The Aging Bartender

Sunflower Amazake

If you don’t hear the word “sunflower” and start unconsciously singing the Post Malone/Swae Lee song from Spiderverse in your head, there may be something wrong with you. For a long time, humming the song was the only thing that put my son to sleep. It’s in my goddam DNA. It’s a catchy one…and in…

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  • Sunflower Amazake

    If you don’t hear the word “sunflower” and start unconsciously singing the Post Malone/Swae Lee song from Spiderverse in your head, there may be something wrong with you. For a long time, humming the song was the only thing that put my son to sleep. It’s in my goddam DNA. It’s a catchy one…and in…

  • Strawperol, Revisited

    Following up to this and this. One fine afternoon in April of 2023, some chump behind a bar added some unwashed, organic strawberries from the Santa Monica Farmer’s Market to a jar with some Aperol, forgot about it, and then opened the jar to a surprising but familiar little pop and fizz. The result: Strawperol.…

  • Notes on Nobody’s Fool

    Punch just did a real nice article on an oldie but a goodie, the Nobody’s Fool from this past April. I’m not sure why, but the photographs make the cocktail look a weird orange and not pinkish-red, but anyway…It was a cool experience. There’s some serious imposter syndrome going on with something like this. For…

  • Confessions of a Condiment Fiend 9/18/23

    I ask the real questions here: Would ranch work as a cocktail? Let’s talk. We know the main ingredients are buttermilk, sour cream, and mayo, then garlic, dill, parsley, and some salt and pepper. Hmm. You could first analyze it into all its ingredients. There are some dill cocktails out there. There is dill in…

  • New Cocktail: Voodoo Economics (2.0)

    Yeah the original version of this bevvie, originally posted here, never made it off the chopping block and onto the menu. Not sure why. I get nervous sometimes and think things aren’t good when they are and vice versa. Sometimes I taste something and like it then the next day it’s ho hum, hum drum,…

  • Liquor Town

    On my way to work and on the return home I drive by good old Liquor Town on La Brea. It’s a stretch just off the 10 freeway along an odd, tangled and interesting thoroughfare sprinkled with other places such as Teddy’s, Garu’s, Century Liquor, Sunshine Liquor, and my personal favorite, Grand Prize. For whatever…

  • Bar Hack: Taking Passionfruit All the Way

    When you’re indulging in the fruit named after Christ’s sacrifice, you’ve really got to take it all the way, right? I think Jesus would be happy. He was a carpenter after all, a blue collar working man with magical powers at his fingertips. It all makes sense due to the fact that passionfruit itself is…

  • Farmer’s Market Loot: 9/14/23

    Oh yes, sports fans. The golden goose, the old purple sack with the golden, gooey center, the unverified G.O.A.T. seasonal ingredient for cocktails. I bring you, the passion fruit. I know little to nothing about these little suckers aside from the well known fact that they’re expensive, somewhat annoying to work with, and oh so…

  • 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…