Before 2011 faded into my rearview mirror, I really wanted to do something BIG. I wanted to redeem my less than stellar year (oh the things I could tell you) by hosting the most fabulous NYE party ever. In preparation for this fine event, things took a turn for the worse – I became a victim of a bloody massacre. First things first, nobody died. And since I am alive to tell this story, I can say: it wasn’t some creeper, with a knife, in the the water waiting for the right opportunity to murder an innocent victim (as the title might suggest). Instead it was Marie, with a mandolin slicer, in the kitchen, making au gratin potatoes. A lot of blood paired with a lengthy late night visit to to the ER and I was back on the road to recovery, stump and all.

Thankfully, fellow Lush Jen and I are also back on the road to recovery. Lush Recovery.

We started 2012 off right by re-launching La Booze Vie. To my delight, I was the first person to order Johnny’s new cocktail, Knife in the Water. Johnny informed me that it was his oldest infant in the orphanage (the top secret place in Johnny’s brain where he keeps future cocktail names under lock and key). I was lured into ordering this drink because it had rye in it. I love rye-based cocktails. The other key culprits in the drink include: gin and blood oranges. Although, the lighting in the lounge was dark and dim (and slightly seductive), I was able to determine that those blood oranges were muddled properly (maybe aggressively) into the drink. They left behind a cloudy residue of dark orange-red essence. It had a creepy, uncanny resemblance to a gory scene straight out of a dated horror flick. You know which films I am talking about – the ones that always have terrible acting with even more terrible “special”-effects, are completely predictable, yet they still scare the living bejesus out of me. In flavor, this drink had a very similar taste profile to an old fashioned (sub gin). The rye was subtle, but overall the drink was very delightful and something I could drink on a regular basis. Call me old-fashioned but I love old fashioneds!

Those who don’t know Johnny, might mistake him for stepping straight out of a horror film circa 1977. It probably is his lanky figure, cloaked in those dark and dreary garments (he always wears black). Or maybe it’s his unruly, shaggy, asymmetric haircut. Or perhaps it’s his dark humor, that only few seem to get. Don’t unleash a high-pitched scream just yet. Johnny is a sweetheart and his drinks are meant to provide delight not fright, Knife in the Water included. Those who disagree have my permission to whip out a chainsaw and go psycho.

Lush Marie

100 million Americans make New Year’s Resolutions every year. Me? I’m not big on resolutions. The cynic in me thinks there is no more sense in making a New Year’s Resolution than there is in making a third Thursday resolution. I know someone is trying to make money off those optimistic resolution makers — be it Snap Fitness, Lean Cuisine or Nicorette — and refusing to take part in the resolution game is my small way of sticking it to The Man.

But this year I joined the masses of other Americans and made a resolution of my own: In 2012 I resolve to have no more than one drink when I go out. When I told my friends of my goal they had a lot of questions and raised many potential loopholes and caveats. For example, what if I’m at a street fair all day? (Though I have never been to an all-day street fair, this was a big concern of Marie’s.) What if we go to dinner but our table isn’t ready so we have a drink at the bar first but then want a bottle of wine with dinner? What if it’s “just” beer? What if it’s 2-4-1 happy hour? I considered each “what if” scenario raised but finally decided the only way to do this was to have a hard and fast rule with no exceptions. Though I am generally a shades-of-grey kind of girl and not big on black-and-white, making this resolution black-and-white seemed the only way to make it work. No exceptions. No caveats. No excuses.

So when Marie and I set off to get our La Booze Vie band back together, I did so knowing I would have only one drink that night. The drink list had been recently updated with the Christmas-themed cocktails no longer on the menu, having been dragged to the curb like so many dried out balsam firs. I debated between the Poor Richard’s Cup and the Brute Nature, finally settling on the latter after deeming the former to be too similar to my own signature cocktail of late (the bourbon-with-apple-cider-topped-with-a-splash-of-ginger-ale-garnished-with-a-slice-of-clementine-since-I-never-have-oranges….I’m still working on the name).

When Johnny set TWO glasses in front of me — one of cognac and maraschino brandy and a separate glass of cava — I balked. “What is this?” I asked. Johnny explained that this is how the Brute Nature is served. True, the menu clearly sates that the cognac is “paired with” cava, yet somehow when I read the menu I interpreted that as “topped with” cava. I couldn’t decide what to do. It was only four days into 2012 and I wasn’t ready to throw my resolution to the wind just yet. I had to at least outlast the 55% of other Americans who can make it through the month of January with their resolutions intact. But Johnny assured me that though poured into two glasses, this is one drink.

I demurred, but was finally swayed by the reasoning that this was no different than if you were to pour one bottle of beer into two glasses (a “what if” scenario that none of my friends had thought of). Giving in proved to be a good decision, as the cognac and maraschino brandy was delicious; intense and fierce like a late-spring tornado, followed by the soothing rain of sparking cava.

