*spoilers ahead*

That’s right. Stop reading now if you haven’t seen last evening’s episode.

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Before I get into the cocktails, was anyone else shocked when Don took a temporary turn for the dark side last night? I hadn’t expected him to sleep with Andrea, let alone strangle her. I was, of course, relieved to discover it was a fever-induced delusion. But perhaps we did take a turn for the darker side of things last night. Don has discovered that it is probably within him to kill someone who might destroy his happiness. Sally has been exposed to the “real world,” with the brutal murder of 8 nursing school students in Chicago. To combat this? Grandma just splits a sleeping pill with her. So yeah, maybe we are walking a bit on the dark side this season. I said to someone this morning that I find the 60s to be one of the most confusing times. Civil rights, the beginnings of the women’s movement,  the shadows of different wars hanging over the country like a spectre, whether it’s Viet Nam or WWII. I can’t imagine growing up in the middle of all that, and I wonder how it will affect Sally.

Then there is Joan. She has her own darkness with which to contend. In case we’d forgotten what an ass her husband is, the writers brought him back for an episode. I admit, I’d been waiting to find out he’d been killed in action. I’d forgotten that he has very low self-esteem, that he failed at landing the job of his dreams, and that he made up for the lack of faith in himself by raping his now-wife. Joan hadn’t forgotten. “You were never a good man.” Go Joanie! I was rooting for her!  I get that he re-upped because the military is the first place he’s felt useful and knowledgeable. That counts for a lot. But Joan is right; that’s just not a decision you make without consulting your wife. I wonder if now that she’s kicked him out if they’ll get a divorce or if the writers will kill him off. Either way, Joan is effectively a single mom now , and lest we forget, that’s really Roger’s baby.

From 4/8/12 episode of AMC’s Mad Men

When Joan first found out about the re-upping, they were in a restaurant with her in-laws. Everyone else ordered wine. “That one,” he said, pointing at the menu. We never did find out what wine “that one” might be. Joan, however, bucked the wine trend and ordered a gin fizz, so that’s what we’ll talk about today.

Sloe Gin Fizz (from Cocktail Times)

Sloe Gin is a red gin-based liqueur infused with sloe berries. It is usually bottled at between 15 to 30 percent alcohol by volume. Some sloe gins are made with neutral spirit flavored with sloe berries. 

• 1 1/2 oz sloe gin
• 1 1/2 oz fresh lemon juice
• 1/4 oz simple syrup
• egg white
• dash of bitters
• club soda

Garnish: orange slice and maraschino cherry
Mix all ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice. Strain into a tall glass over fresh ice. Garnish with orange slice and cherry.

Ramos Gin Fizz (from Gumbopages.com)

Years ago, Kevin and I spent New Year’s Eve at the cocktail lounge in Arnaud’s in New Orleans. I drank a variety of champagne cocktails, but the bartender took Kevin on his own personal tour of New Orleans cocktails. The one that sticks with me is the Ramos Gin Fizz because it was the first drink I’d seen ever made with an egg white. The drink was invented in the 1880s by Henry Ramos at New Orleans’ Meyer’s Restaurant. It later became the signature drink of the Roosevelt Hotel in New Orleans and New York, thanks to Governor Huey Long, who happened to be a fan. This recipe calls for shaking at least one minute. I’ve read that you can shake up to 10 minutes and because of that, it often takes a bartending team to make a large number of Ramos Gin Fizzes.

According to Gumbopages.com, you need to be very careful when adding orange flower water to the drink because it can easily overwhelm the cocktail.

• 2 ounces gin (Old Tom gin if you can get it)
• 1/2 ounce lemon juice
• 1/2 ounce lime juice
• 1 ounce simple syrup
• 3 small dashes orange flower water
• 2 drops vanilla extract (very optional; there’s some controversy over whether this was ever really used, but it does add a nice touch)
• 1 ounce cream
• 1 egg white
• Soda water

Shake all ingredients except the soda water WITHOUT ICE very vigorously for at least one minute, preferably longer — the longer the better. Then add ice and shake for 1-2 minutes, as long as you can manage, until extremely cold and frothy. Strain into a tall thin glass, or a very large old fashioned glass, and top with soda water. Stir gently.

