The Restaurant Guys' Regulars

Bill Grimes: Straight Up or On the Rocks

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The Restaurant Guys' Regulars

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This is a Vintage Selection from 2005

The Banter

The Guys discuss the issues with destruction of certain animals and why eating them may be the will of the divine.

The Conversation

The Restaurant Guys are thrilled to welcome respected food and cocktail writer Bill Grimes to talk about the story of the American cocktail and Bill’s next book on the history of dining in NY. Bill tells where we've been and who helped us get here.

The Inside Track

The Guys relied upon Bill’s book Straight Up or On the Rocks while they built their cocktail bar (which is now the longest-running craft cocktail bar in the world!) While they all take their cocktails seriously, Bill thinks all drinks can play a part.


Bill: A cocktail that's like a well-made entree where the flavors., are meaningful in relationship to each other and give pleasure because there's a certain tension or balance. But I'll also say there's a role for sort of the nutty, crazy, stupid cocktail too. I think a cocktail is a cocktail. It should encourage all kinds of kind of wacky inventiveness 

Mark:  So you believe that that the fuzzy wuzzy woo-woo maybe does have a place in our society and does serve a purpose?

Bill: It’s the price you pay for freedom,


Bio

William “Bill” Grimes is a longtime contributor to The New York Times. He has served in numerous editorial and writing capacities—ranging from magazine writer and culture reporter to theater columnist, restaurant critic and author.

He has written many critically acclaimed books on food and drink: Straight Up or On the Rocks: The Story of the American Cocktail (a foundational cocktail history), and Appetite City: A Culinary History of New York 

His work earned nominations like the James Beard Foundation nod for culinary journalism

Info

Bill Grimes NYT Cooking

https://cooking.nytimes.com/author/william-grimes


Books

Straight Up or On the Rocks: The Story of the American Cocktail 

Appetite City: A Culinary History of New York


To get the recipes mentioned in the show, email TheGuys@restaurantguyspodcast.com


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Francis:

Hello, mark. Hello Francis. How is getting to work today? Uh,

Mark:

it was a little bit of a wild ride from Cranford, New Jersey, big traffic jam in Cranford this morning. All

Francis:

seven

Mark:

cars are in the road here, about 40 ducks cross on the road. They were taking their time too,

Francis:

not moving for anybody. Which begs the question, why did the duck cross the road? Oh, that was the chicken. Awful. Awful. Did you, did you really have, have you have a

Mark:

duck problem in Cranford? Well, you know, we did have a duck problem in Cranford, and, and it was this, this big issue about three years ago, and they, and they came in with the, the, the county trucks and they gassed in Union County, New Jersey, a lot of ducks. Mm-hmm. And one of the things I never really understood. Yeah. They destroyed all the ducks instead of. You know, using them as part of the food chain. Mm-hmm. They destroyed the ducks. You wanted to have a duck hunt in

Francis:

Cranford

Mark:

New Jersey. Exactly. Forget to bear hunt. I want a duck hunt.

Francis:

Oh, everyone. Keep your kids at home. Hide under the bed. We're letting men with guns out to shoot the ducks in populated cranford, New Jersey maybe bows and

Mark:

arrows. How's that? But, but seriously, we, I mean, it just seemed like such a waste. I mean, they, they caught thousands of ducks across the county. Gas them because I mean, they were having problems with health problems and things like that in the city. Water supply. Well, you too, of a concentration

Francis:

of ducks or geese. You get, you get problems with, you know. Duck refuse. Yes, as it were. Duck refuse.

Mark:

Nicely

Francis:

done.

Mark:

Uh,

Francis:

duck litter

Mark:

actually is what we can call it. But, um, but yeah, so, but I, I don't get it. I don't get why we wouldn't use that. there's all these people talking about animal rights, all these people, and we, we just wasted these ducks.

Francis:

do you think that maybe they, because the gassing, the ducks is. More humane or more painless somehow, you know,

Mark:

I don't, I don't know, but wouldn't, shouldn't we save all those ducks that we're eating now and, and eat these instead?

Francis:

Yeah. I never understood. I also, I also don't understand the people who are against the, um, the deer hunts and the bear hunts in Jersey because, well, there's too many deer. And there are too many bear, and I'm, we know we're all about sustainability. Sure. Um, and we're all about humane meth. We're not

Mark:

saying, we're, we're not saying wipe out the bear or wipe out the deer or wipe out the geese. We're duck.

Francis:

But like, but like we say, listen, sometimes you can't build a condominium development because you, you impinge upon a species that you might eradicate from the face of the planet. Sometimes there, you know. This, a species goes out of balance. Right. And you know, deer used to have natural predators, right? I mean, there used to be lions, you know, so there aren't, there aren't any many big cats in the suburbs bringing down the deer. No. And so the, the population explodes to an unhealthy level.

Mark:

And to where the deer are actually starving to death. You actually have in, in, in some populations in New Jersey, deer that in the past. Deer that starved. Before. Before, before. But I mean, they have hunts now that control the deer. Yeah. They're still outta control though. Princeton. If you live, I mean, forget Princeton. Yeah. Okay, now, now Cranford, we, we make fun of cranford, but cranford iss a, a little city uhhuh, there are deer all over Cranford. There are rabbits all over Cranford

Francis:

actually. And the problem got so bad because there are no

Mark:

pre predators.

