EMBURY COCKTAILS

Edgar Wright Samples His Eponymous Cocktail.

We're having a good week here at Embury. First, my piece on the Small Bars of Sydney appears online on the NYT T Travel Blog, in which I was able to give some serious props to the fantastic bars and bartenders I got to know there in June, including my new favorite spot in the Southern Hemisphere, Eau de Vie. Then Edgar Wright name checks us in the below interview with Eric Alt for Maxim.com as he sips the cocktail we put together for him. To give credit where credit is due, our London emissary, Master Will Foster of Casita Bar (my favorite bar in the Northern Hempisphere), came up with the reposado, Patron XO and espresso cocktail, as an homage to the director's epic consumption of espresso on set.  And seeing Wright gleefully toss back mulitple Wrightinis at 11 a.m. as he prepares for a day of interviews is pretty terrific. J.R.

Scott Pilgrim vs. Will Foster

Back when Edgar Wright was still deep into production on the uncommonly charming and wildly entertaining "Scott Pilgrim vs. The World" we commissioned a drink in the director's honor from Will Foster, Embury's man in Shoreditch. The resulting Edgar Wrightini payed homage to the man's intensive, almost Balzacian consumption of caffeine on set, using Patron XO, reposado and espresso (see recipe here), and it can be ordered at Foster's Casita Bar. A couple months back Nick De Semlyen from the U..K.'s go-to mag for smart fanboys and girls Empire got in touch with us, wanting to use the drink in their feature on the film and we were only to happy to facilitate. They asked Will to create additional cocktails in honor of auteurs as well, and he  came through with some killers--homages to Mssrs. Scorsese, Lynch, Mann & Nolan. Empire's graciously given us permission to post the entire feature, including cocktails, here on Embury, and my hope is that in reading through it folks will get a sense of how ambitious and epically cool the film is--or, as their US tagline reads: "an epic epic of epicness". For some reason the film hasn't had much success at the US box office; a little Michael Cera backlash could be to blame. But the film dusts off Cera's hapless, hoody wearing persona and re-invogorates it, reinvents it, even. And Wright's defined a new kind of screwball humor--he's a hipster Preston Sturgess here, although his kinetic directing style is anything but hipster-slacker-mumblecore laconic. I'll say it again: he's this generation's Sturgess. Even without all the awesome manga and gaming inspired effects and action sequences there's an incredibly witty film here.  Also: checking showtimes on Fandango in NYC turned up no local listings, but upon walking past the Union Square Regal Cinema yesterday afternoon the sign told the story, so it's still out there  And for Key Westers, my continual harrasment of the Tropic Cinema seems to have paid off--the film opens there this Friday, October 8th.

A file of the entire article is here: Download Empire Mag Wright Foster; we've also got it laid out page by page in the second part of this post (here). This should whet your appetite for the embarrasment of riches that the film offers. Below you'll see the final page of the piece where Will's recipes reside--fun to see him next to Cera, both wielding their weapons of choice. Cheers! J.R.

Mad Men Watch: Dublin House

On a recent episode of "Mad Men" (# 306), Joan's surgeon husband Greg stays out late after he's passed over for Chief Resident and unceremonioulsly informed that he has "no brains in his hands." After stumbling into the apartment he shamefacedly tells Joan the bad news. The winning candidate and his colleagues had gone out for drinks to celebrate.  Greg says "I couldn't bring myself to go--I spent all night at the Dublin House." I flashed immediately on a mental image of the bar's sign on West 79th Street, a neon sign, with a green harp and the bar's name in red. I'd logged a few hours in the dark, friendly-but-not-too-friendly joint back in the 80s and in my memory of the place it was a perfect spot to spend a few morose hours mourning your dashed dreams over some scotch on the rocks.

I jumped  on the 1 train and headed up to the Upper West Side to see how the bar looked today. Remarkably unchanged from the 80s, and I'd guess from 1963 when the episode takes place. An gracious, attractive woman who runs the bar's Facebook page introduced herself (79 people are fans of  I'd rather be at the Dublin House]. She knew the bar had been mentioned on the show but not in what context--when I explained she laughed. "There are a few television personalities who live in the neighborhood who've gotten in big trouble with their wives after staying here very late when they had to be up really early the next morning." It's nice to see that some things don't change, and a friendly neighborhood bar that's there for some unrepentant drinking is always welcome. It's clearly a neighborhood spot with no pretensions on either side of the bar, which is refreshing in contrast to the ever- increasingly slick, overly polished  York bar scene. J.R.

 

Friday Night Cocktails: Meyer Lemon Whisky Sour

As we continue to celebrate all things Kentucky pre-Derby, this Friday Night Cocktail is a twist on the classic Whiskey Sour, substituting the distinctive Meyer Lemon for the traditional standard lemon. John Byrd, a great resource for Embury, bartender at Dressler and one of the Brooklyn Barmen team, came up with this one after we were discussing the drinks in the 1952 film The Mating Season.  Thelma Ritter whips up a giant batch of whiskey sours that kicks a house party Gene Tierny is hosting into high gear. I wondered if there were something to make a sour a bit more approachable for the novice whiskey drinker, particularly in a party context,  and John proposed this persuasive update with the seasonal Meyer. In the film Ritter raisese the subtle distinction between making a whiskey sour sweet or sour, and the Meyer, allegedly a cross between a mandarin and a lemon, mananges to split the difference between the extremes-in fact, in deference to the film, you might say it mates them--and as luck would have it, it's Meyer season.

MEYER LEMON WHISKEY SOUR

2oz. of Rye or Bourbon (John favors Jim Beam Rye)
.5oz. of simple syrup
Juice of 1 Meyer Lemon
Shake and strain
Garnish with cherry & orange

I wasn't certain if John had intended for this to be served up or on the rocks or up and while waiting for a response to an e-mailed query I consulted the film, where they drink their sours up (although possibly blended, it's a bit unclear). Then I heard back from John: "I always like body in my drink so I never strain the juice, and on the rocks is nice or in tall glass with some soda." I'd already shot (and drank) the cocktail above when I got that and I can confirm that it works up. J.R.

John also does a version with tangerine: "This one  is almost the same but I backed off on the simple syrup because the tangerines I had were pretty sweet. Taper it off with a touch of Meyer or lemon."

Dressler
Brooklyn Barmen
The party scenes from 'The Mating Season' are on YouTube, first part here, second part here.