So Little Pimm's, So Little Time

The lovely lady's getting her hairs done, which means that after braving the rain for the dry cleaner and then the markets (stuffed peppers a la Diva due for dinner), it was time to put on some records (My Morning Jacket, Jonathan Richman, Ray Barretto, Bruce Cockburn, Charlie Parker & Miles Davis), reflect a bit about the early episodes of "Mad Men," make a drink, watch the puddles.

Summer is not here and it's interesting that peering into the liquor cabinet, first thinking Manhattan, I wondered whether there was something I could do with the couple fingers of Pimm's I had in there courtesy of BrO and his spring cleaning years ago. The bottle cap still has the price from Astor Wine & Spirits, $10.39. The powers of the Internets were then summoned, with more than a dozen recipes coming up.

After texting Jomo I had a drink idea: make two! It's a good opportunity to use some of the barware, glassware and a clipboard. Here I have each recipe and tasting:

Pimm's Turbo
1 oz. gin (I used Plymouth)
1 oz. Pimm's
4 oz. Limonata by San Pellegrino

Put ice cubes in a red-wine glass or goblet, and add ingredients. Garnish with a lemon twist. (Use a channel knife.)

Melanie Pimm's
2/3 oz. Scotch (I used TJ's blended)
1-1/2 oz. Pimm's
1/3 oz. lemon juice
5 oz. Limonata by San Pellegrino

Put ice in a highball or Collins glass, and add ingredients. Garnish with a thin lemon wedge.

Now the comparison: The Turbo is all swinging London, smooth sipping and easy living, perhaps the very essence of cocktail time. In a way, one could say, it bears any burden, meets any hardship to assure the survival and success of liberty, at any price. But the Melanie, with its darker shade as well as greater body and complexity given the blended Scotch and extra citrus, captures more of the "Here's That Rainy Day" mood. Off to the puddles.

Don't Drink Long Island Iced Teas, Even If You Have To

El Gran Ron weighs in on a fussily ordered he had, yes, at our Perbacco:

> As Luis Bunuel (and I) would respond, it is crucial to use only uncrushed, whole ice cubes in making martinis and to place them and the gin only into a shaker, not some beaker. Stirred martinis -- often and wrongly stirred in a beaker so as not to "bruise" the gin -- are for ignorant and often pretentious pussies. Gin does no bruise, but it does improve in lip-smacking "dryness" when served very, very cold and as undiluted as possible by (yech) water from (ugh) crushed ice. Martinis are serious business, not slushies. Moreover, the shaker should be agitated (without beating the ice to death and cracking it) for some several minutes. at which point the martini should be poured into an already chilled martini glass. We'll leave the choice and application of types of vermouth and olives, onions or other delicacies to be served within the martini for another time.

I hope you don't take offense, Antonio Luis, but that slick bartender at Perbacco, who you seemed to know by name [this would be Scott -AL] and vice-versa, did not make a good, not even a decent, martini, I am sad to tell you, despite the fact that he tried twice. If he focused less on his fancy hand-job routines in making drinks and various other showoff flim-flam behind bar and more time reading and studying and understanding what a good martini is and how to make one, he might be salvageable; though frankly he seems to too vain and hubristic to me to ever be a good bartender, whose major attributes have to be a total absence of needless flash and filagree and a basic, openly expressed sense of humility and compassion.

So, in the slightly altered advice of Abe Polonsky, I would encourage you not to give up and come to a false understanding before you have to. If you ever get any crushed ice in your martini, the putz behind the bar has flim-flammed you with fency hand jobs into believing that he knows what he's doing. The only defense is to know more and better than he does.

As ever,

El Gran Ron

An Americano Classic

Negronis at Perbacco, poured with Right gin, Carpano Antica and the company of Jomo. Pic is purloined from something called L.A. Splash.

UPDATE: For the Perbacco-perfect Negroni, taper off the Campari a bit instead of equal parts of the three ingredients.