Across the nation, conservatives are making inaccurate historical references and liberals are making accurate sexual puns. Tea Parties are here to stay, at least while the ratings at Fox News are good. There have been complaints about the protesters and their message, but here’s what we don’t understand: How are you going to stoke fires of dissent with soothing chamomile? The only chance left is to spike that tea with something stronger, just like our forefathers did.
You’d have to be drunk to think that wearing that t-shirt was something to smile about.
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How do you know you’re a true Simpsons fan? If you hear the words “drink” and “Simpsons” and think to yourself: “To alcohol! The cause of, and solution to, all of life’s problems.” And for you fans, the must-have oddity of the moment is not the Marge Simpson Playboy spread but John Ortved’s The Simpsons: An Uncensored, Unauthorized History. Unlike that creepy, banana-hued centerfold, you can carry it around in public. But what’s a good read without a good drink? In that spirit, here are the best alcoholic beverages from the show, and a few suggestions on how to get a hold of them yourself.
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Halloween is a special time of year. It’s a night when you get to dress up, go out, and discover which of your friends has the sickest sense of humor. Zombie Michael Jackson might have been fun last year; we get the Thriller reference. Let him rest for a year, please. He’ll already be violated on screens around the country. And while zombie MJ may be the worst pop-culture costume of ’09, there are plenty of perennially terrible outfits.
Unsurprisingly, a lot of these were clearly created by hammered costumiers on a deadline. Let’s check out a few samples…
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MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow is probably the most well-known promoter of cocktails on TV today. And not because it’s some simple source of ad revenue – she really drinks them. What other news personality decided to teach viewers (and Martha Stewart) about the perfect election-night cocktail? By now we know plenty about her mixological preferences, but it made us wonder: what do other pundits drink during those commercial breaks? Read More »
Paul Dickson has the type of talent that should win him bar bets around the globe. As the holder of the Guinness World Record for number of synonyms for “drunk,” he knows more ways to call someone “zipped” than anyone else in the world. Extinguished. Count Drunkula. Gone to the devil. Sea faring. The list goes on and on.
His achievement has been proven in his new book Drunk: The Definitive Drinker’s Dictionary, which contains 3,000 equally entertaining synonyms for “drunk.” It’s due out on October 20th, and we figure there’s no better way to congratulate him than with a toast. (To wit, he has written a book about those, too.)
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Not all books come with a body bag, but that was the favor given out at the book party for Alix Strauss’ marvelously morbid Death Becomes Them: Unearthing the Suicides of the Brilliant, the Famous, and the Notorious. The bags held macabre gifts like Funeral Home Perfume and Waterproof Mascara, which aren’t exactly to my taste, but they also included Vincent Van Gogh vodka and Hemingway Daiquiri rum, which definitely are. The liquor didn’t stop flowing there: Strauss asked mixologist Eben Klemm to invent signature cocktails for a few of the book’s exquisite corpses, making it the best literary celebration of death since Finnegans Wake. Read More »
Not all bar fights get settled outside. Unfortunately, some go to court. That’s what happened to Maker’s Mark and Jose Cuervo not once but twice. The Maker’s Distillery sued because they think that the classic red-wax covering on their bourbon has been copied on bottles of Jose Cuervo Reserva de la Familia (translation: “Jose Cuervo keeps it in the family”). The first suit is scheduled to go to trial in November, but Maker’s apparently enjoyed the experience so much they ordered another round already. But will anyone other than the oldest drunk or youngest teenager really confuse the two? Are there any drinks that could use either bourbon or tequila? Read More »
Last night I dropped by one of the most ambitious book parties I’ve ever seen. Inspired by her book, Speed Shrinking, Susan Shapiro hosted a crew of therapists who each dispensed advice to attendees in three-minute intervals. Think of it as therapy meets speed-dating. And like speed-dating, a key ingredient was a free-flowing bar, which reminded me of how psychiatry inspired one of the strangest cocktails out there. Read More »
This long weekend The Final Destination came back for another victim — putting to rest All About Steve, which should have been killed before it ever hit pre-production. Most horror movies don’t qualify as high art, but they can pack a punch that other genres don’t, just as cocktails beat out lower-proof beverages. So why not combine the two?
Start with a Gypsy Cocktail in honor of the bitter old crone in Sam Raimi‘s fantastic Drag Me to Hell. Combine 1 ¼ oz each of gin and sweet vermouth in a shaker with ice, shake and strain, then add a cherry. Most horror movies stick to the tried-and-true lesson of “if you have sex as a teenager you will be murdered by a serial killer,” but Raimi’s new film teaches young bankers to never foreclose on a house owned by a toothless, half-blind gypsy. Read More »
Earlier this summer, famous reclusive and former author J.D. Salinger sued to stop publication of 60 Years Later: Coming Through the Rye, an authorized “sequel” to his classic The Catcher in the Rye. And who can blame him? His aging protagonist, Holden Caulfield now is “dazed and confused, and has a weak bladder.” But what might have happened to Caulfield if Salinger hadn’t abandoned New York publishing in favor of the New Hampshire woods? Would Caulfield drop out like his literary creator? Perhaps. But given his teenage drinking, it’s more likely that he’s living it up Jay McInerney-style in New York. Read More »
