the underbelly

This year marks the 45th anniversary of Disney’s tiki room “ride.” A ride which is actually more of an experience that is near and dear to my heart and childhood. What can I say, I’m a sucker for animatronics (somehow robots don’t scare me when they’re making puns and singing songs). Also, my parents are going to Hawaii without me. So because I can’t celebrate the tiki spirit neither in Annaheim nor in the islands that inspired it, I did the next best thing: went to two tiki bars.

The New York tiki bar is a weird concept. Tiki bars are colorful, tacky, they draw attention to themselves. On a recent visit to our fair city, a friend from California remarked that New Yorkers “all look the same” in that we all dress in black. When she asked why I answered that it was because we didn’t want to stand out…I believe my exact words were, “that’s how you get mugged.” So it is in keeping with that sensibility that our most popular bars are speakeasies, hidden away, unnoticed, secretive, just like we like to be.

So, against my instincts, I went to the noticeable bars.

I tried to go to Waikiki Wally’s, a teal blue monstrosity on the corner of 1st and 2nd. The door was unlocked but when I went in it was creepily deserted - chairs were still up on tables, the lights were bright, the storage door was open, but no one was around. So i let that idea go.

I went instead to Otto’s Shrunken Head on 14th between A and B. Otto’s = irony. At its heart it’s a punk bar. Hard music plays through the speakers. The patrons, all 7 of them, were wearing leather (black, of course). They were drinking beer. But the bar looked like it was trying, or had been trying years ago, to be tiki. There were masks, grass thatching, palm trees painted on the wall, skulls, blowfish lights…but it imparted no joy. I ordered a mai tai because I figured that’s what you’re supposed to order and the bartender served it to me in a brown ceramic frowning tiki mug. A blue paper umbrella perched on the rim and a straw with purple, shiny streamers stuck out the top. It tasted like a …well…like a long island ice tea - that is to say it tasted like alcohol and sour mix.  But now I know where to go if I ever just feel like a night of punk rock irony.

So I traveled back across the bridge to my home neighborhood of hipster heavy Williamsburg where I ducked into Surf Bar on North 6th and Bedford.  What a difference a couple of stops down the L makes.  When you first step into Surf Bar you’ll notice that you’re not stepping on anything typical for New York - wood, concrete, rats.  You’re on sand.  Yep, the whole bar/restaurant is covered in sand.  This is cute.  But kind of annoying.  I’m still finding sand in my wardrobe from my vacation a couple of weeks ago, I don’t need to be carrying any more of it home.  This time I ordered another traditional tiki fav: a zombie.  It was served to me in a plastic model of a bikini-clad woman’s torso.  yum.  It was strong, so I sipped slowly while enjoying the warblings of Sinatra that floated through the small shack.  It felt almost authentically tiki….fish in tanks, bright colors, retro music…but the bartender brought me back down to Brooklyn - head to toe black sporting the latest hipster trend of a snidely wiplash ’stache…

WOO! Spring break! Cruise! Caribbean!

This is one of the many cruise ship specials that Carnival offered daily, nightly, and any other times they could get to you with a tray in hand. This one is a bit different than some of the others as it comes in a fairly non-remarkable cup.  Some came in things like monkeys or a model of the ship’s exhaust pipe….delicious?  If I remember correctly, that one was like a pina colada on steroids. Yum. That means cut down on the juice and just add a couple more rums.

(Side note: while I was sad to come back and put on a jacket again, I was happy to see this article in the Times. Hooray tiki drinks! It’ll be like I never left the islands.)

Of course I didn’t stray too much from the old standbys:

A delicious bloody mary….nom nom nom….if I may quote lolcats….The best part was that they let you alter it as you want. I like extra Tabasco. It’s like an alcoholic baked potato bar. Awesome. More bartenders should be as unassuming…now if some one would just let me do the same thing with something like a long island ice tea…hmmm…

But it wasn’t just all drinking and sun..and burns…and bioluminescent lagoon kayaking excursions (I like to learn when I travel). No, no. For some, there was work to be done:

Ah, flashing lights and people losing money.

The best part of the night was coming home to the creatures:

I’m getting old, okay! I like towel animals! And sipping good drinks (favorite on the ship: the double mojito…until they ran out of mint half way through the trip…sad face). I can’t be out getting all crazy. No, instead I went to the room and took pictures of towel animals.