Francis:

The problem got so bad that in Princeton they wanted to have a limited licensed hunt mm-hmm. To, to get to call the deer, you know, and there was a lot of opposition from animal rights groups, and I, I never quite understood that. Mm-hmm. Animals have predators, okay? Mm-hmm. And they're, they're supposed to live in the wild. And what the natural end to most animals' lives is to be eaten by another animal. Mm-hmm. Whether that's a human being or not a human being. I mean, animals don't retire to Florida and watch TV and, you know, pass away in their sleep surrounded by their family. That's not how animals die. Well, some animals die that. The

Mark:

humans. Me also, also the ones that we crate up and, and put in our back and put in the back of the station wagon and drive down to Florida.

Francis:

But I, yeah, I, I, I don't understand the opposition there to, to using those animals in the food chain. I think there's a, there's a fundamental disconnect. Mm-hmm. And I think it's the same reason that people don't, why the family farmers threatened mm-hmm. Um, is because people think the chicken comes from a. A cellophane wrapper. Right? A little plastic bag in ShopRite and chicken comes from a chicken, everybody. Mm-hmm. And that's why, you know, we're against factory farming because they. Pump those chickens, which are real animals. I'm not against killing animals for food. I'm, I'm for it in fact. Right. But to raise an animal humanely for it in, in a way that that has, it is consistent with its nature and then to kill it hu humanely for food. Mm-hmm. I don't have a problem with that. That's the way, I mean, if I don't kill that chicken, the dog is gonna kill the chicken right over the fox. So, but the, with agribusiness farms, what they do is they cut the chicken's beaks off so they can fit them in a factory farm cage, and they don't peck each other to death. Mm-hmm. And then they pump them full of antibiotics and they

Mark:

pack so many of them, you wouldn't believe that they would put this many chickens in one cup,

Francis:

and then you get an unnatural amount of litter from the poultry. Mm-hmm. And, and it fouls the, the water and the land, and no pun intended. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. A foul with a U And you know, that to me is unnatural. That's what we're against. But, you know, hunting the deer when we have too many deer so we can kill them and may as well have a stake out of it. I don't get it. Yeah.

Mark:

Again, what the thing that bothered me about that, that the, the duck and mm-hmm and goose hunt was that they didn't use, that, they didn't use the product. The product was, was destroyed and wasted. Right. what you're saying to is that other geese and duck will be killed for food as well as these instead of these instead of them. Well, and you know, and that just seems wasteful to me

Francis:

and what I think is really weak. I mean, I think it's morally weak. Okay, so everybody get your hate mail email ready to go. Okay. Ill leave vegetarians out there. I feel like I got one ready to go. Oh, right at you right now. Go ahead. Um, I bet, I bet. My email, my inbox is filling up as we speak. I think it's weak to, to say, oh, well, killing animals is always wrong. Well, that's an easy. And I think cowardly choice to make because there come, there comes a time when it's inhumane not to call the deer population. Mm-hmm. It's inhumane not to call the bear population. It's

Mark:

worse to let them starve to death, I think, than it's to and spread disease. Mm-hmm.

Francis:

Among each other. And also they can jump to humans. Um. And, and, and when you have, uh, geese and ducks that, that foul the water supply, that become a real health hazard to human beings. There comes a point where you have to, to step in and the humane thing is to be a rational human being. Mm-hmm. And realize that sometimes we need to kill animals. Did you say irrational human being? No. Irrational. Oh, okay. Human being. And sometimes we need to kill animals and. I, I think it's, it's weeks. Oh, well we can never kill an animal. I, I don't, I don't, I don't get it. Well, you

Mark:

know, you know my motto there a lot. I, I happen to know a lot of people who claim they're vegetarians and still eat seafood and things like that.

Francis:

Yeah. We, you know, my motto,

Mark:

my, oh, what's your motto?

Francis:

I'm sorry.

Mark:

Is where, uh, you're gonna eat 12 shrimp. Right. I'm gonna eat one, 200th of a cow. You know my motto,

Francis:

God, if God didn't want us to eat animals, he wouldn't have made them outta meat. Yeah, that's good motto. We're gonna be talking with Bill Grimes, former restaurant critic for the New York Times, author of a, a book, cocktails on cocktails and, um, general bfi. In just a moment, you're listening to the Restaurant Guys, Hey, you're back with the restaurant guys, mark Pascal and Francis. Shot from Stage Left Restaurant in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and we have a special guest today. Bill Grimes was once the drinking man columnist for Esquire Magazine. He writes for the New York Times where he was restaurant critic from 90. 1997 to 2003. He's al also authored among other works, our favorite book on cocktails, straight up around the Rocks, the Story of the American Cocktail. And he's currently working on a new book about the history of dining in New York. Hey Bill, welcome to the show.

Mark:

Thank you. Good morning, bill. Hi, how are you doing great.

Francis:

Thanks for taking the time to, uh, to come and talk with us. You know, your book, um, straight up around the Rocks was instrumental when we put our restaurant together. It was, we, we built our cocktail list around you, right? Right around

Mark:

the time your book came out is when we opened.

Bill:

Oh gosh.

