Guy René Do Bois, "Mr
and Mrs Chester Dale Dine Out" (1924)
"
❖❖❖
IN THIS ISSUE
À LA RECHERCHE DU
PARIS,
Part One
By John A. Curtas
NEW YORK CORNER THE INN AT POUND
RIDGE BY JEAN-GEORGES
By John Mariani
ANOTHER VERMEER
CHAPTER ELEVEN
By John Mariani
NOTES
FROM THE SPIRITS LOCKER
IRISH WHISKEY'S POPULARITY SOARS
By John Mariani
❖❖❖
On this week's episode of my WVOX
Radio Show "Almost Golden," on Wed. March
16 at 11AM EST,I will be speaking
about the bygone
restaurants of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s
in Westchester County NY. Go to: WVOX.com.
The episode will also be archived at: almostgolden.
❖❖❖
À LA RECHERCHE DU PARIS,
Part One
Text and Photos by John A. Curtas
“If you are lucky enough to have lived
in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go
for the rest of your life, it stays with you,
for Paris is a moveable feast.” – Ernest
Hemingway
American writers have been
rhapsodizing about Paris since Ben Franklin’s
powdered wig was peeking down some mademoiselle’s
bustier. There’s not much I can add to the
musings of everyone from Henry James to Ernest
Hemingway, but I can share a few pointers on
what to see and where to eat, along with some
thoughts of my own about what makes the City
of Light so compelling, one-hundred years
after Ernest & Friends fell in love with
it. Every time I see Paris’s low profile and
history-drenched boulevards, I feel like a
wonderstruck ten-year-old seeing a big city for
the first time. Rick Steves’s aphorism,
“Traveling is living intensified,” seems
especially true on the streets of Paris, where
awesome architecture defines every corner, your
senses are excited on every block, and sweet
surrender beckons under a relentless assault of
good things to eat. The
"Lost Generation": Ernest Hemingway, Pauline
Pfeiffer, Hadley Hemingway, John Dos
Passos and Gerald Murphy.
One of the most impressive things about
Paris is the mind-blowing number of places to
feed and refresh yourself. Cafés and bistros
have always been in abundance, but the patisseries/boulangeries
(technically not the same thing, but often
combined) seem to have doubled in number over
the past two decades. The size of the brasseries
and the sheer number of cafés
means you’ll never go hungry or thirsty, no
matter what the hour. My wife, poor thing, has
always operated under the illusion that there is
something to do in Paris other than eat and
drink. Occasionally, I agree to do a little
site-seeing and shopping, just to buy some
marital harmony. Amazingly though, we actually lose a few
pounds on every visit. Five to ten miles of
walking each day do the trick, no matter how
many baguettes,
crêpes
and soufflés
we ingest. My advice to anyone traveling to
Paris is to always find a café to
call your own on your first day in the city,
preferably close to your hotel. (This will not
be hard; on some blocks there are six of them.)
Stop by every morning for a quick café au
lait or allongé
and you will start to feel like a local in no
time. By your third visit, even the frostiest
waiter will start to smile when he sees you. Take your time (the French do): Say, “Encore,
s’il vous
plait” … and they let you camp there all
day, diddling your phone, reading a book, or
planning where next to eat, which is the surest
way to make you feel like a Frenchman. The French may have invented blasé (the
word and the mood), but no matter how many times
I visit (this last trip was my tenth), it is the
one feeling I never have because I’m too busy
picking my jaw off the pavement, when I’m not
using it to wine and dine. All you have to do to
enjoy yourself in Gay Paree is give in to the
Parisian vibe (by turns energetic one minute,
and insouciant the next), leave your American
expectations at home, relax, stroll around a
bit, and say “bonjour!”
and “s’il
vous plait” about thirty times a day. Do
that and the French are almost as nice as
Italians. Breakfast? Fuggidabadit. In France,
breakfast (“petit
déjeuner”) is good for only one thing:
thinking about lunch. So let’s get to it.
“We had
eaten very good cold chicken at noon but this
was still famous chicken country so we had
poularde de Bresse and a bottle of Montagny, a
light, pleasant white wine of the
neighborhood.”—Ernest Hemingway.
