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Speaker 1: tudoros or raslanse if we realed this in the hearn.
Speaker 2: Oh hey Ologites, it's your dry cleaner who never judges
Speaker 2: your pit stains. Ali ward back for another episode of Ologies.
Speaker 2: So winter celebrations are here, Merriment is to be had,
Speaker 2: Gatherings are gathering, and you've got some weekdays off and
Speaker 2: you're expected to spend him in your pajamas. So I thought,
Speaker 2: why not an episode on liquid curiosities. Speaking of celebrations,
Speaker 2: really quick up top. Happy birthday to Hannah Lippo, dear
Speaker 2: friend admin of the Ologies Facebook group. We all love
Speaker 2: you very much. Deal with it. Also more business before
Speaker 2: we get to the episode. Thank you to all the
Speaker 2: patrons on patreon dot com slash Ologies. Thanks to anyone
Speaker 2: who gets merch at ologiesmerch dot com and thank you
Speaker 2: for keeping ologies solid in the old science charts by
Speaker 2: tweeting and gramming and telling your relatives and subscribing and
Speaker 2: rating and reviewing, which you know, I creepily peruse because
Speaker 2: your reviews are hilarious and they perk me up, and
Speaker 2: then I read you a fresh ones. You know, I'm
Speaker 2: not just whistling very creepy Dixie. So this week, Abakai says,
Speaker 2: straight up, my therapist told me about this podcast when
Speaker 2: I was complaining about my pervasive news addiction. Thanks for
Speaker 2: saving me from reading way too many political articles.
Speaker 3: Straight up advice from the therapist.
Speaker 2: Okay, mixology, let's get into it. Okay, first, let's tackle
Speaker 2: this etymology, because mixology is not a word used by
Speaker 2: mixologists a lot. Although it seems like it was a
Speaker 2: term that was just invented, like in the last decade
Speaker 2: with the resurgence of these prohibition era classics and cocktails
Speaker 2: and the resurgence of the semi ironic mustaches, it is
Speaker 2: actually a throwback to an earlier time, so before we
Speaker 2: had delights like indoor plumbing and vaccines, Cocktail books and
Speaker 2: newspapers from the eighteen sixties used phrases like mixologists of
Speaker 2: fluid excitements to describe bartenders. And then in the nineteen eighties,
Speaker 2: in an era when screwdrivers and seagrums and die pepsi
Speaker 2: were all the rage, a New York bartender named Dale
Speaker 2: de Groff started bringing back old timey recipes and he
Speaker 2: started calling himself a mixologist just to impress the press.
Speaker 3: And it worked.
Speaker 2: But maybe in the last like handful of years, some
Speaker 2: suspended craft cocktailers took themselves a little too seriously and
Speaker 2: maybe gave the term xology a bad name. We will
Speaker 2: discuss anyway. This guest is one of the most highly
Speaker 2: respected cocktail makers in the country, and his backstory is
Speaker 2: as riveting and inspiring as his advice. I met him
Speaker 2: about seven years ago. I was working with the Cooking Channel,
Speaker 2: making and reviewing cocktail recipes, and I tried a battery
Speaker 2: of his drinks at the Library Bar, which is in
Speaker 2: the very swank, very haunted Vibe Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood.
Speaker 2: I'd never had a drink like his, ever, Like stinging
Speaker 2: nettle infused gin and mushroom infused artichoke liqueur pine cone
Speaker 2: infused into elderflower cocktails. The quail Eggs is a Garnish.
Speaker 2: His drinks are like mad libs that somehow make sense
Speaker 2: in your mouth. So, after years of just building this
Speaker 2: reputation at the Library Bar and consulting a bunch of restaurants,
Speaker 2: this past October he finally opened his much anticipate owned bar,
Speaker 2: monthly serving up twelve course dining and drinking pairings at
Speaker 2: the Kalamigos Beach Club. It's right on Pacific Coast Highway,
Speaker 2: an actual stone's throw literally from the ocean, and his
Speaker 2: view from the bar is just this glittering Pacific and
Speaker 2: then to his back is Solstice Canyons and the mountains
Speaker 2: of Malibu.
Speaker 3: It's gorgeous.
Speaker 2: So I visited him just this past weekend a few
Speaker 2: days ago, and I walked the grounds and he recounted
Speaker 2: that about a month after opening his dream bar, he
Speaker 2: had a night to remember.
Speaker 4: And it's amazing because the Thursday night it was I
Speaker 4: was going into my fifth week of service, and the
Speaker 4: winds were ripping and I was just loving at you know,
Speaker 4: see my bar. The windows were open and the wind
Speaker 4: it was just beautiful, but you had that sense of
Speaker 4: that fire out there.
Speaker 2: So in early November, weeks after opening only the Woolsey
Speaker 2: fire swept through the canyon and it destroyed sixteen hundred structures.
Speaker 3: It took three lives.
Speaker 2: It also consumed a portion of the Calami Goes Beach Club.
Speaker 2: So on Saturday, we stepped over hunks of charred furniture
Speaker 2: and crunched over broken glass to the rear of the
Speaker 2: property to see that. Flames scorched the back of the restaurant,
Speaker 2: just shattering glass, melting door knobs. But thank you to firefighters.
Speaker 2: His little bar was spared, just made it by a
Speaker 2: literal inch and even like the rafters are charred a
Speaker 2: little bit.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no question about it. Yeah, this was seconds from
Speaker 4: going up, no question about it.
Speaker 2: The electric wires serving the property all melted, and it's
Speaker 2: going to take months to clean out the burned down
Speaker 2: structures on the property. But that doesn't really keep him away.
Speaker 2: So wait, now, how much time are you spending here?
Speaker 4: Still? Yeah, I can't help it. I come three or
Speaker 4: four days a week. I just love to sit in
Speaker 4: my bar. It's like a monastery's This is the whole thing.
Speaker 4: Is like, when you build something, you can't just walk away,
Speaker 4: even if it's in disarray.
Speaker 2: So he opened up the bar for me, and it's
Speaker 2: still in perfect condition. We took seats at a high
Speaker 2: top table looking out at the ocean and the pch
Speaker 2: which was buzzing with Saturday motorcyclists and SUVs carrying surfboards.
Speaker 3: So this ologist has.
Speaker 2: Been making drinks for over a decade, hosted the any
Speaker 2: cocktail travel show called Good Spirits, and wrote the book
Speaker 2: Eat Your Drink. And we talked about his history and
Speaker 2: how he approaches the American cocktail, his own relationship to booze,
Speaker 2: his relationship to the word mixology, how to make a
Speaker 2: good drink at home, how to do your own thing
Speaker 2: even if it seems weird to others at first. So
Speaker 2: subtle up for the wit, the wisdom, and the whimsy
Speaker 2: of Bartender, cocktail chef and mixologist Matthew Biancanela.
Speaker 4: The way I pronounced my last name, it's funny. It's
Speaker 4: almost like if I say it the real Italian way, Biancanello.
Speaker 4: It's almost like someone who says croissant. So I always
Speaker 4: fel a little bit funny. But the correct pronunciation is
Speaker 4: Bianca and yello. But when I try to this, it's
Speaker 4: just Biancanello. Okay, you gotta use your hand little Exactly.
Speaker 4: I was brought up more Greek than I was Italian,
Speaker 4: even though I'm fifty. I'm fifty to fifty, but I
Speaker 4: was brought up more on my Greek side.
Speaker 3: Oh, I didn't know that. And now where were you born?
Speaker 4: I was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts, but grew up mostly
Speaker 4: in Boston, Okay, yeah, Belmont and Cambridge.
Speaker 2: Area, so your accents is a little both that.
Speaker 4: And New York for nine years too, because my father
Speaker 4: is from Brooklyn. So I think I have a mix
Speaker 4: of that because I lived there for nine years. But
Speaker 4: it's weird. People will see like are you Are you
Speaker 4: from Portugal? I'm like, where do you get that? You know?
Speaker 3: And now how long have you been in La?
Speaker 4: Eighteen years?
Speaker 3: Eighteen years?
Speaker 2: Side note, eighteen years in LA is like the scientific
Speaker 2: equivalent to four decades in any other city. So Matthew
Speaker 2: moved out here thinking there'd just be gobs of work
Speaker 2: in advertising sales, but he also pursued a bunch of
Speaker 2: passion projects, like writing and directing a short film called
Speaker 2: The Bread Basket, which was based on some of his
Speaker 2: own experiences. It was about a man struggling with body dysmorphia.
Speaker 3: But to make art in LA you also have to
Speaker 3: pay the bills. So what did you do? Did he
Speaker 3: wait tables?
Speaker 2: Nope, nope, nope.
Speaker 4: I was kind of just trying to figure it out.
Speaker 4: So I didn't really get into what I'm doing until
Speaker 4: ten years ago. So for eight years I was doing
Speaker 4: all kinds of crazy shit. My brother was the director
Speaker 4: of Michael Jackson Zoo, so I would do animal training
Speaker 4: with him. I'd pick up animals from you know, like
Speaker 4: venomous snakes from the airport and might have like a
Speaker 4: black mom but next to me for two hours in
Speaker 4: a box. I was like, okay. I got into wanting
Speaker 4: to make underwater films at the time, and then I
Speaker 4: did this crazy eating stunts.
Speaker 3: I heard that you have eaten like cow eye boys
Speaker 3: these things.
Speaker 4: Had made a film called the bread Basket, which is
Speaker 4: actually a colloquial term in New York for your stomach.
Speaker 4: So I made this film. It was all about a
Speaker 4: guy who was kind of obsessed with his stomach, and
Speaker 4: I needed the money to finish. What happened was my
Speaker 4: brother had had the Guinness Book of World Record for
Speaker 4: being covered by the most bees. What, yeah, like four
Speaker 4: hundred and fifty thousand. Now someone has a million. I
Speaker 4: don't know. How they got up to that, because it's
Speaker 4: insane how they do it. It's like it's all about
Speaker 4: money for these things. So he was going to be
Speaker 4: he was going to do something where he was something
Speaker 4: with leeches, and I was like, he's getting ten thousand
Speaker 4: dollars to be covered by This is ridiculous. So I
Speaker 4: remember I went up to the producer and I said,
Speaker 4: you know, I'll eat anything, and he goes, oh, that's nice,
Speaker 4: that's nice. So I waited for my brother to kind
Speaker 4: of do his stunny and want to ran his prayer.
