Outlaw Drinking
This is probably the most interesting alcohol news of the year: El Chapo is launching a beer . . . from prison. Technically, that's not accurate. His daughter is launching the beer, but she's capitalizing off his name and likeness.
I know nothing about marketing, but is a drug lord's name/likeness a good draw? How about a gangster's? I searched for liquors named after Al Capone or Lucky Luciano, but nothing came up. Same for Frank Lucas and Bumpy Johnson (I like to be multi-racial in my choice of miscreants). The search, however, yielded this nifty piece: How to Drink Like a Gangster. It contains four drinks named after gangsters, and this interesting nugget:
Mobsters always order drinks by a brand. Never just a scotch and water, it would be a Cutty and water. And no one ever drank out of a straw. That was a big no-no. Mobsters would always get free drinks, but loved to tip extravagantly, so the drinks would end up costing more just because of their big tips. But for a wiseguy it didn't matter. To them the best drink is the one you get for free.
I'll admit it: I love bars. When I wore a younger man's clothes, I used to go into bars, order a beer, and just sit there by myself, taking it all in. "It" in this usage, of course, refers to "the joy of existence," as fueled by the beer in front of me. I would normally sit there for an hour or so, drink two or three beers, imagine a friend walking in out of nowhere and greeting me with "Hey, fag! What are you doing here!?" then having a few more with him. When that didn't happen, I would leave the bar, take the bike chain off the baby stroller, and walk home before Marie started to worry about her kid.
During my drive back to town from a medical procedure yesterday, I passed three bars that I'd never been in. All three looked great. Well, all three looked divish, but they looked great to me. I could feel the ghost tugging at me, but I was whipped from the procedure and I had a client with a rush project waiting for me at the office, so I resisted. It's probably a good thing. The procedure zapped me far worse than I thought. I could barely keep my eyes open past 6:00.
As a reward for my Spartan-ish willpower, I think I'll pamper myself with a visit to one of these bars: 10 Cool Adventure Bars. Such lists often leave me cold, probably because they seem so contrived. This list is no doubt contrived, but man, every bar on the list looks great. Sample:
Floyd's Pelican Bar. Jamaica. On a sandbar in the middle of the ocean, it's no wonder so many travel magazines call this the coolest bar in the world. It takes 25 minutes to reach the bar by boat. Locals hang out in the early morning or evening to drink and play dominos.
Until next week, stay wet.
