The Aging Bartender

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…

Read more

Recent posts
Recent photos

  • 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…

  • Simmons and Cash (2.0)

    The late Richard Nixon once said, “You can relight a cigar, but it’ll never taste the same.” You’re welcome to apply that to any situation you choose but in this case I’m using it to reference great cocktails of yesteryear, attempting to do better, and how sometimes you should just maybe bring it all back…

  • My Lacto-Razzies Liveth and Overfloweth Upon the Earth

    Nothing better than sitting around on your day off and getting a video of your lacto-raspberries going absolutely nutso out of the jar. Hey! Fizzy stuff is better than a fuzzy stiff, right? Uh… Yeah, that’s active. That’s what happens when you fill the damn thing almost to the brim, put nothing underneath it, and…

  • Ninth Circle of Hell (but at least there’s a bar)

    Sunday. Century City Mall, Century City, Los Angeles, California. After a couple of hours at the Cheviot Hills kid’s park, the next step in my day off was to meet up at the Century City Mall, most notably, the shoe section at Nordstrom’s, which broke my vow last year of never, ever, going to said…

  • What the Hell is a Deshler?

    I received a text late last night from a good friend asking me “You know how to make a Deshler?” Huh? My response: “Is that a classic car?” “No.” “A cocktail?” “Yes.” I searched for it this morning. Here’s the modern specs from liquor.com: Deshler 2 oz. Rye 1 oz. Dubonnet .25 oz. Cointreau 2…

  • Menu Blues

    No, I’m not going to lock myself in a room and do a bunch of heroin until I come out with the greatest cocktail menu of all time. No, I’m not relating cocktail menu creation to one of the greatest jazz albums, if not the greatest jazz album of all time. Yes, I’m a little…

  • A Walk in Hollyood

    I, like many others, always thought Hollywood was a shithole. An endless mass of trash and homeless, a place I never thought I would live, even on the outskirts. I thought this of L.A. before I moved here. That it was all the same, a gigantic sprawl of crap…And it is in some ways…But not…

  • 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,…

  • 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…

  • My Secret Egg Nog Ingredient

    I’ll spare you any bloviating this morning. Time. That’s the secret. Although, I was going to be an asshole and say patience, but pulled out at the last second. There’s a lot of good nog recipes out there and let’s face it, you combine sugar, egg yolks, cream, milk, and tons of booze in the…

  • More on the Persimmon

    My first encounter with a persimmon was a recipe in the The Zuni Cafe Cookbook by Judy Rodgers. “Air-Dried Beef & Fuyu Persimmons with Extra-Virgin Olive Oil & Balsamic Vinegar.” The book was given to me after a trip to San Fransisco with my ex-girlfriend, the first time I had ever been, and where the…

  • Bar Hack: Salted Persimmon Honey… Notes on Persimmon Cocktails Over the Years

    “How much honey?” Angel said. “It’s 1:1,” I said. “How much salt?” Angel said. “Just a pinch,” I said. That’s about it. This works with several different fruits, not just persimmon. Plums come to mind which is where the idea originated. I haven’t tried it with anything else that I can remember off the top…