CHEZ
L’AMI LOUIS 32
Rue du Vertbois
+33 1 48 87 77 48
Straight
off the plane, still groggy from crossing the
ocean, we staggered into L’Ami Louis, still one
of the toughest bistro tickets in Paris. It was
worth the wait, which for me had been
twenty-five years, a quarter century of hearing
about its allure to ex-pats, celebs, and
galloping gourmands, followed by a revisionist
decade (starting ten years ago) of how gauche,
passé and “not worth it” it was. It is the one
bistro critics love to hate. Especially British
critics, as you’ll see below. Since its founding in 1924, the only
things that have changed are the prices and the
dress of the patrons. Some have
called its interior “museum-like.” Others, like
the late, great, splenetic A. A. Gill, described
it as “painted, shiny distressed brown dung…set
with labially pink cloths which give it a
colonic appeal and the awkward sense that you
might be a suppository.”Nasty,
Brit-lit gymnastics aside, what you find when
you enter is a classic, narrow, well-worn bistro
that feels as comfortable as a favorite sweater
on a frosty day. Where Gill found “paunchy,
combative, surly men” waiting tables, all we saw
were affable-if-brusque, seen-it-all pros. Gill
(who died in 2016, and whose hemorrhoids must’ve
been acting up in 2011 when he wrote those
words) also savaged the food. As much as we
loved his knives-out style, we found ourselves
silently pleading with his ghost throughout our
two-hour lunch. Au
contraire, mon frère,
we muttered continually. From
three ethereally silky slabs of foie gras to our
deviled veal kidneys to the famous roast
chicken, this was Parisian bistro cooking at its
most elemental and satisfying. True, the recipes
probably haven’t changed since Bogart was wooing
Bergman, but that’s part of the charm. Where Gill found the foie gras
to be “oleaginous and gross,” our bites were of
the smoothest, purest duck liver. A mountain of
shoestring fries came with our oversized bird,
and better ones we can’t remember. Ditto the
escargots, brimming with butter and electric
green parsley, soft, slightly chewy and shot
through with garlic in all the best ways. No
fault could be found with the wine list either
(pricey for a bistro, but not off-putting),
or a baba
au rhum the size of a human head. Gill
concluded his hatchet job by calling L’Ami Louis
the “worst restaurant in the world.” It may not
be the best old-school bistro in Paris, but it’s
a long way from deserving such opprobrium. The
prices are high, but not enough to put you on
your heels, especially if you’re used to Las
Vegas. (Lunch came to about 200 euros/pp, with
about half the tariff being wine.)
LE DÔME 108
Boulevard du Montparnasse
+33 1 43 35 25 81
“As I
ate the oysters with their strong taste of the
sea and their faint metallic taste that the
cold white wine washed away, leaving only the
sea taste and the succulent texture, and as I
drank their cold liquid from each shell and
washed it down with the crisp taste of the
wine, I lost the empty feeling and began to be
happy and to make plans.” – Ernest Hemingway
Montparnasse is chock full of
good restaurants, many of which, like Le Select
(1925), La Rotonde (1911) and La Cloiserie des
Lilas (1847), are haunted by the ghosts of
Gertrude Stein, Hemingway and Henry Miller.
These cafes formed the social hub of Roaring
Twenties Paris, and, amazingly, continue to hold
their own today, one-hundred years after they
became American-famous. Le Dôme
remains le
ultimate seafood brasserie in a
neighborhood teeming with them. All gleaming
glass and brass, it has become de rigueur
to stop there for oysters whenever we get to
town. Like many of its equally renowned
neighbors, Le Dôme is huge, so don’t think twice
about dropping in on a whim for a douzaine
plate and a glass of Sancerre. Classics like
Breton lobster and Dover sole (right) are
prepared so perfectly they remind you why these
dishes became part of the French gastronomic
catechism. The freshness of its seafood is
legendary, even in a town known for legendary
fresh fish and shellfish. Whether you’re in for
a bite or hunkering down for a full meal, Le
Dôme can dazzle with the best of them. For
dessert: don’t miss the mille-feuille
Napoléon (sliced from a pastry the size of a
rugby football)—which elicits “oohs” and “aahs”
for both its appearance and taste. A note about the supposed insufferable
French: This was our third visit to Le Dôme in
the past four years, but we are hardly “known”
to the management. On each visit, whether as a
walk-in solo or with reservations, we have
always received a friendly welcome from the
solicitous staff who couldn’t be more helpful in
guiding us to the best oysters of the day and
which wine to pair with them. You get out of restaurants what you put
into them, and if you walk into Le Dôme with a
happy heart, it will only make you happier. Dinner came to 310 euros for two,
including a bottle of pricey-but-not-overpriced
(150 euros) Puligny-Montrachet.