Spring break 2008, woo!

From Left to right: The Special Oerbier Reserva 2006, J.W. Lees Harvest 2000, J.W. Lees Harvest 2006

It’s eleven in the morning on a Tuesday and I’m on deadline. Okay, I have an article for class due but doesn’t “on deadline” sound so much more urgent? So I do what I have to do: I try the aged beers that have been chilling in my fridge. They’re from the overwhelmingly wonderful beer, cheese, chocolate and cured meats store: Bierkraft, in Brooklyn. I went there yesterday to talk to some of the guys about this whole bottle aging phenomena and obviously couldn’t leave without sampling some of the rarer aged beers. (Side note about how wonderful this place is: I got very lost on the way there. Not surprising to anyone who has known me for more than ten minutes. I walked from Prospect Park, where I foolishly got off the B train all the way down to 5th and 14th only to find that Bierkraft was on 5th and Union, much farther down. I was already tired and a little nervous as I had never been to real Brooklyn. But I trekked on. When I finally arrived, after watching the demographics of the neighborhood change drastically, I found that I had entered heaven. Literally I think I gasped. If I was religious person, Bierkraft might be where I worshiped.)

ANYWAY

I cracked open the beers bright and early to test them out and see what all these beer geeks were going on about.

Close up of the Special Reserva.

Another money shot.

I bought the Special Reserva 2006 (full name: De Dolle Oerbier Special Reserva 2006), which was around $10..yah..ten big ones..because the guy giving me the run down said that it was hard to come by and an example of a non-dessert aged beer. I’m a sucker for hard to come by things and had never had a savory aged beer so I went for it. Also the guy showing me around was young but had salt and pepper hair. I think premature graying is a sign of a good man, think Steve Martin.

Tasting notes: Sour. Tannic. Would be great with a salty cheese. Like dry sherry. But still mildly refreshing. Sour apple, lemon. Aged in oak barrels (so that’s where the aging is coming into play) Refermented in the bottle (meaning yeast is added?) Belgium. 13% alcohol at the start. It’d also be good with pork. Oddly addictive as you keep going.

Close up of the J.W. Lees Harvest 2006.

Closer up of the ‘06.

The J.W. Lees harvest series is something I’ve been hearing about since I started researching this aging stuff. It’s released every year on the first of December and it’s made from the first brewing (yes, that makes a difference. It has to do with there being more sugars….or something). And peppered hair dude told me I should try two different years so since we’ve already established that I trusted him absolutely, I chose the oldest they had (2000) and the youngest (2006). The ‘06 ran around $9.

Tasting notes: Thick, dark amber in color, barely any carbonation. Mellow, honeyed sweetness, would love to curl up with a fire with this. Barely any bitterness. Very easy going. I might even drink this with burger or something. There is some bitterness coating the back of the tongue. Not overly sweet. Could use a little more depth.

Close up of the J.W. Lees Harvest 2000.

Looks like a tasty mid-morning treat to me.

Here’s the thing about the harvests. I actually tried them out of order, the oldest before the youngest, thinking that it was the other way around. Then I figured it out. But it didn’t make sense. In some ways the ‘06 tasted like what I thought the ‘00 would be. I had to keep taking sips out of the bottles to make sure I wasn’t going crazy. The ‘00 ran around $10.

Tasting notes: sweet nose like baking bread. Thick, sweet, honeyed. Touch of bitterness on the end. Fizzy. Like a porter is fizzy. Small bubbles. Much fizzier than the ‘06, weird. It shouldn’t be like that right? Or should it. Is that because it is somehow further fermenting? Deep copper color. More of an after dinner beer. Hints of a tawny. Much less sweet than the 06, which makes sense.

I don’t think I can pass judgment on these things yet. But I can say that I totally get the allure. You get to control these things, they become raw ingredients in your own hands and you get to reap the benefits much sooner than you do when you age wine, also they’re a lot more affordable. Yep, sign me up, I’m hopping on the beer geek wagon.

That, my technology loving friends, is what has come to be known as the “bumbot.” Developed by a bum-hating man named Rufus Terrill, owner of the Atlanta bar O’Terrill’s. Its a meat smoker, which comes equip with a spotlight, an infrared camera, a loudspeaker and a water canon. Now, I can respect a remote control meat smoker with a water canon, because you have to respect something like that, otherwise you’ll get hit with a hard spray of water. But robots should not be bouncers!! I won’t go through the whole “I, Robot” thing again…but seriously. Stop giving robots human jobs! Especially when booze is involved! Can you imagine stumbling out of a pub, happily fizzing with a thick beer buzz and running into a meat smoker that promptly shines a spotlight on you and hoses you down? What a way to ruin a perfectly good night.

