EE pointed me to Maria Ricapito’s article in the NY Times about bar carts, which she saw on Eddie Ross’s excellent blog (he is featured in the article).

Eddie Ross’s bar cart, from his blog.

I’ve shaken a lot of martinis, and despite being crowded with a shaker and gin, that cart does not have what it takes – namely a work surface.  Plus, what happens to that glassware when you or a guest kicks the cart, throws your dog a tennis ball, or worse, if a small child comes over?  Eddie may well understand these limitations and have a plan for them, but I’m inclined to think it is more for show.  With due respect, this is not a mixologist’s cart – this is a poser cart.

The article’s basic point is that bar carts have had a resurgence recently, which can’t be denied.  What I question is whether bar carts really serve, or should serve, any of the reasons the article identified for the resurgence.  I identify these as:

1. Guests can make their own drinks – how Mad Men retro!
2. Having the liquor visually present encourages having a drink.
3. Carts look so good that the host is justified in limiting the drink options.
4. Carts in the living room remove the drink mess from the kitchen (so it can stop interfering with meal prep).

I take issue with all of these, because they place the style of the drink above the enjoyability of the drink (see the Theory) and the social responsibilities of a host.  Let’s go in order (and then probably throw in a bit more):

1.  Guests can make their own drinks

Unless the guest is very good friends with the host, or is explicitly asked to mix drinks by the host, a guest who barges over to the bar and pours a drink is not particularly polite.  How is the guest to know drinks are being offered?  How should the guest know if a particular bottle is being saved for a special occasion?

I’ve been a guest, and I’ve been a host, and guests are rarely comfortable mixing their own drinks.  Actually, most people aren’t very comfortable mixing drinks at all, but I hope this blog helps people get over that.  Offering a guest a drink is a gracious act, whereas simply pointing to the bar is likely to cause anxiety and indecision.  The result is that people will pour/mix the simplest thing available.  Given the choice between mixing a drink and pouring already-open wine, people pour the wine.

Fine, so the host says, as graciously as possible, ”make a drink, there’s my lovely bar cart.”  Then the guest is not being rude by barging over, but the host(ess) could probably do better.  (Unless, ahem, the guest is me; I’ll admit I enjoy mixing drinks for a party in almost anyone’s home.)  I try to avoid gratuitous references to Mad Men, because as a general rule, I do not think it portrays the best version of American cocktail culture.  But, for the sake of argument, even on Mad Men - Don offers the drinks when guests come over.  Don does not say, “would you like a drink? The bar’s over there.”  Knox Harrington does say that in The Big Lebowski, and the Dude identifies him as “a friend with a cleft asshole.”  The Dude has it right.

2. Having liquor omnivisible is good

This point is more debatable, and depends a great deal on the specifics of the home, bar cart, and entertaining style.  Still, the premise is generally suspect.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with having cocktail after work, but there is something wrong with ex-Domino editor Deborah Needleman’s suggestion that, “The idea of walking over and fixing myself or my husband a drink after a long day is so visually appealing.”  Yes a drink can, and should, be visually appealing, but you shouldn’t need liquor stored in the living room to convince you to have a drink at the end of the day…  Nor should you drink cocktails out of visual vanity.  Do you need your coffee maker in the living room to offer people coffee?  Home mixology is meant to provide great drinks, which people want because they are great drinks.  It is not, and should not be, more complicated than that.

Additionally, many of the carts have a lower shelf designed for glassware – a fairly serious safety hazard to even closely-supervised and well-behaved children and pets.  Whoa, didn’t think Tessa has kids?  You’re right, I don’t, but I’d say it is being a poor host to try and entertain seriously in a home that is hostile to children for even short visits.

Beyond all that, I obviously like drinking, but sometimes everyone needs a break.  Some guests are on a very prolonged break from alcohol (or are too youg for it).  And the sight of a bar cart is rarely an appropriate part of a breakfast mileau.  If the bar cart truly wheels in and out, great, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to make it a permanent living room fixture.

3. A pretty cart justifies limited drink options

Apparently, a bar cart is “a signifier of graciousness, good breeding, conviviality and sophistication.”  I don’t think a bar cart is the opposite, but I think if you’re seeking to invest in this kind of signifier, maybe just buy good art.  The bar cart itself is neither here nor there.

When I went to Employees Only during the Manhattan Cocktail Classic, I heard the wise advice that dictating what someone drinks is an “act of violence” upon that poor soul.  We all like different things, and drinks can be very, very different.  Sure, you want to encourage a general atmosphere, but you should not be serving sweet champagne drinks only.  It’s upsetting to those of us who hate sweet champagne drinks.