LE
COQ & FILS 98
Rue Lepic, 75018
+33 1 42 89 82 89
“A walk about Paris will provide
lessons in history, beauty, and in the point
of life.” —Thomas Jefferson
After cruising Montparnasse one day, we
trekked up the hill to Montmartre, to visit Le Coq et
Fils (formerly Le Coq Rico), Antoine
Westermann’s paean to poultry. Climbing up to Sacré Coeur
basilica and exploring the cobblestoned streets
of this “village inside a city” puts you in an
appetite to take down an entire yardbird,
accompanied by a variety of other Westermann
signatures like poultry broth “shots” (perhaps the
most
intense chicken soup I’ve ever tasted), duck
rillettes, and egg mayonnaise “Westermann’s
Way”—a gorgeous puck of umami-laden egg salad (below). But the undeniable stars of the show are
the whole birds, and we opted for a four-pound
Bresse specimen of unsurpassed flavor. From the
crispness of the skin to the fineness of the
grain to the richness of the flesh, these are
flocks which put to shame the universal putdown
of “tasting like chicken.” Of course, the olive
oil-drenched pommes puree
and straight-from-the-fat frites
don’t hurt one’s enjoyment of this succulent
beauty either. The birds are sized and sold
according to how many you want to feed (for
example, a guinea hen and smaller birds are
sized for two). Yes, everything truly does
“taste like chicken,” as in: the best chicken
you have ever tasted. The wine list was modest in scope but
interesting and reasonable (we chose a Maurice
Schoech Alsace Grand Cru Riesling with the
chicken, at 100 euros), and the service couldn’t
have been better. For dessert we took down an Ile
Flottante (“floating island”),a
light version of this classic with a
softball-sized meringue so airy it seemed to be
floating above the swishy pool of crème
Anglaise beneath it. Although
the design, and the creative side dishes and
approach are much more modern here than at L’Ami
Louis, prices were much softer, with our shared
bird/wine lunch running 100 euros/pp.
John A.
Curtas is a food writer and author of Eating
Las Vegas: The 52 Essential Restaurants
❖❖❖
NEW YORK CORNER
THE
INN AT POUND RIDGE
BY JEAN-GEORGES
258 Westchester
Avenue
Pound Ridge NY
914-764-1400
Text
and Photos by John Mariani
With more than 40 restaurants
around the world, including twelve in New
York alone and branches in São Paulo,
Guangzhou, Jakarta and Marrakesh, it is
fair to say the Jean-Georges Vongerichten,
who is considered one of the finest and
most influential chefs in the world, is
now more of an overseer than a chef you
can expect to find in any one of his
restaurants. Decades ago
this young Alsatian chef first made his mark
as chef de cuisine at two superb restaurants
run by French master Louis Outhier,
following up with his own namesake
restaurant in Trump Tower at Columbus
Circle. I have long given high praise to
several of JG’s New York operations, on four
occasions listing them among Esquire
magazine’s “Best New Restaurants of the
Year.” But those few I’ve visited outside of
New York have been largely facsimiles that
brought his style to far-off ports-of-call
but little of the intensity and savoriness
of the cooking at his home base, where he
spends much of his time. Opening in the New York northern
suburb of Pound Ridge, an hour from
Manhattan, came as a surprise until you
learn that he has a house nearby, and, I’ve
been told, the idea of an inn, rather than a
splashy restaurant, appealed to his Alsatian
roots. The premises were long ago the
venerable Emily Shaw’s Inn, opened in the
1930s and closed in 1989, a typical suburban
dinner house of its day, where her signature
item was cheddar cheese soup. Subsequently
it became The Inn at Pound Ridge until JG
took over and attached his name to it a few
years ago. It’s a very beautiful space, dating
to 1833, set on two levels, with a handsome
bar, four fireplaces and a wine cellar room,
all done in a canny balance of beamed
rusticity and romantically lighted modernity
by Thomas Juul-Hansen. It is, however, very
loud, even mid-week, buoyed by the brash
crescendos of a crowd yakking about IPOs and
debentures, buying short and selling long,
and their opinion of the new Porsches, many
of which fill the parking lot. The staff, dressed in L.L. Bean-style
lumberjack shirts, could not be more affable
or knowledgeable, and they seem wholly
sincere in their cordial greetings and
farewells. The
menu is described as serving “down-to-earth
food,” which is true, and you won’t find the
kind of Asian fusion dishes JG made trendy
twenty years ago, when the phrase
“farm-to-table” first appeared as a p.r.
marketing claim.It
is food that JG’s
clientele will find much of at their country
clubs. There is even the obligatory
thin-crust pizza section ($19-$22) and a
cheeseburger ($24). There’s nothing
particularly wrong about any of it, but it
is all too safe and hardly shows off the
scintillating breadth and depth of JG’s
repertoire. Thus, an appetizer of tuna tartare
with avocado, radish and ginger
marinade ($25), of a kind JG debuted,
is now ubiquitous. Crispy salmon sushi (left)
with a chipotle mayonnaise and soy
glaze ($22) is delicious, but a little
bland. An abundant steamed shrimp salad (below)
with mesclun, avocado and champagne vinegar
dressing ($25) is, in one word, refreshing,
while a butternut squash soup with wild
mushrooms ($15) is ideal for this cold
weather, equally vegetal and sweet and
wholly hearty. Among
the main courses, steamed black sea
bass with a carrot confit, orange juice
and a touch of cumin and olive oil ($52)
reminds me of similar items at JG’s ABC
Kitchen in New York, but a simple roasted
chicken ($38) was so dried out from cooking
that its broccoli di rabe, salsa verde and
sage could not resuscitate it. A
prosciutto-wrapped pork chop with
glazed mushrooms and sage ($48) was also
overcooked, and the cheddar cheeseburger (below)
with frizzled onions, yuzu pickles, winter
pink tomato ($24) was overwrought and not
particularly beefy, with all the ingredients
of the same mushy texture. The side of
French fries, however, was terrific. Desserts toe the
same comforting line: a pleasing carrot
cake with cream cheese frosting ($14);
a tangy-sweet Meyer lemon crème
brûlée with smooth mint-lime sorbet
($14) and a dish JG perfected and made
famous around the world: a molten chocolate
cake with vanilla bean ice cream ($16).