Francis:

Yeah. you're really fascinated with cocktails and you write really well about cocktails. But I want to ask you, do you think you have a problem?

Bill:

I, uh, I, you'd be surprised how little I drink, but Little but well. Little wood. That's right. You know, to target your opportunities.

Francis:

We're gonna put your book up on our website later so people can find it. I highly recommend it. It is, um, it used to be called When I bought it back in 93. Was it, that it first came out? Yeah, it was around 93. Mm-hmm. Um, it was called, uh, the story of the co It was, um, was it straight up around the rocks? A cultural history of American drink?

Bill:

Yes. You know, the second time around when I bought it out, I had a chance to revise it, Uhhuh, uh, make it a little more up to date. Mm-hmm.

Mark:

Correct.

Bill:

A couple of errors,

Mark:

Uhhuh.

Bill:

And um, and I thought that subtitle was a little highfalutin.

Mark:

Yeah, I'm

Bill:

a

Francis:

highfalutin

Mark:

kind of guy. I liked it. And Bill, you don't, you write for the New York Times, you don't make errors.

Francis:

That's right.

Mark:

Occasionally you're misquoted, but that's it. That's right.

Francis:

Now your book and what people should know about this book, what's interesting about it is there are cocktail recipes in this book, but it's not your coffee table cocktail book. It's about putting. Cocktails in a cultural context, what ever inspired you to to pursue that line of inquiry?

Bill:

Well, when I was doing the uh, Esquire column. The tack that I naturally fell into was to try to figure out, when I would write about a particular cocktail, I try to figure out, well, where did this thing come from? And I wound up going to the library trying to do research, trying to separate myths from fact, which is very difficult to do,

Speaker 6:

especially in cocktails. Especially

Bill:

in cocktails. And gradually I developed this kind of running folder of historical material about the American cocktail. And at some point, uh, it, it seemed. That it could support a book.

Mark:

Mm-hmm. That if

Bill:

you could try to string it all together and give a continuous story of cocktails as this uniquely American form of expression and. Try to explain how it started and how it developed and where it seems to be going, that that would be kind of a satisfying read and nobody had done it really.

Mark:

Yeah. I, I think what some people don't realize is that, uh, most of the, the literature about cocktails had been written by drunk people.

Bill:

It reads that way.

Francis:

You wrote, and I, and I want you to talk about cocktails being uniquely American. I want to tell you, I'm just, um, on our first cocktail menu, we used a couple of quotes from your book, um, from the original book you quoted, HL Mankin, um, as saying, uh, he, he called Mankin, called the cocktail, the greatest of all the contributions of the American way of life to the salvation of mankind. And then in the inside flap, you wrote commenting on that quote, you said Mankin did not live to see the fuzzy navel, the screaming orgasm or the teeny weenie woowoo. And perhaps it's just as well abominations like the jello shot remind us that standards do matter. And I thought that was fabulous. American and an American contribution to history.

Bill:

Yes, they are. It's, uh, one of those things like jazz or, uh. You know, funny newspaper cartoon strips that, uh, Americans seem to just hit on all by themselves. We're famous around the world for being the place where you get a lot of ice in everything,

Mark:

right? Mm-hmm. And that

Bill:

was key to kind of differentiating the cocktail from other kinds of mixed drinks. You, uh, we, we all, Americas was essentially a transplanted English culture, but England is a, is a cold weather. Culture. Mm-hmm. And the drinks, all their sort of famous mixed drinks, or many of them tend to be kind of warm punches and things that warm you up after you're cold. And over here we had the opposite tack and it was, uh. Or very early on, as soon as they were able to,

Mark:

we didn't need the hot toddie as much as they do. We

Bill:

didn't need the hot toddie. We needed the, the ice cold chilled martini. Right. Uhhuh. And pretty early on, American ingenuity was applied to how do you get ice produced on a mass scale? That was a big turning point. Well, back in the early 19th

Francis:

century and, and that was a big thing. Ice was a luxury. Mm-hmm. For a long time. That's right. And then, and then, so I guess that made the cocktail seem all the more luxurious, didn't it?

Bill:

Yeah, I think it was surrounded by an air of, uh, kind of exclusiveness and luxury, even in places you wouldn't think about. Like, uh, you know, in the gold rush they went from kind of like from zero to 60 in no seconds flat uhhuh, you start out with just kind of a barrel of whiskey under a tent,

Mark:

uhhuh. And

Bill:

within about a year you'd have this. You'd have people doing these fabulous bars with polished crystal and the bartender wearing starched white uniform and, and doing, having a repertoire of all kinds of drinks using all kinds of ingredients. There were just these very luxurious standards at, uh. At hotel bars and mm-hmm. Uh, kind of any public gathering place where there was a good bar.

Mark:

Well, one of the things you write about is the, is the status of the barman in, in society that he, that he held a, a very high place.

Bill:

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mark Twain said he was like right up there with the mayor. Do you think he was a big, you know, big political, a lot of politics took place in bar? I,

Mark:

I was just about to say that's'cause of all the gossip that he heard and all, all the all uh, the information he had on all the people in the town.

Francis:

You know, I think that for a while the barman and Mark and I both started off as bartenders and we love it was the best job we ever had still. Um, and I think there was a time when the, the bartender was sort of fell into disfavor, you know, the old bar culture sort of was not what it has become again and. Now I think the, the, the local barman in, in many places is, again, an important part of the community is, is sort of the glue that holds a bit of a community together. Do you find there's a resurgence of that?

