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Oh hey Ologites, it's your dry cleaner who never judges your pit stains. Ali ward back for another episode of Ologies. So winter celebrations are here, Merriment is to be had, Gatherings are gathering, and you've got some weekdays off and you're expected to spend him in your pajamas. So I thought, why not an episode on liquid curiosities. Speaking of celebrations, really quick up top. Happy birthday to Hannah Lippo, dear friend admin of the Ologies Facebook group. We all love
you very much. Deal with it. Also more business before we get to the episode. Thank you to all the patrons on patreon dot com slash Ologies. Thanks to anyone who gets merch at ologiesmerch dot com and thank you for keeping ologies solid in the old science charts by tweeting and gramming and telling your relatives and subscribing and rating and reviewing, which you know, I creepily peruse because your reviews are hilarious and they perk me up, and then I read you a fresh ones. You know, I'm
not just whistling very creepy Dixie. So this week, Abakai says, straight up, my therapist told me about this podcast when I was complaining about my pervasive news addiction. Thanks for saving me from reading way too many political articles.
Straight up advice from the therapist.
Okay, mixology, let's get into it. Okay, first, let's tackle this etymology, because mixology is not a word used by
mixologists a lot. Although it seems like it was a term that was just invented, like in the last decade with the resurgence of these prohibition era classics and cocktails and the resurgence of the semi ironic mustaches, it is actually a throwback to an earlier time, so before we had delights like indoor plumbing and vaccines, Cocktail books and newspapers from the eighteen sixties used phrases like mixologists of
fluid excitements to describe bartenders. And then in the nineteen eighties, in an era when screwdrivers and seagrums and die pepsi were all the rage, a New York bartender named Dale de Groff started bringing back old timey recipes and he started calling himself a mixologist just to impress the press.
And it worked.
But maybe in the last like handful of years, some suspended craft cocktailers took themselves a little too seriously and maybe gave the term xology a bad name. We will discuss anyway. This guest is one of the most highly respected cocktail makers in the country, and his backstory is as riveting and inspiring as his advice. I met him
about seven years ago. I was working with the Cooking Channel, making and reviewing cocktail recipes, and I tried a battery of his drinks at the Library Bar, which is in the very swank, very haunted Vibe Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood. I'd never had a drink like his, ever, Like stinging nettle infused gin and mushroom infused artichoke liqueur pine cone infused into elderflower cocktails. The quail Eggs is a Garnish. His drinks are like mad libs that somehow make sense
in your mouth. So, after years of just building this reputation at the Library Bar and consulting a bunch of restaurants, this past October he finally opened his much anticipate owned bar, monthly serving up twelve course dining and drinking pairings at the Kalamigos Beach Club. It's right on Pacific Coast Highway, an actual stone's throw literally from the ocean, and his view from the bar is just this glittering Pacific and then to his back is Solstice Canyons and the mountains of Malibu.
It's gorgeous.
So I visited him just this past weekend a few days ago, and I walked the grounds and he recounted that about a month after opening his dream bar, he had a night to remember.
And it's amazing because the Thursday night it was I was going into my fifth week of service, and the winds were ripping and I was just loving at you know, see my bar. The windows were open and the wind it was just beautiful, but you had that sense of that fire out there.
So in early November, weeks after opening only the Woolsey fire swept through the canyon and it destroyed sixteen hundred structures.
It took three lives.
It also consumed a portion of the Calami Goes Beach Club. So on Saturday, we stepped over hunks of charred furniture and crunched over broken glass to the rear of the property to see that. Flames scorched the back of the restaurant, just shattering glass, melting door knobs. But thank you to firefighters. His little bar was spared, just made it by a literal inch and even like the rafters are charred a little bit.
Yeah, no question about it. Yeah, this was seconds from going up, no question about it.
The electric wires serving the property all melted, and it's going to take months to clean out the burned down structures on the property. But that doesn't really keep him away. So wait, now, how much time are you spending here?
Still? Yeah, I can't help it. I come three or four days a week. I just love to sit in my bar. It's like a monastery's This is the whole thing. Is like, when you build something, you can't just walk away, even if it's in disarray.
So he opened up the bar for me, and it's still in perfect condition. We took seats at a high top table looking out at the ocean and the pch which was buzzing with Saturday motorcyclists and SUVs carrying surfboards.
So this ologist has.
Been making drinks for over a decade, hosted the any cocktail travel show called Good Spirits, and wrote the book Eat Your Drink. And we talked about his history and how he approaches the American cocktail, his own relationship to booze, his relationship to the word mixology, how to make a good drink at home, how to do your own thing even if it seems weird to others at first. So subtle up for the wit, the wisdom, and the whimsy of Bartender, cocktail chef and mixologist Matthew Biancanela.
The way I pronounced my last name, it's funny. It's almost like if I say it the real Italian way, Biancanello. It's almost like someone who says croissant. So I always fel a little bit funny. But the correct pronunciation is Bianca and yello. But when I try to this, it's just Biancanello. Okay, you gotta use your hand little Exactly. I was brought up more Greek than I was Italian, even though I'm fifty. I'm fifty to fifty, but I was brought up more on my Greek side.
Oh, I didn't know that. And now where were you born?
I was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts, but grew up mostly in Boston, Okay, yeah, Belmont and Cambridge.
Area, so your accents is a little both that.
And New York for nine years too, because my father is from Brooklyn. So I think I have a mix of that because I lived there for nine years. But it's weird. People will see like are you Are you from Portugal? I'm like, where do you get that? You know?
And now how long have you been in La?
Eighteen years?
Eighteen years?
Side note, eighteen years in LA is like the scientific equivalent to four decades in any other city. So Matthew moved out here thinking there'd just be gobs of work in advertising sales, but he also pursued a bunch of passion projects, like writing and directing a short film called The Bread Basket, which was based on some of his own experiences. It was about a man struggling with body dysmorphia.
But to make art in LA you also have to pay the bills. So what did you do? Did he wait tables?
Nope, nope, nope.
I was kind of just trying to figure it out. So I didn't really get into what I'm doing until ten years ago. So for eight years I was doing all kinds of crazy shit. My brother was the director of Michael Jackson Zoo, so I would do animal training with him. I'd pick up animals from you know, like venomous snakes from the airport and might have like a black mom but next to me for two hours in
a box. I was like, okay. I got into wanting to make underwater films at the time, and then I did this crazy eating stunts.
I heard that you have eaten like cow eye boys these things.
Had made a film called the bread Basket, which is actually a colloquial term in New York for your stomach. So I made this film. It was all about a guy who was kind of obsessed with his stomach, and I needed the money to finish. What happened was my brother had had the Guinness Book of World Record for being covered by the most bees. What, yeah, like four hundred and fifty thousand. Now someone has a million. I don't know. How they got up to that, because it's
insane how they do it. It's like it's all about money for these things. So he was going to be he was going to do something where he was something with leeches, and I was like, he's getting ten thousand dollars to be covered by This is ridiculous. So I remember I went up to the producer and I said, you know, I'll eat anything, and he goes, oh, that's nice, that's nice. So I waited for my brother to kind of do his stunny and want to ran his prayer. So I went over to the thing and I grabbed
a handful of leeches, witch witches. I put him behind my back and I went up to the producer. I said, no, I'm serious, I'll eat anything, and I took them live, threw him in my mouth and swallowed them. He jumped back like ten feet and he goes, you'll be hearing from us. Within three weeks, I was on Hollywood at three in the morning in front of the Ripley's Believer
or Not Museum, eating like all this disgusting stuff. And I did it so well that I got picked up and I went to on Tonight Show with Jay Leno, I was like, with all this stuff, and I made like thirty thousand dollars in six months, and back then that was like two thousand and two thousand and one, and I was like, Okay, I'm gonna finish my film and I don't have to worry about working. So that all came out until I was on the old Steve Harvey show. You got the wrong damn daytime shilln't.