The only unusual dessert was a classic
Australian passion fruit Pavlova ($14),
named after ballerina Anna Pavlova, with a
passion fruit sorbet, which has a brittle
outside crust cracking open to reveal the
passion fruit within (right). The Inn’s wine list is substantial
without being overwhelming, but there are
very few bottles under $100. (I ordered one
of them and was told I got
the last bottle, usually indicative that a lot of
people want to drink at that price level.)
There are 13 wines by the glass ($14-$36).
Mark-ups are all over the place, many quite
reasonable, but others off the charts, like
the Lutum Durell Vineyards Chardonnay 2015
that retails for $49 but is $219 here. A
Spottswoode Lyndenhurst Cabernet Sauvignon
2017 sells for $85 in a store, at the Inn,
$268. By the way, I did ask how often JG
actually was present at his restaurant and
was told by one waiter, very rarely, and by
another, that he used to come often “when it
opened years ago.” There
is so much to like about the Inn, but it’s a
stretch to say it’s easy to love, given the
pedigree of its owner. Those who live in
local mansions and drive Teslas surely find
it a comfortable drop-in kind of place
(though getting a reservation can take
perseverance), but those who do not live
within 10 miles may find it not worth the
effort.
❖❖❖
ANOTHER VERMEER
By John Mariani
To read previous
chapters of ANOTHER VERMEER, go to thearchive
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“So what’d you think?” asked Katie
as they left the Mirage. “I think Wynn's a straight shooter,” said
David. “Sounds like a guy with nothing to hide,
except maybe his loathing for Harry Balaton. So,
do you think Wynn’s going to be a bidder?” “I don’t know. My research shows he’s
never yet bid anything close to what the Vermeer
might go for.Though, if he sticks it in his own museum
in his own hotel, there’s got to be tax breaks
or write-offs he can take advantage of.” “I don’t know anything about that, but if
there is, a guy like Wynn will know how. So,
what do we do about Balaton?” “Well, now that we’ve seen his arch
enemy, we can use it to get in to see him. At
least I hope so.Still, I’m glad I got the Wynn interview
just in case.” “You have breakfast?” asked David. “Coffee in my room.” David said, “Rule number one while
traveling: Never drink that sludge coffee in the
room. Anyway, I missed breakfast, too. I know:
I’ll take you to the Omelet House—it’s been in
Vegas forever—and they have all these goofy
dishes with names like ‘The Kitchen Sink (below)’
and ‘The Loch-Ness Monster.’” “Sounds charming.” “Eggs are fresh.” After a very, very hearty meal at The
Omelet House, Katie and David went back to the
Baccarat and asked to be put through to Harry
Balaton’s office. After sseveral transfers,
Katie finally got on with the head office, which
was on the sixth floor, and after explaining why
she wanted to see Balaton she was asked where
they might get back to her. “Oh, we’re staying right here in the
Baccarat. I’m in Room 332.” An hour later the phone rang in her room. “Miss Cavuto? Will you hold for Mr.
Balaton?” “Yes, of course.” The line clicked and Katie could hear a
gruff male voice shouting into a speaker phone,
something about a catering problem. “What the fuck do I know about catering?”
the voice said, then he came on Katie’s line. “Yeah, hello, this is Harry Balaton.