My thanks also to GumboPages, who pointed me towards this great video on making a Ramos Gin Fizz:

On Monday, I spent some time talking about Piper-Heidsieck. My thanks to Eric who sent me an image of a beautiful vintage poster of a Piper-Heidsieck bottle. It’s so appropriate considering Mad Men is set in the world of advertising. This print ad is from 1953, displaying the 1949 vintage. The bottle is appears identical to the one Pete opened in Sunday’s episode. If indeed it was a 1949 vintage, I have no doubt it cost our fictional character a fair amount of his fictional 1960s dollars. I bet it tasted pretty darned good though.

One item I’d like to point out about the above ad is that the bubbly is poured into a regular wine glass and not a champagne flute. Now, maybe the good folks at Piper-Heidsieck can shed some light on that choice for me. In fact, the classic tulip shaped champagne flute was in wide use by the 1930s. However, a lot of people were still using the champagne coupe, from the late 1800s. (A myth states the coupe was molded from the breast of Marie Antoinette.) In fact, in 2009, we found the characters of Mad Men enjoying some Veuve Clicquot in coupes.

To end on a note of utter whimsy, you’ll notice there is a miniature circus, including a rather talented giraffe, taking over the ad. Piper-Heidsieck is a Champagne House that’s always been slightly unconventional, even when everything was conventional in the 1940s and ’50s. In 2008 they embraced their inner Lewis Carroll and released an upside-down bottle designed by Viktor & Rolf. If you were feeling exravagant, you might also pick up an upside down ice bucket and flutes.

Cheers!

Screen capture, AMC TV’s Mad Men, 2012

In last night’s Mad Men, I was given a lot of options. I could write about cocktails, about Canadian Club, Jack Daniel’s, Stoli, or even Chivas Regal. But near the end, I was given the perfect opportunity to wax on a bit about my favorite beverage of all … champagne.

Near the 40 minute mark, Pete is announcing the Mohawk Airlines win and deftly putting down Roger, all while opening a bottle of Piper-Heidsieck champagne. I can’t zoom in far enough without going blurry, so I can’t tell you whether it’s a vintage year or not. So let’s start with a quick refresher on champagne itself.

There are a lot of tasty sparkling wines out there, including cava and just good ol’ sparkling wine. It’s not uncommon for these to be made using the age old Champenois process. However, in order to be called “champagne,” it needs to come from the Champagne region of France, no matter how many bubbles are racing to the top.

Via IntrepidDreamer.com

Champagne is divided into vintage and non-vintage (NV) wine. NV Champagnes are the most common and often include grapes from 3 or more harvests.  Every so often, a vintage is so remarkable that the winemaker will declare it a vintage year. Remember that while one House may declare a vintage, another may not. Vintage and NV wines are at the discretion of the winemaker.

Bubbly is made from any one or more of chardonnay, pinot noir, and pinot meunier grapes. It also comes in several different styles that you’ll see on the label. Blanc de blancs means that the wine was produced from all white grapes. In Champagne, this means the wine is 100% chardonnay. Blanc de noirs means the champagne is produced from pinot noir, pinot meunier, or a blend of the two.

You should also pay attention to the sweetness levels, denoted by French terms on the label. Extra Brut is usually very dry champagne, whereas Brut is dry, but may still be a bit rich on the finish. Extra-Sec and Sec are usually medium dry wines and Demi-Sec is usually the sweetest style you’ll find on the market.

To tie it all back into our episode, let’s talk a little about Piper-Heidsieck. Piper-Heidsieck is in the Reims region of Champagne and has been around since 1785. Now one of the largest Champagne Houses, it started as the house of Heidsieck with Florens-Louis Heidsieck at the helm. Florens-Louis passed away in 1828 and his nephew Christian took over, with help from his cousin, Henri Piper. The House didn’t become a hyphenate until 10 years later, when Christian died. Cousin Henri took this chance to marry the newly widowed wife of Christian (oh yes!) and the house of Piper-Heidsieck was created.

Piper-Heidsieck has had some fun over the years, but in 2009 they really attracted my attention with Le Ritual  - a collaboration with Christian Louboutin. Really, shoes and champagne … of course I noticed this.

