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Eloté Cocktail

June 28, 2021 / Monkeybrad / 0 Comments

I am all about side quests. Seriously, I always have several low level goals running in the background. Whether it’s getting the chance to drive a train, seeking out a vintage Corgi Jr. Batmobile or playing pool with a person of note, I have this whole list of stuff that is on my radar, just not a priority. Well, not a priority unless good fortune suddenly opens a door and moves something to the top of the list. One of those perpetual side quests is the never ending search for new ingredients. Whether for our home kitchen, the test kitchen at work or our cocktail bar, I have a whole list of stuff that I am quietly searching for and I recently received a bottle I have been chasing for quite some time. So, in the spirit of those goals that keep us chasing the horizon, won’t you join me now as we stand and make the Eloté Cocktail.

Morning Man

June 27, 2021 / Monkeybrad / 0 Comments

They say that if you remain open, life provides. I don’t know if that is true on a large scale, but that’s how things have gone for me, generally. You know how it goes, all hope is lost and suddenly, the thing you need drops in your lap all deus ex machina-y. Or you are sitting thinking about things, all lost in your head when the phone rings and it’s the person you need to hear from, even if you did not know it. Some folks call it kismet, I call it a slingblade. No, that’s wrong. I call it life providing. Anyway, the thing is, it worked out for me today, so please join me now as we stand and make the Morning Man.

Brancolada

June 25, 2021 / Monkeybrad / 1 Comment

I’ve come to the bitter side of the cocktail world slowly. I started out with a preference for sweeter or booze forward mixtures, but the more I experiment, the more I appreciate the other side of the coin. I tried lots of things, but the first of these more herbal bitter spirits that really connected for me was Branca Menta, Fernet-Branca’s lighter, sweeter, mintier cousin. It was my launching point and is still a favorite. I often enjoy tossing half an ounce in my morning latte. So, when I saw this tropical Branca drink, I knew I had to try it. So, with a nod to Kevin Smith and appreciating the bitter and the sweet, won’t you join me now as we stand and make, the Brancolada.

Death By Morning

June 24, 2021 / Monkeybrad / 0 Comments

If you don’t start anything, you’ll never have to finish it. That sounds a bit pithy and wise, does it not? I could probably drop a dash after that and make up a name and folks would think I was educated for quoting someone clever. Sadly, that’s not the case, they are just some words I wrote down while trying to figure out how to start writing. Some days it is harder than others. Like most of my life it is feast or famine. Either I have million things to say and I am having to edit ideas out to keep things on track or I live in an inspirational wasteland. It’s not quite that bad, but I do want things to be good and somedays, well, you can just tell that the good stuff is going to hang there like Aesop’s grapes, just out of reach. So, in the spirit of doing the work, even when you don’t feel like you have it in you, won’t you join me now as we stand and make Death By Morning.

Japanese Slipper

June 22, 2021 / Monkeybrad / 0 Comments

One of the best parts of getting older is learning just how ignorant you truly were back when you thought you knew it all. That seems to be a recurring theme with me, learning humility, mostly at the hand of my old, cocky self. I miswrote that as old, cocky elf and I really wanted to keep it. To go off on a tangent about that clever little fellow with the pointy ears and prodigious memory who would pop up from time to time, dispensing wisdom, while showing me the follies of the ghosts of former me’s long gone, but not forgotten. There is a great deal of fun to be had there, but I am not feeling up to it narratively today. So, ponder that and mourn the tale that might have been as we stand and make the Japanese Slipper.

Jubilee Punch

June 19, 2021 / Monkeybrad / 0 Comments

I’m a big fan of the song “A Change is Gonna Come”, whether you go with the Sam Cooke original, Great Van Fleet or one of the other many covers, the words ring true, perhaps now more than ever. We know this. We hear it all the time “The only constant is change.” For all our talk of change, it sure does seem like those wheels turn slowly sometimes. I am reminded of the old proverb, “Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceedingly fine.” Maybe that is as things must be, as long as we continue on that moral arc we will eventually find justice. I just wish the road to true equity and equality ran a smoother path. So, in honor of that struggle and the need for change, won’t you join me now as we stand and make Jubilee Juice.

Bananas Foster Manhattan

June 17, 2021 / Monkeybrad / 1 Comment

It’s all about change. A lot of folks talk about “survival of the fittest” but what Darwin was really getting at was the ability to change. Those who are most “fit”
to adapt are the ones who not only survive but excel and prosper when conditions around them change. Think of the world you were born into. How much our ideas of what is right, fair and equitable have changed. How technology has created a new universe of jobs and opportunities while leaving entire industries and mindsets obsolete in its wake. Time is a river and it keeps moving. The truth is, either we adapt to the place and time we live in or we find ourselves stagnating, losing relevance, contact and context, stuck in a backwater as that river moves on without us. Change can be painful, but it is the key that unlocks our future selves. Won’t you please join me now and pass through the crucible as we stand and make the Bananas Foster Manhattan.

Monte Carlo

June 16, 2021 / Monkeybrad / 2 Comments

“You can’t just jump in to the middle,” she said, the exasperation palatable in the air. “These things take time, you have to build a world before you can live in it.” I knew she was right, of course. It was careless of me to have let this happen in the first place. I should have stopped right then, but I figured I would get away with it. No one was getting hurt after all. That’s what I told myself, but with every incident I found myself falling further down the well of denial. I knew what had to happen. I had to fix things, but how could I do that now? I could always go back and pretend it never happened in the first place, create evidence, obscure the trail, but that did not seem right. Better to just own up to the facts and make things as right as I could. So, in the spirit of correcting dead ends and restoring the sacred narrative throughline, won’t you join me now as we stand and make the Monte Carlo.

Yardbird

June 15, 2021 / Monkeybrad / 0 Comments

There are moments that touch your heart. You never know when they are going to come, when something is going to slip through our carefully constructed armor to find home. I am often struck by poetry. The way you can read a few lines and be forever changed by their message. I remember having to memorize Longfellow’s “The Tide Rises and the Tide Falls” in school. How those few simple words on a page encapsulated the permanence of nature and our short journey through it. How wonderful to be so fleeting. A moment in time, never to exist again. I kind of love that. How our true beauty as individuals and a species lies in the fact that we are both ephemeral and eternal. Not only that, but we are acutely aware of how small our place in the grand scheme of things may be, how we strut and fret our poor hour upon the stage, knowing that we are only a moment in the larger story of humankind. Yet we strive to make things better, to take the music further, if just for a little while. So, with that in mind, won’t you please join me as we stand and make, the Yardbird.

Leche de Pantera

June 14, 2021 / Monkeybrad / 0 Comments

Over the weekend, we passed a pleasant afternoon with friends reminiscing about great days of travel. It was a blast reliving moments on the road and hearing their stories of those amazing little bars or restaurants they stumbled across, the things they saw and, most importantly, the people they met. It seems like every adventure shared a common theme, whenever things got off track, when they left the prescribed schedule or plan, that is when the best stories occur. That has certainly been our experience. Every trip has its own special memories and the more we talked, the more nearly forgotten details came back to us. It was in the middle of an entirely different story that we remembered sampling a staple of the Barcelona drinking scene, a drink so ubiquitous that you don’t even have to find a bar to enjoy it. So, won’t you please join me now as we stand and make Leche de Pantera, the historic, Panther’s Milk.

Inside the Mind of the Monkey