Who’s this?” “My name is Katie Cavuto and I spoke to
your assistant . . .” “Yeah, yeah, she told me you spoke to
Steve Wynn about his shitty art collection and
you wanted to speak to me about mine.” Katie said, “If that’s convenient for
you, sir.” “And you’re here in my hotel?” “Yes, Room 332.” “Okay, come to the private elevator on
the northeast corner of the lobby, tell them
you’re coming up to see me.”And
that was that. Katie called David and told him to meet
her at the elevator, whose security man already
had their names and brought them up to the sixth
floor. This time, the outer office was garishly
decorated with green, black and silver
wallpaper; in a corner stood a gilded nymph and
in another a matching nude male figure beckoning
to her. “Miss Cavuto and Mister Greco?” asked the
secretary. “Please come right in.” Harry Balaton’s door was already open and
Katie heard the same frog-like voice she had on
the phone. Balaton was again shouting into a
speaker phone, this time about some high rollers
coming in that night from Hong Kong. “Full comp,
Casanova Suite.” In most ways, Balaton looked every inch
the casino tycoon—not very tall, balding with a
comb-over, something like comedian Don Rickles,
wearing a deep burgundy suit, white-on-white
shirt and gold silk tie. He didn’t get up from
his chair, so Katie and David couldn’t see the
crease in his pants, or if he was wearing any. He waved Katie and David in, said, “Have
a seat,” and finished his phone call. “So, you’re a magazine reporter,” he
began. “And you are?” he added, nodding towards
David. “You look familiar.” “I used to be a New York City rackets
cop.I
met you once when you turned state’s evidence.” “That must’ve been it.” Balaton seemed
wholly unfazed by having an ex-cop in his
office. He started talking before they could ask
him a question. “First of all, I could buy and sell Wynn,
if I wanted, and I could outbid him on anything
that comes to auction. He tell you that? No, I
don’t suppose he did. Wynn thinks he’s going to
completely transform this city into something
high-class, but what he doesn’t realize is that
nobody wants that shit. They don’t call it Sin
City for nothing, y’know. People come here because
of the glitz, the bar girls, the dealers with
the string ties and fluffy shirts.Even
the high rollers from Asia and Russia, they
don’t want Vegas to look like freaking Monte
Carlo, which is dying because they don’t have
slots.” Katie broke in and asked if she could use
her tape recorder.Balaton waved his hand to indicate go
ahead. “We did want to ask you about the new
Vermeer coming on the market soon,” she said
after turning on the recorder. “Yeah, I know all about it.” “You do?” “Well, I know it’s being hyped to the
skies as the most expensive picture ever
auctioned off, and if that’s true, there’s only
a handful of collectors who will get in the
game. That schmuck Japanese guy, what was his
name, Saito? He pushed the price so high on that
van Gogh, knowing he’d have to sell it and
someone would have to pay more, because first he
said he’d cremate the damn thing, then said he
wouldn’t show it to anyone. Dumbest goddamn
thing I ever heard.” “So, do you think the price may not be as
high as the $82.5 Saito paid for the van Gogh,
if the Vermeer goes to auction?” asked David. “I hope not. I’d love to bid on the
picture, but I’m not going that high. Hell,
nobody’s even seen the goddamn thing.” “So, if you wouldn’t go that high, who
would?” asked Katie. “I’d say there’s no more than five people
who could afford that kind of money, especially
if he’s just going to stick it in a vault
somewhere or keep it out of sight. It might be a
syndicate of some kind.” Recalling that Balaton was in some way
connected to a Hong Kong syndicate with holdings
in Macao, David ventured to ask, “What about
Chinese money?” Balaton rubbed his nose, then said,
“S’not out of the question. But no one but an
asshole like Saito could come up with that kind
of cash on his own. Could be Russian Mafia.” “Why would
a mob, Russian or otherwise, want to dabble in
collecting fine art?” asked David, who knew a
good deal about the workings of the former
Soviet republics’ mobsters. Balaton said, “Damned if I know. In the
old days the Italian and Jewish wiseguys who ran
Vegas didn’t have the slightest interest in
owning or even fencing art. It was just a world
they didn’t know; stealing and fencing a famous
painting was not like stealing and fencing
diamonds or bonds.” “But you did mention the Russian Mafia,”
said Katie. “Well, maybe, because they’ve got some
very wealthy wiseguys of their own who would
love to own the painting for a while, then sell
it later for a profit without having to steal it
in the first place.” David thought to himself that mobsters
never think that way. It’s easier to steal
something and ransom it, but the criminals who
rob art are generally small-time crews
contracted by an individual. In the case of the
stolen Mona
Lisa in 1911 the culprit was an Italian
petty criminal named Vincenzo Perugia (above)
who tried to sell it two years later for 500,00
lira to a Florentine art dealer, who immediately
called the police and had the thief arrested. David sensed that Balaton did not want to
say anything more about a Hong Kong Syndicate
being involved in either bidding for or perhaps
even bringing the painting to auction. “So, just to be clear, Mr. Balaton, you
believe whoever bids on this Vermeer is so,e
kind pf reclusive billionaire who's not going to
reveal anything about himself.". “It won't be a museum. I doubt even the
Getty would bid the kind of money expected. I
think it might be a syndicate with a gallery
owner as its front man.” “Any suggestions?” “If I hear of any, I’ll let you know,”
Balaton said, standing up, with pants on, “but I
gotta get back to work. Enjoy my hotel while
you’re here.” Katie and David headed down to the gaudy
lobby of the Baccarat. “So?” asked Katie. “I think he knows more than he’s letting
on at this point,” said David. “Remember, this
guy ratted out his mob friends and enemies to
save his own ass, but there’s pretty solid
evidence he’s in with a Hong Kong Syndicate, and
Macao is the Wild West when it comes to
political corruption, skimming and laundering
money.” “Well, he did seem to wholly discount
anyone in Japan having money like Saito did to
buy the painting. What about the Japanese mob,
the Yakuza?” “That,” said David, “is a vast subject
with as many interlocking tentacles as you could
ever imagine. But they’re almost entirely linked
to extortion, drugs, pornography, human
trafficking—and they insist it is dishonorable
to steal anything. Go figure.I can
ask Gerald Kiley, but I doubt the Yakuza
have anything to do with fine art.” Katie stifled a yawn and said, “Well, I
think we got what we came for out here. Some
good leads as to where not to
look.” David smiled at her and said, “You gotta
remember, Katie, we are not involved in a
criminal investigation here. Nobody’s committed
a crime. At least not yet.” “Oh, I know, but so many people in this
global art market seem, shall we say, on the
shady side. So many secrets, so many prospects
for cheating, so much hype. Not to mention the
possibility of forgery.” “Maybe so, but let’s not forget: Nobody’s
even seen this painting, much less examined it.
