The Aging Bartender

Rejection

The Seasonal Bar and the bartender behind it has suffered a bit of a blow to its ego this morning in the form of a rejection letter from a perspective publisher. The second this year but one that I thought was so very close. The company, Chelsea Green, is based out of both England and

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  • Rejection

    The Seasonal Bar and the bartender behind it has suffered a bit of a blow to its ego this morning in the form of a rejection letter from a perspective publisher. The second this year but one that I thought was so very close. The company, Chelsea Green, is based out of both England and…

  • Notes on the Boulevardier

    A wave of the hand, your Negroni turns into something similar but altogether different, and the punter in front of you is dumbfounded as to how you could have created something so ethereal and delicious. Yes, we all remember our first boulevardier. Mine was at Rustic Canyon many years ago when the shine and hue…

  • The Days of Landscraping

    If you’re old enough, the common conversation opener during today is “What were you doing the day it happened?” On 9/11 I was out with my buddy, Zipper, mowing the Visiting Nurses Association (VNA) out on Prim Road in Colchester, VT. Just now I looked back at the location on Google maps to sort of…

  • New Cocktail: Cholo Shogun

    I may have come up with a new cocktail as well as a fresh movie franchise. Here’s the tagline: A former gang member, after morally failing to go through with a murderous initiation ritual, flees to another sector of Los Angeles, and while he’s in hiding, meets a retired former leader of a covert military…

  • Old Cocktail: Okie Dokie Artichokie

    This one’s for Tim, who asked for “Something bitter and stirred” last night, then he came over and asked what I gave him because he loved it so much but to be a bit of a shit and create some suspense, I didn’t tell him. So here you go, young man. Cynar is the star…

  • Bar Hack: Spiced Rum

    Sailing with the Captain is quite easy if you’ve got just a few spices kicking around. Have we all gone through a Captain Morgan phase early in our life? Captain and coke seemed to be the big one back in the day. The highball of choice for my youth, at least until I discovered the…

  • Restaurant Review: Kuya Lord

    I moved to swanky ass Hancock Park. Yes, far, far away from the digs in good old Santa Monica. Thanks to my red headed stepchild guardian angel, Vayu, I landed the Holy Grail job as a building manager. A couple hours of extra work a day in exchange for paying no monthly rent. A better…

  • Bar Review: Thunderbolt

    Oh yes, daddy finally got to go to Thunderbolt. For those who don’t know–It’s #1 in L.A., the #9 bar in all of North America and #66 in the world. Damn respectable placings…Damn respectable. I don’t really know how these ratings are calculated and this is the only one of these places I’ve ever been…

  • Restaurant Review: Found Oyster

    It’s no secret that on the rare occasion I go out, I go to three different places. It’s either Birdie G’s, Found Oyster, or Korean BBQ. All three touch a nostalgia nerve for me, but in an elevated way. If you’re like me and you grew up or spent any time at all on the…

  • New Cocktail: Copycat (Again)

    I went over this one just the other day but finalized it last night. Speaking of last night, the winemaker Matt Morris came in after along hiatus. Love this guy. I actually had some weird imaginative thoughts about him after he left. No, not the ones you think. I started fantasizing he was this world’s…

  • Fun with Juleps

    What is the building block to a julep? Well, the traditional beverage, made popular by the Kentucky Derby, is a just an old fashioned sans bitters with some muddled mint poured over shaved ice in a tin cup. Pretty yummy. Here at Rustic we have almost none of the hardware for it. We do, however,…

  • New Cocktail: Copycat

    I have all of five minutes of this hectic day to post this. Let’s see how I do. The sous at Birdie G’s posted a picture of a green gage plums with chamoy. I mentioned I would steal it and so I did. Not sure if this one is going to make it to the…