Le Rituel is a box set containing a glass stiletto, complete with signature red sole, and a bottle of Piper-Heidsieck. The collaboration was in homage to an odd period in the 1880s when there was an strange and decadent high-society “ritual” of drinking from women’s shoes.

Cheers!

We’re back! After more than 500 Mad Men-free days, Season 5 returned last night with a two-hour episode.

There’s so much I could talk about in our 1966 episode: Joan’s baby, Don’s marriage, the missing Betty and Henry, the fact that the wardrobe people didn’t give Peggy a new dress … But I’m here to write about the alcohol our overindulgent friends imbibe.

It’s going to be another frustrating season for me from the alcohol standpoint, unless the writers start adding in more cocktails to the mix. It looks like Mad Men retained the sponsorship of certain companies, therefore on every bar you will see any combination of Wild Turkey (Don and Peggy), Macallan (Pete) and Stoli (Roger), amongst others.

“Sponsored” Bar (lousy TV capture by Michelle)

What I really want to talk about … and what completely captured me in this episode, is Megan’s surprise party for Don. The artistic direction behind the entire party sequence just blew me away – from the cocktails and the clothing to the music and then entire set and blocking. You see, one of my all-time favorite artists is Shag. All I could think of when I watched the party scene was that it was a Shag painting brought to life.

SHAG: “Predators and Prey” – Acrylic paint on canvas. 89 cm x 244 cm (35″ x 96″). © Josh Agle, 2012
Original Online Link 

Don’s loft alone was simply stunning. Pure 1960s Manhattan goodness … the perfect lifestyle for the 40-year old ad executive/part-time dad and his 26-yr-old secretary turned wife.

Megan, at 26, wants to party. She simply cannot comprehend how Don, at 40, has no interest. She also doesn’t seem to get that her little rendition of Zou Bisou Bisou was just slightly inappropriate, enticing every man (except Don) in the room and slightly horrifying the women.  (As an aside, I truly loved her dress.)

Per usual in this show, we can’t see what type of wine our girls (in this case, Jane) might be drinking. We know it’s red. I was happy to see it’s in a decanter though (see the above “bar” photo). I want to believe that Don has a nice cellar somewhere in that Shagadelic loft and that perhaps it’s an older bottle that Megan pulled and appropriately decanted to open up the vintage.

Jane’s Red Wine | image from AMC TV, 2012

The cocktails at the party were endless. I saw a Manhattan (Trudy), Roger’s vodka martini, a sidecar, and of course, a lot of bourbon on the rocks. I also glimpsed some red wine and beer, although I couldn’t read the label.

Trudy’s Manhattan | image from AMC TV, 2012

What I found fascinating is that while there was a live band, there wasn’t a bartender. Yet everyone there was adept at making cocktails. Pete easily tossed together a Manhattan and someone made Ken’s wife a sidecar without a problem. Today we have amazing people who are “mixologists,” making us cocktails. But with the exception of when I get to hang out at Julie’s place, I know of very few people who can actually toss together a sidecar, a manhattan, or even a simple martini without grabbing a recipe. The everyday art of making and consuming cocktails has been lost in exchange for two-ingredient mixers.

Next week we should get to see more of Betty, and perhaps further along a little bit of Peggy’s story. I’m holding out hope for the return of Faye, the brilliant analyst from last season who was so cruelly dumped by Don. We’ve got Roger’s baby to content with and Lane’s weird new obsession with a woman he’s never met. As far as this blog goes, I’ve already started researching the history of the martini. Season 5 is shaping up to be quite interesting!

So when I got this fantastic little press release the other day, I was thrilled. It’s loaded down with amazingly appropriate Golden Globe themed cocktails. (I suspect the publicist is repping Flor de Cana Nicaraguan rum, Lucid absinthe, and Russian Standard vodka, but she never mentioned her clients.) Whether you’re having an awards-show party or watching from home, you can imbibe just like the stars do.

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Inception:  It is only appropriate to provide fans of this convoluted thriller an equally mysterious and complex libation. Escape to another world with Lucid, the brand responsible for lifting the 100-year absinthe ban.  Mesmerize your guests by serving this anise-flavored spirit in the traditional method and watch as it morphs from green to milky white before their eyes.