Speaker 4: So I went over to the thing and I grabbed
Speaker 4: a handful of leeches, witch witches. I put him behind
Speaker 4: my back and I went up to the producer. I said, no,
Speaker 4: I'm serious, I'll eat anything, and I took them live,
Speaker 4: threw him in my mouth and swallowed them. He jumped
Speaker 4: back like ten feet and he goes, you'll be hearing
Speaker 4: from us. Within three weeks, I was on Hollywood at
Speaker 4: three in the morning in front of the Ripley's Believer
Speaker 4: or Not Museum, eating like all this disgusting stuff. And
Speaker 4: I did it so well that I got picked up
Speaker 4: and I went to on Tonight Show with Jay Leno,
Speaker 4: I was like, with all this stuff, and I made
Speaker 4: like thirty thousand dollars in six months, and back then
Speaker 4: that was like two thousand and two thousand and one,
Speaker 4: and I was like, Okay, I'm gonna finish my film
Speaker 4: and I don't have to worry about working. So that
Speaker 4: all came out until I was on the old Steve
Speaker 4: Harvey show. You got the wrong damn daytime shilln't.
Speaker 3: I'm just trying to work a joke in here.
Speaker 4: And I had to eat raw chicken feet. Oh god,
Speaker 4: I got so sick that I've been sensitized fire, which
Speaker 4: is a good thing, don't get me wrong. But I
Speaker 4: had such a high white blood cell count that I
Speaker 4: could I was just sick. And they never aired the
Speaker 4: episode because they heard about that. They were probably worried
Speaker 4: about getting suit or something like that.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, were you in the hospital.
Speaker 4: No, I wouldn't go because I don't know what it was.
Speaker 4: I was living in Bourbank at the time, and I
Speaker 4: was just like ill, and I never told my father
Speaker 4: like what I was doing, but he said, well, why
Speaker 4: did you eat raw chicken? Well, I just wanted to
Speaker 4: see how it tasted, you know, So because I was.
Speaker 4: I was the kid growing up where like someone would
Speaker 4: be like, I dared eat that potato chip off the
Speaker 4: ground with the worm on it. I'm like, okay, So
Speaker 4: it was all it was easy for me.
Speaker 2: It's quick PSA from your old dad word von podcast here.
Speaker 2: Just please don't eat raw worms. Never eat a raw
Speaker 2: slug or snail. Come on, kiddos, google rat lungworm. It
Speaker 2: can literally kill you. So if you've got to eat
Speaker 2: a slug, just I don't know, microwave it first. And
Speaker 2: if anyone is your real friend, then they will like you,
Speaker 2: even if you don't eat a raw slug to impress them.
Speaker 3: The more, you know. And so you were in La
Speaker 3: just doing everything.
Speaker 4: I was doing so many different things. I actually worked
Speaker 4: for this art guy who sold erotic art. I was like, shit,
Speaker 4: what the hell am I going to do? So I
Speaker 4: just just so many random things and that's all. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And now you started working at the library bar at
Speaker 2: the Roosevelt exactly ten years ago, because that's where I
Speaker 2: first Yeah, yeah, drinks, oh yeah, And I remember being like,
Speaker 2: this is a wizard.
Speaker 3: This person is a wizard. These aren't normal cocktails. When
Speaker 3: you started at the library bar, did you ever bartend before.
Speaker 4: I never really bartend. I think I did a few
Speaker 4: like catering stuff. We we're just doing like jack and
Speaker 4: cokes and vodka. So because I do remember my first night,
Speaker 4: I was with this woman, Jamie, who was working there,
Speaker 4: and I had to duck down and literally say to her,
Speaker 4: what's it a cosmopolitics? Because I didn't know and I saw.
Speaker 4: I remember the only reason why I got the job
Speaker 4: is I knew the manager through yoga. She goes, well, listen,
Speaker 4: I have this opening at the library, but it's very
Speaker 4: slow and it might be good for you to start.
Speaker 4: I'm like, okay, I'll do it. And it was crazy
Speaker 4: because that's what happened, and I think pretty quickly I
Speaker 4: was like, yeah, these drinks don't seem like they're worth
Speaker 4: fifteen or sixteen dollars, said, let me just start replacing
Speaker 4: them with fresh stuff. And that was kind of the
Speaker 4: beginning of it. So I remember one day she tried
Speaker 4: one of my dreams. She goes, what the hell is
Speaker 4: Inn't this this is amazing? Well, I just put fresh
Speaker 4: pomegranate and juice. She goes, oh, you're just buying this
Speaker 4: out of own pocket. I go yeah, she was well
Speaker 4: I'll start reimbursing you. But she was giving me one
Speaker 4: hundred dollars a week and I was spending four hundred
Speaker 4: a week, so I spent about eight thousand dollars out
Speaker 4: of my own pocket that first year. I knew nothing
Speaker 4: about alcohol, so I would slowly get these things and
Speaker 4: educate myself. But it was really the farmer's market which
Speaker 4: was the biggest education. Because now I was seeing stuff
Speaker 4: I grew up on the East Coast. I was seeing
Speaker 4: stuff I've never seen before, and it was like kind
Speaker 4: of instantaneous. And I think because I didn't have any training,
Speaker 4: I didn't think about right or wrong. I just did it.
Speaker 4: And I think once I had to learn something, I
Speaker 4: read about the dakri, and I said to myself, Oh
Speaker 4: wait a second, Okay, this is a dakri. It's rum,
Speaker 4: lime and sugar. If I take out the rum and
Speaker 4: put tequila, it's a margarita. If I take out the
Speaker 4: rum and put gen, it's a gimmelet. If I put
Speaker 4: in minted some mohido. So a huge light bulb went up,
Speaker 4: and all I did was I really just stuck with
Speaker 4: the dakri for the first two or three years. So
Speaker 4: I think everybody thought, oh my god, look what he's doing.
Speaker 4: But all I was. What I was really doing was
Speaker 4: a DAKERI in every drink, but I was where my
Speaker 4: passion came from, which was finding these ingredients and mixing
Speaker 4: these unusual flavors.
Speaker 2: From there, it's just a formula, and you can tweak
Speaker 2: the flavors and the infusions and the base spirit. Just
Speaker 2: get weird, just get a little wacky. The world is
Speaker 2: your smoky mezcal, wheat grass, elderflower, foam, sour pickled button mushrooms,
Speaker 2: mustard blossom, and spicy arugula flowers, oyster shooter cocktail in
Speaker 2: Matthew's case, And that is a real recipe.
Speaker 4: So it just became kind of a free for all
Speaker 4: for me, and it just really escalated quickly. I mean,
Speaker 4: I can't believe how quickly I got attention in the
Speaker 4: short period of time for doing that. You know, because
Speaker 4: if I if I was to do that now, it
Speaker 4: would never be the same, it would I didn't think
Speaker 4: about avoiding the market. I just thought about this is
Speaker 4: all I know.
Speaker 3: Well, I guess there was kind of a cocktail revolution.
Speaker 2: I feel like like Sex and the City wakened people
Speaker 2: to the Cosmo.
Speaker 3: Yes, I'd like a cheezburger please, large fries and apostopolitan.
Speaker 2: And then from there there were apple martinis with like
Speaker 2: apple pucker in it. And then something happened like two
Speaker 2: thousand and six or something where we also started a dance.
Speaker 4: At Milk and Honey in New York and that was
Speaker 4: around I think around to be I think it was
Speaker 4: too I can't remember. It was two thousand and five
Speaker 4: or something, but that's what started there. And they started
Speaker 4: recreating classic cocktails in the real way, which how they
Speaker 4: did in prohibition with the ice to fresh juice. But
Speaker 4: for me, it was like, none of that stuff really
Speaker 4: appealed to me, So it was I was kind of
Speaker 4: on my own island. It was like, but I love
Speaker 4: all these fresh things, you know. That was more appealing
Speaker 4: to me.
Speaker 2: And how do you feel about the term mixology because
Speaker 2: it's so loaded, which is like it's the title of
Speaker 2: this episode, like tongue in cheek. Yeah, it's like, okay,
Speaker 2: but it's such a hated term, you know.
Speaker 4: I don't have the same hatred. I just kind of
Speaker 4: have more of a dismissal thing about it. I don't
Speaker 4: really I don't really call myself that I don't introduce.
Speaker 4: If somebody says and mixologists that just they do all
Speaker 4: the time, I don't need to correct them. It's like
Speaker 4: the quicker, I just let it dissolve the better. Yeah,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean. So that's what I do.
Speaker 4: It's more about that. I don't really give any attention
Speaker 4: to it either way. So I don't know. I always
Speaker 4: consider myself more of a chef. I always thought I
Speaker 4: considered I thought more of a chef. And those were
Speaker 4: those Those were the people that I was identifying with.
Speaker 4: Those of the people I was talking to. Those are the
Speaker 4: people I was seeing at the farmer's market. I wasn't
Speaker 4: really talking to bartenders. And I don't really go out.
Speaker 4: One reason is I don't really drink that much. And
Speaker 4: the other reason is I never wanted to be influenced.
Speaker 4: I wanted it to come from me naturally, and I
Speaker 4: think I still have a little bit of that. I
Speaker 4: still feel like there's so much more inside of me.
Speaker 4: I don't want to be influenced out there and have
Speaker 4: someone say, oh my god, he got that from It's like,
Speaker 4: I want to deal with what's inside of me first.
Speaker 4: So those are the two components. But the chefs was
Speaker 4: always the most exciting thing because I loved when chefs
Speaker 4: used to come through the what are you going to
Speaker 4: do with that? I was like, I love that, you
Speaker 4: know what I mean, like, what are you going to
Speaker 4: do with that emu eg? You know, stuff like that.
Speaker 3: What did you do with an?
Speaker 4: I think I first was a drink that I did
Speaker 4: and I used the actual egg for the vessel. But
Speaker 4: what was great at the Library bar is and this
Speaker 4: is always January through March, when I think the restaurant
Speaker 4: closed at midnight, people were hungry. I would take the
Speaker 4: emuwag back and have them scramble up and I would
Speaker 4: just on the house. One egg would feed six people.
Speaker 4: So I would just feed the whole bar with this emuwag,
Speaker 4: And I realized how creamy it was, how rich it was,
Speaker 4: So that escalated to me making eggnogs with it. So
Speaker 4: and the shell is so.
Speaker 3: Beautiful, so I know it's like a dragon egg.
Speaker 2: And so you know, you mentioned that you don't drink,
Speaker 2: and I know that about you, but that always kind
Speaker 2: of surprised and honestly kind of impressed me because I
Speaker 2: know that there are a lot of people who are
Speaker 2: cocktail chefs who are maybe in it because of a
Speaker 2: certain lifestyle, but that never seemed to be.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 4: You know, what it is is my mom. And she
Speaker 4: hates I keeps saying that, how many times are you
Speaker 4: gonna keep talking about your mom? But I say it
Speaker 4: because it was a very profound thing, you know. So
Speaker 4: my mom was such a hardcore alcoholic that it really
Speaker 4: just turned me off. I remember even this, going on
Speaker 4: a date with a woman. If I smelled alcohol and
Speaker 4: her breath, it was like a turnoff, you know. And
Speaker 4: I think that that was the beginning of that. And
Speaker 4: I just I don't know, I just never felt great
Speaker 4: on it. But I do enjoy it, you know. I
Speaker 4: do enjoy shorting things, probably whine a little bit more,
Speaker 4: but I love the creation of it. And I think
Speaker 4: what happened was too is a year and a half
Speaker 4: into doing what I was doing, and I still remember
Speaker 4: this woman because I see her on Facebook. It was like,
Speaker 4: you know, she was taking pictures of my drinks and
Speaker 4: she was like savoring and she was going crazy. It
Speaker 4: was like a year and a half into it, and I
Speaker 4: looked up and a huge light bulb went off inside
Speaker 4: of me where I was like, oh my God, you
Speaker 4: are unconsciously rescripting your relationship to alcohol. You're making it beautiful,
Speaker 4: You're making it something that you savored. So all of
Speaker 4: those memories of alcoholism and what I thought alcohol represent
Speaker 4: was gone forever.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 4: So I never looked at alcoholic things like I didn't
Speaker 4: care if I had it or not. That's the thing.