So though I drank out of two glasses that night, I only had one drink. 2012 ain’t got nothing on me.

Lush Jen

The other day while I was watching Antiques Roadshow on public TV, it occurred to me that someone looking only at my habits would certainly peg me for a woman much older than my years. Not only do I watch Antiques Roadshow, I knit, I do crossword puzzles, I bake, I like butterscotch candies.

And I really love prunes.

It’s true. I think they are delicious; especially the orange-essence prunes. I’ve tried to get friends to try prunes but to no avail. I tell them that prunes are nature’s candy, that they taste like gummi bears, that they are just dried plums. But no one will bite.

But now, thanks to Johnny, I’ve a new tool in my efforts to bring the joy of prunes to the masses: the Montgomery Burns. It is a martini made of prune-infused gin. And, it is so good. When I first ordered it I offered a taste to my friend, an avowed prune hater. He loved it and wondered what that distinct flavor was. “Prunes!!” I nearly yelled. “That’s what prunes taste like!”

The Montgomery Burns is a gateway prune. Once you taste this drink and understand that this is what prunes taste like, you will be able to get past how disgusting they look and past the elderly and constipation-related connotations. Try it. I swear, it tastes just like gummi bears.

Now, where did I put my Kleenex? Oh wait, here it is, in my sleeve.

Lush Jen

The other day I came across a bucket list of sorts that I made when I was young. It includes a column titled “Things I Want” and another column titled “Things I Don’t Want”. It was very amusing to see what my younger self thought would make me happy.

On the list of “Things I Want” are some things that I still want (a raspberry bush, a bathtub I can lay down in, a hammock), but also some things I no longer want (a garden, a car with fins, to go to midnight mass every Christmas), and some things that I managed to acquire only to get rid of when I discovered that I didn’t really want them after all (a pottery wheel, a garden, a husband).

Inexplicably, also on the list of wanted things is white hair. White hair! It is especially ironic now that I spend more than $100 every 6 weeks to cover up the white hair that I have. If only I had put “a car with a check engine light that doesn’t come on every 2 months” maybe I would have that instead.

I’m not sure when I wrote the list, but I was clearly fairly young as one of the other items on the list of things I want is to ride on a plane. Obviously this was written well before I’d ever been on a plane and still fancied air travel as a thrilling mode of transport. This was certainly long before I spent 10 hours in the middle seat in the middle row of 5 seats on my way to Madrid and long before I spent the night on the floor of the Fluminco airport in Rome waiting for a delayed flight to Amsterdam.

Sometimes, the things we think we are going to want in the future turn out to be things that don’t really make us happy. The other night I headed to LBV to try a new drink, sure that something new and creative was what I wanted. But then when I arrived I realized that what I really wanted was my old stand-by, The Biting Of The Apple. Marie and I have a rule that we cannot have the same drink twice, but this night I decided to break that rule because I knew that TBOTA would really make me happy at that moment. And it did. It’d been a while since I had it (stupid rules) but it was like coming home. It’s a fairly simple drink, apple-y and bubbly, served in a champagne glass with a lacy sugar rim. And it makes me happy. Really happy.

If I were to make another list of “Things I Want” I would put The Biting Of The Apple on that list. The Biting Of The Apple is like a bathtub I can lay down in. No matter how many years pass, I will still want it.

Lush Jen

Hi. James Olney. Long time reader; first time contributor. Gosh, where do I start? Well, I suppose, with my drink, after all.

So, what was it that I had? Oh, yeah, the Cobra Verde. Now I never took a Spanish class, but I believe that means “The Green Goat-Blood Sucker.” No, no, that’s not right. That would be the Chupacabra Verde, now wouldn’t it?

Alright, let’s start over. So how do I describe the experience of my drink? I suppose I could riff on some sort of snake theme, but that seems too obvious. And from a color perspective, Kermit owns the shit out of the uneasiness of being green, so I can’t compare to that. Hmm—spoiler alert!—I think I’ll shoot for a heavy-handed metaphor later in my review.

So where was I? Oh, yes: the drink. Visually, the drink arrives with a vernal greenness that suggests post-winter rebirth—especially when contrasted with the blackness of the bar and the smiling wisdom flickering in Johnny the bartender’s eyes. Topped with a wistful froth, the pleasantly-weighted lowball hints at the base pleasures within. A crucified dried cherry (right?) stands as silent witness over the scattering of nuts that float insolently on top of the foam (2nd confession: Johnny warned us to photo the drink quickly before the nuts sank, which led our clearly sophisticated company to make several jokes about tea-bagging…).