Bill:

I do think there's been a real change in the culture of bartending that, uh, for a long time when you had, uh, you know, really for a very long time after, after prohibition kind of. Destroyed a lot of the great standards that bartenders had built up in the 19th century. For a long time, bartenders were required to mix some, you know, kind of the, the five basic drinks and all the, all the flavorings were pre-mixed and prepackaged. And it was just a kind of a low quality product. Kind of depressing, like 1970s American cars.

Speaker 6:

Mm-hmm.

Bill:

And at a certain point. Um, guys like Dale DeGraff at the Rainbow Room.

Speaker 6:

Yeah.

Bill:

Began taking a more historical look at what a mixed drink was and what it used to be in America. Mm-hmm.

Mark:

And what

Bill:

bartenders used to be like in America. And, and they were much more like chefs.

Mark:

Mm-hmm.

Bill:

And I think that's the angle that, that a lot of bartenders are taking these days. That they're, they're thinking, Hey, I, I make a, uh, product that you. Consume in a way that you consume fine food at a restaurant. I'm working with ingredients and the quality ingredients matters. How you put'em together matters. The presentation matters. How they fit together with the food in the restaurant matters. And so you've got this whole uh, new, sophisticated way of looking at drinks that I think is one of the great things of the last like. 10 years or so. Mm-hmm.

Mark:

Well, one of the things that, that Dale did, uh, at the Rainbow Room, I think, and, and really caused this resurgence in, in the middle of, uh, the eighties was, was bringing back, just like you said, those ingredients, but, but your margarita mix didn't come as a powder. Yeah, it was, it was juices that you, that you s disclosed that day and you made, and maybe even qui right at the moment you were making that cocktail.

Bill:

He did. He would make it if you were sitting at the bar as opposed to at the table in the rainbow room, he would make it in front of you. Yeah, love that. And you see that, you would see the fruit being squeezed in front of you

Mark:

Uhhuh.

Bill:

And that was, uh, kind of revolutionary. And he really inspired a whole new, uh, this whole new generation. And he would also cast around for unusual ingredients. He would always be showing stuff that he was bringing back from the Caribbean.

Francis:

We're gonna talk more about those ingredients in just a moment. In our friend Dale DeGraff, our mutual friend Dale DeGraff. You're listening to the Restaurant Guys, Our guest today is Bill Grimes, a former food critic of the New York Times, a writer about wine and spirits in general. Author of our favorite book on cocktails straight up around the rocks, which you can find out about on our website. And we were talking about our mutual friend, um, Dale DeGraff, who is, to my mind the preeminent barmen in America. And the two things that started our cocktail program years ago when we had a, began a very active bar program were Bill Grimes. Was your book. And becoming friends with Dale DeGraff, who I had never realized how I'm a wine guy, you know, and I always sort of looked down my nose a little bit as cocktails as you know, simple libations and Dale taught me that cocktails can be as complex as wine. And the difference is the wine maker is somewhere out in California from three years ago and the barman is right there and makes your drinks to order. But, but I think cocktails were for a time yes, simple. Do you, but do you think that Dale Bill is, is sort of like the, the godfather of a new generation of, of cocktail makers?

Bill:

Oh yeah. No question. No question about it. I think you could draw like a family tree and you would have to start with him. Um, and then, you know, also with him, remember there was this great restaurateur, Joe Baum.

Speaker 6:

Yep.

Bill:

Who was the, uh, who steered Dale will tell you this himself, who sort of steered Dale in the direction of this old, uh, the first, um, cocktail book ever written Actually. Jerry Thomas' Bartender's guide,

Speaker 6:

right?

Bill:

Uh, published in 1862. Um, Dale didn't quite know Joe Baum wanted an old fashioned bar at, at one point, at one of his restaurants. And, uh, Dale was not quite sure what he was talking about, but he, Joe Baum said, well, look at his book. Just Jerry Thomas book. So Dale got to looking at that and, uh, that turned his head around. Yep.

Speaker 6:

Mm-hmm. And he

Bill:

started, um, doing research and collecting old cocktail books himself. He has a great collection and he became very historically minded and, and really rethought what it meant to be a bartender and what. A cocktail should mean and should be.

Francis:

Well, and, and Dale has one of the best collections of old and outer print cocktail books, and he's just a font of knowledge. But that's what you want out of a barman.

Mark:

But it's also, it's not just that. It's, Dale has a great palate and he understands the cocktails and the marrying of the ingredients and how they have to, how they have to work together to make a great.

Bill:

Yeah, he, um, that, that's the old chef aspect. Mm-hmm. It's, uh, you know, you're, you want balance and offsetting flavors in a cocktail, and you don't want, the definition of a good cocktail is not one that gets you drunk,

Speaker 6:

right? Mm-hmm. It's,

Bill:

it's a cocktail that's, uh, like a, like a well-made entree where the flavors. Uh, are meaningful in relationship to each other and give pleasure because there's a certain tension or balance, you know. But I'll also say there's, there's a role for sort of the nutty, crazy, stupid cocktail too. Like all those fuzzy navels, you don't see those anymore Uhhuh, but they're equivalent, you see all the time. I think cocktail is a cocktail. It should be, it should encourage all kinds of kind of wacky inventiveness because, well, it's,

Mark:

it's also the same role that white Zindel played in introducing people into, into new, new things that they never tried before. But hold on a

Francis:

second guys. I think things can go terribly, terribly awry, like the chocolate martini bar, I'll call it out here in Jersey, and we'll talk more with that.