Speaker 4: That's what's great about alcohol is I can be one
Speaker 4: of those guys. I can have a drink and then
Speaker 4: not worry about But see, I was always that way.
Speaker 4: I'm going to tell you a crazy story. I didn't
Speaker 4: try drugs until I was twenty three years old, and
Speaker 4: the first drug I did was heroin in New York.
Speaker 2: I know.
Speaker 4: That's what everyone's like, what the fuck are you talking about?
Speaker 4: I said, no, you don't understand. I tried heroin. I
Speaker 4: loved it. I did it for six weeks straight. Everyone
Speaker 4: I did it with went down the toilet and then
Speaker 4: I got out of it, and like, what are you
Speaker 4: talking about? I said, I just walked away one day
Speaker 4: and I was fine. I used to run on it
Speaker 4: like crazy, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: I was.
Speaker 4: I was in New York. You know, It's like when
Speaker 4: you could buy it for five dollars in alphabet city.
Speaker 4: So it was one of those things where it's like
Speaker 4: I had that kind of personality where like I love
Speaker 4: to dive into something, but I could dive out.
Speaker 3: Oh my god.
Speaker 4: I was lucky, so lucky, very lucky. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Also zero to sixty.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well that's what. Yeah. Yeah, And I think I
Speaker 4: had pot a few times like this, this is stupid.
Speaker 4: And then I don't care about drugs.
Speaker 3: You know, Oh my.
Speaker 2: God, and you and you know, because you've definitely had
Speaker 2: some ups and downs in your life that are like, oh,
Speaker 2: you're such a survival story.
Speaker 4: Yeah, big where lots of things.
Speaker 2: So Matthew went from swallowing leeches and even living in
Speaker 2: his car for a quick spell to becoming the most
Speaker 2: respected cocktail maker in the city and an author and
Speaker 2: a TV host and then in command of his own
Speaker 2: Tony Malibu spot, all just by finding something that he
Speaker 2: was curious and really passionate about and then pouring himself
Speaker 2: into it. And I swear that was not an intentional pun. Okay,
Speaker 2: now listen up, because this may be the most useful
Speaker 2: mixology lesson you can ever learn. You can never make
Speaker 2: a bland or syrapy gross drink again, if you know this,
Speaker 2: how did you dive in to try to understand the
Speaker 2: craft of cocktails? I mean it sounds like you started
Speaker 2: looking into decories and realizing, okay, there's a formula. There's
Speaker 2: like math here exactly, and it's plug and play, right, yeap,
Speaker 2: What are the basic ratios of that? Because I know
Speaker 2: that you don't really Yes, A very.
Speaker 4: Simple so it was always two ounces of spirit and
Speaker 4: then three quarter lime three quarter gavi. If you were
Speaker 4: just doing it on its own, you would up the
Speaker 4: lime to one.
Speaker 2: So an easy way to remember this is the golden
Speaker 2: ratio roughly two to one to one, two part spirit,
Speaker 2: one part sweet like a liqueur or some kind of
Speaker 2: simple syrup, and one part tart like lemon, lime or grapefruit.
Speaker 3: Two to one to one.
Speaker 2: You can make almost any cocktail a good one at
Speaker 2: home for almost three and then when you go to
Speaker 2: fancy speakeasies like LA's Varnish or New York's Death and Company,
Speaker 2: you'll be able to nod at a mixologist in a
Speaker 2: way that says, I know your tricks.
Speaker 3: You're a math nerd.
Speaker 4: Remember one time this guy got me like the specs
Speaker 4: for the varnish? You know, what I mean, like all
Speaker 4: of their classes. And I looked at it and I
Speaker 4: was like, Okay, I can see what they're doing. I
Speaker 4: can see some patterns or I can see what they
Speaker 4: do when they do a straight thing. So it's like
Speaker 4: that just kind of strengthened it. In terms of technique.
Speaker 4: I still feel like I don't really have technique. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: I still think I lack that, if I'm being honest,
Speaker 4: And I think, like like I said, I think, my
Speaker 4: it's not that I don't have some technique, but I
Speaker 4: think what's interesting about where I'm at right now is
Speaker 4: there's still so much to learn. And I remember just
Speaker 4: like you would just and I think it was also
Speaker 4: Dale de Groff's book. I think it's called The Essential Cocktail.
Speaker 4: So I ended up getting that book and I got
Speaker 4: to read why he did certain things and the stirring
Speaker 4: and the shaking and all that. So I adapted that stuff.
Speaker 4: But I remember like no one taught me. So there
Speaker 4: I am like strying to stir and I couldn't do
Speaker 4: it with the spoon, so I had to bend it
Speaker 4: into a C shape. I took the spoon, the metal spoon,
Speaker 4: and bent it so much that it was easy for
Speaker 4: me to stir so. And it also got to the
Speaker 4: point when I started doing some consulting and I tell
Speaker 4: people like, you know what, you don't need to worry
Speaker 4: about that right now, let's just get a metal chopstick
Speaker 4: and it's the same thing. Just do that. Just get
Speaker 4: used to stirring it. So I got into I got
Speaker 4: sympathetic and interested in teaching people that knew nothing. It
Speaker 4: was more more interesting to me than someone who had
Speaker 4: technique already. But I still feel like I don't really
Speaker 4: have a strong technique.
Speaker 2: That's funny that you say that, because I think you're
Speaker 2: you're widely regarded as probably one of the best cocktail
Speaker 2: chefs in the country.
Speaker 3: Easy, hands down.
Speaker 4: Yes, it is funny.
Speaker 2: Your name is just like you're just at the top
Speaker 2: of the of the pyramid for sure. How do you
Speaker 2: feel about cocktail culture and the buttoned vest, sneery faced
Speaker 2: suspender class.
Speaker 4: Well, I personally feel Listen, I think I understood where
Speaker 4: it started from and all that, and I just I
Speaker 4: don't know, I just I think what I'm not even
Speaker 4: referring to the vest because I think it's nice that,
Speaker 4: you know, people will look nice. I understand all that
Speaker 4: but I really do think that as time went by,
Speaker 4: I think a lot of the attitudes that people had
Speaker 4: and the kind of feeling what's the superior, Yeah, it
Speaker 4: kind of killed the culture a lot. And I really
Speaker 4: feel like, you know, when drinks started escalating and people like, oh,
Speaker 4: you know, they're more like that about it, you know
Speaker 4: what I mean? And I feel like some of that
Speaker 4: really kind of destroyed some of the culture of cocktails
Speaker 4: and how they should be regarded. I guess, you know,
Speaker 4: people would tell me stories like they're going to a
Speaker 4: bar and they'd ask for this drink and you know,
Speaker 4: they'd make the drink and they didn't really like it,
Speaker 4: and that bartender were like, that drink is perfect, you know.
Speaker 4: And the thing is is how that's the opposite of
Speaker 4: how I operate, because I operate all I am going
Speaker 4: to make this drink for you until you tell me
Speaker 4: it's great if you don't like it. I would horrify
Speaker 4: people where I'd make a drink and I'd be like
Speaker 4: I could see it in their face. I would grab
Speaker 4: out of their hand and dump it. They didn't understand that.
Speaker 4: They didn't understand how I would take a drink like
Speaker 4: that's booze. I'm like, I don't think of it. That's
Speaker 4: booze and I would dump it. So yeah, it's you know,
Speaker 4: there's a lot of layers in that, and for me,
Speaker 4: the biggest challenge for me was to just stay true
Speaker 4: to who I was, even though some of it, some
Speaker 4: of the times it was like fuck, you know, difficult,
Speaker 4: you know, And I never wavered from what I did.
Speaker 4: That that was always important to me, is I never
Speaker 4: wavered from what I was doing, because I still don't.
Speaker 4: I still never have been in a bar, and you
Speaker 4: think about this bar, it's really only truly the second
Speaker 4: bar I've ever worked in, if you really think in
Speaker 4: ten years. I worked at the Library bar for four
Speaker 4: and a half years and I worked here in service
Speaker 4: for four weeks.
Speaker 2: So Matthew clearly took his own path to get good
Speaker 2: at what he does, and also just because this is
Speaker 2: a fun place to do it. Here's a quick whiskey
Speaker 2: breakdown for anyone who gets confused but doesn't want to
Speaker 2: admit it, which was me for a long time. So
Speaker 2: a whiskey is distilled from grain, it's aged in barrels.
Speaker 2: Although corn whiskey aka moonshine does not have to be
Speaker 2: aged Scotch whiskey made in Scotland. Bourbon is a type
Speaker 2: of predominantly corn whiskey aged in new charred white oak barrels,
Speaker 2: and rye is a type of aged whiskey made with
Speaker 2: predominantly rye grains. So if someone's like, what'll it be,
Speaker 2: and you're like, well, I'm a grown up, so I'd
Speaker 2: like one bourbon scotch. Just know, bourbon scotch isn't a thing. Also,
Speaker 2: just be yourself or do what you want. We're all
Speaker 2: just doing our best.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: Was there ever a moment where you had to write out, Okay,
Speaker 2: this is a whiskey, this is not a whiskey, this
Speaker 2: is a type of whiskey. Bourbon is a type of whiskey,
Speaker 2: but only in this.
Speaker 4: I had to do that for trainings. Yeah, and I
Speaker 4: had to educate myself on alcohol my palette because most
Speaker 4: of the stuff I tried and be like this is disgusting. Really,
Speaker 4: oh my god, I'd be like, ah, So I got
Speaker 4: to learn to love scotch. I got to learn Mascal.
Speaker 4: All these things that I know people really really love.