I'm just trying to work a joke in here.
And I had to eat raw chicken feet. Oh god, I got so sick that I've been sensitized fire, which is a good thing, don't get me wrong. But I had such a high white blood cell count that I could I was just sick. And they never aired the episode because they heard about that. They were probably worried about getting suit or something like that.
Oh my god, were you in the hospital.
No, I wouldn't go because I don't know what it was. I was living in Bourbank at the time, and I was just like ill, and I never told my father like what I was doing, but he said, well, why did you eat raw chicken? Well, I just wanted to see how it tasted, you know, So because I was. I was the kid growing up where like someone would be like, I dared eat that potato chip off the ground with the worm on it. I'm like, okay, So it was all it was easy for me.
It's quick PSA from your old dad word von podcast here. Just please don't eat raw worms. Never eat a raw slug or snail. Come on, kiddos, google rat lungworm. It can literally kill you. So if you've got to eat a slug, just I don't know, microwave it first. And if anyone is your real friend, then they will like you, even if you don't eat a raw slug to impress them.
The more, you know. And so you were in La just doing everything.
I was doing so many different things. I actually worked for this art guy who sold erotic art. I was like, shit, what the hell am I going to do? So I just just so many random things and that's all. Yeah.
And now you started working at the library bar at the Roosevelt exactly ten years ago, because that's where I first Yeah, yeah, drinks, oh yeah, And I remember being like, this is a wizard.
This person is a wizard. These aren't normal cocktails. When you started at the library bar, did you ever bartend before.
I never really bartend. I think I did a few like catering stuff. We we're just doing like jack and cokes and vodka. So because I do remember my first night, I was with this woman, Jamie, who was working there, and I had to duck down and literally say to her, what's it a cosmopolitics? Because I didn't know and I saw. I remember the only reason why I got the job
is I knew the manager through yoga. She goes, well, listen, I have this opening at the library, but it's very slow and it might be good for you to start. I'm like, okay, I'll do it. And it was crazy because that's what happened, and I think pretty quickly I was like, yeah, these drinks don't seem like they're worth fifteen or sixteen dollars, said, let me just start replacing them with fresh stuff. And that was kind of the beginning of it. So I remember one day she tried
one of my dreams. She goes, what the hell is Inn't this this is amazing? Well, I just put fresh pomegranate and juice. She goes, oh, you're just buying this out of own pocket. I go yeah, she was well I'll start reimbursing you. But she was giving me one hundred dollars a week and I was spending four hundred a week, so I spent about eight thousand dollars out of my own pocket that first year. I knew nothing about alcohol, so I would slowly get these things and
educate myself. But it was really the farmer's market which was the biggest education. Because now I was seeing stuff I grew up on the East Coast. I was seeing stuff I've never seen before, and it was like kind of instantaneous. And I think because I didn't have any training, I didn't think about right or wrong. I just did it. And I think once I had to learn something, I read about the dakri, and I said to myself, Oh wait a second, Okay, this is a dakri. It's rum,
lime and sugar. If I take out the rum and put tequila, it's a margarita. If I take out the rum and put gen, it's a gimmelet. If I put in minted some mohido. So a huge light bulb went up, and all I did was I really just stuck with the dakri for the first two or three years. So I think everybody thought, oh my god, look what he's doing.
But all I was. What I was really doing was a DAKERI in every drink, but I was where my passion came from, which was finding these ingredients and mixing these unusual flavors.
From there, it's just a formula, and you can tweak the flavors and the infusions and the base spirit. Just get weird, just get a little wacky. The world is your smoky mezcal, wheat grass, elderflower, foam, sour pickled button mushrooms, mustard blossom, and spicy arugula flowers, oyster shooter cocktail in Matthew's case, And that is a real recipe.
So it just became kind of a free for all for me, and it just really escalated quickly. I mean, I can't believe how quickly I got attention in the short period of time for doing that. You know, because if I if I was to do that now, it would never be the same, it would I didn't think about avoiding the market. I just thought about this is all I know.
Well, I guess there was kind of a cocktail revolution.
I feel like like Sex and the City wakened people to the Cosmo.
Yes, I'd like a cheezburger please, large fries and apostopolitan.
And then from there there were apple martinis with like apple pucker in it. And then something happened like two thousand and six or something where we also started a dance.
At Milk and Honey in New York and that was around I think around to be I think it was too I can't remember. It was two thousand and five or something, but that's what started there. And they started recreating classic cocktails in the real way, which how they did in prohibition with the ice to fresh juice. But for me, it was like, none of that stuff really appealed to me, So it was I was kind of on my own island. It was like, but I love
all these fresh things, you know. That was more appealing to me.
And how do you feel about the term mixology because it's so loaded, which is like it's the title of this episode, like tongue in cheek. Yeah, it's like, okay, but it's such a hated term, you know.
I don't have the same hatred. I just kind of have more of a dismissal thing about it. I don't really I don't really call myself that I don't introduce. If somebody says and mixologists that just they do all the time, I don't need to correct them. It's like the quicker, I just let it dissolve the better. Yeah, you know what I mean. So that's what I do. It's more about that. I don't really give any attention to it either way. So I don't know. I always
consider myself more of a chef. I always thought I considered I thought more of a chef. And those were those Those were the people that I was identifying with. Those of the people I was talking to. Those are the people I was seeing at the farmer's market. I wasn't really talking to bartenders. And I don't really go out. One reason is I don't really drink that much. And the other reason is I never wanted to be influenced. I wanted it to come from me naturally, and I
think I still have a little bit of that. I still feel like there's so much more inside of me. I don't want to be influenced out there and have someone say, oh my god, he got that from It's like, I want to deal with what's inside of me first. So those are the two components. But the chefs was always the most exciting thing because I loved when chefs used to come through the what are you going to do with that? I was like, I love that, you know what I mean, like, what are you going to
do with that emu eg? You know, stuff like that.
What did you do with an?
I think I first was a drink that I did and I used the actual egg for the vessel. But what was great at the Library bar is and this is always January through March, when I think the restaurant closed at midnight, people were hungry. I would take the emuwag back and have them scramble up and I would just on the house. One egg would feed six people. So I would just feed the whole bar with this emuwag, And I realized how creamy it was, how rich it was,
So that escalated to me making eggnogs with it. So and the shell is so.
Beautiful, so I know it's like a dragon egg.
And so you know, you mentioned that you don't drink, and I know that about you, but that always kind of surprised and honestly kind of impressed me because I know that there are a lot of people who are cocktail chefs who are maybe in it because of a certain lifestyle, but that never seemed to be.
