By devhahn, on March 24th, 2011%
I took the L train east to Bushwick and walked out into the death throes of whatever grit lingered in that rapidly gentrifying neighborhood. Hipster hangouts were encroaching on the Boar’s Head meat factory like a Georgia kudzu. I rounded a corner and passed a specialty wine and spirits shop. I guess change isn’t all bad.
I was in the neighborhood to meet Ted Haigh. Haigh is the author of Vintage Spirits & Forgotten Cocktails, which was published in ’03 and came out in a second edition recently enough for it to win Best New Cocktail Book of . . . → Read More: Periodista Tales: Ted Haigh—Birth of a Pseudonym
By devhahn, on March 17th, 2011%
New York again. I had decided to try my hand at some academic-style research. Maybe Greg Boehm’s project had inspired me. Maybe meeting writers like Dave Wondrich, Jeff Berry, and Wayne Curtis—true scholars of the cocktail—had left a mark. Maybe I was one jigger shy of a full shaker. In any case, I had to acknowledge the possibility that not all my answers were hidden in the minds of heavy drinkers. Some might be in a library.
The floor of the uptown 6 train was slick with mud and snow melt. Next to me, a man in an . . . → Read More: Periodista Tales: The Joe Baum Papers
By devhahn, on March 10th, 2011%
The winter months slunk by and I was back in New York. A cold rain fell on the banks of unmelted snow lining the sidewalk along Sixth Avenue. Dogs wore coats and ski-gloved hands fumbled with umbrellas. I’d have said it was perfect Manhattan weather, but I didn’t want to risk the pun.
It had taken me this long to arrange some face time with Greg Boehm. Boehm owns Cocktail Kingdom, a company that imports Japanese and European cocktailing paraphernalia and publishes replicas of vintage cocktail books. Boehm owns most of the originals himself. He has one of . . . → Read More: Periodista Tales: Greg Boehm—The Collector