Speaker 4: They weren't in my wheelhouse, you know, at all. And
Speaker 4: they weren't things that It's like, alcohol just seemed gross
Speaker 4: to me a lot of times. Really, yeah, a lot
Speaker 4: of palettes, I know for a fact, can be developed
Speaker 4: if I could develop a palette for alcohol. I know
Speaker 4: people can develop pallets for anything. Because that was so
Speaker 4: out of my realm of like something I would enjoy, right, yeah,
Speaker 4: because I remember also like my father had gotten remarried
Speaker 4: and I think I had like nine jack and cokes,
Speaker 4: well you know what I mean, and I was just
Speaker 4: throwing up, Like I mean, I was still I was
Speaker 4: my shit, was I twenty five or something. I wasn't
Speaker 4: that young, but I was like crazy, you know, like
Speaker 4: that's the kind of shit I remember, Like you used
Speaker 4: it just to get drunk, and here I was doing
Speaker 4: something which was more about the experience the palette.
Speaker 2: So Matthew changed his view of alcohol something that just
Speaker 2: gets you sloppy hammered to essentially like a liquid art
Speaker 2: supply that one can drink and eat. He started getting
Speaker 2: more and more into the intersection of food and alcohol,
Speaker 2: doing like alcoholic ice creams and savory cocktails like camomeal
Speaker 2: infused rum with cherry tomatoes and applemint and lemon balm.
Speaker 2: He made an icy cold goat milk and tequila with
Speaker 2: black cardamom. He even made an alcoholic smoked garlic soup.
Speaker 2: So just doing his own thing keeps him excited about
Speaker 2: his work.
Speaker 4: The other thing is not going out and not being
Speaker 4: around that community. It allowed me to keep my passion strong.
Speaker 4: I didn't want my passion to dissipate. And I isolated
Speaker 4: myself because for that reason. And that's the thing is
Speaker 4: I have just as much, if not more than when
Speaker 4: I started. Oh that's good, and that hasn't died, and
Speaker 4: that that is because I preserved it.
Speaker 2: And what would you do if you're at the library
Speaker 2: bar You've got like just a palette of fresh herbs
Speaker 2: and you've got hand picked mushrooms you foraged, and then
Speaker 2: someone comes up and they're like, can I get a
Speaker 2: red ball on vodka?
Speaker 4: In the beginning, it bothered me. Yeah, in the beginning,
Speaker 4: you know what, it really did? You know, it really does.
Speaker 4: And so what I ended up doing was I ended
Speaker 4: up doing a reverse psychologist. The first thing is I
Speaker 4: got rid of red Bull, so they didn't have that option.
Speaker 4: So that's just I don't have it, and it would
Speaker 4: be nice about it. You know what I mean, so
Speaker 4: I was like, I don't have it, Like, what do
Speaker 4: you mean you don't have red Bull?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 4: So they would ask for a Bloody Mary, a dirty
Speaker 4: Martini or a long on iced tea, and I thought, oh,
Speaker 4: I can make my version of that. And because that's
Speaker 4: something they have a point of reference to, if I
Speaker 4: can make my version of that, make it great, they
Speaker 4: will trust me with anything I do. And that's what happened.
Speaker 4: So a kid would come in or whatever be like, yeah,
Speaker 4: can I have a dirty Martin? I'd make my dirty
Speaker 4: Sicilian and they'd be like, what the fuck is this?
Speaker 4: This is amazing?
Speaker 2: Quick question? What's in a dirty Sicilian?
Speaker 1: You ask?
Speaker 2: I had to know. It's Matthew's dirty Martini. It involves garlic,
Speaker 2: fresh olive juice, oregano red pepper flakes, and some fresh
Speaker 2: oregano buds.
Speaker 3: It's like sipping a pizza.
Speaker 4: And now I got them to try anything. They trusted me.
Speaker 2: What about a Long Island? I see that was actually
Speaker 2: literally on my list. Has anyone ever ordered a Long
Speaker 2: Island for?
Speaker 4: No question about it? And that's why I started making
Speaker 4: incredible And I even did it when when I consulted
Speaker 4: for Roy Choi when he opened the line. But what
Speaker 4: I did is I did like organic cashasa aqua vite,
Speaker 4: like mescal, all these things, and I did it with
Speaker 4: fresh blood orange juice instead of coke. Oh my god.
Speaker 4: And people were like, I remember this, this one guy.
Speaker 4: You just reminded me of this. One guy would come
Speaker 4: in just specifically, he goes, do you have that season?
Speaker 4: He would say, do you have that seasonal? I'm like,
Speaker 4: you just made my year calling this a seasonal A
Speaker 4: Long Island, I state, did you.
Speaker 3: Do you think your yoga training helped you be patient
Speaker 3: with patrons?
Speaker 4: No question, no question about it.
Speaker 2: You know what, let's hop in a time machine. Let's
Speaker 2: grab a bag of context about the old history of cocktails.
Speaker 4: So the first cocktail really went way way back, and
Speaker 4: you have to think about it too. Is people don't
Speaker 4: realize this is cocktails is really our true culinary contribution
Speaker 4: to the world. The cocktail was born here, really absolutely,
Speaker 4: and it really came into the eighteen I think it
Speaker 4: was around eighteen six ors so that where it came
Speaker 4: out of New Orleans and the Sazaraq really being one
Speaker 4: of the first cocktails. And really that is what people
Speaker 4: don't realize that. The reason why it's spread is when
Speaker 4: prohibition came and these bartenders couldn't work here, they went
Speaker 4: to Europe and other places and they spread their knowledge,
Speaker 4: and that's how the cocktail started to spread.
Speaker 2: A sasaraq, by the bye is a stirred drink made
Speaker 2: with absinthe, just a little bit a sugar cube, rye
Speaker 2: whiskey or kgnac, and a few dashes of these pink
Speaker 2: anisse floral paste shows bitters, which are local to New Orleans.
Speaker 3: They're so good.
Speaker 2: Whenever I've had a sazarac, I always feel like I
Speaker 2: should just bob my hair and do the Charleston and
Speaker 2: Pine for a lover that went off to war.
Speaker 4: The thing that's significant about the sazaraq, which is really
Speaker 4: what it comes down to, is during that time as well,
Speaker 4: is that was originally made with cognac okay, and I
Speaker 4: think at that time there was a time I can't
Speaker 4: remember the period, but it was either late eighteen hundreds
Speaker 4: or early nine hundreds. There was a major major problem with
Speaker 4: drought in France and all those grapes were lost, so
Speaker 4: they stopped making cognac, and that's why they started to
Speaker 4: have to start making rye and put Rye into the
Speaker 4: Sazaraq And it was during prohibition where they couldn't get
Speaker 4: rye here that they were starting to get Canadian rye whiskey.
Speaker 4: So that's how that's the interesting things of how those
Speaker 4: things came about. Most of these things, just in life,
Speaker 4: come about because of necessity. You lose something, you have
Speaker 4: to replace it, right, And that's what that was. You know,
Speaker 4: I think a lot of people don't realize that there
Speaker 4: was a huge rum coming out of New England. People
Speaker 4: don't realize that, you know, am was coming out of
Speaker 4: New England. Yes, we had rum runner boats.
Speaker 2: Matthew got a firsthand look at some of this New
Speaker 2: England rum in a very weird place.
Speaker 4: Because I remember a random thing too is when I
Speaker 4: had been scuba diving for years but I had to
Speaker 4: go get my license and now they required that one
Speaker 4: and my girlfriend at the time there we ended up
Speaker 4: getting certified. Like out at JFK, like in the day
Speaker 4: you could go down the car was within no visibility.
Speaker 4: There was this case he's sitting at he's doing your
Speaker 4: signals and you have to do it. But then we
Speaker 4: went on a night dive in Coney Island, at night,
Speaker 4: and there were all these rum runner boats and you
Speaker 4: could still find in the wreck bottles of rum that
Speaker 4: had been there in the thirties. Yeah, the people were
Speaker 4: smiling because so it's little things like that that I
Speaker 4: held on to that I loved, you know, that was
Speaker 4: interesting to me.
Speaker 2: Matthew's general vibe, of course, involves fresh ingredients, and he
Speaker 2: does a lot of foraging for mushrooms and green walnut,
Speaker 2: purple sage and edible flowers, thistles even, And I just
Speaker 2: imagine he must check out during misty mornings with like
Speaker 2: a satchel gathering herbs for tinctures, and man, I'm like, whow,
Speaker 2: this dude's live in the life. But also, before you
Speaker 2: grow a beard and start digging up roots, make sure
Speaker 2: that you have permission, because some foraging is technically illegal,
Speaker 2: and this whole fantasy would be a real buzzkill if
Speaker 2: you got arrested. So if you're looking for locally grown fruit,
Speaker 2: say from stranger's yards, you can check out fallingfruit dot org,
Speaker 2: which maps over laden shrubs and trees all over the world.
Speaker 2: Usually if it hangs over a fence, it's fair game.
Speaker 2: I just zoomed in on my neighborhood and I found
Speaker 2: some bitter citrus. And then I was surprised to see
Speaker 2: one tree in a parking lot and I was like, huh.
Speaker 2: I zoomed in and read that it was just the
Speaker 2: dumpster behind Trader Jos and there was a warning that
Speaker 2: there was razor wire surrounding it. So some people who
Speaker 2: map fallingfruit dot org have very liberal definitions of foraging,
Speaker 2: but that's obviously not the kind of foraging Matthew was doing.
Speaker 2: He's got all kinds of cactus, fruit and bay leaf
Speaker 2: and more growing wild nearby and honest property, plus what
Speaker 2: he's got in his restaurant gardens.
Speaker 4: It's a huge part of what I do, no question
Speaker 4: about it. It's always I could tell people I grow things,
Speaker 4: I go to the farmer's market and I forg those.
Speaker 4: That makes up the elements of what I do.
Speaker 2: And you do a lot of infusions too. That's entirely
Speaker 2: like Yah.
Speaker 3: When I first had your cocktails, I was like, it's.
Speaker 4: Still that way. I mean, if you look at the bar,
Speaker 4: I mean, it's just it's escalated into you know, other
Speaker 4: things and doing a parmesan removeth I was working on
Speaker 4: this liquid cheese board.
Speaker 2: I read about this, Yeah, where you baked your own bread,
Speaker 2: made it into croutons, and then soaked it in an alcohol.
Speaker 3: You're Willy Wonka. Wow, you're the Willy Wonka of alcohol.
Speaker 4: It's just how my mind thinks. Yeah, you know so, Yeah,
Speaker 4: it's just how my mind thinks.
Speaker 2: What kind of tips would you give to someone who
Speaker 2: wants to start infusing at home?
Speaker 4: I think the tip that I always give somebody, whether
Speaker 4: it's infusing whatever is you know, take one ingredient that
Speaker 4: you love, okay, and do five or six different things
Speaker 4: with it. So let's just say you grab basil, right, make,
Speaker 4: you know, do an infusion with it, make an oil
Speaker 4: out of it, muddle it, make a beer with it.
Speaker 4: Whatever that is. You'll just take that and see see
Speaker 4: how how many things you can do with that one flavor.