No.
You know, what it is is my mom. And she hates I keeps saying that, how many times are you gonna keep talking about your mom? But I say it because it was a very profound thing, you know. So my mom was such a hardcore alcoholic that it really just turned me off. I remember even this, going on a date with a woman. If I smelled alcohol and her breath, it was like a turnoff, you know. And I think that that was the beginning of that. And I just I don't know, I just never felt great
on it. But I do enjoy it, you know. I do enjoy shorting things, probably whine a little bit more, but I love the creation of it. And I think what happened was too is a year and a half into doing what I was doing, and I still remember this woman because I see her on Facebook. It was like, you know, she was taking pictures of my drinks and
she was like savoring and she was going crazy. It was like a year and a half into it, and I looked up and a huge light bulb went off inside of me where I was like, oh my God, you are unconsciously rescripting your relationship to alcohol. You're making it beautiful, You're making it something that you savored. So all of those memories of alcoholism and what I thought alcohol represent was gone forever.
Wow.
So I never looked at alcoholic things like I didn't care if I had it or not. That's the thing. That's what's great about alcohol is I can be one of those guys. I can have a drink and then not worry about But see, I was always that way. I'm going to tell you a crazy story. I didn't try drugs until I was twenty three years old, and the first drug I did was heroin in New York.
I know.
That's what everyone's like, what the fuck are you talking about? I said, no, you don't understand. I tried heroin. I loved it. I did it for six weeks straight. Everyone I did it with went down the toilet and then I got out of it, and like, what are you talking about? I said, I just walked away one day and I was fine. I used to run on it like crazy, you know what I mean.
I was.
I was in New York. You know, It's like when you could buy it for five dollars in alphabet city. So it was one of those things where it's like I had that kind of personality where like I love to dive into something, but I could dive out.
Oh my god.
I was lucky, so lucky, very lucky. Yeah.
Also zero to sixty.
Yeah, well that's what. Yeah. Yeah, And I think I had pot a few times like this, this is stupid. And then I don't care about drugs.
You know, Oh my.
God, and you and you know, because you've definitely had some ups and downs in your life that are like, oh, you're such a survival story.
Yeah, big where lots of things.
So Matthew went from swallowing leeches and even living in his car for a quick spell to becoming the most respected cocktail maker in the city and an author and a TV host and then in command of his own Tony Malibu spot, all just by finding something that he was curious and really passionate about and then pouring himself into it. And I swear that was not an intentional pun. Okay, now listen up, because this may be the most useful
mixology lesson you can ever learn. You can never make a bland or syrapy gross drink again, if you know this, how did you dive in to try to understand the craft of cocktails? I mean it sounds like you started looking into decories and realizing, okay, there's a formula. There's like math here exactly, and it's plug and play, right, yeap, What are the basic ratios of that? Because I know that you don't really Yes, A very.
Simple so it was always two ounces of spirit and then three quarter lime three quarter gavi. If you were just doing it on its own, you would up the lime to one.
So an easy way to remember this is the golden ratio roughly two to one to one, two part spirit, one part sweet like a liqueur or some kind of simple syrup, and one part tart like lemon, lime or grapefruit.
Two to one to one.
You can make almost any cocktail a good one at home for almost three and then when you go to fancy speakeasies like LA's Varnish or New York's Death and Company, you'll be able to nod at a mixologist in a way that says, I know your tricks.
You're a math nerd.
Remember one time this guy got me like the specs for the varnish? You know, what I mean, like all of their classes. And I looked at it and I was like, Okay, I can see what they're doing. I can see some patterns or I can see what they do when they do a straight thing. So it's like that just kind of strengthened it. In terms of technique.
I still feel like I don't really have technique. Yeah, yeah, I still think I lack that, if I'm being honest, And I think, like like I said, I think, my it's not that I don't have some technique, but I think what's interesting about where I'm at right now is there's still so much to learn. And I remember just like you would just and I think it was also Dale de Groff's book. I think it's called The Essential Cocktail.
So I ended up getting that book and I got to read why he did certain things and the stirring and the shaking and all that. So I adapted that stuff. But I remember like no one taught me. So there I am like strying to stir and I couldn't do it with the spoon, so I had to bend it into a C shape. I took the spoon, the metal spoon, and bent it so much that it was easy for
me to stir so. And it also got to the point when I started doing some consulting and I tell people like, you know what, you don't need to worry about that right now, let's just get a metal chopstick and it's the same thing. Just do that. Just get used to stirring it. So I got into I got sympathetic and interested in teaching people that knew nothing. It was more more interesting to me than someone who had technique already. But I still feel like I don't really have a strong technique.
That's funny that you say that, because I think you're you're widely regarded as probably one of the best cocktail chefs in the country.
Easy, hands down.
Yes, it is funny.
Your name is just like you're just at the top of the of the pyramid for sure. How do you feel about cocktail culture and the buttoned vest, sneery faced suspender class.
Well, I personally feel Listen, I think I understood where it started from and all that, and I just I don't know, I just I think what I'm not even referring to the vest because I think it's nice that, you know, people will look nice. I understand all that but I really do think that as time went by, I think a lot of the attitudes that people had and the kind of feeling what's the superior, Yeah, it
kind of killed the culture a lot. And I really feel like, you know, when drinks started escalating and people like, oh, you know, they're more like that about it, you know what I mean? And I feel like some of that really kind of destroyed some of the culture of cocktails
and how they should be regarded. I guess, you know, people would tell me stories like they're going to a bar and they'd ask for this drink and you know, they'd make the drink and they didn't really like it, and that bartender were like, that drink is perfect, you know. And the thing is is how that's the opposite of how I operate, because I operate all I am going to make this drink for you until you tell me
it's great if you don't like it. I would horrify people where I'd make a drink and I'd be like I could see it in their face. I would grab out of their hand and dump it. They didn't understand that. They didn't understand how I would take a drink like that's booze. I'm like, I don't think of it. That's
booze and I would dump it. So yeah, it's you know, there's a lot of layers in that, and for me, the biggest challenge for me was to just stay true to who I was, even though some of it, some of the times it was like fuck, you know, difficult, you know, And I never wavered from what I did. That that was always important to me, is I never wavered from what I was doing, because I still don't.
I still never have been in a bar, and you think about this bar, it's really only truly the second bar I've ever worked in, if you really think in ten years. I worked at the Library bar for four and a half years and I worked here in service for four weeks.
So Matthew clearly took his own path to get good at what he does, and also just because this is a fun place to do it. Here's a quick whiskey breakdown for anyone who gets confused but doesn't want to admit it, which was me for a long time. So a whiskey is distilled from grain, it's aged in barrels. Although corn whiskey aka moonshine does not have to be
aged Scotch whiskey made in Scotland. Bourbon is a type of predominantly corn whiskey aged in new charred white oak barrels, and rye is a type of aged whiskey made with predominantly rye grains. So if someone's like, what'll it be, and you're like, well, I'm a grown up, so I'd like one bourbon scotch. Just know, bourbon scotch isn't a thing. Also, just be yourself or do what you want. We're all just doing our best.
Okay.
Was there ever a moment where you had to write out, Okay, this is a whiskey, this is not a whiskey, this is a type of whiskey. Bourbon is a type of whiskey, but only in this.
