A friend and I stepped into line outside the Upright Citizen's Brigade Theater in Chelsea recently and found ourselves standing next to the two fellows above who were drinking out of plain white paper cups with the requisite adult sippy lips, the kind one gets on a Starbuck's coffee. Instinct told me it wasn't coffee in these cups however, and as we chatted with our neighbors the conversation further aroused my suspicion. The gentlemen were waiting to see bracingly dark comic Anthony Jeselnik, whose jokes run to the extremely black: "Someone asked if I would watch their houseplant while they were out of town and I'm like, I can't even keep a baby alive". While Joren Hodel (L) engaged in some sort of lively text exchange Jason Lewis (R) ran more of Jeselnick's jokes for us. The gentlemen were friendly, witty and charming, and a bit irreverent and cool and even ribald, all without laying it on too thick. That's one of the most optimum states that drinking can escort you to, and if they were aided in their journey by something a little Irished up in those cups, it was working.
Lewis would later provide the recipe for the impressively well R & D'ed cocktail that they, in fact, were drinking. The "FIDI Iced Tea" turned out to be swell but what was most interesting at that moment were these stealth cocktail containers. Hodel pulled himself away from what I'm pretty sure was lively sexting session and declaimed his master strategy with the cups. He'd ordered them in bulk from Whole Latte Love, 1,000 Commercial Solo Single Poly Paper Hot Cups at a cost of $56 cups and Commercial Travel Lids to match at about $50. For their swinging ventures out at night Hodel had learned to double up the cups to avoid seepage or condensation, and added an ingenious touch to thwart giveaway moisture--a layer of paper towel between to two cups. True commitment to the bit.
Well done. And later, in response to a query as to what exactly was in those cups Lewis texted back: FIDI Punch. Our drink (which we christened as the FIDI Iced Tea and took a month to perfect) is a combination of 3 shots vodka (after trying 20+ vodkas the only that work are Svedka, Grey Goose, Wodka, and the little known dirt cheap Ruskova) canada dry (do not go with Schweppes) lemon lime club soda, and a few squirts of lime juice from the plastic limes in the produce section (Grateful Harvest is best if you can find it). Is not this sort or erudition and strategizing to make life more elegant and harmonious the very definition of being a true modern gentleman? So keep drinking on the streets: just keep it discrete.
