Name Change

You may have noticed that the title of this blog has changed.

When I began this liquor-soaked chronicle in January 2007, "Off the Presses" seemed an appropriate play on words, as my posts were mainly about wine. Since then, however, I've come to write as much about cocktail, spirits and beer as I do about wine. (I choose no favorites among those four.) So the name seemed a bit off, or at least not as all-encompassing as it ought to have been.

So—even though the name-change will no doubt cause me a few months of transitional headache—I have made a switch to "Make It Simple, But Significant." "Mad Men" fans will recognized that as a quote from the Aug. 29, 2010, episode of the show. Don Draper, asked for his drink order, makes that eloquent request. The wording matches my tastes. There's nothing I like more in a drink than something done expertly well, but simply presented. No doubt, Don was asking for either a rye, or an Old Fashioned. No objection to either.

Pegu Club Fifth Anniversary Menu Celebrates Half a Decade of Significant Drinking

It's strange to think that The Pegu Club celebrated its fifth anniversary this past Sunday, August 29. It feels like it's been around forever. Maybe that's because, in 2006, when I first immersed myself in the cocktail world, there was little else beside The Pegu Club around if you wanted to purchase yourself a quality drink. Milk & Honey, yes, but you needed a compass and a secret password to get to it.

Since it opened in August 2005, Audrey Saunders drink den has directly spawned a second generation of cocktail joints. Pegu bartenders Phil Ward, Jim Meehan, St. John Frizell and Toby Maloney went on to found Mayahuel, PDT, Fort Defiance and Chicago's Violet Hour, respectively. The fifth anniversary menu represents them all with drink they formerly brought to the Pegu menu. Also in attendance on that list: Chad Solomon, Jim Kearns, Kenta Goto, Naren Young and others. Here's the

Royalton's Forty Four Bar to Open Sept. 20

The opening date for Forty Four, the revamped lobby bar at midtown Manhattan's Royalton Hotel, will be Sept. 20. As for the menu composed by the so-called Cocktail Collective—Richard Boccato from Dutch Kills and Painkiller in New York City; John Lermayer from the Florida Room in Miami Beach, and Woodward in Boston; Simon Ford, a former London bartender, and now a global cocktail ambassador employed by Pernod Ricard USA; Willy Shine, one of the founders of Contemporary Cocktails, a prominent cocktail consultancy based in New York City; Misty Kalkofen, who tends bar at Drink in Boston; and Eric Alperin, head bartender at the Varnish in Los Angeles—that's still be worked over, but expect something soon. After all, once that sextet settles on a list, they will have to teach the drinks and their methods to the Royalton's union bar staff, which may prove a tricky task. Union bartenders don't alway possess the same fervor for fancy drink-building that today's young mixologists do.

Mad Men and Drinking, Season Four, Episode 6: Blotto!

Get a couple hundred ad men in a room and you're going to see some serious drinking.

Episode six, titled "Waldorf Stories," of "Mad Men"'s fourth season, whirls around the sixth annual Clio Awards, held—natch—at the Waldorf=Astoria. Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce is up for a trophy, for the oft-mentioned film-like Glo Coat floor wax TV commercial—and Draper can barely conceal his wish to take home the prize. He does. But this, of course, gives him a grand excuse to celebrate. And in the world Don Draper, celebrating means two things: heavy imbibing and carousing.

A Visit to Strong Place

Strong Place—which is not on Strong Place, but a block away, on Court Street—is the third Cobble Hill venture by the folks behind the juice bar Nectar and the wine bar Bocca Lupo, and to my mind the most successful. (As a wine bar, Bocca Lupo always felt like a missed opportunity to me.) The look is very clean, stark and wooden, with a couple of wood booths up front, a long bar to the right and a few more small booths at back.

Beer is the story here, drink-wise. There are wines, but nothing to shout about. 24 drafts in all, mainly craft beers and all from the U.S. Fine and reliable names such as Captain Lawrence, Sixpoint, McNeill's, Avery, Allagash and Victory are all in evidence. I like how they've zeroed in on a few excellent, smaller breweries and stood by them, offering a few beers by each. The draft names are displayed on little pieces of rough paper in front of each tap. (There's a printed menu as well.) I had the Captain Lawrence's Kaptain's Kolsch, a worthy version of this top-fermented Cologne style, and tasted the Allagash Black and Avery Ellies Brown Ale. (The bartender, who was friendly, was liberal with tastes.) Beers were between $5 and $8. There were also a dozen beers in bottles and a couple in cans.

More on the New Lambs Club

I stopped by the softly opening Lambs Club in the Chatwal Hotel yesterday and learned a bit more about the Sasha Petraske-created drinks program.

First of all, the space, while a bit garish, is also gorgeous, and reminds one of the glamour that was once associated with the theatre district. I suspect it will become catnip for theatre types, who are always looking for an attractive backdrop. The mezzanine bar (seen above in the rear of the picture) is long and luxurious, its top a warmly glowing red glass, Empire State Building-shaped silver light fixtures above, the barmen in white jackets, hands folded behind their backs when they're not working.

The Sipping News

Bartender Nick Jarrett put in his final shift at Philadelphia's Franklin Mortgage & Investment Company on Aug. 24. Now, New York has his full-time.

An unsavory-sounding vodka gets the perfect spokesman. [Refinery 29]

Albert Trummer of Apoteke defends flaming cocktails [NY Post]

Cold River of Maine comes out with a gin. [NY Barfly]

Eric Asimov looks at the soulful side Bordeaux. [NYT]