I had to do that for trainings. Yeah, and I had to educate myself on alcohol my palette because most of the stuff I tried and be like this is disgusting. Really, oh my god, I'd be like, ah, So I got to learn to love scotch. I got to learn Mascal. All these things that I know people really really love. They weren't in my wheelhouse, you know, at all. And they weren't things that It's like, alcohol just seemed gross
to me a lot of times. Really, yeah, a lot of palettes, I know for a fact, can be developed if I could develop a palette for alcohol. I know people can develop pallets for anything. Because that was so out of my realm of like something I would enjoy, right, yeah, because I remember also like my father had gotten remarried and I think I had like nine jack and cokes, well you know what I mean, and I was just throwing up, Like I mean, I was still I was
my shit, was I twenty five or something. I wasn't that young, but I was like crazy, you know, like that's the kind of shit I remember, Like you used it just to get drunk, and here I was doing something which was more about the experience the palette.
So Matthew changed his view of alcohol something that just gets you sloppy hammered to essentially like a liquid art supply that one can drink and eat. He started getting more and more into the intersection of food and alcohol, doing like alcoholic ice creams and savory cocktails like camomeal infused rum with cherry tomatoes and applemint and lemon balm. He made an icy cold goat milk and tequila with black cardamom. He even made an alcoholic smoked garlic soup.
So just doing his own thing keeps him excited about his work.
The other thing is not going out and not being around that community. It allowed me to keep my passion strong. I didn't want my passion to dissipate. And I isolated myself because for that reason. And that's the thing is I have just as much, if not more than when I started. Oh that's good, and that hasn't died, and that that is because I preserved it.
And what would you do if you're at the library bar You've got like just a palette of fresh herbs and you've got hand picked mushrooms you foraged, and then someone comes up and they're like, can I get a red ball on vodka?
In the beginning, it bothered me. Yeah, in the beginning, you know what, it really did? You know, it really does. And so what I ended up doing was I ended up doing a reverse psychologist. The first thing is I got rid of red Bull, so they didn't have that option. So that's just I don't have it, and it would be nice about it. You know what I mean, so I was like, I don't have it, Like, what do you mean you don't have red Bull?
You know?
So they would ask for a Bloody Mary, a dirty Martini or a long on iced tea, and I thought, oh, I can make my version of that. And because that's something they have a point of reference to, if I can make my version of that, make it great, they will trust me with anything I do. And that's what happened. So a kid would come in or whatever be like, yeah, can I have a dirty Martin? I'd make my dirty Sicilian and they'd be like, what the fuck is this? This is amazing?
Quick question? What's in a dirty Sicilian?
You ask?
I had to know. It's Matthew's dirty Martini. It involves garlic, fresh olive juice, oregano red pepper flakes, and some fresh oregano buds.
It's like sipping a pizza.
And now I got them to try anything. They trusted me.
What about a Long Island? I see that was actually literally on my list. Has anyone ever ordered a Long Island for?
No question about it? And that's why I started making incredible And I even did it when when I consulted for Roy Choi when he opened the line. But what I did is I did like organic cashasa aqua vite, like mescal, all these things, and I did it with fresh blood orange juice instead of coke. Oh my god. And people were like, I remember this, this one guy. You just reminded me of this. One guy would come in just specifically, he goes, do you have that season?
He would say, do you have that seasonal? I'm like, you just made my year calling this a seasonal A Long Island, I state, did you.
Do you think your yoga training helped you be patient with patrons?
No question, no question about it.
You know what, let's hop in a time machine. Let's grab a bag of context about the old history of cocktails.
So the first cocktail really went way way back, and you have to think about it too. Is people don't realize this is cocktails is really our true culinary contribution to the world. The cocktail was born here, really absolutely, and it really came into the eighteen I think it was around eighteen six ors so that where it came out of New Orleans and the Sazaraq really being one of the first cocktails. And really that is what people
don't realize that. The reason why it's spread is when prohibition came and these bartenders couldn't work here, they went to Europe and other places and they spread their knowledge, and that's how the cocktail started to spread.
A sasaraq, by the bye is a stirred drink made with absinthe, just a little bit a sugar cube, rye whiskey or kgnac, and a few dashes of these pink anisse floral paste shows bitters, which are local to New Orleans.
They're so good.
Whenever I've had a sazarac, I always feel like I should just bob my hair and do the Charleston and Pine for a lover that went off to war.
The thing that's significant about the sazaraq, which is really what it comes down to, is during that time as well, is that was originally made with cognac okay, and I think at that time there was a time I can't remember the period, but it was either late eighteen hundreds
or early nine hundreds. There was a major major problem with drought in France and all those grapes were lost, so they stopped making cognac, and that's why they started to have to start making rye and put Rye into the Sazaraq And it was during prohibition where they couldn't get rye here that they were starting to get Canadian rye whiskey. So that's how that's the interesting things of how those things came about. Most of these things, just in life,
come about because of necessity. You lose something, you have to replace it, right, And that's what that was. You know, I think a lot of people don't realize that there was a huge rum coming out of New England. People don't realize that, you know, am was coming out of New England. Yes, we had rum runner boats.
Matthew got a firsthand look at some of this New England rum in a very weird place.
Because I remember a random thing too is when I had been scuba diving for years but I had to go get my license and now they required that one and my girlfriend at the time there we ended up getting certified. Like out at JFK, like in the day you could go down the car was within no visibility. There was this case he's sitting at he's doing your
signals and you have to do it. But then we went on a night dive in Coney Island, at night, and there were all these rum runner boats and you could still find in the wreck bottles of rum that had been there in the thirties. Yeah, the people were smiling because so it's little things like that that I held on to that I loved, you know, that was interesting to me.
Matthew's general vibe, of course, involves fresh ingredients, and he does a lot of foraging for mushrooms and green walnut, purple sage and edible flowers, thistles even, And I just imagine he must check out during misty mornings with like a satchel gathering herbs for tinctures, and man, I'm like, whow,
this dude's live in the life. But also, before you grow a beard and start digging up roots, make sure that you have permission, because some foraging is technically illegal, and this whole fantasy would be a real buzzkill if you got arrested. So if you're looking for locally grown fruit, say from stranger's yards, you can check out fallingfruit dot org, which maps over laden shrubs and trees all over the world. Usually if it hangs over a fence, it's fair game.
I just zoomed in on my neighborhood and I found some bitter citrus. And then I was surprised to see one tree in a parking lot and I was like, huh. I zoomed in and read that it was just the dumpster behind Trader Jos and there was a warning that there was razor wire surrounding it. So some people who map fallingfruit dot org have very liberal definitions of foraging, but that's obviously not the kind of foraging Matthew was doing.
He's got all kinds of cactus, fruit and bay leaf and more growing wild nearby and honest property, plus what he's got in his restaurant gardens.
It's a huge part of what I do, no question about it. It's always I could tell people I grow things, I go to the farmer's market and I forg those. That makes up the elements of what I do.
And you do a lot of infusions too. That's entirely like Yah.
When I first had your cocktails, I was like, it's.
Still that way. I mean, if you look at the bar, I mean, it's just it's escalated into you know, other things and doing a parmesan removeth I was working on this liquid cheese board.
