death & Co. called elderflower liqueur “The Bartender’s Ketchup” in one of their books, possibly The Cocktail Codex (still waiting for the return on that one, Matt). I feel elderflower has faded a bit from the limelight and now Aperol, at least over here on Wilshire Boulevard, seems to go with nearly…

“I’m like King Midas in reverse. Everything I touch turns to shit.” –Tony Soprano Yesterday, I came in from my two days off. Let’s recap. I’m moving to another part of the city, it was my son’s birthday, the restaurant is a little slow, I sent out another book proposal and am waiting to hear…

187 posts so far. So, over six months now. Wondering if I can go a year. At this point, why the hell not? I’ve got some cool stuff coming up and will have more time and space to write away from the madhouse that is my kitchen. So maybe, just maybe, I’ll be able to…