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There Goes A Regular
I miss a lot of things right now that I didn’t think I’d miss so much. Airplanes. Hotels. But most of all, I miss bars. I don’t miss drinking. (I mean, I don’t miss drinking because I still drink.) But I don’t go to bars because I like to drink. I go to bars because I love bars. Oak, brass, copper, and glass. Gleaming tiers of bottles. Too many kinds of vodka. Never enough kinds of scotch. And not dive bars, or cheap bars, either. No, I love grand bars. Flagship hotel bars, especially. This might make me sound like a snob, which is factually correct.
I judge a bar by its cocktail menu. A) it should have one, B) it should have a martini that is actually a martini, not spiked punch in a martini glass, and C) a dash of wit is always appreciated.
I miss the bar at the Grand Hotel in Lucerne. I had a martini there last year with a bartender who spoke fluent Switzerdeutsch but grew up in New Jersey. He suggested I try the local gin, which was redolent of cardamom, and terrible. I had two. I miss Dukes in London, home of the world’s best martini and I will fight you on this. It never touches ice (everything is kept in the freezer,) uses №3 Gin and housemade amber vermouth, and is made tableside in the lounge by an Italian gentleman in a white dinner jacket from a trolley. Because it is not diluted with water at all, if you have two there you will begin making very poor decisions.