I read about this, Yeah, where you baked your own bread, made it into croutons, and then soaked it in an alcohol.
You're Willy Wonka. Wow, you're the Willy Wonka of alcohol.
It's just how my mind thinks. Yeah, you know so, Yeah, it's just how my mind thinks.
What kind of tips would you give to someone who wants to start infusing at home?
I think the tip that I always give somebody, whether it's infusing whatever is you know, take one ingredient that you love, okay, and do five or six different things with it. So let's just say you grab basil, right, make, you know, do an infusion with it, make an oil out of it, muddle it, make a beer with it. Whatever that is. You'll just take that and see see how how many things you can do with that one flavor. And that opens up your mind to everything. So infusing
is very simple. By the way. You never have to worry about measurements. You take whatever empty glass you have jar and I always fill it three coreds away with ingredients and then I cover it with alcohol, so you never have to worry about proportion. And the basic rule is most of that stuff will never over infuse. Although two weeks is perfect, but when you deal with tea or spice, that's literally two hours. You don't ever want to go over that. Okay, those are kind of the
general rules. It's being general, but it works for people.
What's been your favorite infusion you've ever done? Infusion or surprising like oh hot, damn network.
I would say, no question about the sea moss from Saint Lucia.
The sea moss.
It's not here right now, but I have sea moss. It was actually my favorite drink of the menu as well here. It's so when I went to Saint Lucia about three years ago, and this sea moss is magical and it's just this briny, salty oceany thing. And I mixed it with mescal oh with white balsamic vinegar and wakatai, which is a black Peruvian mint, and I garnished it with peacock feathers. It was one of them. It's my favorite,
one of my favorite things. But that infusion is just golden and you and I also love infusions where you're like, what the hell is that? That's disgusting, but then when you mix it it's great. Because my favorite infusion to drink on its own is the white guava. It's like gold, what is it? How do you do that? That's just taking now white wuava. So it's not the pink. The pink people think, oh, that's going to be more flavorable. There's so much flavor coming off of the skin and
so much I just put them whole. You don't have to cut them up again. Take a jar, fill them out three chords away, and then I fill it with tequila. Oh dang, one of my favorite things.
A couple of weeks, a couple of weeks, give it a couple of weeks.
And then strain it out. It's this beautiful yellow and the smell and taste. That's how I booked a twelve million dollar wedding. Oh my god. Someone hired me just because they heard about me, right, And I went and did her like bridle shower, soho house and she was like this all night with my drinks. I'm like okay, and she tried that she was she's doing my wedding. Oh my god, I didn't realize it was twelve It was crazy. Yeah. It was like they had John Legend
there and John Mayor. It was just like they hired and fired me. Twice and all that this.
And so when you're making a cocktail or when you're thinking about the perfect cocktail, what kind of balance between sweet and bitter and sour are do you think makes a good cocktail.
It's not about bitter sweeter, and it's all about balance. You can make anything great if you balance it. So I like when what I used to tell people is I truly believe that everything goes with everything. Okay, it's just about balance, you know, you you you know. Later on in life, I look at this book called the Flavor Bible. We ever heard of that? So it's like they write all these things about things that go well together, right, and it was interesting, and then they would be like
the things that don't go well together? And of course what I would do is I would take those ye like, I'm going to show you how lavender and coffee can go together, you know what I mean? So it's yeah, why not? But it's all about balance. So that's what it is so for me. And also if you're just starting off with the simple formula that I told you about, that's where you would start, okay.
So remember it's just math, essentially two to one to one, two parts liquor, one part sweet, one part tart citrus, and you can tweak it a little if it needs it.
That's where you start with everything. So if it's bitter sweet, whatever, start with that formula and then adjust from there if you need to go less sweet. But that formula will never that dacre formula is never going to let you down, just in the very simple terms. You know, I think you know where I broke the rule is when I did the Last Tang with Modana, which is why that was such an iconic drink for me. For a lot
of different reasons. It had balsamic, vinegar strawberry, but that drink represented so much for me because it was the first time I broke the rules of not doing a three quarter three quarter and not using lime, juice or sweetener. I use just that balsomaic and I used an ounce of it. But that is the drink that made me also get rid of a menu for the rest of my life, which is because a woman came in and she said, could you make me something sweet but not too sweet? So I made her that. She goes, oh
my god, this is the best drink of her. She goes, what's in it? I go, well, it's got strawberries and gin and balsamic vinage. She goes, balsamic vinegar. Hate vinegar? Can you make me something else? I said, you just told me it was the best drinker I know, but I hate balsamic vinegar.
Oh my god.
So what I realized is how much people taste in their head, but also how much they associate the things they don't like with food. And it's very different in the liquid form. So I got people who didn't like certain things, and it's happened even during the last four weeks of service here at Moley. People like, Okay, I don't like that. I'm like, can you just try it in this form, and like, oh my god, that's great,
you know. And it's because the texture is taken out of it, things are taken out of it that's not associated with the food elements, so they can actually love it in the liquid form, which is what I love, because I do believe that the liquid form is the most powerful form. You know, when I was doing a lot of dinners with Roberto Cortez, this amazing chef, and he would say, you know, the juice of a steak
is so much more powerful than the actual steak. Oh, and he's right, you know, like the flavor that gets trapped in there is incredible. And I realized that's what was happening when you have alcohols. The reason why the infusions are so great. It's adding a layer that you just can't do in food, really to that extent where you can have something layered in there, but then add all these other things. It's difficult.
So at one point Matthew made a bloody mary with beat horse radish and then started using that in other drinks like his borridge flower topped gin and cucumber drink called the Breeder's Cup.
And I made that drink. And here's the thing that's funny. I didn't try that drink for a month and a half. Why not because I knew it was great and I was like, I don't like horse radish. That's the other thing I tried to tell people is I actually can make drinks for people that I would never drink flavor wise. And I don't know where that came from. I don't know where all this came from. This how I think in the colony aspect, because I got to the point I was tasting so much in my head I didn't
even need to try it. You can just figure out. One of my famous bites here was a sea arch in bite that I did with a vanilla infused aquavite smoke soy sauce, and then I juiced the cactus fruit and made grenita out of it on top, so it's like a Uni snowcoll I didn't try that for the first month, and people I don't understand. I know it's good.
You know, his bar still has this array of jars filled with booze and fruit, kind of like a very stylish museum of natural history. But the specimen jars are vastly more edible than like rubbery sharks informaldehyde. And I can see why he just comes here to tinker, even when the place is temporarily shuttered.
Yeah. I turned fifty this year, and on my fiftieth birthday, nobody knew I was here the whole day by myself. I didn't tell anybody. I cooked for myself. I did. I just and it was like the greatest day of my life. Oh, that's really right.
And I noticed, like you look at your bar, and your bar does not have shelves of alcohol.
It has jars.
I'm a distributor's nightmare. Yeah, because you don't mean where's my grade goes? Where is this?
Yeah, you don't see any bottles of alcohol?
What I was trying to What I was trying to achieve that I always wanted when someone asked me, oh, what would be your idea by well, I said, what would be Italian farm, kitchen meats, Japanese sushi bar.
So, if you want to entertain folks but you don't happen to own a bar, what do you do?
You do?
