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 »
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 »
Neill Blomkamp’s alien-apartheid flick District 9 cleared up once and for all what visitors from other planets really wanted. The answer was cat food. I can reserve judgment (it’s not like I was going to eat it), but I can’t help but wonder if all of District 9‘s human-versus-prawn violence could have been solved with a good interspecies round of drinks. After all, plenty of interstellar fellowship has been fostered by a good Klingon toast. Read More »
Recently I’ve had the pleasure of working on Hemingway Deadlights, a mystery featuring the Nobel Prize-winning writer as its sleuth. Plenty of real-life authors have made appearances in novels — Arthur Conan Doyle in Julian Barnes’ Arthur and George, for one — but none that I know of has been so driven by booze as Papa Hemingway. And though this book’s mystery may be fictional, the old man in a sea of alcohol certainly isn’t. Read More »
Mad Men is not only about the greatest advertising man in history, but its third season premiere has clearly been managed by the second-greatest ad man in history. If you haven’t created an avatar or personally met series-star Jon Hamm by now, then you have at least read a few stories about the only show that promotes serious drinking — other than True Blood. Read More »
This week would-be whiskey barons and wannabe vodka princes converged on New York for the third annual Indy Spirits Expo, promoting their lesser-known wares to bar owners, journalists, and all those kids who heard about it thanks to Thrillist. It’s a chance to try unique, unusual spirits, and meet the people who make them. For the most part, no one decides to own a distillery without becoming proud of what they make. But if they don’t really care, then they can always revert to the tried-and-true sales technique — hiring attractive women to hock the product.
Rather than bother to try writing anything down in a dark, crowded room, I brought a camera instead. Click through for a selection of rare whiskeys, those aforementioned women, enthusiastic bartenders, llamas, and my quest to actually like vodka.
CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE SLIDESHOW>>
Bacon has alternately been praised and vilified. Viewed as divine or anti-religious, delectable or disgusting, high brow or low class. I am talking, of course, about Francis Bacon. But the same could be said of bacon the meat. (See what I did there?) Right now both are at their cultural peak: one of them is the subject of a new book
and the other has a show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I’ll let you guess which is which. Read More »