The first sip brings a rush of sensations: the electricity of a heavy-lidded, dusky complected, flamenco dancer shooting you a chin-dipped, eyebrow-arched glance from across the room. While many a margarita can be brash and callow, the Cobra Verde has the fiery defiance of a voluptuous post-political woman whose father was killed by the same fascists who later shaved her head, but couldn’t break her spirit (okay, the Hemingway reference is clearly over-wrought).

Each sip dances across the tongue in ways that forever shame cheap tequila and margarita mix from a plastic bottle. The front end of the taste has an almost savory spice (or is umami more accurate?). It’s comforting and exciting at the same time. The back end has the pleasant tang of a more traditional margarita. How are these sensations wedded so seamlessly? Beats the hell out of me. The menu lists Maraschino liqueur and a hint of absinthe as part of the dance card of ingredients. Yeah, yeah, yeah—sickly sweet cherries and wormwood do not, on their own, a tantalizing drink make.

So what is the secret ingredient? Well, Johnny’s not telling. And if you facetiously asked him whether the secret ingredient is “love”, he’d patiently smile, and turn to another patron, all the while never letting on as to how close you’d come to being right.

guest drinker James

After a brief and unintentional hiatus from LBV, I finally found myself back home in the lounge last night. The Dirty Applepicker immediately caught my eye because I am madly in love with another apple-based drink at LBV, The Biting Of The Apple. (And also because Marie kept pointing at it and saying, “that drink totally sounds like you.”) Yum. This drink oozes autumn. It is delicious.

Every fall I think I am going to make caramel apples and every year I decide not to after re-discovering that you need a candy thermometer to make them. Fortunately, The Dirty Applepicker gives you the joy of a caramel apple without needing a candy thermometer (and without getting caramel all over your chin and stuck in your teeth.)

I was initially leery of the caramel in the drink. I expected it to taste like the caramel flavor shots at Caribou or Starbucks, which always taste artificial to me. But the caramel in The Dirty Applepicker tastes just like caramel should. It’s smooth, it’s rich, but it’s not too sweet. And the drink is made with Honeycrisp apples, the darlings of the produce aisle and Minnesota’s claim to fame (well, one of Minnesota’s claims to fame after the Anderson trifecta: Loni, Richard Dean and Louie).

The martini is garnished with bleu cheese-stuffed grapes. Seeing the hollowed out grapes reminded me of a dinner party I threw several years ago at which I served feta cheese stuffed cherry tomatoes. Just the memory of hollowing out all of those damn tomatoes with the mini melon baller filled me with frustration as if I was doing it all over again. So when I saw the stuffed grapes I had to ask Johnny how he hollows them out. Answer? A drill bit. Fucking brilliant.

I love this drink, so much so that I had more than one. But how many more than one is anybody’s guess.

Lush Jen

Now, I’m usually a Grain Belt gal, but Seen Your Video is coupled with a shot of bourbon and I wanted to remember my first experience to La Belle Vie. While Grain Belt goes down like water, I can’t say the same for bourbon. And, really, I can grab a Grain Belt any old time from my own fridge (and the shot of bourbon, for that matter, that is left over from Jen’s eggnog recipe…yu-um.) My second favorite drink is cava…bubbly, Spanish, fancy…la quiero un montón. Almost Last Call is a “glass of cava, served with a shot of whatever you want, with a far side bev-nap.” Again, with the shots. I just haven’t mastered the shot…except…for…tequila. I like tequila. It likes me. But I didn’t want to shoot it (as much as I would have liked to have read the far side bev-nap.) I wanted to relish in the entire La Belle Vie experience with a cocktail. I quickly scanned the menu for a tequila-based beverage…. “French Riviera….reposado margarita with a touch of green chartreuse”…intrigued…a margarita…from France? And not just France-France…French Riviera France!? Margaritas usually evoke images of guacamole and confetti-littered beds. Margaritas are for sipping pool-side in Mexico. Margaritas are so…not…French. So I thought. Well, I’ve had margaritas that are too limey..too sweet…too tart…and, well, too tequila-y. But this drink was smooth…like the bikini lines on the French Riviera. This is due in part to the reposado tequila…nice and mellow. No Cuervo here (I bet that doesn’t even exist at La Belle Vie). While I knew my reposado…I wasn’t real familiar with chartreuse other than the brilliant color it is. Well, I found out that chartreuse is distilled under the supervision of monks from the Grande Chartreuse monastery in France. How can those gentle men NOT produce a beautiful and gentle liqueur? I’ll be back for another french riviera before Cinco de Mayo rolls around. Yo te lo prometo.

