The Sipping News

Albert Trummer, the P.T. Barnum of the cocktail world, plans to open a cocktail bar even more ostentatiously theatrical than Apothéke. It will be  "almost like 'Top Chef.' " Name: Theater Bar. [Wall Street Journal]

Beer Advocate has completed the entirely useful and productive not-at-all meaningless task of naming the best 100 beers on the planet. [BA]

Eric Asimov preaches the gospel of the hard-to-pronounce, but hard-not-to-like, Basque grape Txakolina. [NY Times]

Heaven Hill is adding two new rickhouses. [Cowdery]

Mad Men and Drinking, Season Four, Episode 3

A mysterious bottle from overseas cemented the friendship between Don Draper and Englishman Lane Pryce during "The Good News," the third episode of the fourth season of "Mad Men."

"I received something special from my father for my birthday," said a rather sad and lonely Pryce, working on New Year's Eve at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. Don, having foregone a trip to Acupulco, and feeling equally forlorn (even if he would never admit it), was receptive. What was it? "Who knows?" said Lane. "He's one of those alcoholics who thinks that he's collecting."

He poured from a bottle with a red cap and some small type on the label. The bottle was too blurred to identify, but someone sitting next to me while I watched was sure it was Redbreast Irish whiskey. Could be. The red cap is right, and the slight bulge in the neck of the bottle. And I thought I glimpsed the small red, oval illustration found on every Redbreast label.

Don tasted it. His face showed he was impressed. "It has no bite at all," they agreed. That comment would seem to indicate Irish whiskey, which is triple distilled. And Redbreast is known for its smooth character. Certainly they couldn't have been talking about Scotch. Don and Lane subsequently decided to go to the movies and then to dinner. To fortify themselves, Don (sloppily) pours the rest of the mystery bottle into a flask. 

Otherwise, a bottle of Famous Grouse appeared at the home of Anna Draper, the California woman who lent Don her late husband's name. Don paid a surprise visit to her, only the second such since the series began. And they went out to eat at "that place with the beer and the abalone."

Mexican Coke in My Midst

A month ago I posted an item about mixologists' lavish thirst for Coca-Cola made south of the border—the kind made with cane sugar, not corn syrup—and about those bartenders' unwillingness to reveal where they located specimens of such soda in the contiguous 48.

Well, today I finally found a source of the Holy Grail. It was not in some out-of-the-way bodega, but in a huge supermarket, one I visit thrice a week. They sell the stuff for $1.29 a glass bottle. How and why they have it in stock, I do not know. How I happened never to spot it, I also do not know.

I'd like to tell you where to get it. But I've decided to follow the model of the mixologists who so stonewalled me in the past, and not let out the secret. More Mexican Coke for me.

Sixpoint Beer, Now Made in Pennsylvania

Sixpoint Ales, the massively popular brewer headquartered in Red Hook, has made a career out of marketing its Brooklyn roots, becoming the darling of Kings County locavores over the past few years. It's well-hone image—not to mention its many excellent beers—have led to soaring demand. So much so that it long outgrew it tiny digs on Van Dyke Street. Since late 2007, many Sixpoint ales have been brewed at the larger Green Point Beerworks, on Waverly Avenue in Clinton Hill, home of Kelly Taylor rival Brooklyn brew-line Kelso. But that was still Brooklyn.

Now, for the first time, some Sixpoint beer will be made outside of the borough. Eater reports that owner Shane Welch has moved a portion of Sixpoint's production to the Lion Brewery in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Welch confirmed the move. "Shane also tells us that they are considering two other options and that there is a 'different and unique project on the horizon' but doesn't reveal any details."

The development is particularly interesting because Sixpoint has often boasted of their utter Brooklynishness, faulting competitor Brooklyn Brewery for not really being a Brooklyn brewery because much of its bottled product has been made by contract in Utica. I suspect Brooklyn Brewery brewmaster Garrett Oliver is having a good laugh over this.

A Beer At...Jackie's Fifth Amendment

How can you not love a bar called Jackie's Fifth Amendment?

 A Beer at... Jackie's Fifth Amendment 

Jackie's Fifth Amendment is a Park Slope dive bar which may have the coolest name of any saloon in town. Unfortunately, the decades-old place recently had its wonderfully ratty, old awning replaced. The new one just says "Jackie's" on the Fifth Avenue side. You have to walk over the 7th Street side to take in the full glory of its title. Some say the curious label goes back to bygone Mob connections from the bar's early days, but one assumes it also refers to the regulars' right to protect themselves from self-incrimination. These folks are talkative, but they don't talk.

Though it probably dates from the Depression, the bar looks frozen in the 1970s. The furniture is brown and cheap. In the back is a metal coat rack, an accoutrement which, to me, is shorthand for Old Dive Bar. There's a pay phone sign—but no phone under it. Jackie's working phone is an old black rotary job with a ring that could wake the dead. Best of all is the 8-track/radio set behind the bar. The radio works. As for the 8-track—"I don't know," said the barmaid. (So why is a cassette of Nat King Cole's greatest hits sitting on top of it like it was just played?)

The patrons, meanwhile, are in their 50s, 60s and 70s, and look exactly that old. One of the oldest is the white-haired bartender, a kind lady who limps, hates reality television and keeps her purse open on the back bar. These guys keep each other comfortable company. They razz one another, buy take-out and eat it down at the end of the bar, and take communal smoking breaks, sidling out the side door onto the sidewalk. On a recent night, no one played the jukebox and no one watched the TV. "You go to a bar to drink, stupid!," the regulars might tell you, if they told you anything. And see your friends.

—Robert Simonson

The Sipping News

Woodford Reserve's future Master's Collection whiskeys will include a maple finish, wine finish, tequila finish and rum finish. [Whiskey Magazine via Chuck Cowdery]

One man's backlash against the craft whiskey movement. [Sku's Recent Eats]

Camper English lists every drink he had at Tales of the Cocktail. (Not for the faint of heart.) [Alcademics]

The new head of the Minnesota Department of Human Rights is cracking down on bars and restaurants that offer "Ladies Nights," calling them a form a discrimination. Genius. [Reuters]

Argentina has surpassed Chile in U.S. wine exports. All hail Malbec. [Wine Enthusiast]

Capsouto Frères has added a Combier Rouge Cherry Soufflé to its menu, made with fresh cherry jam, crème anglaise, and Combier Rouge liqueur cherry sauce. [Grub Street]

Mad Men and Drinking, Season Four, Episode 2

"Duck doesn't understand this business. He's dry as a bone." That was Freddy Rumsen back in Season Two, just before he was going to be sacked for his excessive imbibing, complaining about teetotaler (and former drunk) Duck Phillips, who forced him out. Freddy unexpectedly returned in episode two of season four, titled "Christmas Comes But Once a Year," and much has changed for him. Now he's dry as a bone. "I'm clean and sober now. 16 months without a drop," he tells Roger Sterling after refusing an offer of "something brown." The intimation is he's in AA; he brings the Ponds cold cream account to Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce owing to the fact that his connection at Ponds is a fellow brother in that "fraternity."

The irony of Freddy's return is that the men who fired him, Roger and Don, are still drinking, and not drinking well. And they are seen as increasingly out of step with the times because of their habits. Both men bend an elbow in their offices well before noon. Don is either hitting it harder (very likely due to his misery and regret over his divorce and the prospect of spending Christmas alone) or not holding it as well as Roger. Even Roger says "A little early for that isn't it, Don?" as Draper pours an AM glass of rye, to which Don replies, "You're joking, right?"