If you want to “curate” a balanced selection of cocktails for your party, then great.  If you want to tell people to just bring what they want, also great.  Or, just as good, DON’T OFFER DRINKS!  Cocktails are not mandatory unless you’re having a cocktail party.  Do I like cocktails added to almost any event?  Obviously, but believing that you are being a gracious, sophisticated host by serving a severely limited selection of poorly-chosen cocktails is just plain wrong.

What this boils down to is: don’t be a poser.  If you don’t actually live a life that needs a cocktail cart, don’t try to force the issue for the sake of style.

4. The cart is a good place to make drinks

Have you ever made a drink?  Any drink?  Most carts are small with almost zero work surface.  Pay attention, and you’ll notice in Mad Men that the little trays and carts in people’s offices do not render mixed drinks – they render liquor neat or on the rocks.  Occasionally seltzer may make it in.  This is not mixology.  And yes, you be specific, gracious, and polite in offering someone a whiskey.  If that is the limit of your drink-making in a given setting, then yes, a cart is ideal.

But for anything beyond the most basic of drinks, the tools alone take up too much space: knife, cutting board, mixer, ice, strainer, spoon, jigger, and we haven’t even gotten to the non-alcohol ingredients (limes take up lots of space and are really uncool when off-cart rolling around the party).  Then start cutting the limes; they’re a mess.  Ok, Ok, what about martinis?  You could shake a simple martini.  Maybe true, if it were the only drink you served, but you still need a bucket to dump the used ice in.  The biggest problem with taking the mixology out of the kitchen is the lack of a sink.  Shakers don’t need to be washed between every drink - rinsing is probably fine - but it’s hard to rinse at a cart in your living room.

Carts can be effective storage – and when I had a cart, that’s what it was for – but I challenge you to consider whether something else may be better.  Don’t automatically think you’re “a pretty cool dude if you have a cocktail cart.”

Summary

Carts can be effective storage, and can be a lovely support to certain drinking habits such as:

• occasional scotch on the rocks
• displaying a few prized items
• limited storage
• access to booze if your home is so large that traveling from the smoking room to the butler’s pantry is tiresome

Ultimately, however, carts cannot provide the functions suggested by the Times article.  I think Steven Sclaroff (quoted in the article) has the best insights, “I need way more room for bottles et al than a cart generally provides. If you like liquor, they’re scrunchy…. They can be adorable objects, but even I stop drinking before I would need the liquor rolled up to me.”

My current mixology cabinet.  Finding a larger, safer space – a closet, a cabinet, an armoire - hopefully somewhat near to a sink (or realistically equiped to function without one), is generally superior to a dusty bar cart.

A previous TR post referenced my desire to rearrange the side tables in the living room.  This was true, but my vision was more ambitious than that.  The last couple of weeks saw the reconfiguring not just of side tables (which is still not complete, perhaps a subject for another day), but also a fair amount of art reframing and rehanging, and the piece de resistance: wallpaper in the dining room.

Our dining room, which we generally call the “center room,” is so-named because it’s in the (umm) center of our apartment.  Everything connects to it – the living room, bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, and front door.  It’s the dining room, but it’s also the entryway, my office, a hallway of sorts… we ask a lot of it.  And because it’s the center of everything and visible from everywhere, I want it to look good.

In the 15 months we’ve lived in this apartment, I have painted the center room 3 times – and while Tessa did not actually participate in these projects (he “does not paint”), they were nonetheless extremely unpopular with him.  Sort of understandably.  So when I casually floated the idea of wallpapering over the room’s pale gray paint with something more bold, I was surprised when he responded pretty positively.

See below for the finished product:

I think it looks fantastic!!!

I love that the pattern is strong and modern, but also sort of calming.

I also think it’s brilliant that somehow, the wallpaper is an ideal rococo reinterpretation of our silver pattern, Gorham Strasbourg.  The connection between the two designs is remarkably satisfying to me, although others may be forgiven for not noticing.

The way silver used to be sold – v. cool

See the matching swirls and shell shapes?

Where does one find the ice tongs with the clawed bird foot?

The wallpaper I put up is actually temporary – it’s called Tempaper, and more or less works like Contact paper.  You peel the paper backing off of it, and then just stick it on the wall.  Since we rent our apartment, temporary wallpaper is great in the sense that we may actually get our security deposit back when we move out.  This is huge. 

The reviews I read before I bought it were basically 100% positive, but I personally would only give the product a B+.  Because it’s thinner than actual paper, the walls need to be really smooth for the finished product to look really smooth (which our plaster, pre-war, barely-restored walls certainly are not).  And because the adhesive on the back isn’t as sticky as paper+glue, it is impossible to have as clean, as sharp, and as totally secure edges.  It’s actually more difficult to put up than real wallpaper, since it’s more fragile.