Speaker 4: And that opens up your mind to everything. So infusing
Speaker 4: is very simple. By the way. You never have to
Speaker 4: worry about measurements. You take whatever empty glass you have
Speaker 4: jar and I always fill it three coreds away with
Speaker 4: ingredients and then I cover it with alcohol, so you
Speaker 4: never have to worry about proportion. And the basic rule
Speaker 4: is most of that stuff will never over infuse. Although
Speaker 4: two weeks is perfect, but when you deal with tea
Speaker 4: or spice, that's literally two hours. You don't ever want
Speaker 4: to go over that. Okay, those are kind of the
Speaker 4: general rules. It's being general, but it works for people.
Speaker 3: What's been your favorite infusion you've ever done? Infusion or
Speaker 3: surprising like oh hot, damn network.
Speaker 4: I would say, no question about the sea moss from
Speaker 4: Saint Lucia.
Speaker 2: The sea moss.
Speaker 4: It's not here right now, but I have sea moss.
Speaker 4: It was actually my favorite drink of the menu as
Speaker 4: well here. It's so when I went to Saint Lucia
Speaker 4: about three years ago, and this sea moss is magical
Speaker 4: and it's just this briny, salty oceany thing. And I
Speaker 4: mixed it with mescal oh with white balsamic vinegar and wakatai,
Speaker 4: which is a black Peruvian mint, and I garnished it
Speaker 4: with peacock feathers. It was one of them. It's my favorite,
Speaker 4: one of my favorite things. But that infusion is just
Speaker 4: golden and you and I also love infusions where you're like,
Speaker 4: what the hell is that? That's disgusting, but then when
Speaker 4: you mix it it's great. Because my favorite infusion to
Speaker 4: drink on its own is the white guava. It's like gold,
Speaker 4: what is it? How do you do that? That's just
Speaker 4: taking now white wuava. So it's not the pink. The
Speaker 4: pink people think, oh, that's going to be more flavorable.
Speaker 4: There's so much flavor coming off of the skin and
Speaker 4: so much I just put them whole. You don't have
Speaker 4: to cut them up again. Take a jar, fill them
Speaker 4: out three chords away, and then I fill it with tequila.
Speaker 4: Oh dang, one of my favorite things.
Speaker 3: A couple of weeks, a couple of weeks, give it
Speaker 3: a couple of weeks.
Speaker 4: And then strain it out. It's this beautiful yellow and
Speaker 4: the smell and taste. That's how I booked a twelve
Speaker 4: million dollar wedding. Oh my god. Someone hired me just
Speaker 4: because they heard about me, right, And I went and
Speaker 4: did her like bridle shower, soho house and she was
Speaker 4: like this all night with my drinks. I'm like okay,
Speaker 4: and she tried that she was she's doing my wedding.
Speaker 4: Oh my god, I didn't realize it was twelve It
Speaker 4: was crazy. Yeah. It was like they had John Legend
Speaker 4: there and John Mayor. It was just like they hired
Speaker 4: and fired me. Twice and all that this.
Speaker 2: And so when you're making a cocktail or when you're
Speaker 2: thinking about the perfect cocktail, what kind of balance between
Speaker 2: sweet and bitter and sour are do you think makes
Speaker 2: a good cocktail.
Speaker 4: It's not about bitter sweeter, and it's all about balance.
Speaker 4: You can make anything great if you balance it. So
Speaker 4: I like when what I used to tell people is
Speaker 4: I truly believe that everything goes with everything. Okay, it's
Speaker 4: just about balance, you know, you you you know. Later
Speaker 4: on in life, I look at this book called the
Speaker 4: Flavor Bible. We ever heard of that? So it's like
Speaker 4: they write all these things about things that go well together, right,
Speaker 4: and it was interesting, and then they would be like
Speaker 4: the things that don't go well together? And of course
Speaker 4: what I would do is I would take those ye like,
Speaker 4: I'm going to show you how lavender and coffee can
Speaker 4: go together, you know what I mean? So it's yeah,
Speaker 4: why not? But it's all about balance. So that's what
Speaker 4: it is so for me. And also if you're just
Speaker 4: starting off with the simple formula that I told you about,
Speaker 4: that's where you would start, okay.
Speaker 2: So remember it's just math, essentially two to one to one,
Speaker 2: two parts liquor, one part sweet, one part tart citrus,
Speaker 2: and you can tweak it a little if it needs it.
Speaker 4: That's where you start with everything. So if it's bitter sweet, whatever,
Speaker 4: start with that formula and then adjust from there if
Speaker 4: you need to go less sweet. But that formula will
Speaker 4: never that dacre formula is never going to let you down,
Speaker 4: just in the very simple terms. You know, I think
Speaker 4: you know where I broke the rule is when I
Speaker 4: did the Last Tang with Modana, which is why that
Speaker 4: was such an iconic drink for me. For a lot
Speaker 4: of different reasons. It had balsamic, vinegar strawberry, but that
Speaker 4: drink represented so much for me because it was the
Speaker 4: first time I broke the rules of not doing a
Speaker 4: three quarter three quarter and not using lime, juice or sweetener.
Speaker 4: I use just that balsomaic and I used an ounce
Speaker 4: of it. But that is the drink that made me
Speaker 4: also get rid of a menu for the rest of
Speaker 4: my life, which is because a woman came in and
Speaker 4: she said, could you make me something sweet but not
Speaker 4: too sweet? So I made her that. She goes, oh
Speaker 4: my god, this is the best drink of her. She goes,
Speaker 4: what's in it? I go, well, it's got strawberries and
Speaker 4: gin and balsamic vinage. She goes, balsamic vinegar. Hate vinegar?
Speaker 4: Can you make me something else? I said, you just
Speaker 4: told me it was the best drinker I know, but
Speaker 4: I hate balsamic vinegar.
Speaker 3: Oh my god.
Speaker 4: So what I realized is how much people taste in
Speaker 4: their head, but also how much they associate the things
Speaker 4: they don't like with food. And it's very different in
Speaker 4: the liquid form. So I got people who didn't like
Speaker 4: certain things, and it's happened even during the last four
Speaker 4: weeks of service here at Moley. People like, Okay, I
Speaker 4: don't like that. I'm like, can you just try it
Speaker 4: in this form, and like, oh my god, that's great,
Speaker 4: you know. And it's because the texture is taken out
Speaker 4: of it, things are taken out of it that's not
Speaker 4: associated with the food elements, so they can actually love
Speaker 4: it in the liquid form, which is what I love,
Speaker 4: because I do believe that the liquid form is the
Speaker 4: most powerful form. You know, when I was doing a
Speaker 4: lot of dinners with Roberto Cortez, this amazing chef, and
Speaker 4: he would say, you know, the juice of a steak
Speaker 4: is so much more powerful than the actual steak. Oh,
Speaker 4: and he's right, you know, like the flavor that gets
Speaker 4: trapped in there is incredible. And I realized that's what
Speaker 4: was happening when you have alcohols. The reason why the
Speaker 4: infusions are so great. It's adding a layer that you
Speaker 4: just can't do in food, really to that extent where
Speaker 4: you can have something layered in there, but then add
Speaker 4: all these other things. It's difficult.
Speaker 2: So at one point Matthew made a bloody mary with
Speaker 2: beat horse radish and then started using that in other
Speaker 2: drinks like his borridge flower topped gin and cucumber drink
Speaker 2: called the Breeder's Cup.
Speaker 4: And I made that drink. And here's the thing that's funny.
Speaker 4: I didn't try that drink for a month and a half.
Speaker 4: Why not because I knew it was great and I
Speaker 4: was like, I don't like horse radish. That's the other
Speaker 4: thing I tried to tell people is I actually can
Speaker 4: make drinks for people that I would never drink flavor wise.
Speaker 4: And I don't know where that came from. I don't
Speaker 4: know where all this came from. This how I think
Speaker 4: in the colony aspect, because I got to the point
Speaker 4: I was tasting so much in my head I didn't
Speaker 4: even need to try it. You can just figure out.
Speaker 4: One of my famous bites here was a sea arch
Speaker 4: in bite that I did with a vanilla infused aquavite
Speaker 4: smoke soy sauce, and then I juiced the cactus fruit
Speaker 4: and made grenita out of it on top, so it's
Speaker 4: like a Uni snowcoll I didn't try that for the
Speaker 4: first month, and people I don't understand. I know it's good.
Speaker 2: You know, his bar still has this array of jars
Speaker 2: filled with booze and fruit, kind of like a very
Speaker 2: stylish museum of natural history. But the specimen jars are
Speaker 2: vastly more edible than like rubbery sharks informaldehyde. And I
Speaker 2: can see why he just comes here to tinker, even
Speaker 2: when the place is temporarily shuttered.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I turned fifty this year, and on my fiftieth birthday,
Speaker 4: nobody knew I was here the whole day by myself.
Speaker 4: I didn't tell anybody. I cooked for myself. I did.
Speaker 4: I just and it was like the greatest day of
Speaker 4: my life. Oh, that's really right.
Speaker 2: And I noticed, like you look at your bar, and
Speaker 2: your bar does not have shelves of alcohol.
Speaker 3: It has jars.
Speaker 4: I'm a distributor's nightmare. Yeah, because you don't mean where's
Speaker 4: my grade goes? Where is this?
Speaker 3: Yeah, you don't see any bottles of alcohol?
Speaker 4: What I was trying to What I was trying to
Speaker 4: achieve that I always wanted when someone asked me, oh,
Speaker 4: what would be your idea by well, I said, what
Speaker 4: would be Italian farm, kitchen meats, Japanese sushi bar.
Speaker 2: So, if you want to entertain folks but you don't
Speaker 2: happen to own a bar, what do you do?
Speaker 3: You do?
Speaker 2: Math? And then what do you tell people who, let's
Speaker 2: say holidays, they're having parties, how do they stock for
Speaker 2: a party?
Speaker 4: How stock for a.
Speaker 2: Part How much booze do you get if you're throwing
Speaker 2: a dinner party?
Speaker 4: How much? Well, it depends on the people. Wh When
Speaker 4: I do events, you have to remember each bottle is
Speaker 4: about twelve cocktails, Okay, you know, because it's two ounces, right, So,
Speaker 4: and then I always figured they's going to be two
Speaker 4: or three drinks per person at least, you know, So
Speaker 4: if you have fifty people, then I know I have
Speaker 4: to have about one hundred and fifty cocktails to be safe.
Speaker 4: One hundred and fifty in to twelve is approximately twelve
Speaker 4: bottles out there, and then you could do different things.
Speaker 4: Twelve times twelve is one forty four, so you're very
Speaker 4: close to that.
Speaker 2: Of course, adjustice down for smaller parties. I do not
Speaker 2: have fifty friends, and if you don't want to be
Speaker 2: shaking drinks in the kitchen all night.
Speaker 4: The other thing is you could make a killer punch,
Speaker 4: which is a very simple recipe and I learned this
Speaker 4: a long time ago. And the rhyme is four strong,
Speaker 4: four week, one sour, and one sweet, so four strow
Speaker 4: would be the alcohol before we could be some kind
Speaker 4: of juice like pomegranate or blood orange. Then you do
Speaker 4: one sweet so one cup, you know, one cup of
Speaker 4: a gabi stair for sugar there, and then one cup
Speaker 4: of citrus.