Lucid Dream Stealer
Traditional absinthe drip. Pour cold water over 1.5 oz. Lucid absinthe.  Stir and enjoy.

Glee: Glee scored 5 Golden Globe nominations and the truth is – this show is a true fan favorite, due to its high energy musical numbers and campy style. For all the young kids in the audience, and maybe those who aren’t drinking tonight, we’ve got a great mock-tail that you can enjoy as you sing along to your favorite Glee hit.

New Directions Champion
1 oz. white cranberry juice
.5 oz. apple juice
Top with ginger ale and garnish with a cinnamon stick and fresh cranberries

An adult fan? For an extra layer of yum, add 1 oz. of Flor de Cana rum to give this cocktail a festive POP!

Black Swan:  If this film’s dark, two-sided depth is for you, how about mixing up a cocktail to match?  Made with Russian Standard Vodka and muddled blackberries, the delicious Russian Swan’s two-toned look is eerily reminiscent of Nina Sayer’s contrasting sides.

The Seductive Swan
1.5 oz Russian Standard Vodka
5 blackberries
3 oz Lemonade
Muddle four blackberries in bottom of a tumbler.  Add ice, Russian Standard Vodka and lemonade.  Garnish with remaining blackberry.

Social Network: What better way to toast the story of Mark Zuckerberg’s creation than with a drink as social as Facebook itself?  Punch of course if the most social cocktails – perfect for sharing with friends. This punch blends Flor de Cana rum with some hot cayenne pepper – it’s a true taste of electric spark!

Zuckerberg Zinger
1 oz  Flor de Caña 7 year-aged rum
1 seedless Watermelon
One good pinch of Cayenne pepper
4 Sugar cubes
1 oz  Lime juice
1 oz Club soda

Dissolve the sugar cubes in 1 oz. of club soda. Add and muddle several 1-inch pieces of watermelon. Finally, add the rest of the ingredients one at a time and stir as added. Chill. (Recipe can be multiplied to fill a traditional punch bowl.)

As for the show itself, the characters definitely went through a lot of changes this season, and at least an entire year passed. Are we in 1967 now, 1968?

Image from AMC's Mad Men Photo Gallery

How do you feel about Don’s proposal? I was so angry at him. This is a terrible move. He’ll never be able to tell Megan about Dick, and he’ll end up sleeping around all the time again, and probably have yet another kid. For me, Faye should have been his obvious choice. She’s a brilliant career woman and she understands him like no other. Megan? If she keeps working, she’ll only get her job because she’s now Megan Draper. California makes Don so vulnerable; New York does not.

My girl Peggy was thinking the exact same thing, I bet. What is it with these men and their secretaries? If I’m not mistaken, earlier this season Faye predicted he’d be married within a year.

Betty is finally selling the house, but she’s still weird about Glen. I don’t blame her for being freaked out by the kid, but I also think there might be a better way for her to handle it. She’s sad about Don’s remarriage, but not overly surprised it’s his secretary. I think she knows better than anyone what Megan can expect in her new marriage.

I know Don descended deep into depression this season, and appears to have risen again. But I don’t understand why he is trying to recreate what he had instead of starting anew.

What are your thoughts on this season?

Photo from AMCtv.com

The first Playboy Club opened in Chicago on February 29 (Leap Year), 1960 and was a success from the moment the doors were opened. The Playboy Club was a classy (no kidding) place that Newsweek eventually called “Disneyland for adults.” Early entertainers in that first Playboy Club included before-they-were-famous Aretha Franklin and Barbara Streisand.

Photo by O'Rourke at explayboybunnies.com, from Playboy June 1965

The Playboy Club eventually expanded to include more than 40 clubs and resorts. In Cincinnati, our own Playboy Club opened in September, 1964. It was located at 35 East 7th Street (current address of The Lodge Bar) and was in business for 19 years. Headliners in our own Club included Henny Youngman, Red Foxx, and Flip Wilson. You might have even heard Bootsy Collins performing in the lounge. From what I’ve read, the best years were between 1964 and 1976. In 1976, the Playboy Club concept moved from classy joint to more of a disco club and continued to change with the times. Our local club closed its doors in September, 1983.

