To try in my next martini: black pepper — from Ian Fleming in Moonraker.

When M. poured him three fingers from the frosted carafe Bond took a pinch of black pepper and dropped it on the surface of the vodka. The pepper slowly settled to the bottom of the glass leaving a few grains on the surface which Bond dabbed up with the tip of his finger. Then he tossed the cold liquor well to the back of his throat and put his glass with the dregs of pepper at the bottom, back on the table.

“There’s often quite a lot of fusel oil on the surface of the stuff — at least there used to be when it was badly distilled. Poisonous. In Russia, where you get a lot of bath-tub liquor, it’s an understood thing to sprinkle a little pepper in your glass. It takes the fuel oil to the bottom. I got to like the taste…”

I’ve considered aging cocktails before, but am now wondering if I could put oak chips in a jar with the alcohol to offset needing 6 bottles of bourbon to fill a barrel?

File this under (foreign) sentences I like.

kun vine, som vi selv sætter pris på at drikke, såvel i langstilket krystal som i sennepsglas, finder vej til sortimentet

which translates to:

only wine we like to drink, either in long-stemmed crystal or in a mustard jar, finds its way into the selection

Drink alcohol. Quite a bit. Mostly bourbon.

Drinking rules. Related: food rules.

I’d be okay if every Saturday night followed this formula.

Filed under “to do this evening”: french press manhattan.

Don’t you drink? I notice you speak slightingly of the bottle. I have drunk since I was fifteen and few things have given me more pleasure. When you work hard all day with your head and know you must work again the next day what else can change your ideas and make them run on a different plane like whisky?

—Ernest Hemingway

More reason to love the Ace Hotel, they serve pickle backs.

One couple told me the Ace was too hip for them, but they loved the pickle-backs. “This would be a shot of whiskey chased by a shot of pickle juice,” the young man said, observing the lobby scene with disdain. “And the pickle juice here is house-made, therefore it is the best pickle juice.”

Video reference for why you should stir your manhattans.

Here’s another example of drink prices adjusting to supply and demand. This one coming from Michigan brewer Bell’s.

The prices will never go higher than around 10 percent the base cost, but will drop to as much as 50 percent below base cost.  For example, a Bell’s Two-Hearted Ale may be $3 normally. But, depending on the “market” activity (i.e. patrons buying tendencies) it could be as much as $3.25 or as little as $1.50 (prices fluctuate in increments of 25 cents). The prices will change every 15 minutes and there will be, at random, a “stock market crash” — signified by air horns — when all 28 beers are sold at a low rate for five minutes.

I think coffee shops could employ this strategy as well.

ps, Bell’s Two-Hearted Ale is gooood.