What's Going on with DLDGLG?

Here it is... the customary sorry-I-haven't-been-posting-as-much post. 

Ok so here's the deal. I started a journalism graduate program at American University last semester. Needless to say, there's a great deal of time that I'm devoting to getting good grades. (And classes are not cheap!) 

Anyway, I plan to be back on the booze beat but not before I refashion DLDGLG a bit. I'm very excited about the direction that I'll be taking this blog moving forward. I just need some time to adjust some things around graduate school. So bare with me :)

In the meantime, you can check out my other writing at my new blog A Standard Candle. I created that site in part as a portfolio for the content I've produced in the program. So if you fancy something a little different go check it out.

Marshall Fawley Writes About Cocktails for AARP!

Check out Marshall Fawley of Scofflaw's Den in the first post of his regular cocktail column for AARP's blog! This first piece is called 'The Old Fashioned's Grandfather' and covers the origins of this notorious sling!

"I have worked with the same machine for the last five years and developed an incredible sense of hearing for the annoying noise it makes when it spits out a cocktail ticket."

"I can hear it beckoning for me over a loud band, back in the kitchen, in the bathroom…in my sleep at home. On a slow night, when the Micros grows quiet, I will caress it with gentle words and pet it…hopefully it will start talking. On a busy night, when it clicks away seamlessly for hours on end…I curse at it and abuse it…yes, I beat my Micros."

(h/t: DJ Hawaiian Shirt)

Susan Soorenko and Carla Hall Want You to Meet Alchemy & Moorkeno's

Carla Hall and Susan Soorenko are crafting sweet dreams in Silver Spring, Maryland right now. 

Tucked away just outside of The District's city limits, you will find a factory rendering a vision of the good life through treats.

If you aren't familiar with Susan, you should be familiar with her clever brand of ice cream, which can be found in sixteen Whole Foods locations in and around Washington D.C. 

You can also find her products in various other independent or organic markets.

Anyone who has watched the past few seasons of Top Chef knows Carla. She's vivacious and funny. 

Since the competition, Hall's become a point of pride for locals in the restaurant and food industry. Currently, she's one of the hosts of ABC's daytime food show, The Chew.

Susan launched the original Moorenko's Ice Cream Cafe in McLean, Virginia but has since moved her operations to Maryland. Moorenko's website reads:

"Lovingly local, and frankly, fabulous.  That pretty much sums up the frozen desserts made by Moorenko's Ice Cream in Silver Spring, Maryland.  Our artisanal ice cream is made in small, carefully monitored batches (that means we have to taste every batch, but we're willing to make that sacrifice for you)[...] Our goal is to spoil our customers for any other ice cream!"

Warmed by her passion for ice cold treats, Susan lures her customers to a world of frozen food that most people wouldn't think possible.

Carla's developed her own line of cookies with Alchemy and hopes to win over not just your sweet tooth, but also your savory tooth. Alchemy's website reads:

"Our artisan cookies are baked to perfection and contain only the finest ingredients – European-style butter, organic sugar, flours, couverture chocolate, artisan cheeses, fresh nuts, seasonal fruits"

Mexican Chocolate Chip. Hawaiian Wedding. Goat Cheese with Dried Cranberries. 

There were few containers where I didn't pull out a cookie bite packed with flavor.

Some of Moorenko's perks include a seemingly endless catalog of flavors and, more importantly, allowing clientele to customize ice cream to whatever flavor they desire.

Of course, if one chooses to do so, he or she would begin consultation and coordination with Susan to ensure, collectively, that a high quality product is crafted to satisfaction.

Moorenko's flavors that stuck out for me: the Campari and grapefruit sorbet as well as the prune and Armagnac ice cream (naturally - this is a booze blog).

The Campari and grapefruit had a bright and cleansing taste. The Armagnac ice cream blended bits of prune in with each rich brandy-flavored scoop.

Hall urged us to pair many of her sweet petite cookies with the hot tea being served - and this proved to be a delicious combination that didn't overload the tastebuds with sweetness.

Carla's savory cookies were paired with Syrah from a winery called Vint Hill.

Want to make your own vino? Vint Hill will set you up with grapes. You craft your own wine complete with a customized label.

Also, accompanying the cookies was a port-style wine made by La Grange Winery in Haymarket, Virginia called Snort (seriously).

By the end of the media event, I found myself charmed by both women and their products.

Food Bloggers Gettin LOOSE!!!

We'll be getting a taste of China's Sichuan Province next week because Jason "Foodgeek" Yaskoir of DC Füd is hosting September's DC Food Blogger Happy Hour at Mala Tang in Arlington. If you write about food/drink or simply love to talk about it, this event will feel like home. The festivities begin at 6:00 pm sharp. And don't forget to bring your business card. 

DC Food Bloggers Gettin LOOSE!!!

Lisa Shapiro of Dining in DC is hosting the next DC Food Blogger Happy Hour at J&G Steakhouse on Wednesday, August 3rd at 6:00. I got excited just a minute ago while reading Lisa's blog and seeing the delicious fare being served. I am a big fan of crab cakes. I am also a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc drinking fool.