Speaker 2: Tart citrus like lemon or lime juice, not just like
Speaker 2: a glug of sunny delight.
Speaker 4: If you follow that, you're always going to go right.
Speaker 4: So I'll make a big punch with that, put a
Speaker 4: big block in there, and that that's really great to
Speaker 4: do an easy and if you're doing infusions, it's a
Speaker 4: great way to add flavor into that without really like
Speaker 4: you didn't mix that and all of a sudden you
Speaker 4: have all this flavor because you infused it. Ah, that's
Speaker 4: what I love about infusions. You add one more layer
Speaker 4: without doing any work. The work is all done before him.
Speaker 3: Really, it's done in a jar while you're sleeping.
Speaker 4: How much of what I did was so labor intensive
Speaker 4: that you know? You love it when you find a
Speaker 4: new infusion that's like dynamite because it's like, oh, you
Speaker 4: just saved me a step. Thank you.
Speaker 2: So cram some peaches in a jar, fill it with bourbon,
Speaker 2: or make some basil gin or cherry mescal. Maybe cram
Speaker 2: some pineapple and rum and a jar rosemary whiskey.
Speaker 3: What have you. It's not in my business. You do
Speaker 3: what you want. You really can't do it wrong. But
Speaker 3: what would Matthew like to correct?
Speaker 2: What flim flam would you like to debunk? Or what
Speaker 2: myth about cocktails?
Speaker 4: Are you over myth? That's a good question. God, I
Speaker 4: haven't even thought about that. I don't even know. Throw
Speaker 4: some myths on, man, I don't even know some myths
Speaker 4: right now. Oh you know what I always tell people?
Speaker 4: So a big thing that people always say to me, like,
Speaker 4: oh my god, can I mix these alcohols? And like
Speaker 4: it has nothing to do with the alcohol. It has
Speaker 4: to do with all the crap that goes in there.
Speaker 4: So what you don't want to mix is the sugar,
Speaker 4: is the artificial coloring. All that's the stuff that's going
Speaker 4: to give you a hangover the next day, not because
Speaker 4: you had Scotch then you went to misscal and then
Speaker 4: you went to gin.
Speaker 2: So side note, I look this up and it is
Speaker 2: indeed a myth. And if you're used to the beer
Speaker 2: before liquor, never been sicker liquor before beer in the
Speaker 2: clear as an incannotation against evil. Well that's mostly because
Speaker 2: if you start drinking higher alcohol by volume drinks at
Speaker 2: the end of the night, you're likely to get more
Speaker 2: drunk than intended. Because your judgment is already whack, you're
Speaker 2: probably going to drink too much. So what contributes to
Speaker 2: hangovers is the total amount of ethanol or alcohol that
Speaker 2: you consume. Also, some studies show that certain alcohols have
Speaker 2: more toxic hangovery compounds called congeners, and darker spirits like
Speaker 2: whiskey and cognac and tequila and especially bourbon have high
Speaker 2: congener content, while vodka and jin and lightram have lower
Speaker 2: levels of them. So pace yourself, drink a lot of
Speaker 2: water and don't drive killing people. Not cute, very serious, Okay,
Speaker 2: So let's have some Patreon questions. But before we take
Speaker 2: questions from you, our beloved listeners, we're going to take
Speaker 2: a quick break for sponsors of the show. Sponsors. Why sponsors?
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Speaker 1: Bean lantalmagt Boga Olu, The Half the Year, the Hola,
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Speaker 3: Okay, your questions, I have questions from listeners.
Speaker 4: Okay, are you ready?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm just gonna fire them off at you.
Speaker 2: A few people, Liza Elizabeth, Kayley Moore and Karen Burnham
Speaker 2: all wanted to know what are the best mocktails for
Speaker 2: non drinkers.
Speaker 4: Well, I'll tell you what's amazing is there's a new
Speaker 4: non alcoholic distill it called seed lip, and that's out
Speaker 4: of England. And you would think it's like this gimmick, right,
Speaker 4: but I've tasted. It's made from peas and that is unbelievable.
Speaker 4: So you can use that. That's the same formula that
Speaker 4: you do as a dacory. So two ounce of that,
Speaker 4: three quarter of a lime juice or a lemon, and
Speaker 4: then three quarts of some kind of syrup or a
Speaker 4: gave syrup is incredible and then you can put whatever
Speaker 4: you want in there. It is I did my arugula drink.
Speaker 4: I did that as a virgin cocktail. It's unbelievable with that.
Speaker 4: And now I used to always use like instead of
Speaker 4: using two ounces of spared used two ounces of Pellegrino
Speaker 4: or two ounces of whatever it was, but using the
Speaker 4: two ounces of the seed lip really is incredible. So
Speaker 4: you literally can do almost any cocktail and use that insiad.
Speaker 4: And and because it's not alcohol, you can order it
Speaker 4: on Amazon.
Speaker 3: Oh nice, okay.
Speaker 4: Where you wouldn't be able to do that if it
Speaker 4: was alcohol.
Speaker 2: Done. So I look this up and yes, it's called
Speaker 2: seed Lip. It's named after an old basket that was
Speaker 2: used for sewing seeds, and it comes in a few varieties.
Speaker 2: They have an herbal flavor called Garden. They have a
Speaker 2: clovy option called Spice. Some people love that they can
Speaker 2: enjoy zero proof cocktails with it. Others are like, I
Speaker 2: don't know either way. It will not leave you hungover
Speaker 2: or asking your stepdad to post bail. Yeah, e Liza
Speaker 2: Elizabeth wants to note what's your best tossing a patron story?
Speaker 3: Have you read to toss someone?
Speaker 4: Oh? Toss someone? I have some good patron stories. I
Speaker 4: have two really great patient stories. But let's here, I'll
Speaker 4: tell you this patron story. It's not a topic I'm
Speaker 4: going to say because it has to do with a patron.
Speaker 4: So this woman came this is unbelievable sory. This woman
Speaker 4: came in and with her girlfriend. I made her jake.
Speaker 4: She goes, oh my god, this is incredible, right, so whatever,
Speaker 4: So then she's still there and I and then I
Speaker 4: make her other and she's like, eh, she does this
Speaker 4: for the next three drinks. I'm like, fuck, am I pissed.
Speaker 4: I'm like, okay, here's the deal. It's not you, but
Speaker 4: I'm very upset that I can't please you right now.
Speaker 4: So I'm going to go take a walk. And I
Speaker 4: really need to take a walk, so, you know. So
Speaker 4: she's looking at me funny, right, So I go down
Speaker 4: into the freezer, literally the freezer. I was like, what
Speaker 4: the hell was that first cocktail? Blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 4: A huge light bulb went off. I ran upstairs and
Speaker 4: I made her jake. She goes, now, that's a drink.
Speaker 4: If it didn't have ginger in it, she didn't like it.
Speaker 4: And it was that simple, right. So a couple of
Speaker 4: weeks goes by, I get a phone call from her
Speaker 4: because she asked for my car, which I never thought.
Speaker 4: I'm like, this girl doesn't I mean, she's like, oh,
Speaker 4: I want you to do a party for me. I'm like,
Speaker 4: I was in sounds like really, I didn't even know
Speaker 4: you like my stuff. And then she's and I said, well,
Speaker 4: how many people she was listening? I love what you do.
Speaker 4: Just bring a bunch of stuff. And so I show
Speaker 4: up at her house. It was actually here in Malibu,
Speaker 4: and I said, oh, what time is everybody coming? She goes, well,
Speaker 4: it's just me. And the first thing I thought like, Okay,
Speaker 4: someone's playing a joke. I mean this cameras here, they
Speaker 4: want to see what I do. All this stuff, right,
Speaker 4: Scot called. So I really played it cool, but it
Speaker 4: turned out halfway through I knew it wasn't a joke.
Speaker 4: So I made nine drinks for her in eleven hours.
Speaker 4: All she wanted to do was to be taken care of.
Speaker 4: But what it did is every drink I had an
Speaker 4: hour to prepare. So when I did my seventeen step
Speaker 4: buddy Mary, I grilled every vegetable on her grill. Right,
Speaker 4: so she just had an incredible time. Shit, thank you.
Speaker 4: I knew halfway through it wasn't a joke all this stuff.
Speaker 4: So I never heard from her again. And then about
Speaker 4: two years later, I'm in Mawie.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, this gets weird weirder So Matthews in Maui.
Speaker 2: He's working. He has some coconuts and cacao nibs because
Speaker 2: he's Matthew. So he goes to put him in his
Speaker 2: hotel room and realizes he forgot his key, but hotel
Speaker 2: staff unlocks the door for him.
Speaker 4: I see, I'm starting to put the coconut milk away,
Speaker 4: and I see all these sodas. I'm like, that's funny.
Speaker 4: We didn't have these sodas. And I go put something
Speaker 4: else down and I'm like, oh my god, I'm in
Speaker 4: the wrong. Oh my god, I better get out of
Speaker 4: here before I totally freak somebody out. So I realized.
Speaker 4: I ran out of there, and I called the guy.
Speaker 4: I said, actually, I think I'm the next one. I
Speaker 4: realized I was the next one over. I didn't know
Speaker 4: the room number. I just thought by sight, so he
Speaker 4: let me in. I wake up the and so what
Speaker 4: I did is I grabbed everything quickly I ran out.
Speaker 4: When I woke up the next one, I'm like, oh no,
Speaker 4: I forgot those cacao nibs. Oh no, I said, I
Speaker 4: have to go knock on there, you know. So I
Speaker 4: went around, I knocked on the door, and who comes
Speaker 4: up with the woman that did those drinks for know,
Speaker 4: I mean, unbelievable'll get the chills again. And she didn't
Speaker 4: recommend it before it. I told us, Oh my gosh.
Speaker 4: She goes, oh my god, like once I told her
Speaker 4: and she goes, yeah, we were wondering what these Kacunas
Speaker 4: were doing on the on the table here. I'm like,
Speaker 4: I'm so, I told the story. We started laughing and
Speaker 4: that was it. What a story, you know what I mean? Maui, Yeah,
Speaker 4: in Maui. And that was two years after I did
Speaker 4: the two or three years after I did the thing
Speaker 4: for it, I never heard from her. I know, unbelievable.
Speaker 4: That's really unbelievable. Life is a simulation, Okay.
Speaker 2: Christopher Bror and Lili Maso both want to know what's
Speaker 2: the drink that most partenders hate to make when they
Speaker 2: asked for it.
