Failed Bar Hack: Watermelon Rind Tepache
Watermelon. Delicious on the inside, pretty gross on the outside. My spirit fruit. Eat the good stuff and throw out the rest, right? Hold on a minute. The typical thing to do is to vinegar pickle the rind two different ways, either in chunks or by using a peeler and making strips. Either way it’s…
Recent photos
-
Failed Bar Hack: Watermelon Rind Tepache
Watermelon. Delicious on the inside, pretty gross on the outside. My spirit fruit. Eat the good stuff and throw out the rest, right? Hold on a minute. The typical thing to do is to vinegar pickle the rind two different ways, either in chunks or by using a peeler and making strips. Either way it’s…
-
Movie Review: Superman 2025
Let’s face it, unless were talking about the Nolan Batmans, historically, the DC Universe movies have always played second fiddle to Marvel. The perfect personification of the old adage ”Next to her I look like a turd with eyes.” Like Pete Davidson standing next to Kate Beckinsale, DC movies are always looked upon with an…
-
Restaurant Review: South Beverly Grill
Hillstone Group. Ever since moving to L.A. I had heard the name reverberate from the mouths of guests and co-workers like some whisper of the mythological wendigo in the shrill winds of dark summer forest nights. Did you hear that? I think I just heard something. Hillstone, Hillstone…Did you hear that? Yes, Hillstone is the…
-
New Cocktail: Timmy Bird
Classic cocktails, the good ones, have legacies. And quite often, the originals are not as good as the ones they spawn. This is simple evolution. Cocktails, in this case, are like cars. The next year’s model always an improvement. Case in point: The Last Word. In my opinion about as so-so a cocktail as one…
-
Bar Hack: Beer Cocktails!
Well…I am twelve or so posts behind in the postings for the new cocktails department. Maybe that’s a good thing? Lesson here: Look for the silver lining in everything, even your own apathy. No one reads this blog and it hasn’t exactly jettisoned my literary career. I do love when people tell me they read…
-
Movie Review: Kickboxer
The typical Hollywood fighting/martial arts flick where we are 100% certain the star will win at the end follows a certain structure where we see the protagonist go through a gauntlet of villains until the big boss gives him the ultimate test at the end for glory, usually for the hand of a woman or…
-
Building a Better Mai Tai, Rustic Style
I remember my first Mai Tai quite vividly. Very young and in love. Staying at her grandmother’s pad in Fort Lauderdale. The grandma was not there, fortunately. After a little boat tour around the canals we took a nice stroll on the beach. Hey! A bar. Let’s go. Yeah, right there on the beach, a…
-
Shallow Dive: The Difference Between a Syrup and a Cordial
Aside from one sounding much more delicious than the other…Remember, I live and work in Southern California, the most narcissistic place on Buddha’s Green Earth, where people ask for cocktails with no sugar because they want alcohol but are too stupid to order it neat with a citrus wedge on the side…Wait…Where was I?…Oh yeah,…
-
Life Without a Centrifuge 4/5/2025
I know, I know, sounds like some sort of first world travesty. A gen Z crisis for sure if I ever heard one. I live without a centrifuge! The horror. The horror. But hey, surviving without a centrifuge is easier than you think. Two necessary, easy to procure items–coffee filters and agar agar–will improve your…
-
New Cocktail: Robin Goodfellow
I am very, very far behind my cocktail posts. So far behind, in fact, that whole seasons have gone by while “new” cocktails are now extinct. Whoopsidaisy. I have felt not so enthusiastic about the blog as of late. Call it a combination of sleep deprivation, finishing a book, working on yet another book, attempting…
-
Bar Hack: Stop Putting Canned Bean Juice in Cocktails, Make Meth Syrup Instead
Yeah, I just threw down the damn gauntlet. Vegans be damned, damned to hell. No more canned bean juice in cocktails please. Sorry, I know someone brilliantly called it aquafaba and a ton of people climbed on board this awful train bound for cocktail necropolis. When I see a bartender opening a can of chickpeas…
-
Bar Hack: Next Level Lacto Meyer Lemon Sherbet
Meyer Lemons are the cool kid on the block everyone wants to be friends with. Sweet, less bitter, along with a less yellow, more orange spectrum sort of pleasant color. Typically the thing to do is a preserved lemon situation but this is too much salt for use in cocktails. What we can do, however,…
The Aging Bartender 