I kept with the French theme and moved on to Parlez-vous…raspberry vodka, pineapple juice and cava topped with orange-passionfruit foam. I have studied Spanish for years and so the French language has always befuddled me. I want to pronounce every single *%$#@! letter. They seem to add “eaux” and “lles” just to make words look more beautiful, I swear. Do you hear all those letters? No. Are they necessary? Probably so. Does it make the word look pretty? Most definitely. (case in point: mille feuillles-looks AND tastes magnifique!) I watched Johnny spiral the most perfect curly-q orange peel garnish and lay it gingerly off the side of the glass…voilà, i whispered…Do you eat the garnish? No. Does it add flavor to the drink? Probably. Does it make it look pretty? Most definitely. The orange-passionfruit foam was tasty, but breaking through the foam to the vodka/pineapple juice/cava mixture was purely delightful. It danced across my tongue (most likely the cava) in the most refreshing mix of flavors. I saved the raspberry for one last explosion of flavors. With the last sip, I could feel myself shedding Spanish Raquel for French Rachelle…Parlez vous? A few more of these and I’ll parlez vous français all night long. Au revoir, mes cheris …

guest drinker Rachel

Ever since I went to La Belle Vie with guest drinker Rachel a few weeks ago, doing my write up has been hanging over my head. What held me up hasn’t been the usual excuses of being too busy or having come down with writer’s block, but simply that I could not remember what I had to drink that night. And it wasn’t because I had too many, I only had two drinks (which is really like four. It’s akin to how one human year equals seven dog years: one Johnny drink equals at least two Applebee’s drinks.) I remembered the drink was good, but that was about it.

But yesterday I found myself at Home Depot for the eleventieth time in the past few days. As I rifled through my purse for a receipt to return a Dap Cap (hint: though using your finger will cause it to become cancerous in California, it is still neater and easier than using a Dap Cap) I came up instead with a handful of loose tobacco. “What the…” I muttered and peered into my purse. Seeing the Dunhill cigarette tucked inside of my purse with it’s stuffing falling out I quickly remembered that I had ordered the This Charming Man that night with Rachel. Then it all came back to me.

This Charming Man is really a very pleasant drink. It is gin based, with creme de cassis, sour and cava. It is served – somewhat curiously – with a Dunhill cigarette chaser. The drink is very smooth, like many a charming man can be. But also like many a charming man, the drink did not leave me feeling completely satisfied (afterall, I did not have the urge to smoke the cigarette right there on the spot.) It was fun while it lasted, but when it was done I moved on to something with substance (a Parma to be precise) and the only remnant of my night with the This Charming Man was found in my purse days later. Not entirely unlike reaching for the car keys and coming up instead with a napkin with a stranger’s name and number scrawled on it. Just like I look at those with a confused look and cocked eyebrow, I did the same with the Dunhill cigarette in my purse. “Huh,” I muttered, and tossed out the Dunhill on my way to register 14.

Lush Jen

Though I’ve never met Mama Wong, I have had the Mama Wong Experience twice now. I am sure I will have it again. Though both times I had it were during the height of summer, it tastes very autumnal. It reminds me of homemade applesauce with booze added (any Mott’s employees out there? That one’s on me.) But just as soon as I remarked, “Yum, tastes like apples,” I got hit in the side of the head with an unexpected burst of spice. And not the cinnamon and nutmeg kind of spice you might expect. This was a hot pepper spice. Very unexpected. But very good.

So it leaves me wondering about the woman for whom this drink is named. Though I’ve never met Mama Wong, I imagine her as somewhat short and stocky woman (the drink is served in a stout little glass) standing over the stove making homemade apple jam. She invites you in, wiping her hands on her apron before offering you a slice of banana bread she just made that morning. She sits down with you and just as you take a bite of the still warm bread, she lights up a Pall Mall, pulls a martini out from behind the flour canister and tells you the raunchiest story you’ve ever heard. She’s sweet. But man is she spicy.

Lush Jen

This seemingly simple drink, consisting of only gin with zesty lime cherry sour, forms a complex visual presentation that clearly explains how this drink got its name.  And it tastes damn good!

Is it against the rules to swear on this site? Is damn even considered a swear word anymore?

The few components of this drink slowly combine to create various shapes and colors that are reminiscent of pictures found in my astronomy book.

I took astronomy in college.  It seemed like an easy way to get a science credit without having to take physics or chemistry.  It wasn’t.

The more the drink sits, the more intricate the shapes and colors become to materialize a celestial display of stars, planets, quasars and maybe even a pulsar.

I believe a quasar is a galaxy; not sure about a pulsar, but it’s fun to say… pull-sssarrrrr!

The drink is topped off with a sour cherry for a supremely good, out of this world, experience. It could be Venus, or maybe Mars; red in color like the sour cherry hovering over this sublime drink. But, please note that sour cherries are not “regular” cherries that have been made sour.  They are native to much of Europe and grow on smaller trees than “regular” cherries.  The sour cherry in this drink appears to have been marinated in some type of syrup.  However, if you have a chance to try a sour cherry picked right off a tree, I highly recommend it… unless you don’t like sour things, then don’t try the cherry and don’t try this drink.

guest drinker Raluca