The Mott Haven cocktail is a variation on the Bronx, a blend of gin, vermouth, and orange juice. "Created" early February. I say "created" because I really doubt I'm the first person to vary the recipe in this way. Mott Haven is a beautiful neighborhood in the south Bronx, currently popular with the artist/musician/bohunk crowd.
Jen is allergic to fresh oranges and orange juice, but she can drink margaritas and sidecars. Triple sec, Cointreau, and other orange liqueurs are okay for her in small quanties, provided they're diluted with other ingredients, so I killed the orange and used a combo of triple sec and lemon juice in its place. I added lemon juice because triple sec alone seemed like it might be too strong. Also, because fresh orange juice is such a crucial part of the original Bronx recipe, I wanted the bite of fresh citrus.
Gary Regan's recipe for the Bronx was my base recipe, so if you're a Regan fan, the proportions will sound familiar. Regan uses orange bitters in his drink, and I also "borrowed" the Angostura bitters from the Income Tax cocktail.
Having tried both the Bronx and the Mott Haven, I actually prefer the latter. After the break, the recipe.
Continue reading "Mott Haven Cocktail"Our frackin' PC crashed again last night. Hard drive failure. This is the second time in three months; the previous time, I got away with reformatting the drive and reinstalling the OS, but since the drive is now making funny noises, I think it's near the end of its life. Jen inherited this computer from her firm, so it's probably six years old, which is a pretty normal lifespan for a Windows box.
So it looks like we're PC shopping after work. Luckily, the monitor's fine, so we only need the tower for now, and it appears we can get something suitable in the $400-500 range.
The timing here is both bad and good. Good that we can actually spare the $500 or so, but bad in that we'd hoped to wait it out and save up enough money to get a package deal with a flat-panel display and a new printer. But we can add that stuff on later this year, probably.
And, of course, I still crave one of these, but that can wait until Apple works out the bugs and we have space for a second full-sized PC.
"We're falling for something we shouldn't be falling for,'' said David Assmann, deputy director of the San Francisco Department of the Environment, paper cup in hand. "You really can't tell the difference."...
"People buy a lot of things they don't need,'' he said. "I wouldn't call bottled water a swindle, exactly, but it's certainly something people are paying for without getting any benefit.''
Forgive me for going juvenile, but thanks, Assman, for telling me what I already know: I'm buying water. In a bottle. And, OOOOOOH, I'm paying for something I could get from the tap! But I'm not getting any benefit? None at all? I'm happy, Assman, that you, Cocklad, and Wonder Tit always have the forethought to fill up a water bottle before you leave the house so that if you get thirsty while fighting crime, you've got fresh water handy. Me? I drink from the tap at home and at work. It's chilled, filtered tap water, but it's tap water all the same. But when I'm out around the city, I don't want to hassle with carrying a giant water bottle around, so when I'm thirsty, I just find a street vendor and buy a bottle. There's the benefit. I buy it on the street so I don't have to schlep it around. I'm not a fucking rube, Chronicle. The only problem I have with it is that I'm buying yet another plastic bottle that'll probably wind up landfilled. Otherwise, I know what my buck-twenty-five is buying me: 16 oz. of bottled tap water, and guess what? I DON'T GIVE A FUCK.