Mark:

Bill, you were saying just, before the news there, that you believe that. That the fuzzy Wuzzy woowoo maybe does have a place in our society and, and does serve a purpose.

Bill:

The price you pay for freedom, I think. Did you spend the whole News Week thinking about that? It's, uh, I think the, uh. The freedom to experiment, you're gonna have disastrous cocktails. And if you go through old cocktail books, boy the record is there to read. You'll just see these some pretty ghastly ones.

Speaker 6:

Yeah.

Bill:

And, uh, particularly during prohibition, actually, you'll see, uh, a lot of relief. I was that awful. Cocktails were created. I

Mark:

was really thinking about the seventies.

Bill:

Seventies was not,

Mark:

not good. Well,

Bill:

you,

Francis:

well in, in prohibition at least they had an excuse. They were breaking the law. They had to make up stuff as they went along. You quote in your book, a book by Johnny Brooks that I, I didn't know that anybody else had, but it's author of my 35 Years Behind Bars, which is kind of a mundane book that he wrote about, uh, being a bartender through prohibition. So you think a lot about it. Uh, well, I don't know. I read books about cocktails, um, and you, you sort of quote him as talking about cocktails that, um, were designed to, in many cases, mask really awful homemade liquor. Sure. And so I think that's a reason to have some of those cocktails that are, you know, was that the inspiration for a lot of cocktails?

Bill:

Yes, it was. I mean, it was, uh. The, uh, a lot of those creamy, syrupy sweet, sickly sweet cocktails from the twenties and early thirties were specifically just so you wouldn't taste what was actually mm-hmm. But you buried beneath those ingredients.

Mark:

But didn't we do that as kids when we mixed bourbon and coke and didn't and, or seven and seven or those kinds of drinks? Weren't we doing the same thing?

Bill:

Yes, we were. I was drinking martinis. Go ahead. You, you didn't have a developed taste.

Francis:

Mm-hmm. Well, you know, I, I think though that. There are, I love to go to great cocktail places and there are some, there are some really great people doing great work out here in Jersey and in New York and, and all around the country being really careful and approaching it like a chef. I mean, when you go to a bar and they're using fresh juice or fresh ingredients, and like Dale DeGraff, our friend used to do at the Rainbow Room, you know, when he would make you something with orange juice in it, he had a bowl full of oranges and a squeezer on the bar, you know, and it was juiced. Orange. Exactly. And so when they would say, you know, that you'll see these old cocktail recipes, they'll say the juice of a quarter orange or the juice of a half an orange. Mm-hmm. And that's what they mean. And the difference in cocktails when you make that as opposed to the Tropicana, uh, is, is amazing. But. What I see on the other side of things is when you say that they're, they're silly drinks. Everything in a martini glass is not a martini. Everything in a cocktail glass is not a martini. And out here in Jersey, I, I've been to some cocktail bars, they call'em cocktail bars, and they make, I mean, they're just abominations of like bunches of different sweet liquors and things out of a gun. And

Bill:

try. There's no reason for a chocolate martini.

Francis:

Can you really even call it a martini bill?

Bill:

No, you can't. You can't. You know what it is? The martini has got such a, a cache mm-hmm. Or sexy allure to it nowadays. Right. And the shape of the glass. Yeah. It's the martini

Mark:

glass, I think is, is what people are saying that

Bill:

uh, they just wanna put anything in that glass that you could possibly put in, you know, at restaurants, they serve desserts in them. I

Mark:

was just about to say, I like to eat grapes out of mine.

Francis:

By the way. I think some of those drinks are desserts in them, you know? Mm-hmm. And here's what I wanna say, kitties. If, if you're drinking the blue drink with the sugar rim and a light in it, it's not a martini. Okay. It maybe a cocktail, but it's not a martini. If your

Mark:

ice cube is flashing, pick another drink.

Bill:

But you know what the martini used to be a lot sweeter than it is today. Yeah, true. Started out kind of half and half,

Francis:

you spent a whole chapter talking about the history of martini. Will you, uh, share with us?

Bill:

Yeah. The martini, first off, it's a much, much older drink than, uh, everybody thinks all cocktails started with prohibition, but that's not the case.

Speaker 6:

Mm-hmm. I

Bill:

mean, it goes well back into the 19th century. The martini probably was. Got going around the 1880s and, uh, sometimes it would be made with, uh, sweet ver moose even. And as it went along, it became more like, you know, even in the forties it would be. You know, maybe two to one or half and half,

Speaker 6:

right? Mm-hmm. And a

Bill:

dry martini would be something that would, today would be considered such a sweet martini no one would ever order. It was only in the fifties that there became this cult of drier, drier, drier to the point that people don't even have ver moose. I think that's a mistake I think for moose is in there for a reason. Mm-hmm. I agree. Fact, you should taste it, you know, it shouldn't be just a single drop from a medicine dropper.

