The League of Gentlemen Adventurers

There may well be a long-lost chapter of the League of Gentlemen Adventurers in Sweden.

Recently a team of adventurers was diving in the Baltic Sea, off the coast of Sweden, and while exploring a shipwreck, they discovered bottles of champagne that are over 200 years old.  By far the oldest ever found, and, according to one estimate, worth almost $70,000 each.

Now, that is certainly an adventure, but it’s not why I believe LGA members may have been present.  This is why:

The first thing they did when they got back onto the boat was to pop one open and drink it.

Mr. Ekstrom & co., today I raise my glass to you and say, Quam bene vivas refert, non quam diu.  You embody the spirit of Gentleman Adventuring.

And, gentle reader, I ask you: were you on that boat, wouldn’t you have done the same?

It’s around 10pm, and Lee, Greg, and I are looking for a bar. Not just any bar; we’re surrounded by bars, actually, with thumping music and flashing lights, and crowds of people who look and act like they just turned 21, whether they’re in their 20s, 30s, or 40s. We are in San Diego’s Gaslamp Quarter, and we are looking for Prohibition.

We pass a nondescript doorway wedged between two nightclubs. No sign, just an address. Lee squints at it. Is that the one? No. We keep walking, past a group of eight or ten young guys, all wearing polo shirts with the collars turned up, all walking unsteadily and staring off into space with the vacant look of someone so drunk they can’t hold a coherent thought.

Another doorway. It is also flanked by unpleasantly Gaslampy bars. The frosted glass window displays the name of a law firm. This is it, Lee says. We walk past a small gate, ring a doorbell, and wait.

The door opens a crack. Nobody comes out. Lee looks around the corner. There is a man in a suit.

“Can I help you?”

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A great new article in the New York Times talks about how moonshine (aka White Dog, White Lightning, or (don’t sue me Pepsi) Mountain Dew) is surging in popularity among the cocktail cognoscenti.  What they’re talking about is raw, un-aged liquor straight out of the still – just like grandpappy made it way back in the hills.

I highly recommend the above article, and I also highly recommend that any gentleman (or gentlelady) adventurer with a predilection to tippling give moonshine a try.  Ideally, this should be clear spirits of questionable provenance, served out of a mason jar or other recycled container.  My first moonshine experience was lao lao – homemade Laotian rice whiskey served from a 7-Up bottle while riding on the roof of a bus from Luang Prabang to Vientiane.

If the homemade stuff that can cause blindness is not available locally where you are, however, you could do worse than trying some of the new brands mentioned in the NYT.

Oh, and while you’re searching, please enjoy this ode to clear spirits by the great George Jones:

Yesterday, my father was up here in LA, visiting me and picking up his visa for an upcoming trip to Shanghai. Lunchtime was coming up, so naturally I checked the Twitter feed on my phone.

The new rage here in Los Angeles is food trucks that park somewhere in the city, and then tweet their location to foodies citywide. I scanned my list of food tweets – Korean bbq tacos, the Indian Dosa Truck, etc., – and then a tweet caught my eye. “Try our new fois gras burg!” from the Grill Em All truck, parked just a few minutes away in Hollywood.

That seemed to embody the LGA maxim, “If it’s worth doing, then it’s worth overdoing.” So we hightailed it out there. And, wow. Let me tell you – you have not lived unless you have tried the fried egg, potato chip, and fois gras burger they call a Lars (named, I assume, for the esteemed Mr. Ulrich).

Gents, next time you’re in LA, check it out.

Quam bene vivas refert, non quam diu.

I stumbled on this excellent video of one of America’s greatest bartenders, Dale DeGroff (aka, King Cocktail).  Towards the middle of the video, he offers the same advice that our gent Lee gave during one of our “Drinking” podcasts.  Trust your bartender, and try the stuff you think you don’t like.  Also, check out that technique with the cocktail shaker…

Making a Morning Glory Fizz with Dale DeGroff from Zagat Buzz on Vimeo.