Political rant of the day: incidentally, it should be an interesting evening considering legislators on Capitol Hill will probably not have agreed on a debt ceiling compromise until late Tuesday night. 

If a deal isn't struck, the United States government will be postured to default of its debts for the first time in its history. 

Arguably, it may not be absolute Armageddon - but it will certainly be the topic of the day (besides food and drink, of course).

But I digress... 

Note: This post has been revised since its original publication

Washington Man Takes Notice of DLDGLG

I am man, hear me roar.

If today's your first day, it may surprise you to know that gentlemen are big fans of booze. So naturally, Washington Man, an independent capital area online magazine for chaps, kindly recommended DLDGLG to its readers this week.

Today, I compiled a list of notable quotes made by famous blokes (or commonly attributed to them) about alcohol. And they've been arranged by their approximate time period.

(Did I miss a good one? Share a quote in the comments below.)

"Wine is sunlight, held together by water."
- Galileo Galilei

"Better belly burst than good liquor be lost."
- Jonathan Swift

"Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy."
- commonly attributed to Benjamin Franklin

"Bring in the bottled lightning, a clean tumbler, and a corkscrew."
- Charles Dickens

"Bacchus has drowned more men than Neptune."
- Giuseppe Garibaldi

"Wine is bottled poetry."
- Robert Louis Stevenson

"Work is the curse of the drinking classes."
- Oscar Wilde

"The worst thing about some men is that when they are not drunk they are sober."
- William Butler Yeats

"A woman drove me to drink and I never even had the courtesy to thank her."
- W.C. Fields

"Once, during Prohibition, I was forced to live for days on nothing but food and water."
- W.C. Fields

“A horrid alcoholic explosion scatters all my good intentions like bits of limbs and clothes over the doorsteps and into the saloon bars of the tawdriest pubs”
- Dylan Thomas

"I have taken more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me."
- Winston Churchill

"Yes, madam, I am drunk. But in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly."
- Winston Churchill

"Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut."
- Ernest Hemingway

"Don't you drink? I notice you speak slightingly of the bottle. I have drunk since I was fifteen and few things have given me more pleasure. When you work hard all day with your head and know you must work again the next day what else can change your ideas and make them run on a different plane like whisky? When you are cold and wet what else can warm you? Before an attack who can say anything that gives you the momentary well-being that rum does? The only time it isn't good for you is when you write or when you fight. You have to do that cold. But it always helps my shooting. Modern life, too, is often a mechanical oppression and liquor is the only mechanical relief."
- Ernest Hemingway

"I feel sorry for people who don't drink.  When they wake up in the morning, that's as good as they're going to feel all day."
- Frank Sinatra

"I'll stick with gin.  Champagne is just ginger ale that knows somebody."
- Hawkeye, M*A*S*H 1973

"You can't be a Real Country unless you have a BEER and an airline -- it helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a BEER."
- Frank Zappa

“I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me.”
- Hunter S Thompson

"If you are young and you drink a great deal it will spoil your health, slow your mind, make you fat - in other words, turn you into an adult."
- P.J. O'Rourke

"Alcoholism is the only disease that you can get yelled at for having."
- Mitch Hedberg

"Beer is the cause and solution to all of life's problems."
- Homer Simpson

Visit WM often and keep an eye out for DLDGLG content in its continuing coverage of the exclusive interests of dudes.

Food Bloggers Getting LOOSE!!!

Hosted by Girl Meets Food.

Cure Bar and Bistro. Wednesday, July 6 at 6:00 pm. See you there.

"Liu wrote that the restaurant served food that was too salty..."

"The judge also ruled that Liu should not have criticized all the restaurant’s food as too salty because she only had one dish on her single visit."

Taiwan jails a food blogger. True story.

(hat tip: TDW)

Another Food Blogger Happy Hour on the Horizon

In two weeks, Bayou Bakery on Courthouse Road in Arlington will be hosting a food blogger happy hour from 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm. Lisa Shapiro of Examiner.com and Diningindc.net as well as Jill Grozalsky of Cuisine Queen will be the masters of ceremonies on that Wednesday night.

So many of the folks that I met at the last function were so friendly and conversational that I would highly recommend this event to anyone else who writes about food and drink. I, for one, will be in attendance.
 

A Night Exploring Sheraton Hotels with Travel Onion

Note: this is a repost of an piece written for Dining in DC called "New Travel Website, Travel Onion breaks into DC Market".

Travel Onion, a new website that aggregates the best travel and hospitality blogs in the world, indexed across approximately 50 top cities, teamed up with Starwood Hotels and Resorts to offer an executive level guided tour through the Sheraton Suites Old Town, Sheraton Crystal City Hotel and the Sheraton National Hotel. The event would allow the hotel company to promote their three premier northern Virginia properties in today’s most exciting and popular editorial form: the blog.

It was cold outside, but it was nice and warm at the Sheraton Suites in Old Town Alexandria. A slight crowd had gathered at the Finn and Hoof restaurant for the Travel Onion media event . Cal Simmons, founder of Travel Onion, welcomed the group, which he called “DC’s most influential bloggers,” and gave some instructions in anticipation of an extravagant hotel tour which was to begin.