Mark:

Well, especially now that there are some more, uh, more interesting vermouths, I think out there too. Makes, makes it even all the more interesting.

Bill:

Yeah, that helps. So, and uh, and I think it should be a gin drink. I mean, the vodka sort of somewhere in the 1960s, uh, or maybe mid seventies, vodka overtook gin as the main base ingredient. More people drink vodka martinis than maybe that's reversed a little bit. Now, nobody's done a survey that I've seen, but.

Francis:

Well, and I think what's interesting is people are, and what people need to be aware of out there. One of the disturbing things that's happened and in the Martini, most of all, it's disturbing the, the, the martini's. A drink that occupies a unique place in the pantheon of cocktails, and it's a very strong drink. And if you went to Dale DeGraff bar at the Rainbow Room, any place that serves, that's really serious about martinis, a martini should be about three, three and a half ounces. Mm-hmm. Right? And then maybe you can have a martini or two and then either switch to something else or stop drinking. Um, but martinis now are served in these, you know, I go to right, super oversized glass, seven ounce glasses of martini, and they fill them to the rim.

Bill:

Yeah. If you look at those old Hollywood movies, like the thin man movies,

Francis:

yep.

Mark:

Mm-hmm.

Bill:

You put on freeze frame and you'll see these what looked like little tiny dainty dinky martini glasses.

Mark:

Mm-hmm.

Bill:

And, uh, you're right about three and a half ounces. So they, when they were, uh, at least when they were tossing'em down, it was just. You know, a couple of swallows, not this bathtub version of

Mark:

the martini. Two things that have changed about the martini that I'm, that I'm not crazy about is, is the whole serving of the shaker glass with the martini and, and the, the, the second half of the martini sits on the ice and, and over dilutes. Yeah. And I, I've never been crazy about that. And then, and then of course the oversized martini wear, by the time you get to the bottom, it's kind of lukewarm and has lost some of this. And you're drunk

Francis:

and you're, you're absolutely drunk. Uh, you know, I think that the idea of those big glasses, they were very cool. I like the idea of a big glass. Mm-hmm. But it sort of went down,'cause we were bartending at the time that the oversized martini became de gor, you know? And what you used to have was a four ounce glass that you'd put three and a half ounces of martini into it. Mm-hmm. And then you had to, if you wanted a tip, fill it all the way to the rim so the man or the woman had to like Right. Make the little, little slope noise. Yeah. And then the, as the glasses got bigger and bigger, the, initially the glasses got bigger, but you'd have a five ounce glass in which you'd put a three ounce martini. Mm-hmm. So it sort of made sense, but then you had to fill that up and the, like, the glasses kept growing and the drinks kept growing to fill them at home. I have. Five and a half, six ounce martini glasses, but I fill them halfway. Mm-hmm. You know? And what do you think about that? Uh, bill?

Bill:

I like, you know, I think short and snappy

Mark:

mm-hmm. Is always

Bill:

better. And I think that's the whole intent of it. And remember, I mean, the, one of the big, uh, intents of a cocktail is, is to have it be as chilled as possible.

Mark:

Mm-hmm. You're

Bill:

always chasing after that elusive. You know, absolutely perfectly chilled, but it's, you know, it's the race between dilution, maximum coldness, but you try to do it without diluting. Right. Uh, when you, when you have a huge goblet of martini, you end up with this kind of insipid, not very cold drink by the time you get to the bottom. Yeah. I

Mark:

honestly, I don't enjoy the second half of a, of one of those big martinis. Yeah.

Francis:

Do you have a, do you have a favorite cocktail these days or a couple of favorites?

Bill:

You know, I love, I still love a Manhattan made with straight rye whiskey.

Speaker 6:

Oh yeah.

Bill:

And for those who are used to making it, having it with bourbon

Speaker 6:

mm-hmm. Um,

Bill:

they'll find that a straight rye mm-hmm. Has a much kind of a tart dry and a little bit of a, kind of a, a spicy tingly taste to it that makes for a. It, it kind of, uh, it's a revelation if you have it that way. There's,

Mark:

there's a really good old, uh, straight rye out there called Old Over Halt, which is very inexpensive and, and makes a great cocktail.

Bill:

Yeah, it's been, that's uh, that's one of the ones, the Wild Turkey makes a good one. Yeah,

Francis:

that's good too. Hey, listen, when we come back, will you talk with us about the new book that you're working on, about the history of dining in New York?

Bill:

Oh yeah, sure.

Francis:

Super. And we are talking with Bill Grimes, and he is working on a new book on the history of dining out in New York. That's a rather strange topic, bill.

Bill:

Well, I had organized a show at the New York Public Library a while back. Based on their historical menu collection there,

Mark:

Uhhuh, and

Bill:

it was called New York Eats Out, and it was a kind of a, a survey of of dining, dining out in New York. Mm-hmm. And as I researched each menu in the show, the idea of doing a book in a way similar to the cocktail book, in a way it grew in my mind. And then sort of I, the publisher agreed that it was a good idea. We'll see. So yeah, I think,

Mark:

I think taking, taking a look at those old menus, uh, Francis' thumbing through, through an old book right now as we speak, uh, those old menus, they're fascinating. It's fascinating to see how food has changed, how, how restaurants have changed. Uh, the pricing of the menus always intrigues me. Is there a working title for your book?

