The Importance of Failure - Why Do Handsome Geniuses That Everyone Likes Continue To Fail?

Excuse the title of this entry, I'm trying to get it picked up by The Atlantic.

In the past few weeks this blog has featured a dazzling array of beautiful, delicious cocktails, each one bursting with creativity and daring. How can one mere man (granted, one who is looking down at mankind from the peak of human perfection) be responsible for such a cornucopia? By possessing a strong tolerance for failure, combined with an unflappable zest in the face of horrible poisons and buoyed by a tireless, fearless liver.

While the sublime refinement of the cocktails on display might suggest that, like Athena, each concoction sprang forth from my blazing mind fully grown and well-armed, in reality many are born like side-breaching preemies, slowly and painfully, with great risk to the inventor. Below is one such disaster, which I dutiful choked down and am sharing with you to emphasize the hazards I endure in pursuit of wisdom and innovation.

I've been generally aware of the 'Bullshot' since college, when I found it in a drink recipe book I'd purchased at the Friends Of The Library bookstore for $.25. A combination of Vodka and Beef Bullion, much like WinCarnis (aka Jamican Meat Wine) I've enjoyed knowing it existed but never tried it. For the unaware, the esteemed cocktail historian David Wondrich has a nice run-down on the 'Bullshot'.

For whatever reason, after 8 years of quietly incubating, last Thursday it occurred to me that I MUST try a 'Bullshot'. I thought about it all day at work, envisioning how it's savory mix of alcohol and essential meat-based micro-nutrients would make my sinews twang with vigor and heart pump firmly once again. I imagined a flight of ethnic broths, Dashi with Shochu, Rosół with Zubrowka. After biking home in the rain, I was wet, tired, weak, ready for a restorative 'Bullshot' and to embark upon a new phase of my life replete with broth-based cocktails.

When I started to scourge up the ingredients, it turned out we were missing Vodka, Beef Bullion, and Tabasco. A lesser-man would have been deterred by the near total lack of essential components but like Shackleton I valiantly pressed on. Substituting chicken bullion for Beef, Harissa for Tabasco, Baiju for Vodka, at somepoint in this wheeling-and-dealing the endeavor went awry. Served steaming hot, it tasted like alcoholic Pho, but significantly less good than that sounds. I would detail more what it tasted like, but no one will ever attempt to recreate it so I would prefer to be the sole holder of that knowledge.    

'Tyler's Alcoholic Chicken'
4 oz Reconstituted Chicken Bullion
1 tsp Harrisa
1.5 oz Baiju
Shichimi Togarashi

Mix everything together, top with sprinkle of Shichimi Togarashi. When Margarett gets home ask her what Harrisa is. Hate this cocktail and the world that led you to create it.

The Royal We

A few nights ago we spent about 4 hours creating baijiu cocktails. We as in the plural 'we' of 'Margarett and myself', rather than the singular 'we' of 'We Demand Obedience!'. It turns out 4 hours of baijiu cocktails takes us from an aperitif drink to awaken the palate before dinner all the way to something to clutch with while I lay on the floor and loudly moan until Margarett agrees to make me a quesadilla. The purpose of all this SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH was to select a cocktail to accompany Mar's upcoming piece on Vinn Distillery, a Portland distillery making a traditional rice spirit called Baijiu. If you aren't familiar with Baijiu stay tuned for a pedantic future update where I regurgitate 30 minutes of Wikipedia research in such a way as to make it seem like I've been drinking baijiu for years and am actually one of the world's premier experts on it.

Rice Baijiu seems to taste a fair bit like a Japanese Kome Shochu or Taiwanese Michiu, which makes sense because they are all similar things made in somewhat similar ways. Below are our tasting notes:

Mar - combines the vegetal qualities of tequila with the earthiness of sake. Notes of unsweetened chocolate, mushroom, black pepper, and rain-soaked soil are supported by a backbone of toasty brown rice and a slight sour-sweetness.
Me - tastes like vodka but like you are also licking an unwashed potato.

 I still had a bad cold at the time. It's not as off putting as that sounds, or maybe it is for some people. I don't care about those people. I don't actively wish for bad things to happen to them, but I hope they can't find true happiness.We liked it enough to make about 8 cocktails a piece.

Our Findings....

* If Hunger Level surpasses Fatal Hunger Threshold, Patient's death typically occurs within 1 22-min episode of 'How It's Made'

Also  we found that Vinn's baijiu works good-to-great in all vodka cocktails, but gets lost in the mix pretty easily. Like (some) grappa, it has a unique and distinctive taste but is subtle and seems to work best as a shot. At work people ask me all the time for good cocktails to make with grappa. It is a struggle because I desperately want them to buy it but I also think that a grappa cocktail is for someone with more money than taste. I imagine it is how Apple must feel when people say 'I like this iPhone, can you recommend any Swarovski Crystal studded cases?' The simultaneous urge to take their money but also beat them with a lead pipe to prevent them from befouling what you've created with their philistinism. Maybe that is more Steve Job's view than Apple. He seemed like a jerk. Also he is dead. Causation? Correlation? The facts are there, you decide. How about a drink?

  "Contents of a Human Stomach"

1 1/2 oz Vinn Baijiu

1 1/2 oz grapefruit juice
3/4 oz 1:1 simple syrup
1 diced vinegar pepper (hot)
2 oz sparkling water or wine

Rummage in the fridge for the oldest jar of hot peppers you can find. Have you located one that has been in there AND open for at least 6+ months? Is the package mostly illegibly foreign? Perfect. Eat a few to make sure they blazing hot. Your mouth should now be so numb you could drink 4 oz of house paint and think it tastes great. Stem and dice pepper and add to shaker. Add ice, Baijiu, grapefruit juice, simple syrup, shake. Add 2 oz champagne to glass and strain drink into it. Think ruefully about those hot peppers as they begin fomenting acidic despair in your empty, quesadilla-less stomach.