The whole thing may be one big hoax.” “Well, if it is, I hope it makes for a
good story, because my leash is getting pretty
short. The interview with Wynn should cut me
some slack, but something new better turn up
soon or there’s no story.” David
didn’t like hearing that. They parted to go back to their rooms to
pack and get a red-eye flight back to New York.When
Katie entered her room she saw a pink note pad
on her night table. (This being Vegas it read:
WHILE YOU WERE OUT COLD.) The message
said, “Call me. I have some news. John Coleman.”
Katie looked at her watch.Four
o’clock Pacific Time, which meant seven in New
York. Katie dialed the phone number, but it rang
until a voice message said Coleman was out of
the office and unreachable until tomorrow.Katie
cursed herself for not having his home phone
number, then she packed quickly and met David in
the lobby to catch a taxi to McCarran Airport.
FROM FOUR TO FORTY DISTILLERIES,
IRELAND
CAPITALIZES ON ITS WHISKIES’ SOARING SUCCESS
By
John Mariani
Copper pot stills used to make
Waterford Irish Whiskey
It’s difficult to believe that twenty, even
ten, years ago liquor store shelves carried little
more than two or three Irish whiskies. These days that
number is more likely to be ten to twelve, and there
are more coming into the market all the time. Indeed,
sales of Irish whiskey are soaring, with 11.4 million
9-litre cases sold globally in 2020. Estimates for
2021 are to post a leap to 13 million cases, and the
Distilled Spirits Council of the United States has
recently reported that 5.9 million cases were sold in
the U.S. last year, representing a nearly
18% increase in 2021.The
numbers are all the more astonishing when you learn
that as of2010
there were only four distilleries operating in
Ireland; today there are forty, with more being built,
some with visitors’ centers.
The vast majority of Irish
whiskeys use malted barley dried over coal fires,
though some, like Connemara
and Killbeggan,
are, like Scotch,dried with peat smoke, which gives the latter a
smokier flavor and the former more aromatics.Both malted
and unmalted barley are distilled three times in a pot
still to make Irish whiskey, after which lighter and
heavier whiskies are blended for a house style.
Barley harvest For many years the dominant Irish
whiskey has been Bushmills, which has the world’s oldest
distillery on record (1608), in County Antrim, and the
most popular has been its basic label, affectionately
called “White Label,” which really is a fine standard
introduction to a whiskey that Tzar Peter the Great
once declared the best spirit in Europe. The same
distillery’s Black
Bush ($39) has been a considerable hit here,
with a more pronounced maltiness and a near
Sherry-like, soft finish on the palate.The firm now
markets a slew of variants, including a 10-Year-Old
Single Malt ($55), 12-Year-Old ($50), 16-Year-Old
($140) and 21-Year-Old ($210) to compete with the
success of Scotch Single Malts. Jameson
(left),
which dates merely to 1780 in Dublin, is a solid
contender, though a little lighter on the palate than
basic Bushmills.I used to love its 12-Year-Old, but it’s been
discontinued and difficult to find, so now I the rich
but very smooth blend of barley and wheat Black Barrel
($45) aged in double-charred barrels. The 18-Year-Old
goes for $130. John Power
& Sons dates to 1791 as a
“public house” in Dublin (said to be the origin of the
term pub), with an attached distillery, and was one of the first to bottle its
whiskies from oak barrels. It begins dry and almost
severe, but it mellows on the palate and takes on nice
caramel-like notes, then comes up again with just the
right heat in the finish and a little sweetness. Its
Gold Label sells for $30; its 12-Year- Old for $70. Tullamore
Dew gets its name from “Tulach Mhoŕ” (big hill),
while the “Dew” is not a fanciful metaphor but the
letters of general manager Daniel. E. Dew’s name, and
the company motto is “Give every man his Dew.”Tullamore
has gone gang busters with various iterations,
including its basic brand ($30), a 12-Year-Old ($60),
14-Year-Old ($80), 18-Year-Old ($109), Old Bonded
Warehouse Release Single Malt ($65), XO Caribbean Rum
Finish ($40) and Cider Cask Finish ($35). As
with other brown spirits, the Irish whiskey producers
have latched onto the concept of “iterations” or
"expressions" based on aging in different ways and
different casks, which include those once used to make
Sherry, Cognac, rye and bourbon. Like many others, Lambay does
not have its own distillery but buys spirits from
others’ and has an identifiable evergreen taste and
bouquet. Made on a private island visitable only by
rare invitation, Lambay is only made in small batches
with local well water, emerging from Cognac barrels at
40% alcohol ($63). Proclamation’s label calls it “Ireland’s
Independent Spirit,” honoring the country’s
independence movement of 1916. This is a big and bold
whiskey, 40.7% alcohol, finished in bourbon casks with
“a touch of sherry finished malt” to round out a
toasted finish. Another bottling is done in Cognac
barrels ($35). As noted in a recent interview here with J.J. Corry Irish Whiskey’s owner Louise McGuane,
she sought to bring back the tradition of Whiskey
Bonding, becoming the first Whiskey Bonder in
Ireland in well over 50 years. She built a Rackhouse
(warehouse) on the family farm and began to build a
library of Irish Whiskey flavors from whiskies from
distilleries all over the island and casks from all
over the world, matching the spirit to cask and
blending selections to create unique expressions.