BUT – to bring it full circle – I love the pattern, and think that the center room finally pulls together and anchors the rest of the apartment with the kind of style I wanted it to have.  Even its temporaryness is kind of comforting in that if I do change my mind and feel inspired to try something new (and to take a more kamikaze approach to our security deposit recovery mission) … the milieu-enhancing aesthetic experimentation can continue!

Check out EE’s vacuum review on Apartment Therapy’s Re-Nest!

Yes, this is shameless self-promotion, but it is a good review.  If a justification is necessary, then consider it a backgrounder on the Tessin Rinpoche milieu.

Luckily, all that changed this weekend.

Fully understanding this tale requires a very short trip in the way-back machine to last June.  I was down at Buckeye Farm (a stunning country house in Rappahannock County, VA, recently featured on Apartment Therapy and owned by some lovely people to whom Tessa-boy is lucky enough to be related by marriage) celebrating the end of the CFA Level I exam.  We’d been making various cocktails throughout the long weekend when I entered into a conversation with my hostess about how she could use as many of the fresh and beautiful herbs she had grown as possible.  We decided we should create simple syrups and infused liquors.  I set about harvesting lavender, rosemary, and dill before leaving the next day.

Herbs and flowers flourishing on Buckeye Farm

The lavender and rosemary were mostly boiled, strained, and then re-boiled with sugar added in to create syrups.  I took some jars of these syrups with me and left some at the Farm.  I also took three Ball jars and filled them thus:

1) lavender and gin

2) rosemary and gin

3) dill and vodka

When I returned to the Farm this weekend, the three jars (along with some remaining lavender syrup) were waiting patiently.  The lavender was darkest, a rich caramel color.  The rosemary was the most aromatic, with a light yellowish-green hue. The dill was the lightest of all.

All three were amazing for martinis or simple concoctions with a liqueur/syrup added in – the dill made a spectacular vodka-tonic.

But the real value of the whole enterprise was the Sunday night barbecue with about 20 people.  When helping prepare for the event, people were clear that we should use these locally (from the garden we would be sitting in) flavored drinks to enhance the milieu.  I realized that trying to introduce 20 people to unfamiliar drinks could be awkward and take lots of time.  Plus, this is the country: people have to drive home (on dark winding roads, no less).

PUNCH

The elegant solution happened to be a trendy one.  I could make punches that would use the local ingredients, match the rustic/historic feel of the area, refresh the party, and prevent my bed being taken by guests too sodden to drive.  By all accounts the plan worked.  Here’s what I made:

Buckeye Farm Gin Punch

0.5 cups lavender gin

1 cup gin

0.5 cup lavender syrup

0.25 cups chamomile grappa

1.5 cups French lemonade

a little dry vermouth

a splash of St. Germain Elderflower Liqueur

0.5 cups powdered sugar

2 lemons

peach bitters

Tweak it to taste in a pitcher, then double the amount of liquid with sparkling water.  Pour into a punch bowl with a single block of ice that has fruit pieces frozen into it.

Rose Sparkler

1 bottle sparkling rose

0.5 cup Cointreau

0.5 cup St. Germain Elderflower Liqueur

1.5 cup orangeade

orange bitters

Tweak it to taste in a pitcher, then double the amount of liquid with sparkling water.  Pour into a punch bowl with a single block of ice that has fruit pieces frozen into it.

So, you’ll find a lot of focus on cocktails.  This is because I really like mixing cocktails and playing with flavors.  It sounds weird to call mixing drinks a hobby, but it is one, and it provides joy to me and those around me.  It seems like this endeavor requires a Theory of the Cocktail – some organizing force guiding my drink-making.

I haven’t honed my theory yet, but I have a start.  If you come by TR often, you’ll get to taste its development.  I do think people should drink Locally, Socially, and Seasonally.  I would even take LSS down to a micro level: drink what is appropriate to the temperature in the room, the humidity, the food you are eating (or not eating), and the company you are keeping.  This means one should not always drink the same thing.  I also know some things my theory isn’t: I am not overly focused on brands and I don’t care if a drink is “cool” or “what I should drink.”

While drinkers should not be asking “what should I drink?”, they should be asking “what are you having?”  Asking “what are you having” allows us to gain experiences with new flavors and combinations; how else can we know what we like?.  Don’t be afraid to pour out a bad idea – it’s just a drink.  Part of the fun in mixology instead of cooking is that the sunk cost is much lower.

Of course, there’s a lot to my living room beyond drinking.  So you can expect to hear about other topics from time to time, and from other contributors a bit.  A prominent example may well be style and design because under the LSS theory, your drink should complement and enhance the existing (stylish) milieu.

Anyway, enough with all that.

Welcome, what are you having?

Bertessa