As a bartending and mixology blogger, I hadn’t taken many opportunities to write about hotels. In fact, I never actually considered evaluating the hotel industry at all. However, I quickly realized that my intuitions regarding food and drink would naturally translate in other areas of hospitality and service. So, I threw myself at the chance.

In Old Town, the bartender at the Finn and Hoof shook up a refreshing mixture of elderflower liqueur, chardonnay, and a twist of lemon as a complimentary cocktail. The attendees sipped their drinks while the friendly sales and marketing staff of each respective hotel escorted the group through the impressive conference facilities, club lounge, and amenities.

Each escort focused on the sense of community that Sheraton wanted to convey. We explored the open and convergent layout of the lobby, restaurant and internet café (the Sheraton link). We also looked at rooms, perfectly arranged, with a view of the surrounding metropolitan landscape. At one point, with encouragement from our guides, I embraced the marshmallow-like bed in one graceful jump backwards.

In Crystal City, as we wandered into the lobby, the hotel staff reinforced the communal atmosphere in the design. The kitchen staff served us sliders, buffalo-style wings, quesadillas and more. For an additional fee, hotel guests could experience the Mystery Dinner Playhouse which is staged in a room near the bar. The Playhouse, which performs on Fridays and Saturdays, combines the thrill of an interactive theatre performance with a four course meal.

In Arlington, our guides led us through an elegant dining area decorated with a variety of historical images of the commander-in-chief. From Truman’s jubilant face after defeating Thomas Dewey in 1948 to Reagan’s confident grin while sitting with Mikhail Gorbachev in the late 1980s, each image overlooked diners as they enjoyed their meals.

Guests looking for an even more presidential experience could dine in the stunning White House rose garden section. Slightly secluded from the rest of the venue, this verdant motif seemed perfect for a family brunch or a wedding rehearsal dinner.

In the end, Sheraton’s energized staff and welcoming hotels made reviewing the event a straightforward task. These three hotels are suited quite well to the Washington DC metropolitan area and certainly reflect the community and magnetism of Northern Virginia. The staff was unquestionably professional and gracious. Travel Onion and Starwood Hotels and Resorts delivered a very warm event on a very cold evening.

Update: check out my guest post at Dining in DC!

Chilcano de Pisco

So there is an expatriate in Peru who writes a vivid account of her life in a foreign country. She includes recipes for Peruvian food and drink. I've never met this nice lady. But I find her record of recipes and meals interesting to read.

In fact, I'm going to try out one of the cocktails that she's written about when I'm at Tonic today. It's called the Chilcano de Pisco. This cocktail is similar to one that use to be on Tonic's cocktail menu called The Chufflay. I also happen to be a fan of pisco. Cheers!

The Chufflay

- 2 oz pisco (Bolivian)
- 1 1/2 oz of fresh squeezed lemon juice
- 1 oz of simple syrup
- 2-3 dashes Angostura bitters

Glassware: highball glass

Pour pisco, lemon juice, simple syrup, and bitters into the glass. Add ice. Shake the ingredients just to get a good mixture. Garnish with a lemon rind.

If you happen to be in Foggy Bottom today, do not be afraid to drop by Tonic and try one of these delicious cocktails.

Wine Josh

Friend and coworker, Josh McCarthy, has started a wine blog. He's been the source of some material that I have posted and commented on in this blog so I trust that he has got a good eye for topics related to the beer/wine/spirits industry.

Why (one might inquire internally) would someone else need to start a wine blog? Well Josh asks this question of himself with great humility and writes:

Everyone on the planet, who drinks, hates, loves or has seen wine pretty much has one. But, there is so much information out there, who has time to collect it all, organize it and get it ready for everyone to read? Apparently, I believe I'm the person who has the time.

Congratulations to Josh launching his blog. I'm eager to read his stuff and contribute to the conversation.

A Slight Digression

I'm working towards getting published. Any advice, guidance or tips are not just welcomed but encouraged. Bring on, also, any comments that you may have regarding the writing on this blog.

Thanks, as always, for reading.

At Tonic, Ballin' Is A Habit

On Saturday nights, the bespectacled alter ego is slipped off and the tapster uniform is revealed.  Bartending is an inherently social profession.  The image below heartily portrays just how social the job can get. 

Meet Rob Dauster, fellow barkeep and college basketball SME.  Rob's first tenure at Tonic at Quigley's Pharmacy began in the early days when it was surviving without a license to sell alcohol in any form (as Thomas Paine once said, "these are the times that try men's souls").  He left, only to return for another spell, this most current one.  I've watched him grow as a bartender and have such reverence for having an active writer/blogger to add to the different flavors of personalities stewarding a piece of the Foggy Bottom neighborhood's vitality.

Moving forward, I am going to feature a fellow bartender that I hold some level of admiration and interview him/her in the form of a basic Proust Questionnaire.  Stay tuned for some bartender/intoxicologist/mixologist interviews.

With such a deep appreciation for these bartenders, I hope to bring a little more recognition to who these folks are, what inspires/impacts them, and why they choose this industry to make their mark.  And, just maybe in the process, I can pick apart my own answers to these questions.