Speaker 4: I don't know about most partenders. I would think that
Speaker 4: the drink that people don't want to make is the
Speaker 4: drink that someone tells them how to make. Okay, do
Speaker 4: you know what I mean? And I'm that obnoxious person too,
Speaker 4: don't get me wrong, but they'd be like, yeah, but
Speaker 4: can you do it like this? Can you make sure
Speaker 4: it has. That's probably more about that. I don't know
Speaker 4: if there's a specific drink that's some I know. I
Speaker 4: remember when I was working at the library bar and
Speaker 4: I had this guy working with me. I realized how
Speaker 4: much he hated muddling, and everything I do was mostly muddling,
Speaker 4: and I remember he would like try to get people.
Speaker 4: He's like, I hate when people ask me to make mohitos.
Speaker 4: So I realized that this must be a bartending thing,
Speaker 4: like they just don't want to muddle. Probably it takes
Speaker 4: too long, the pain in the app So I thought
Speaker 4: about that, but it was I think it's more about
Speaker 4: someone telling you how they want you to make the drink.
Speaker 3: Just super rising on the should get out of here.
Speaker 2: Ashley Burgamy and Caitlin Casper both want to know is
Speaker 2: it true that drinking different liquors can change your behavior?
Speaker 2: Like why does tequila make some people's clothes fall off?
Speaker 4: You know it is. I'm going to speak from personal
Speaker 4: experience that I do have different feelings and I drink
Speaker 4: tequila because of that reason. It just makes me feel
Speaker 4: cleaner and better for somebody. I don't know what. I
Speaker 4: don't know why that is, though, I don't know what
Speaker 4: that's about. It. Yeah, it's a great, great point because
Speaker 4: I don't know how much of the science is behind that,
Speaker 4: but I do know that people have those reactions to
Speaker 4: gin or different things like that, where tequila people don't
Speaker 4: seem as cuckoo.
Speaker 2: Okay, so all Ward investigated this a little for you,
Speaker 2: and there may be some chemistry behind this. Like, Okay,
Speaker 2: people who sip red wine usually not out to rage
Speaker 2: and dance on tabletops, but red wine actually contains high
Speaker 2: levels of melatonin, which is also known scientifically as sleepy
Speaker 2: time brain juice. Now, beer may also be relaxing because
Speaker 2: of the high carb loade, kind of like doing body
Speaker 2: shots of mashed potatoes. And remember those congeners that affect hangovers.
Speaker 3: Okay, well they.
Speaker 2: May well tweak your behavior a little, depending on the
Speaker 2: individual and what you're sensitive to. But I found one
Speaker 2: very nerdy study called quote differential alcohol expectancies based on
Speaker 2: type of alcoholic beverage consumed, which basically said, whatever you
Speaker 2: think an alcohol will do to you, it will do
Speaker 2: to you. So if you think tequila is rocket fuel
Speaker 2: for rebounds and then you drink it, chances are you're
Speaker 2: going to get your group back because you're looking for
Speaker 2: that kind of experience anyway, So you could drink like
Speaker 2: a diet sprite and be like this shit makes me crazy,
Speaker 2: and then you'd probably act a little bananas.
Speaker 3: So just you know, just act bananas when you need
Speaker 3: to just cut banks, text your crush. We're all gonna die.
Speaker 3: Just make sure nobody gets hurt.
Speaker 2: I thought this is a great question one Pedro Martinez,
Speaker 2: Fredick Roy and Mike Monakowski. I want to know what
Speaker 2: are the essentials for a home bar. What kind of
Speaker 2: things should you have at home?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think what's important is if I think having
Speaker 4: a gin, a tequila, a mescale like a Scotch are
Speaker 4: definitely a bourbon, but have something that's good for just sipping.
Speaker 4: So maybe like the Scotch, is something that's a little
Speaker 4: bit nice that you just sip on, and then you
Speaker 4: have things to mix with. So have a couple of
Speaker 4: things that might be great to sip on, and then
Speaker 4: things that are great to just mix with. Correct obviously
Speaker 4: having a remouth, but just remember remouth, if you open
Speaker 4: it has to be refrigerated because they have to treat
Speaker 4: it like a wine. I love Dolan Bloc for moth
Speaker 4: it's a cross between a sweet and a dry. So
Speaker 4: I feel like if you had that, if you had
Speaker 4: a nice tomorrow like Channar.
Speaker 2: Tomorrow by the bye is like a sweet herbal Italian liqueur,
Speaker 2: and it's great for post dinner sipping. It tastes like
Speaker 2: if port Wine and Cough Medicine made a mixtape. But
Speaker 2: it's really good.
Speaker 4: And then also you probably would want some bitters so
Speaker 4: that you could do an old fashion with that.
Speaker 2: Cool.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that's pretty essential. It's a good round upeah. Yeah,
Speaker 4: it's pretty simple and not that expensive.
Speaker 2: Dave Miller Lily Massa both want to know. Is there
Speaker 2: a difference between shaken and stirred?
Speaker 3: Which is better?
Speaker 4: It's not which is better, it's what happens, the chemistry
Speaker 4: that happened. So typically the rule is anything that has citrus,
Speaker 4: you shake, and anything that is just spiritu even you stir.
Speaker 4: And as for that simple, I mean, James Bond really
Speaker 4: was the one who ruined this. Can I do something
Speaker 4: for you, mister Vonde, just to drink a martini shaken
Speaker 4: nutstuds and he took the martini, he switched it from
Speaker 4: gin to vodka and then he said shake in a nutstir.
Speaker 4: So if you take a martini which doesn't have any
Speaker 4: citrus and you shake it, now it's cloudy, it's watery.
Speaker 4: If you're someone who wants pure alcohol or that straight smoothness,
Speaker 4: you want that fullness in it, and when you shake it,
Speaker 4: you kind of kill that. So I think that's people
Speaker 4: did that because they wanted to loosen it up. They
Speaker 4: wanted the ice chips and all those things. But it's
Speaker 4: not really the classic way of enjoying that, Whereas citrus
Speaker 4: you really do need to shake. Whereas the only difference
Speaker 4: is a bloody mary is a drink that you roll
Speaker 4: where you take it in one tin and you roll
Speaker 4: it back and forth, and you don't shake a bloody
Speaker 4: Marry even though it has a citrus. That's a golden
Speaker 4: rule too, it you roll it back and forth.
Speaker 3: Oh why is that?
Speaker 4: Yeah, because that can get very frothy and kind of gross.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess, frothy tomato, know what we're looking for.
Speaker 4: You don't want that.
Speaker 2: So if it has to trus, shake it up, unless
Speaker 2: it's carbonated or a bloody mary. Now, if all the
Speaker 2: components are alcohol, like a Manhattan or an old Fashion
Speaker 2: or a martini or sasaraq, it just gets stirred. Now,
Speaker 2: in the case of a gin martini, if you shake it,
Speaker 2: you can errate and dissipate the juniper and coriander notes,
Speaker 2: and then it leaves the drink tasting really dull. And
Speaker 2: that's called bruising. And I looked up bruising and alcohol
Speaker 2: to like get my brain around this. I found a
Speaker 2: lot of search returns of people asking why after a
Speaker 2: night out they wake up with bruises, and it turns
Speaker 2: out it could just be clumsiness or a liver damage issue.
Speaker 2: So go easy on your gin and your internal organs.
Speaker 2: Anna Thompson wants to know, is there an Instagram drink
Speaker 2: trend that you hate.
Speaker 4: That I hate? Yeah, the only trends I don't like
Speaker 4: is when The only thing I don't really like is
Speaker 4: that there's things that tend to look kind of pinteresque.
Speaker 4: Does that make any sense? Where it's almost like this
Speaker 4: kind of stage thing it doesn't really seem to go
Speaker 4: together with what is being made, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: It's more like this thing's laid out to look nice.
Speaker 2: Like there's a cocktail and a cutting board in a
Speaker 2: nice Yeah, nothing is cutting one are these props.
Speaker 4: That's that's what it is. Okay, it's things that are used.
Speaker 4: That stuff don't make it any sense, Like it's almost
Speaker 4: like filling in something that does that's not really there,
Speaker 4: so you're filling it in.
Speaker 3: Okay, Yeah that makes sense.
Speaker 2: Bree Bridger wants to know why don't I always forget
Speaker 2: every drink I've ever had and enjoyed before.
Speaker 3: When I go up to a bar and someone asked
Speaker 3: me what I would like.
Speaker 4: I think you're you're you're getting to a point where
Speaker 4: there's so many better drinks being made today, with so
Speaker 4: many different ingredients. There's no way you're going to remember them.
Speaker 4: This is impossible. And I think there's just so many
Speaker 4: more ingredients being used, so many more different types of
Speaker 4: things and names. It's impossible if you're not doing it
Speaker 4: to remember that impossible.
Speaker 2: I think when you go up it's you know, when
Speaker 2: like you go to a bookstore, you're like, I'm so
Speaker 2: excited when you get there and you're like.
Speaker 3: What book was I gonna buy?
Speaker 4: I don't remember. Yeah, there's I want them all, but
Speaker 4: I can't. So many choices. Yeah, there's too many things.
Speaker 4: There's too many and there's yeah, I guess people have
Speaker 4: that fear too, of like ordering the wrong thing. Yeah,
Speaker 4: but I think what's great about bars If you don't
Speaker 4: like it, they'll make you something else.
Speaker 3: If they're not dicks.
Speaker 4: Yeah then I did.
Speaker 2: I mean, actually this kind of dovetails into Heather M.
Speaker 2: Densmore ass Why do you think classic cocktails like Manhattan's
Speaker 2: and martinis have survived, especially with so many creative new
Speaker 2: cocktails out there.
Speaker 4: I just think that they're classics, and I think they
Speaker 4: they take a spirit and accentuate it its best way.
Speaker 4: It's its simplest form without having the spirit on its own.
Speaker 4: There's not enough of new versions of those that have
Speaker 4: been extremely popular that I think have stayed. I think
Speaker 4: that's the reason why, and I think it's also the
Speaker 4: reason everyone starts learning those, so it's more of a
Speaker 4: vocabulary that they use more often. So you're going to
Speaker 4: see that one that's going to stand up, because that
Speaker 4: is how people learn to make drinks, That's how they
Speaker 4: learn to stir things, that's how they learn to make
Speaker 4: learn formulas, all of that.
Speaker 3: It's kind of like your dakery.
Speaker 4: It's like you can absolutely yeah, absolutely right, yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 4: And remember it's like dakeries. Weren't blended that came later on. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I don't think people realize that. So most people say, dad,
Speaker 4: I don't want a doctor. It's like this blended thing.
Speaker 4: So yeah, one of the drinks I did was a
Speaker 4: blended drink, and I say, tell people, I never blend drinks,
Speaker 4: but I'm gonna do this because it had mescal, passion fruit,
Speaker 4: and wild bay leaf. And I told them it's because
Speaker 4: when you put ice in it, the mescale will hold up,
Speaker 4: the passion fruit will hold up, and the wild bailey
Speaker 4: being such strong flavors that that ice won't dilute it. Wow,
Speaker 4: we won't dilute the taste of it. Where dacre. It's
Speaker 4: just like, yeah, that's I think that's what people associate
Speaker 4: with it and realize, like that was a cocktail that
Speaker 4: was created in the nineteen thirties in Cuba, and it
Speaker 4: is to me the mother of drinks because of what
Speaker 4: it represents and what it.