According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, “Terrill insists he’s not a kook, that he’s serious about using his robot to fight crime.” You can’t say that you’re not a kook and then follow that up by saying you want your robot to fight crime. You can’t.

I’ve searched and I’ve searched and I still can’t find why Hoboken has its annual St. Patrick’s Day festivities two weeks before the actual holiday. But as girl of some Irish decent and a great lover of all things Guinness, I’m not one to complain about two opportunities to celebrate the great Saint who chased away the snakes.

I was too overwhelmed at the parade to take pictures, but here’s a little sensory sketch: fratty dudes, green-wigged girls, very, very drunk people ready to collapse at noon (no, I wasn’t one of them parents), lots of men in kilts playing the bagpipes (isn’t that a Scottish thing?) and lines around the block of people wearing green beads who are trying to get into an already overcrowded Irish pub.

No green beer. That I saw, that is. Which I’m okay with. I don’t think beer should be green. It’s not natural. Though there was a woman on a corner selling corned beef and cabbage sandwiches out of a cart. I had already eaten but if I hadn’t I would have taken care of that. My Irish heritage has given me three things: the inability to be in direct sunlight, a pretty respectable alcohol tolerance, and a great love of cooked cabbage. Yum. Especially when paired with beef, shade and a Guinness.

When I recovered from the shock of seeing the afternoon debauchery I was able to get a couple of shots of Gotham from the pier while waiting for the ferry:

The approaching storm:

There’s home!….inviting.

I don’t know about you, but after a night out the town I wake up and revel in the aromatherapudic nature of the clothing I was wearing. Mmmm beer and smoke and sweat. I take deep breaths in and think of Fraternity basements of past years….remember the good old days when stale beer was as good as an aphrodisiac. If only my room could smell like that all the time! Thank god it can with the Beer Candle from Hotwicks.com! Mmmmm hot, waxy, beer.

The site also offers scents to remind you of those good old days in the strip club as well as those wonderful times hangin’ out by the ol’ urinal.

I’ve been researching tonic lately (hopefully we’ll see the fruits of that labor soon) and found out that tonic water glows under a black light.  Now, I had noticed this in the past (mostly at awful black light, wear white themed frat parties) but never questioned why or what was glowing.  Apparently it’s the quinine in tonic water that does the glowing.  Not only will enough of it help out with malaria (don’t rely on it unless you make your own tonic, today’s tonic doesn’t contain nearly enough quinine to make a difference to the weakest of strains) but it will dazzle and entertain you’re easily entertained guests.  You know, the same kind of guests who are really into things like “Planet Earth” and that magic eye poster you have from when you were 9.

I spent the long weekend over in Cambridge with the bfri. It’s a nice change of pace from the big city but usually pales in comparason to the big apple when it comes to things like food, drinks, transportation…most things. But not this past Friday. We went to grab a pre-dinner drink at the Oak Bar, the bfri’s favorite place to feel ultra high class and important due to its oaky-ness, high ceilings, and large scotch selection. (I would have taken pictures but 1. it was a nice night out and I don’t like to mix blogging with pleasure and 2. my camera was out of battery.) So the bfri chose a sort of muddled rum-type drink. It was nice. Good citrus, nice mint….etc….But I chose the best drink ever.

Now let me preface this by saying that I don’t like vodka. I know people say it doesn’t have a taste but that’s not true. It does. It tastes like grain and I’m not into it. Usually my martini is straight gin (Plymouth) with tons of olives. But I decided to be adventurous. I got the pear and blue cheese martini. It consisted of La Poire Grey Goose pear vodka and I believe some sort of pepper infused vodka. Then it was garnished with three blue cheese stuffed olives. Best. Drink. Ever. The pear was so subtle, not sweet like an appletini but soft like, well…like a pear. The pepper added just enough bite to stop the drink from being overly simple and the blue cheese in the olives gave off just the slightest hint of saltiness. I could drink these everyday. I could have made a few of those my dinner, gladly.

Where can I get this in New York? Seriously. It’s making my mouth water just to think about it…..