Bar Hack: Leche de Tigre
Want to infuse some life into your…Uh…Life? Ok, maybe you don’t. Maybe you want to do it for your drinks though…This ingredient is featured in one of our recent seasonal cocktails, Tooger’s Revenge, which is gaining some steam…We had a guest in last night who told us, “I normally drink wine, but I’d love to…
Recent photos
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The Search for McQueen
I’m sure many of you are unaccustomed to the tyranny of a toddler, but at some point have heard some exhausted parent speak of having to watch the same cartoon ad infinitum. Yes, children become laser focused to the point of pure insanity and are somehow able to watch the same damn cartoon over and…
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The Five Spice Cafe: Part Three
Read Part Two here. After a couple of months, I started training with the kitchen manager, Jennifer, to work lunches. Blonde, burley, intense. A bright and capable, strong woman, just like Chef Mef. Not afraid to rip into someone and tell them how much they sucked. My training with her was instantly controversial, as the…
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Caipirinha Diaries: 4.30.23
Imagine this. Something bad happened–extreme drought, nuclear war, all of the above–and now the entire world looks like the stretch from Wilshire Boulevard between 18th and 12th. Trash blowing, storefronts gone, the glass behind the shuttered safety cages broken. The occasional glow from a fire lit inside where the forgotten huddle to keep warm and…
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Bartending is a Weird, Dark “Profession:” Part Two
“Do you want to talk more about bartending?” “No. Not really.” “What about last night?” “What about it?” “It was really busy, right?” “Yeah, I got slaughtered.” “What does that entail?” “Shaking lots of drinks.” “C’mon, man, there has to more to it than that.” “Ugh. I don’t know. I mean, yeah, there’s running out…
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Homemade Ranch Dressing
Posting the recipe first and the stupid story second. 1 Cup Mayonnaise, aioli, whatever 1 Cup Sour Cream (yogurt if you want to be healthy) 1 Cup Buttermilk One Bunch Fresh Dill (as finely chopped as possible) One Bunch Fresh Parsley (as finely chopped as possible) 1 tsp. Salt 1 tsp. Onion Powder 1 tsp.…
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The Five Spice Cafe: Part Two
Read Part One here. The kitchen was tiny. A square space with a low ceiling. Like any small kitchen, every available area to put something, had something. The dish machine, they said, was from a submarine. A silver tube with a circular sort of revolving door that allowed one wash cycle at a time. Every…
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My Strawberry Infused Aperol Went Through a Secondary Fermentation
Remember the late 2000s when lame bars and restaurants thought the cool thing to do was decorate the walls with out of print Italian bitters posters? Yeah, I do too. There’s still a few clingers out there somewhere, I’m sure. And yes, before you ask, I too have been tempted to throw one of these…
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New Cocktail: Tooger’s Revenge
File this one under worst cocktail names ever. My grandmother had this mangy old cat named Tooger. Stark white and always sleeping. When she died, my eccentric uncle David adopted her and brought her up to his place in the island community of South Hero, Vermont. Anyway, the damn cat lived forever. It was already…
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The Five Spice Cafe: Part One
The only remaining photo on the interwebs of the Five Spice Cafe, or “Five Spice”, as we all called it, is this crummy one you see above, snapped on a rainy winter morning. The restaurant was located at the ass end of Burlington, Vermont’s semi famous Church Street Marketplace. If you’ve never visited, Burlington is…
The Aging Bartender 