The Aging Bartender

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…

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  • 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…

  • Time Travel

    This one’s a little piece of drinking history for you young kids out there. Back in the day (early 2000s) there was a little tv show called Insomniac. It ran four seasons. The premise? Comedian Dave Attell would travel from city to city for his comedy shows, perform, and then go enjoy the night life…

  • Orange

    Sunny Delicious, Orangina, Orange Creamsicle, Orange Julius…It goes on and on. So much damn orange. So interesting. It’s been firmly ingrained within our subconscious. Everything orange is the best, except for cocktails. In cocktails, orange juice is the absolute worst. Flabby is the word that comes to mind. It’s neither acidic or really that sweet,…

  • New Cocktail Potential: Brine Phu?

    Stirred cocktails are both easy and hard. Whut? Maybe I should rephrase. Seasonal stirred cocktails are difficult. You can go with bitters or some sort of seasonal type of vermouth, maybe an infusion, but the infusion has to be crystal clear and we have no centrifuge. I’m of the school that a stirred cocktail, especially…

  • Accidental Fermentation of the Week: Shio Koji Corn Pudding

    Corn pudding is simple enough. Juice some corn kernels, put the juice on low heat for about twenty minutes and stir as much as you can remember. The result is a thick…Uh, corn pudding. The heat activates the starches or something like that, I don’t actually know how or why it works, just that it…