As a gift to our hardworking house husbands, my best friend Kate and I bought our men admission to a vintage cocktail making class at The Whistler (rated one of the 25 best cocktail bars in America by GQ Magazine) in late November.
Josh has never been much of a drinker, but the recent rise in craft cocktailing seemed to have piqued his interest--probably because he's a foodie and very plugged into the local online chatter about food, restaurants and bars.
Well, one afternoon class and he was hooked, reading the guide bartender Paul McGee sent home with his students, checking cocktail recipe books out of the library, researching liquor brands online and making daily trips to Binny's to pick up the often obscure ingredients he needed to prepare us colorfully named drinks like the Corpse Reviver 2, Jack Rose, Monkey Gland and Penicillin.
Indeed, gourmet cocktailing has stimulated all of the OCD tendencies my dear husband has previously applied toward coffee preparation (we buy awesome beans, grind them and brew by hand in a Chemex), movies (he was a Criterion Collection hoader for a few years) and guitars (he's been playing for 4 years and owns 5 instruments, all sourced from Craigslist). To be fair, like the coffee brewing, bread baking and general cookery passions, I'm a major beneficiary of this new hobby. For one thing, relaxing in the evening with a fancy drink that could have cost $10 at a trendy bar is a pretty awesome luxury. And I've discovered I'm a lover of gin drinks--who knew?
But also, I finally have some gift ideas for my infamously hard-to-shop for husband! I bought him some barware for Chanukah (we had exactly two rocks glasses, both emblazoned with logos) and there are plenty of interesting bottles I can pick up for him for special occasions.
And something tells me our Spring Break trip to Louisville may include a distillery tour.