Math? And then what do you tell people who, let's say holidays, they're having parties, how do they stock for a party?
How stock for a.
Part How much booze do you get if you're throwing a dinner party?
How much? Well, it depends on the people. Wh When I do events, you have to remember each bottle is about twelve cocktails, Okay, you know, because it's two ounces, right, So, and then I always figured they's going to be two or three drinks per person at least, you know, So if you have fifty people, then I know I have to have about one hundred and fifty cocktails to be safe. One hundred and fifty in to twelve is approximately twelve bottles out there, and then you could do different things.
Twelve times twelve is one forty four, so you're very close to that.
Of course, adjustice down for smaller parties. I do not have fifty friends, and if you don't want to be shaking drinks in the kitchen all night.
The other thing is you could make a killer punch, which is a very simple recipe and I learned this a long time ago. And the rhyme is four strong, four week, one sour, and one sweet, so four strow would be the alcohol before we could be some kind of juice like pomegranate or blood orange. Then you do one sweet so one cup, you know, one cup of a gabi stair for sugar there, and then one cup of citrus.
Tart citrus like lemon or lime juice, not just like a glug of sunny delight.
If you follow that, you're always going to go right. So I'll make a big punch with that, put a big block in there, and that that's really great to do an easy and if you're doing infusions, it's a great way to add flavor into that without really like you didn't mix that and all of a sudden you have all this flavor because you infused it. Ah, that's what I love about infusions. You add one more layer without doing any work. The work is all done before him.
Really, it's done in a jar while you're sleeping.
How much of what I did was so labor intensive that you know? You love it when you find a new infusion that's like dynamite because it's like, oh, you just saved me a step. Thank you.
So cram some peaches in a jar, fill it with bourbon, or make some basil gin or cherry mescal. Maybe cram some pineapple and rum and a jar rosemary whiskey.
What have you. It's not in my business. You do what you want. You really can't do it wrong. But what would Matthew like to correct?
What flim flam would you like to debunk? Or what myth about cocktails?
Are you over myth? That's a good question. God, I haven't even thought about that. I don't even know. Throw some myths on, man, I don't even know some myths right now. Oh you know what I always tell people? So a big thing that people always say to me, like, oh my god, can I mix these alcohols? And like it has nothing to do with the alcohol. It has to do with all the crap that goes in there. So what you don't want to mix is the sugar,
is the artificial coloring. All that's the stuff that's going to give you a hangover the next day, not because you had Scotch then you went to misscal and then you went to gin.
So side note, I look this up and it is indeed a myth. And if you're used to the beer before liquor, never been sicker liquor before beer in the clear as an incannotation against evil. Well that's mostly because if you start drinking higher alcohol by volume drinks at the end of the night, you're likely to get more drunk than intended. Because your judgment is already whack, you're probably going to drink too much. So what contributes to hangovers is the total amount of ethanol or alcohol that
you consume. Also, some studies show that certain alcohols have more toxic hangovery compounds called congeners, and darker spirits like whiskey and cognac and tequila and especially bourbon have high congener content, while vodka and jin and lightram have lower levels of them. So pace yourself, drink a lot of water and don't drive killing people. Not cute, very serious, Okay, So let's have some Patreon questions. But before we take questions from you, our beloved listeners, we're going to take
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Okay, your questions, I have questions from listeners.
Okay, are you ready?
Yeah, I'm just gonna fire them off at you.
A few people, Liza Elizabeth, Kayley Moore and Karen Burnham all wanted to know what are the best mocktails for non drinkers.
Well, I'll tell you what's amazing is there's a new non alcoholic distill it called seed lip, and that's out of England. And you would think it's like this gimmick, right, but I've tasted. It's made from peas and that is unbelievable. So you can use that. That's the same formula that you do as a dacory. So two ounce of that, three quarter of a lime juice or a lemon, and then three quarts of some kind of syrup or a gave syrup is incredible and then you can put whatever
you want in there. It is I did my arugula drink. I did that as a virgin cocktail. It's unbelievable with that. And now I used to always use like instead of using two ounces of spared used two ounces of Pellegrino or two ounces of whatever it was, but using the two ounces of the seed lip really is incredible. So you literally can do almost any cocktail and use that insiad. And and because it's not alcohol, you can order it on Amazon.
Oh nice, okay.
Where you wouldn't be able to do that if it was alcohol.
Done. So I look this up and yes, it's called seed Lip. It's named after an old basket that was used for sewing seeds, and it comes in a few varieties. They have an herbal flavor called Garden. They have a clovy option called Spice. Some people love that they can enjoy zero proof cocktails with it. Others are like, I don't know either way. It will not leave you hungover or asking your stepdad to post bail. Yeah, e Liza Elizabeth wants to note what's your best tossing a patron story?
Have you read to toss someone?
Oh? Toss someone? I have some good patron stories. I have two really great patient stories. But let's here, I'll tell you this patron story. It's not a topic I'm going to say because it has to do with a patron. So this woman came this is unbelievable sory. This woman came in and with her girlfriend. I made her jake. She goes, oh my god, this is incredible, right, so whatever, So then she's still there and I and then I make her other and she's like, eh, she does this
for the next three drinks. I'm like, fuck, am I pissed. I'm like, okay, here's the deal. It's not you, but I'm very upset that I can't please you right now. So I'm going to go take a walk. And I really need to take a walk, so, you know. So she's looking at me funny, right, So I go down into the freezer, literally the freezer. I was like, what the hell was that first cocktail? Blah blah blah blah. A huge light bulb went off. I ran upstairs and I made her jake. She goes, now, that's a drink.
If it didn't have ginger in it, she didn't like it. And it was that simple, right. So a couple of weeks goes by, I get a phone call from her because she asked for my car, which I never thought. I'm like, this girl doesn't I mean, she's like, oh, I want you to do a party for me. I'm like, I was in sounds like really, I didn't even know you like my stuff. And then she's and I said, well, how many people she was listening? I love what you do. Just bring a bunch of stuff. And so I show
up at her house. It was actually here in Malibu, and I said, oh, what time is everybody coming? She goes, well, it's just me. And the first thing I thought like, Okay, someone's playing a joke. I mean this cameras here, they want to see what I do. All this stuff, right, Scot called. So I really played it cool, but it turned out halfway through I knew it wasn't a joke. So I made nine drinks for her in eleven hours. All she wanted to do was to be taken care of.
But what it did is every drink I had an hour to prepare. So when I did my seventeen step buddy Mary, I grilled every vegetable on her grill. Right, so she just had an incredible time. Shit, thank you. I knew halfway through it wasn't a joke all this stuff. So I never heard from her again. And then about two years later, I'm in Mawie.
Okay, okay, this gets weird weirder So Matthews in Maui. He's working. He has some coconuts and cacao nibs because he's Matthew. So he goes to put him in his hotel room and realizes he forgot his key, but hotel staff unlocks the door for him.