Its four whiskeys run $65-$87. Busker’s,
located at the Royal Oak Distillery in County Carlow,
makes all four styles of Irish whiskey: Single Grain ($40), Single
Pot Still ($37), Single Malt ($45) and Blend ($20).
Its distinguishing mark is that during the aging
process of the blends Triple Cask Triple Smooth ($33)
and Single Grain expressions the spirits are in
Cantine Florio Sicilian Marsala wine casks. Waterford is producing a new kind of pure single
malts, the Cuvée ($100) and Luna 1.1 ($120), marketing
them more like Bordeaux wines from unique terroirs,
even using extended fermentation of the harvested
grains. Twenty-five various whiskies go into the
Cuvée, which they call a “radical celebration of
complexity” and a “paradigm shift.” I wouldn’t go
quite that far, but these are distinguished and
refined spirits. Clonakilty
($55) is
a small-batch Irish whiskey (2,400 bottles)
made from 8-year-old grain and bottled at a whopping
62% alcohol, finished in rye casks obtained from the
Virginia whiskey maker Catoctin Creek. So,
too, Keeper’s
Hearts ($39), whose Latin motto is “Fugit hora”
(the hour flies), is also blended with four-year old
Irish grain whiskey and the same amount of Irish pot
still spirits and American rye at 43% alcohol, crafted
by master distiller Brian Nation. The first reveals a
pleasant vanilla note, the second spiciness and the
rye provides a good edge.
❖❖❖
OH, SHUT UP AND PASS THE SUGAR
“Capitalism and caffeine are hand in hand. If you
want any proof of that, just look at the institution
of the coffee break... Your employer not only gives
you a free drug at the at the workplace, but gives
you a place and time in which to enjoy it twice a
day, in most places. Why would employers do that if
it didn’t offer them more benefit than cost? And
clearly it does. They get more work out of
people.”—Michael Pollan, Gastropod (2/22)
❖❖❖
Any of John Mariani's
books below may be ordered from amazon.com.
The Hound in Heaven
(21st Century Lion Books) is a novella, and
for anyone who loves dogs, Christmas, romance,
inspiration, even the supernatural, I hope you'll find
this to be a treasured favorite. The story
concerns how, after a New England teacher, his wife and
their two daughters adopt a stray puppy found in their
barn in northern Maine, their lives seem full of promise.
But when tragedy strikes, their wonderful dog Lazarus and
the spirit of Christmas are the only things that may bring
his master back from the edge of despair.
“What a huge surprise turn this story took! I was
completely stunned! I truly enjoyed this book and its
message.” – Actress Ali MacGraw
“He had me at Page One. The amount of heart, human insight,
soul searching, and deft literary strength that John Mariani
pours into this airtight novella is vertigo-inducing.
Perhaps ‘wow’ would be the best comment.” – James
Dalessandro, author of Bohemian
Heart and 1906.
“John Mariani’s Hound in
Heaven starts with a well-painted portrayal of an
American family, along with the requisite dog. A surprise
event flips the action of the novel and captures us for a
voyage leading to a hopeful and heart-warming message. A
page turning, one sitting read, it’s the perfect antidote
for the winter and promotion of holiday celebration.” – Ann
Pearlman, author of The
Christmas Cookie Club and A Gift for my Sister.
“John Mariani’s concise, achingly beautiful novella pulls a
literary rabbit out of a hat – a mash-up of the cosmic and
the intimate, the tragic and the heart-warming – a Christmas
tale for all ages, and all faiths. Read it to your children,
read it to yourself… but read it. Early and often. Highly
recommended.” – Jay Bonansinga, New York Times bestselling
author of Pinkerton’s War,
The Sinking of The Eastland, and The Walking Dead: The Road To
Woodbury.