Speaker 2: Is and it's not just like a slushy machine full
Speaker 2: of ever clear and great pad And if.
Speaker 4: You want to talk about evercare needs to go away forever.
Speaker 3: Mama Awesome wants to know.
Speaker 2: Are there any she wants to know best margarita recipes
Speaker 2: with a pre made mixer.
Speaker 3: Is that even possible Premi mixer?
Speaker 4: That's a good question. But the thing is you don't
Speaker 4: need a Premia mixer because all of straight margarita is
Speaker 4: is two ounces of tequila, one ounce of lime juice,
Speaker 4: and three quarter rounds. If you can do it in a
Speaker 4: gave ship, which is a one to one ratio of
Speaker 4: agave to water, and you don't even have to heat that.
Speaker 4: You just stir it, so you literally could make that
Speaker 4: mix in two seconds.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: But that is the greatest recipe ever. I think it's
Speaker 4: called the Tommy's Margarita, and I always do it with
Speaker 4: the number two tequila that un dos trace.
Speaker 2: Dos and blended or on the rocks, on the rocks
Speaker 2: on the rocky okay, no, no salt okay. Renee Coley
Speaker 2: wants to know.
Speaker 4: If you want to blend it, though, do it with
Speaker 4: mescal and like I said, it will hold up. It
Speaker 4: will hold up with the ice a little bit more, okay, yeah,
Speaker 4: and then you won't feel like it's just a lost flavor.
Speaker 4: That's what happens, is the ice just create that makes
Speaker 4: it into a lost flavor. But not with mescal.
Speaker 2: Oh, got it more robust. Lisa Hunting had a great question,
Speaker 2: what's up with all the different cocktail glasses? Does the
Speaker 2: shape really matter for certain drinks?
Speaker 4: I think with cocktail glasses it's just it's just another
Speaker 4: expression of eating with your eyes. And I do think
Speaker 4: that you know, when you taste tequila, if someone's going
Speaker 4: to do a tequila tasting with you, most real tequila people,
Speaker 4: they would love to put it almost like in a
Speaker 4: wine glass, because they really feel like the aromas and
Speaker 4: things like that can come out better. So I think
Speaker 4: when there's glasses that are intended for certain ways, they
Speaker 4: want you to experience the aroma of things more, where
Speaker 4: others are more of a visualist. But that's the thing
Speaker 4: is you don't have the opportunity to really show everything
Speaker 4: when it's in a liquid form. But that's where the
Speaker 4: glass comes in. It's almost like using a really cool
Speaker 4: fork or or like that got plate, you know.
Speaker 3: So maybe drinking like an old fashion with a heavy
Speaker 3: bottomed glass is.
Speaker 4: And also that's different. That's there's something about that, you know.
Speaker 4: Same with the Scotch. Yeah, there's something nice about the
Speaker 4: heaviness of that and sipping on it. It's not too hot,
Speaker 4: you know, because you don't put you wouldn't want to
Speaker 4: put a high glass with just a few OUs of
Speaker 4: something seems weird.
Speaker 2: Well, the idea of drinking like an old fashion out
Speaker 2: of a red silo cup, it makes me want to
Speaker 2: just walk into traffic sounds like the worst.
Speaker 4: What is your What do you like to drink?
Speaker 2: You know? I was always a ne grony person, h
Speaker 2: n groney person for a while, and I don't drink
Speaker 2: much myself anymore. I mean, you know, back when I
Speaker 2: was covering cocktails, of course that was part of my job,
Speaker 2: but I have been.
Speaker 3: More on a like a mes.
Speaker 2: Cal marridic tip. That's the way something smoky with a
Speaker 2: little bit of spice to it.
Speaker 4: You have the same thing as me. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: that's great.
Speaker 3: But I've been doing kombucha margaritas.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 3: It's pretty good.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I meant red solo cup, please forgive me. Also kombucha cocktails,
Speaker 2: hear me out. Kombucha is a mixer, little lime, little tequila,
Speaker 2: little kayan on top, and.
Speaker 3: You can leave out the tequila. It's still delicious.
Speaker 2: Carrie Weber wants to know when you go somewhere, what's
Speaker 2: your cocktail order when someone else is making.
Speaker 4: It, it's usually just tomorrow and the rocks okay, yeah,
Speaker 4: just a just a sipper bitter. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And then last questions, I always ask what is the
Speaker 2: thing about your job that you hate the most or
Speaker 2: the thing about making cocktails?
Speaker 4: Making cocktails are just a job everything. I think what
Speaker 4: always was the hard thing I hate about day? It's
Speaker 4: just like not I've never been behind a bar that
Speaker 4: has suited me with what I do, so it always
Speaker 4: just seems like it's a pain in the ass. I
Speaker 4: have shit everywhere. It's just what I do. I hate
Speaker 4: the lack of organization that comes with what I do.
Speaker 4: Even though I can be very organized, most of the
Speaker 4: bars behind like they don't. They can't accommodate the type
Speaker 4: of ruffage and sluss that I have, And it's just
Speaker 4: a pain in the ass. It's a pain in the ass.
Speaker 2: A lot of cleaning, A.
Speaker 4: Lot of cleaning, Yeah, yeah, a lot of it's a
Speaker 4: it's very yeah, it's a it's a very heavy cleaning.
Speaker 3: But what's your favorite thing about cocktails?
Speaker 4: I love creating them, I love everything, But I think
Speaker 4: that my favorite thing is just coming up with something new,
Speaker 4: and that surprises me. You know, that's what it is,
Speaker 4: you know, and I love and also I don't know,
Speaker 4: I love that light that goes off in people's faces
Speaker 4: when they really love something or you know, I had,
Speaker 4: I really loved it. There one of the nights, just
Speaker 4: before I think it was a week before service. It
Speaker 4: was such a great feeling. That kid came in from
Speaker 4: Breaking Bad, which is named Aaron Paul. So I never
Speaker 4: met him. Right yoh yo Yo's in the house, and
Speaker 4: his wife surprised him and he sat right in front
Speaker 4: of me, and every course he looked at me and goes, dude,
Speaker 4: what the fuck you know? This isn't like he just was.
Speaker 4: I loved it. He goes, what the fuck? You know?
Speaker 4: And I just love that.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 4: It's like so people that I usually experienced me for
Speaker 4: the first time, and I get that. I love that,
Speaker 4: you know. I mean it's just like because I just
Speaker 4: want to pour everything into them, you know, like take
Speaker 4: this home, try this, Like that's what that's what I love.
Speaker 4: I love when when I get somebody who really is
Speaker 4: into what I'm doing, They're going to be so bombarded
Speaker 4: with stuff that it's that they're not going to know
Speaker 4: what to do you know? And that's what I love.
Speaker 3: Do you keep a journal sketches of ideas that you've got.
Speaker 4: No, that's the other. That's the thing. I'm a big
Speaker 4: memory guy, and I should write more stuff down. But
Speaker 4: I'm such a guy of memory, and I'm such a
Speaker 4: like it's just there, you know, I know, it's just there.
Speaker 3: Where can people find you?
Speaker 4: Well, I don't know if I should release this yet,
Speaker 4: but I'm going to maybe I should. Let's let's just
Speaker 4: do this. Monley is probably not going to reopen until
Speaker 4: probably anywhere between March and in May, is my guess.
Speaker 2: So while Monley in Malibu is getting rehabbed for the
Speaker 2: post fire reopen. And this is a big fun announcement,
Speaker 2: I got the scoop.
Speaker 4: But I'm going to tell you this first, but it
Speaker 4: hasn't been finalized. Returning to the library bar one night
Speaker 4: of week no. Three months in the end of January.
Speaker 2: Probably no way, I.
Speaker 3: Got a release.
Speaker 4: I'll do it for you.
Speaker 3: Okay, that's so exciting. Are they freaking out?
Speaker 4: I'm excited. I can't wait to get back in there.
Speaker 3: You really are, Willy Wonka.
Speaker 4: That's ridiculous. Thank you, thank you, thank you so much,
Speaker 4: So great to see you after all this time. I
Speaker 4: know this was very awesome.
Speaker 3: Oh, thank you for being on You're awesome.
Speaker 2: You're awesome, You're we're both awesome.
Speaker 3: What can I say?
Speaker 2: Okay, So you can see photos of all of Matthew's
Speaker 2: really gorgeous creations and also some of the fire damage
Speaker 2: at Eat Your Drink on Instagram, and his beverage photos
Speaker 2: are truly stunning.
Speaker 3: They're so beautiful.
Speaker 2: His book is called Eat Your Drink Culinary Cocktails, and
Speaker 2: he'll be at the Library bar at the Roosevelt Hotel
Speaker 2: in Hollywood for the next few months, one day week
Speaker 2: until Monley reopens the spring. All very exciting. You can
Speaker 2: find ologies at ologies on Instagram and Twitter. I'm Ali
Speaker 2: Ward with one L on both, and there's more links
Speaker 2: up at aliward dot com. Thank you to webmaster Kelly
Speaker 2: Dwyer for the beautiful site updates. She just did him
Speaker 2: looks great. You can join the Ologies podcast Facebook group.
Speaker 2: It's admined by Aaron Talbert and birthday Lady Hannah Lippo.
Speaker 3: I Love Your Girl.
Speaker 2: Merch is available at ologies merch dot com. Thank you
Speaker 2: Shannon Feltis and Bonnie Dutch for managing that. Thank you
Speaker 2: as always to the ever spirited Stephen Ray Morris for
Speaker 2: all of his stellar editing. He also hosts the per Cast,
Speaker 2: which is about kitties and c Jurassic Wright, which is
Speaker 2: his love letter podcast to dinosaurs and special editing help
Speaker 2: this week also from the lovely Jarrett Sleeper of the
Speaker 2: mental health podcast My Good Bad Brain.
Speaker 3: Check that out too.
Speaker 2: Now, if you stick around until the end of the show,
Speaker 2: you know, I tell you a secret, And today's secret
Speaker 2: is that I have this yellow sweater. I feel like
Speaker 2: this yellow sweater has me. Really, It's the most comfortable
Speaker 2: article of clothing I've ever owned. I wear it every
Speaker 2: day and it's become a problem. It's become a bar
Speaker 2: saying like I can't wear this again. I have pictures
Speaker 2: on my Instagram I'm in this yellow sweater and all
Speaker 2: of them. So just don't judge your old dad. You
Speaker 2: find something you like, you stick with it, and you
Speaker 2: wash it when you can.
Speaker 3: You wash it when you can. Okay, Stay warm.
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