I collect swizzle sticks and there are several Playboy sticks in my collection that I can only assume came from my parents. I called my Mom this morning and, to my surprise, my parents had a membership to the Cincinnati Playboy Club.  My Mom won the membership from a radio station contest around 1975. Mom says she always enjoyed the club because “it had a great atmosphere. You would take an elevator up, as it wasn’t on the ground floor, and then just step into the club.”  She remembers plush surroundings, with couch areas for conversation. Apparently my parents went to the club and restaurant quite often. I tried to find out what they used to drink. Mom thinks she drank something with vodka in it that tasted like lemonade.

Playboy Bunnies were by far the most famous part of the Clubs. Bunnies underwent strict training and weigh-ins. They also had to be able to identify 143 types of liquor and garnish over 20 cocktails. Bunnies were not allowed to date or mingle with the customers and, on the part of the customers, touching a Bunny was forbidden. A move I’ve always loved is the Bunny Dip. It’s a graceful way of bending slightly backwards to deliver and pickup drinks without bursting out of the Bunny Bustier. Something I always loved is that Playboy Bunnies were curvy girls, which was attractive back in the 60s. Famous bunnies include Deborah Harry (Blondie), Sherilyn Fenn, and Lauren Hutton.

In 2006, the Playboy Club reopened in (where else?) Las Vegas at The Palms. Some friends and I visited the Club in 2009 and I loved it. It’s classy and lush, with plenty of couches and a rich gold and red decor. One entire wall is digitized, displaying randomized images of Playboy magazine covers throughout the years. The Bunny costumes are still classy and the Bunnies still do the Bunny Dip.

Playboy Club, Las Vegas 2009

The Club is near the top of the Palms tower and overlooks all of Las Vegas. You can take a private escalator up to Moon, the nightclub with a retractable roof and always-open patio section. Personally, I preferred the Playboy club though – classy cocktails and an environment where I could chat with my friends. If you ever go, cover can run up to $40 on a weekend night. When we went (a Thursday, I believe), the guys each paid a $20 cover and I’m pretty sure the girls were all free.

Playboy Club, Las Vegas 2009

Perhaps the reason I love Mad Men is the same reason I’m fascinated with the Playboy Club. It’s a piece of history where women weren’t a size 2, bars were classy and encouraged cocktails and conversation, and the clothes were amazing. Could I live back then? No. I’m far too independent. I probably relate the most to Faye on Mad Men. But I love the chance to relax in the 60s now and then.

The Velvet Slippers Club will  feature three tiers of membership ranging from the vineyard’s more well known varietals to an elite package featuring small production runs, features quarterly shipments of three bottles and exclusive merchandise from the boutique winery.  Membership also includes exclusive invitations and complimentary tastings at Caduceus’ Jerome, Ariz. tasting room.

A one-time membership fee of $75 nets you a Caduceus Cellars and Merkin Vineyard corkscrew as well as (hold on to your hats, girls) an autographed poster. The low-end tier averages $70-$150 per shipment; the middle tier runs $120-$200 per shipment; the high-end costs $200-$250 per shipment. Those prices do not include tax and shipping. You’ll receive four shipments each year, weather permitting arriving mid-month every February, May, September, and November. Each package will contain three bottles of the winemaker’s selections, winemaker’s notes, and their seasonal newsletter.

The Velvet Slippers Club is a critical step towards establishing and sustaining our small family owned and operated estate winery,” says Keenan. “Along with maintaining the integrity of our established wines, it will allow us to spend time with single barrel offerings of blends, block specific varietals, and happy accidents by providing an appreciative audience. We couldn’t have come this far without your support. This is our way of saying thank you.”

It’s expensive, but I’m considering signing up for the low or middle tier. We’ve purchased his wine before and it was excellent. The wine club can, indeed, ship to Ohio, so count your blessings. Other lucky states include Arizona, California, Colorado, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri,Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, Wisconsin and Wyoming. Not on the list are Kentucky and Indiana. Time to find an Ohio shipping address, I guess. In my experience, shipping costs vary by state, and Ohio’s wine shipping costs can be obnoxious. Be prepared.

Additionally, the excellent documentary Blood Into Wine will be released on DVD on Sept 6, if you’re interested in seeing exactly how a winery comes together in Arizona.