I see, I'm starting to put the coconut milk away, and I see all these sodas. I'm like, that's funny. We didn't have these sodas. And I go put something else down and I'm like, oh my god, I'm in the wrong. Oh my god, I better get out of here before I totally freak somebody out. So I realized. I ran out of there, and I called the guy. I said, actually, I think I'm the next one. I realized I was the next one over. I didn't know the room number. I just thought by sight, so he
let me in. I wake up the and so what I did is I grabbed everything quickly I ran out. When I woke up the next one, I'm like, oh no, I forgot those cacao nibs. Oh no, I said, I have to go knock on there, you know. So I went around, I knocked on the door, and who comes up with the woman that did those drinks for know, I mean, unbelievable'll get the chills again. And she didn't recommend it before it. I told us, Oh my gosh.
She goes, oh my god, like once I told her and she goes, yeah, we were wondering what these Kacunas were doing on the on the table here. I'm like, I'm so, I told the story. We started laughing and that was it. What a story, you know what I mean? Maui, Yeah, in Maui. And that was two years after I did the two or three years after I did the thing for it, I never heard from her. I know, unbelievable. That's really unbelievable. Life is a simulation, Okay.
Christopher Bror and Lili Maso both want to know what's the drink that most partenders hate to make when they asked for it.
I don't know about most partenders. I would think that the drink that people don't want to make is the drink that someone tells them how to make. Okay, do you know what I mean? And I'm that obnoxious person too, don't get me wrong, but they'd be like, yeah, but can you do it like this? Can you make sure it has. That's probably more about that. I don't know if there's a specific drink that's some I know. I remember when I was working at the library bar and
I had this guy working with me. I realized how much he hated muddling, and everything I do was mostly muddling, and I remember he would like try to get people. He's like, I hate when people ask me to make mohitos. So I realized that this must be a bartending thing, like they just don't want to muddle. Probably it takes too long, the pain in the app So I thought about that, but it was I think it's more about someone telling you how they want you to make the drink.
Just super rising on the should get out of here.
Ashley Burgamy and Caitlin Casper both want to know is it true that drinking different liquors can change your behavior? Like why does tequila make some people's clothes fall off?
You know it is. I'm going to speak from personal experience that I do have different feelings and I drink tequila because of that reason. It just makes me feel cleaner and better for somebody. I don't know what. I don't know why that is, though, I don't know what
that's about. It. Yeah, it's a great, great point because I don't know how much of the science is behind that, but I do know that people have those reactions to gin or different things like that, where tequila people don't seem as cuckoo.
Okay, so all Ward investigated this a little for you, and there may be some chemistry behind this. Like, Okay, people who sip red wine usually not out to rage and dance on tabletops, but red wine actually contains high levels of melatonin, which is also known scientifically as sleepy time brain juice. Now, beer may also be relaxing because of the high carb loade, kind of like doing body shots of mashed potatoes. And remember those congeners that affect hangovers.
Okay, well they.
May well tweak your behavior a little, depending on the individual and what you're sensitive to. But I found one very nerdy study called quote differential alcohol expectancies based on type of alcoholic beverage consumed, which basically said, whatever you think an alcohol will do to you, it will do
to you. So if you think tequila is rocket fuel for rebounds and then you drink it, chances are you're going to get your group back because you're looking for that kind of experience anyway, So you could drink like a diet sprite and be like this shit makes me crazy, and then you'd probably act a little bananas.
So just you know, just act bananas when you need to just cut banks, text your crush. We're all gonna die. Just make sure nobody gets hurt.
I thought this is a great question one Pedro Martinez, Fredick Roy and Mike Monakowski. I want to know what are the essentials for a home bar. What kind of things should you have at home?
Yeah, I think what's important is if I think having a gin, a tequila, a mescale like a Scotch are definitely a bourbon, but have something that's good for just sipping. So maybe like the Scotch, is something that's a little bit nice that you just sip on, and then you have things to mix with. So have a couple of things that might be great to sip on, and then
things that are great to just mix with. Correct obviously having a remouth, but just remember remouth, if you open it has to be refrigerated because they have to treat it like a wine. I love Dolan Bloc for moth it's a cross between a sweet and a dry. So I feel like if you had that, if you had a nice tomorrow like Channar.
Tomorrow by the bye is like a sweet herbal Italian liqueur, and it's great for post dinner sipping. It tastes like if port Wine and Cough Medicine made a mixtape. But it's really good.
And then also you probably would want some bitters so that you could do an old fashion with that.
Cool.
Yeah, I think that's pretty essential. It's a good round upeah. Yeah, it's pretty simple and not that expensive.
Dave Miller Lily Massa both want to know. Is there a difference between shaken and stirred?
Which is better?
It's not which is better, it's what happens, the chemistry that happened. So typically the rule is anything that has citrus, you shake, and anything that is just spiritu even you stir. And as for that simple, I mean, James Bond really was the one who ruined this. Can I do something for you, mister Vonde, just to drink a martini shaken nutstuds and he took the martini, he switched it from gin to vodka and then he said shake in a nutstir.
So if you take a martini which doesn't have any citrus and you shake it, now it's cloudy, it's watery. If you're someone who wants pure alcohol or that straight smoothness, you want that fullness in it, and when you shake it, you kind of kill that. So I think that's people did that because they wanted to loosen it up. They wanted the ice chips and all those things. But it's not really the classic way of enjoying that, Whereas citrus
you really do need to shake. Whereas the only difference is a bloody mary is a drink that you roll where you take it in one tin and you roll it back and forth, and you don't shake a bloody Marry even though it has a citrus. That's a golden rule too, it you roll it back and forth.
Oh why is that?
Yeah, because that can get very frothy and kind of gross.
Yeah, I guess, frothy tomato, know what we're looking for.
You don't want that.
So if it has to trus, shake it up, unless it's carbonated or a bloody mary. Now, if all the components are alcohol, like a Manhattan or an old Fashion or a martini or sasaraq, it just gets stirred. Now, in the case of a gin martini, if you shake it, you can errate and dissipate the juniper and coriander notes, and then it leaves the drink tasting really dull. And that's called bruising. And I looked up bruising and alcohol
to like get my brain around this. I found a lot of search returns of people asking why after a night out they wake up with bruises, and it turns out it could just be clumsiness or a liver damage issue. So go easy on your gin and your internal organs. Anna Thompson wants to know, is there an Instagram drink trend that you hate.
That I hate? Yeah, the only trends I don't like is when The only thing I don't really like is that there's things that tend to look kind of pinteresque. Does that make any sense? Where it's almost like this kind of stage thing it doesn't really seem to go together with what is being made, you know what I mean. It's more like this thing's laid out to look nice.
Like there's a cocktail and a cutting board in a nice Yeah, nothing is cutting one are these props.
That's that's what it is. Okay, it's things that are used. That stuff don't make it any sense, Like it's almost like filling in something that does that's not really there, so you're filling it in.
Okay, Yeah that makes sense.
Bree Bridger wants to know why don't I always forget every drink I've ever had and enjoyed before.
When I go up to a bar and someone asked me what I would like.
I think you're you're you're getting to a point where there's so many better drinks being made today, with so many different ingredients. There's no way you're going to remember them. This is impossible. And I think there's just so many more ingredients being used, so many more different types of things and names. It's impossible if you're not doing it to remember that impossible.
I think when you go up it's you know, when like you go to a bookstore, you're like, I'm so excited when you get there and you're like.
What book was I gonna buy?
