“Everyone knows writers are all badly-dressed overweight cantankerous faux-humble alcoholics with a chip on each shoulder and a grudge against the world. And that’s just the women.”

— Jackie Tyrell in Declan Hughes’s The Price of Blood

The irascible Jack Shafer writes in praise of booze in the newsroom.

It’s easy to reduce all of what is wrong with American journalism to the near industrywide ban on booze in the newsroom. So I will.

Hear, hear!

“Martinis are like breasts, one isn’t enough, and three is too many.”

— Herb Caen

“There’s no vodka drink that can’t be made better by using gin instead.”

— Eric Felten

Eric Felten has finally–or once again, I can’t say–gotten ’round to the Manhattan (“Democracy in a Glass,” The Wall Street Journal). As usual, he is quite informative and generally correct in his opinions. But while he does well to call for a better class of fruit (a Luxardo marasca cherry), I’ve never regretted the day when I began to tell the barman, “Hold the salad.”

Mr. Felten’s recipe is quite similar to my own:

2 oz rye whiskey or bourbon
¾ oz to 1 oz sweet vermouth
2 dashes Angostura bitters
2 dashes orange bitters

Shake with ice and strain into a stemmed cocktail glass. Garnish with cherry.

For further reading, may I direct you to my own essay, “The Manhattan.”

Had a perfectly horrible Sidecar on Saturday evening at a local called Fat Cat and was forced to drink beer for the remainder of the evening. At least they had the Belgians. Is a Sidecar–1/4 lemon, 1/2 oz. Triple Sec, 1 oz. brandy–really so difficult?

My Montana correspondent has forwarded some “Internet humour” making the rounds:

98% OF AMERICANS SAY “OH S***” BEFORE GOING IN THE DITCH ON A SLIPPERY ROAD.

THE OTHER 2% ARE FROM MONTANA AND THEY SAY, “HOLD MY
BEER AND WATCH THIS!”

I find this worrisome. Certainly my driver is never allowed to take a drink behind the wheel, as I wish to ensure the lowest possible odds of spilling my own drink.

Perhaps this has something to do with it.

“You cannot drink and drive and I have chosen.”
— Serge Gainsbourg

The conservative television journalist Stephen Colbert reports on absinthe’s dangers and asks the youth of America to join him in a pledge of abstinence from absinthe. I am, of course, concerned by any call for temperance, but given the substandard absinthe that is being peddled these days, I suppose that abstaining from it can’t do any harm.

My pater sent me this article many months ago, but he lives in the Wild West, you know, and the ponies are not as express as they once were. Also, I am behind in my reading. But I was delighted to learn that I have a kindred spirit at the Grey Lady herself, the New York Times newspaper. His name is Eric Asimov, and as he and his colleagues conducted a spirited martini tasting, they vouchsafed philosophies near and dear to my own heart. To wit:

Before we discuss the findings, though, we need to clear up a little matter. It’s come to my attention that some people believe martinis are made with vodka. I hate to get snobbish about it, but a martini should be made with gin or it’s not a martini. Call it a vodkatini if you must, but not a martini. Gin and vodka have as much in common hierarchically as a president and a vice president. Vodka can fill in for gin from time to time and might even be given certain ceremonial duties of its own, but at important moments you need the real thing. Vodka generally makes a poor substitute for gin in a martini or any other gin cocktail.

Nothing snobbish about it, old man! Carry on:

Indeed, gin is more of a thinking person’s spirit. Vodka is neutral in aroma and flavor, which is also how gin begins life. But where vodka stays neutral, gin is infused with botanicals — a witch’s pantry of roots, berries, herbs, dried fruits and spices — dominated by the piney, breezy aroma of juniper berries. Other common botanicals include angelica, cardamom, coriander, cinnamon, lemon peel, licorice, fennel and ginger. It is the closely guarded combination of botanicals that makes each gin distinctive.

A woman named Audrey Saunders refers quite rightly to the horrors of “a generation lobotomized by vodka.” And on proportion, they’re nearly on the mark:

A martini is also not a martini without vermouth. What is a cocktail but a blend of disparate elements into a harmonious new whole? We used Noilly Prat Original French Dry vermouth in a proportion of five parts gin to one part vermouth, perhaps a bit more gin than might have been ideal (try 4-to-1), but we wanted to make sure that the gin was featured prominently.

I’ll lay three-to-one that those who joke about “waving the bottle of vermouth at the gin” don’t know what they’re missing.

Their favorite gin? Why, it was Plymouth, followed by something called “Junipero,” followed by a bottle dear to my own heart, Cadenhead’s Old Raj.

As the weather turns, I’ll be turning more and more to the brown drinks, but a good martini can be enjoyed season-round.

Jason Wilson is a man after my own heart. I don’t normally care to dirty my hands in the kitchen, but perhaps it’s time for that to change. I had thought that drinking would be enow to while away my golden years, but likely I would enjoy making the drinks as well.