“Amazing things happen when you open your heart to an
animal. The Hound in
Heaven delivers a powerful story of healing that
is forged in the spiritual relationship between a man and
his best friend. The book brings a message of hope that can
enrich our images of family, love, and loss.” – Dr. Barbara
Royal, author of The
Royal Treatment.
Modesty forbids me to praise my own new book, but
let me proudly say that it is an extensive
revision of the 4th edition that appeared more
than a decade ago, before locavores, molecular
cuisine, modernist cuisine, the Food Network and
so much more, now included. Word origins have been
completely updated, as have per capita consumption
and production stats. Most important, for the
first time since publication in the 1980s, the
book includes more than 100 biographies of
Americans who have changed the way we cook, eat
and drink -- from Fannie Farmer and Julia Child to
Robert Mondavi and Thomas Keller.
"This book is amazing! It has entries for
everything from `abalone' to `zwieback,' plus more
than 500 recipes for classic American dishes and
drinks."--Devra First, The Boston Globe.
"Much needed in any kitchen library."--Bon Appetit.
Now in Paperback,
too--How Italian Food Conquered the
World (Palgrave Macmillan) has won top prize from the
Gourmand
World Cookbook Awards. It is
a rollicking history of the food culture of
Italy and its ravenous embrace in the 21st
century by the entire world. From ancient Rome
to la dolce
vita of post-war Italy, from Italian
immigrant cooks to celebrity chefs, from
pizzerias to high-class ristoranti,
this chronicle of a culinary diaspora is as
much about the world's changing tastes,
prejudices, and dietary fads as about
our obsessions with culinary fashion and
style.--John Mariani
"Eating Italian will
never be the same after reading
John Mariani's entertaining and
savory gastronomical history of
the cuisine of Italy and how it
won over appetites worldwide. . .
. This book is such a tasteful
narrative that it will literally
make you hungry for Italian food
and arouse your appetite for
gastronomical history."--Don
Oldenburg, USA Today.
"Italian
restaurants--some good, some glitzy--far
outnumber their French rivals. Many of
these establishments are zestfully described
in How Italian Food Conquered the World, an
entertaining and fact-filled chronicle by
food-and-wine correspondent John F.
Mariani."--Aram Bakshian Jr., Wall Street
Journal.
"Mariani
admirably dishes out the story of
Italy’s remarkable global ascent
to virtual culinary
hegemony....Like a chef gladly
divulging a cherished family
recipe, Mariani’s book reveals the
secret sauce about how Italy’s
cuisine put gusto in gusto!"--David
Lincoln Ross,
thedailybeast.com
"Equal parts
history, sociology, gastronomy, and just
plain fun, How Italian Food Conquered the
World tells the captivating and delicious
story of the (let's face it) everybody's
favorite cuisine with clarity, verve and
more than one surprise."--Colman Andrews,
editorial director of The Daily
Meal.com.
"A fantastic and fascinating
read, covering everything from the influence
of Venice's spice trade to the impact of
Italian immigrants in America and the
evolution of alta cucina. This book will
serve as a terrific resource to anyone
interested in the real story of Italian
food."--Mary Ann Esposito, host of PBS-TV's
Ciao
Italia.
"John Mariani has written the
definitive history of how Italians won their
way into our hearts, minds, and
stomachs. It's a story of pleasure over
pomp and taste over technique."--Danny Meyer,
owner of NYC restaurants Union Square
Cafe, The Modern, and Maialino.
❖❖❖
FEATURED
LINKS: I am happy to report
that the Virtual
Gourmet is linked to four excellent
travel sites:
I consider this the best and
savviest blog of its kind on the web. Potter is a
columnist for USA
Weekend, Diversion, Laptop and Luxury Spa Finder,
a contributing editor for Ski and a frequent contributor
to National
Geographic Traveler, ForbesTraveler.com
and Elle Decor.
"I’ve designed this site is for people who take
their travel seriously," says Potter. "For
travelers who want to learn about special places
but don’t necessarily want to pay through the nose for
the privilege of staying there. Because at the end
of the day, it’s not so much about five-star
places as five-star experiences."
Eating Las
Vegas JOHN CURTAS has been covering
the Las Vegas food and restaurant scene
since 1995. He is the co-author of EATING LAS
VEGAS – The 50 Essential Restaurants (as
well as the author of the Eating Las
Vegas web site: www.eatinglasvegas.
He can also be seen every Friday morning as
the “resident foodie” for Wake Up With the
Wagners on KSNV TV (NBC) Channel 3 in
Las Vegas.
MARIANI'S VIRTUAL GOURMET
NEWSLETTER is published weekly. Publisher: John Mariani. Editor: Walter Bagley. Contributing Writers: Christopher
Mariani, Misha Mariani, John A. Curtas, Gerry Dawes, Geoff Kalish.
Contributing
Photographer: Galina Dargery. Technical
Advisor: Gerry
McLoughlin.