Really, what I saw going on in this episode was a series of overindulgences. Keeping in mind that I’m all for indulging yourself, but between the smoking and the drinking … wow. This episode took a couple of vices to a new level.

Always Choose the Jameson

Peggy herself summed up this episode when she was brainstorming copy for Pond’s, “Indulge yourself.”

Overindulging was everywhere. Even in the meeting with the good marketing doctor and the staff, Harry rather overindulged in the cookies. The counterbalance to the episode was the return of Freddy who is a bit of a caricature of himself, with all his comments to Peggy and the way he blatantly took over her desk. But he’s not drinking and is obviously very involved in AA.

Which brings us to Roger, doesn’t it? Roger took the Pond’s client out to lunch and apparently got the client hammered (as well as himself), not realizing the client was a recovering alcoholic. It makes you wonder about our cast a bit. Roger was hammered at lunch, and followed it up with drinking some Maalox. Hammered again at the holiday party and picked himself up the next morning with some hair-of-the-dog. Yep, the morning after the party, Roger was walking around with vodka on the rocks. Now, I suppose that could have been water, but what do you think? I like Peggy’s comment after Roger’s lunch: “Can you believe that’s his job?”

Maalox Afternoon

Then there is Don, who had to be helped into his apartment two nights in a row by two different lovely ladies. (I bet Phoebe plays a bigger role in his future, don’t you think?) But he was bordering on a bit pathetic in this episode.

Up we go!

Perhaps because of a YouTube video I came across this week (embedded below), I was also hyper-aware of the overindulging in cigarettes in this episode. Of course, Lucky Strike is 69% of their business (including Pond’s), but Lee showed up to the party drunk and proceeded to encourage the overindulgence, delivering everyone a giant box of Lucky Strikes for Christmas. The office party was literally a haze of cigarette smoke. And I have to worry that Don is eventually going to pass out cold with a cigarette in his hand and burn down the entire apartment complex.

In this episode the entire office overindulged, which is fine. Christmas parties tend to bring that out in people. We all know I’m fine  with overindulging a bit, and at least no one was driving in this episode. But wow … I really have to worry about some of the characters – Don, in particular, is obviously drinking himself into oblivion to forget. Roger is more subtle, sometimes, but still quite the drunk.

One final thought. Sally was a lot less creepy this episode, and a lot cuter. But goodness, Glenn the Uber-Creepy kid down the street is back and he’s taken his own brand of creepy to a whole new level. I get that they’re bonding over the divorce and things. I know it’s hard for them. But still … Glenn is going to undoubtedly end up in prison before he’s 18. *shudder*

The SATC movie (the first one) didn’t appeal to me. I was watching it while luckily flying first class to San Francisco and despite the free flowing wine and halfway decent food you get in first class, I still lost about 2 hours of my life to that movie. That said, the trailers alone for SATC2 look better than any of the first movie. My fingers are crossed.

Anyway, I sort of owe those lovely ladies for introducing me to the Bellini. I was inundated with press releases this week about the second movie release. Two of those press releases included some decent cocktail recipes, which I’ll share.

(Oh, and before you ladies ask – I’m a “Charlotte.” I love her clothes and her attitude.)

The first is a cocktail created by the mixologists at The London NYC – The Sexy London.

The Sexy London

2 oz. Green Cardamom Infused Vodka
1/2 oz. Triple Sec
1/2 oz. Rose Syrup
1/2 oz. Cranberry Juice
1/4 oz. Lime Juice
1 pinch of mint

Shake and strain into martini glass!

Next, of course, variations on the Cosmopolitan – often a favorite of the SATC girls.

The Cosmopolitan Dreams (created by Dale DeGroff)

3/4 ounce Citrus Vodka
3/4 ounce Cointreau
3/4 ounce Cranberry juice
1/4 ounce Fresh lime juice
2 1/2 ounces Piper Heidsieck Champagne

Assemble the vodka, Cointreau, and juices in a boston shaker with ice and shake well to chill.

Strain into a champagne glass and fill with champagne.  Garnish with a flamed orange peel.

The Original Cosmopolitan (created by Dale DeGroff)

1 1/2 oz vodka
1 oz Cointreau
1 oz cranberry juice
3/4 oz lime juice

Shake and strain into a chilled martini glass.

Garnish with a twist of orange