Bill:

Um, you know, I, I'm trying, I think I want to call it Hungry City.

Francis:

Nice. But, uh, and what period does it cover?

Bill:

I start with, uh, the first real restaurant, which is Delmonica's back in 1827, and

Francis:

that's the first restaurant in New York.

Bill:

Yeah.

Francis:

Wild. It had

Bill:

a, uh, obviously people ate and they ate out in one way or another, but that was the first restaurant that actually had a menu, and it was what we would recognize as a restaurant that became, of course, the most, sort of the er of its day, the most, socially prominent, place where the, the top levels of society. Eight.

Francis:

Well, you know,

Bill:

I'm dominant for a long, long time, more than a century.

Francis:

I'm always fascinated. This is a subject that fascinates me as well, and I have a book that I'm gonna send, send you and loan you if you don't have it already. Um, it's a, a guidebook to where to dine in 39, 200 recipes and restaurant reviews. Diana Ashley from 1939. I own that book. Oh, is that not a great book? Yes. And you leaf through it and you talk about, talks about what's striking about this book is all the restaurants that are still there, like the Carlisle and the Algonquin.

Mark:

You know, I'm always, I'm always amazed when a, when a restaurant survives, uh, generational changes. Yeah. Because not only does, does the restaurant, cha, does, does culture change? Do people change over time? But when you go from generation to generation in a, in families, you know, there's always, there's always people who want to make changes and everybody wants to, you know, make it their own. And I'm always surprised when things survive that kind of have that kind of longevity.

Bill:

The thing about 39 was, it was the year of the World's Fair, right? So there were a bunch of guidebooks published that year to, uh, take advantage of the, you know, influx of people who would be wanting. To know where to eat while they were in New York. But the, that year is also interesting for the fair itself because some of the best restaurants that New York ever got grew out of that fair

Francis:

of the French chef who came over in that fair.

Bill:

That's right. There was, uh, the French government sponsored, uh, their government, uh, exhibition had a restaurant called. It was called the, the re, just called the French restaurant. But that became Ion

Speaker 6:

right.

Bill:

Uh, later on. And that was the great post-war restaurant.

Francis:

Well, and it led to a generation of French chefs being over here that established a foothold, that established a pipeline for bringing other French chefs over here. But if I was French and I was an American in 1939, I'd probably stay a good idea. I'd be sticking around. It's 39. I don't know. If I were American, I might

Mark:

have wanted to stay too. I

Francis:

got over here for the fair.

Bill:

I'm sticking

Francis:

around.

Bill:

That's right. You know, the descendants of, you could do, you could draw a little chart about the, the chefs who worked there and came out of there and, um, you know, are still a presence

Mark:

mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. In

Bill:

New

Mark:

York. Sure. I mean, that's the, that's the nation, the, the nature of, of our business Though there's a, you know, we talked about the family tree of barman coming from Dale de Gruff. That, that, that is the nature of this business in that people just kind of seem to get intertwined into, into each other's lives that way.

Bill:

So that, that was a great bequest. The Brussels, uh, was a great restaurant in New York for many, many years, also from the Belgian Pavilion. And, uh, it was, um, it was a very interesting little chapter.

Francis:

Well, I also think, I also think that looking at dining history, I mean, much of history happens at the dinner table. I mean, yeah, there are speeches and there are state houses and there are laws, but how people live and how people dine, especially in the, in New York, the, you know, the most powerful city in America where, and the dining capital of America for a long time. When I look back at these old books, and you look at the Carlisle Hotel, it's a three star restaurant in 1939 and lunches rated very expensive. Lunch is a dollar. Well, and dinner's a dollar 50, which was of course very expensive at the time.

Bill:

I was struck also. Well, yeah, you have to, once you figure it out for inflation,

Speaker 6:

right.

Bill:

That would, uh, you know, usually I always use a postage stamp as a way of

Speaker 6:

Right. Sort of

Bill:

calibrating these things.'cause that always ratchets up with inflation. So you can't, uh, of course every, all those prices look incredibly cheap. Then you gotta look at what the average wage was. I'm, uh, I was struck in looking. By two things in researching this history. First is how long it took before anybody published a restaurant guide. Yeah. It wasn't until, um, 1904 that somebody published a rest or an actual independent, a restaurant guide that wasn't like a hotel guy with a couple of

Mark:

Right. Right. A city guide

Bill:

that had maybe a page with three or four restaurants

Mark:

Recommendations. Yeah.

Bill:

So, and then. After 1904, there was this gap until 1925 when this guy who was the architecture critic for the New Yorker happened to write a, uh, guidebook to, to New York restaurants. But you read those and you become struck by how cosmopolitan and the dining was way back when, and there was a real glory age in about the 1890s up until the first World War. A lot of it centered around Times Square, where you had some really. Rock'em, soum standout restaurant.

Francis:

You know, it's funny'cause you get a sense of that. Whenever you're in New York, you feel like you've been there and the restaurants have been there for a long time. And I think in America it's hard to find a place where there's a real sense of history like that. Mm-hmm. That goes, that goes way back, you know? Mm-hmm. Well, bill, I wanna thanks you for taking the time, uh, outta your schedule to talk with us. When is, when do we expect your book on the shelves?

Bill:

Very good question. I got, I haven't, I'm still researching it. It's uh, you know, probably another year or so.

Francis:

Well, we'll keep everybody posted and we're gonna put a link to your, uh, book

Bill:

Great. I enjoyed the conversation. It's been terrific. Thank much for being with us, bill. Okay.

Francis:

That is Bill Grimes. He is author of Straight Up Around the Rocks, the Story of the American Cocktail. He was also the restaurant critic for the New York Times, and uh, he's just spent the time talking about his new book and about cocktails in America. Today you're listening to the Restaurant Guys, You back with the restaurant guys. Mark Pascal and Francis Shot. Uh, we were talking with Bill Grimes, who was the restaurant critic for the New York Times for several years. Um, he's also written probably the best book on book on American cocktails, uh, that I've come across. Yeah,

Mark:

the historic from a historical perspective.

Francis:

Yes.

Mark:

Yeah.

Francis:

Straight up around the rocks, the story of the American cocktail, which you can find out more about on our site later on. This book talks about the history of the cocktail. It goes way back and like way back. There's some pretty cool stuff. I got some cool stuff for you. I got an old recipe here. Okay. We'll put this up on the website as well. If you wanna try this. It. He's talking about the etymology of the word cocktail and where it may come from. And one of the theories that's probably wrong, he says, is it there was a, an ale that they used to make with. Chicken and it was called a cock ale and yeah. Sounds good. Yeah. Yeah. I have the recipe. Are you ready? Yeah. 10 gallons of ale. Mm-hmm. And a large cock. The older, the better par boil a cockle him stamp him in a stone water until his bones are broken. You must crawl and gut him when you fle him. Then put the cock into Two quarts of sherry. Three pounds of raisins, some blades of mace, a few cloves. Put this all into a canvas bag. Uh, in a week or nine days, bottle it up, fill a bottle, suggest above the neck and give it time to ripen just like any other

Mark:

ale, I'm sorry, fill the bottle. Suggest above whose neck? The Cox. Ew, Ew. Yeah. We come, we've come a long way baby. Ew. We've come a long way about that. That is the most disgusting. Concoction I've ever heard.

Francis:

Funny, funny. But we're gonna put the recipe up on our website, and if any of you out there in podcast Land or Listener land, actually make a cocktail. Don't write to me. I don't wanna make No, I wanna know. I wanna know. We'll have you on the show, I promise you, but you're gonna have to send me a bottle of it to prove that you made a cocktail. No way. And, uh, and I think that'll be great. My favorite drink. We're also gonna put up a recipe for the Ramos fizz. Mm-hmm. The Ramos Fizz is as a, as a much storied drink that uses egg whites. You'll have to coddle your egg whites if you wanna make one, but it's really fabulous. And there was, they were all the old bars in New York, they used to take the Ramos fizz, and the idea was to shake it a lot. Mm-hmm. And so they'd have a line of four bartenders stand up and one, they'd each shake it and then passes to the next side and keep shaking it. And then it finally come down to you. Love that stuff.

Mark:

It, it, uh, some of these, some of those old cocktails are really spectacular. And we were talking about Dale Degra earlier in the show, really bringing back a lot of these cocktails and, and showing us how they can be made and, and for some of them, updating them to be, to, to be more contemporary and, and more to, to, uh, current tastes. And, and I think it was just, just amazing the, the renaissance that, that

Francis:

he really created. And we're gonna put one more cocktail up there. One of my favorites. This is like the magic trick of cocktails, the Bronx cocktail. Mm-hmm. Which is gin, dry vermouth and sweet vermouth. And the juice of a quarter of an orange. And for some reason it tastes like pineapple. It's bizarre. There's no pile in it, but no pineapple in it, but it tastes like pineapple. It's bizarre. I, I love that

Mark:

cocktail and really tasty. And a lot of these cocktails are made, so you can have a few of them. You know, one of the things that, that Francis and I did with Dale a few years back was, was have a whole dinner, uh, revolving around cocktails and I, I, I think in, in. Uh, today you, you can actually do that with all, with a broad array of cocktails that are available,

Francis:

but cocktails need to be made if you're really making cocktails. Cocktails need to be made with fresh juices. If you are using juice, I mean, squeeze an orange for your orange juice. That's how you make a great cocktail different. It really doesn't take very,

Mark:

it doesn't take very long.

Francis:

And the difference it makes all the difference in the world. And nothing comes out of a gun and nothing is a mix. Remember, no bloody Mary mix, no sour

Mark:

mix. You mix it yourself. And remember, you're not making a glass of orange juice. You need to, don't need to juice 10 oranges. You're putting two ounces of orange juice as a mixer for a cocktail. It just doesn't take very long.

Francis:

Well, and, and with all the great ingredients out there in there, you know, we'll also put some cocktail, uh, some places to go for great cocktails. Terrific. And some links up on our website later on. Well, I hope that you've enjoyed spending another hour with the restaurant guys on our, I sure have on our cocktail show with Bill Grimes. He's a great author. He was a great critic for the New York Times, and we'll link you to him on our site later on, which is restaurant guys radio.com. I'm Francis Shot. And I'm Mark Pascal. We are the restaurant guys, central Jersey 1450. Time is 12 noon