I don't remember. Yeah, there's I want them all, but I can't. So many choices. Yeah, there's too many things. There's too many and there's yeah, I guess people have that fear too, of like ordering the wrong thing. Yeah, but I think what's great about bars If you don't like it, they'll make you something else.
If they're not dicks.
Yeah then I did.
I mean, actually this kind of dovetails into Heather M. Densmore ass Why do you think classic cocktails like Manhattan's and martinis have survived, especially with so many creative new cocktails out there.
I just think that they're classics, and I think they they take a spirit and accentuate it its best way. It's its simplest form without having the spirit on its own. There's not enough of new versions of those that have been extremely popular that I think have stayed. I think that's the reason why, and I think it's also the reason everyone starts learning those, so it's more of a
vocabulary that they use more often. So you're going to see that one that's going to stand up, because that is how people learn to make drinks, That's how they learn to stir things, that's how they learn to make learn formulas, all of that.
It's kind of like your dakery.
It's like you can absolutely yeah, absolutely right, yeah, absolutely, And remember it's like dakeries. Weren't blended that came later on. Yeah, I don't think people realize that. So most people say, dad, I don't want a doctor. It's like this blended thing. So yeah, one of the drinks I did was a blended drink, and I say, tell people, I never blend drinks, but I'm gonna do this because it had mescal, passion fruit,
and wild bay leaf. And I told them it's because when you put ice in it, the mescale will hold up, the passion fruit will hold up, and the wild bailey being such strong flavors that that ice won't dilute it. Wow, we won't dilute the taste of it. Where dacre. It's just like, yeah, that's I think that's what people associate with it and realize, like that was a cocktail that was created in the nineteen thirties in Cuba, and it is to me the mother of drinks because of what it represents and what it.
Is and it's not just like a slushy machine full of ever clear and great pad And if.
You want to talk about evercare needs to go away forever.
Mama Awesome wants to know.
Are there any she wants to know best margarita recipes with a pre made mixer.
Is that even possible Premi mixer?
That's a good question. But the thing is you don't need a Premia mixer because all of straight margarita is is two ounces of tequila, one ounce of lime juice, and three quarter rounds. If you can do it in a gave ship, which is a one to one ratio of agave to water, and you don't even have to heat that. You just stir it, so you literally could make that mix in two seconds.
Right.
But that is the greatest recipe ever. I think it's called the Tommy's Margarita, and I always do it with the number two tequila that un dos trace.
Dos and blended or on the rocks, on the rocks on the rocky okay, no, no salt okay. Renee Coley wants to know.
If you want to blend it, though, do it with mescal and like I said, it will hold up. It will hold up with the ice a little bit more, okay, yeah, and then you won't feel like it's just a lost flavor. That's what happens, is the ice just create that makes it into a lost flavor. But not with mescal.
Oh, got it more robust. Lisa Hunting had a great question, what's up with all the different cocktail glasses? Does the shape really matter for certain drinks?
I think with cocktail glasses it's just it's just another expression of eating with your eyes. And I do think that you know, when you taste tequila, if someone's going to do a tequila tasting with you, most real tequila people, they would love to put it almost like in a wine glass, because they really feel like the aromas and things like that can come out better. So I think when there's glasses that are intended for certain ways, they want you to experience the aroma of things more, where
others are more of a visualist. But that's the thing is you don't have the opportunity to really show everything when it's in a liquid form. But that's where the glass comes in. It's almost like using a really cool fork or or like that got plate, you know.
So maybe drinking like an old fashion with a heavy bottomed glass is.
And also that's different. That's there's something about that, you know. Same with the Scotch. Yeah, there's something nice about the heaviness of that and sipping on it. It's not too hot, you know, because you don't put you wouldn't want to put a high glass with just a few OUs of something seems weird.
Well, the idea of drinking like an old fashion out of a red silo cup, it makes me want to just walk into traffic sounds like the worst.
What is your What do you like to drink?
You know? I was always a ne grony person, h n groney person for a while, and I don't drink much myself anymore. I mean, you know, back when I was covering cocktails, of course that was part of my job, but I have been.
More on a like a mes.
Cal marridic tip. That's the way something smoky with a little bit of spice to it.
You have the same thing as me. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's great.
But I've been doing kombucha margaritas.
Yeah, I love it.
It's pretty good.
Yeah.
I meant red solo cup, please forgive me. Also kombucha cocktails, hear me out. Kombucha is a mixer, little lime, little tequila, little kayan on top, and.
You can leave out the tequila. It's still delicious.
Carrie Weber wants to know when you go somewhere, what's your cocktail order when someone else is making.
It, it's usually just tomorrow and the rocks okay, yeah, just a just a sipper bitter. Yeah.
And then last questions, I always ask what is the thing about your job that you hate the most or the thing about making cocktails?
Making cocktails are just a job everything. I think what always was the hard thing I hate about day? It's just like not I've never been behind a bar that has suited me with what I do, so it always just seems like it's a pain in the ass. I have shit everywhere. It's just what I do. I hate the lack of organization that comes with what I do. Even though I can be very organized, most of the bars behind like they don't. They can't accommodate the type of ruffage and sluss that I have, And it's just
a pain in the ass. It's a pain in the ass.
A lot of cleaning, A.
Lot of cleaning, Yeah, yeah, a lot of it's a it's very yeah, it's a it's a very heavy cleaning.
But what's your favorite thing about cocktails?
I love creating them, I love everything, But I think that my favorite thing is just coming up with something new, and that surprises me. You know, that's what it is, you know, and I love and also I don't know, I love that light that goes off in people's faces when they really love something or you know, I had, I really loved it. There one of the nights, just before I think it was a week before service. It was such a great feeling. That kid came in from
Breaking Bad, which is named Aaron Paul. So I never met him. Right yoh yo Yo's in the house, and his wife surprised him and he sat right in front of me, and every course he looked at me and goes, dude, what the fuck you know? This isn't like he just was. I loved it. He goes, what the fuck? You know? And I just love that.
You know.
It's like so people that I usually experienced me for the first time, and I get that. I love that, you know. I mean it's just like because I just want to pour everything into them, you know, like take this home, try this, Like that's what that's what I love. I love when when I get somebody who really is into what I'm doing, They're going to be so bombarded with stuff that it's that they're not going to know what to do you know? And that's what I love.
Do you keep a journal sketches of ideas that you've got.
No, that's the other. That's the thing. I'm a big memory guy, and I should write more stuff down. But I'm such a guy of memory, and I'm such a like it's just there, you know, I know, it's just there.
Where can people find you?
Well, I don't know if I should release this yet, but I'm going to maybe I should. Let's let's just do this. Monley is probably not going to reopen until probably anywhere between March and in May, is my guess.
So while Monley in Malibu is getting rehabbed for the post fire reopen. And this is a big fun announcement, I got the scoop.
But I'm going to tell you this first, but it hasn't been finalized. Returning to the library bar one night of week no. Three months in the end of January.
Probably no way, I.
Got a release.
I'll do it for you.
Okay, that's so exciting. Are they freaking out?
I'm excited. I can't wait to get back in there.
You really are, Willy Wonka.
That's ridiculous. Thank you, thank you, thank you so much, So great to see you after all this time. I know this was very awesome.
Oh, thank you for being on You're awesome.
You're awesome, You're we're both awesome.
What can I say?
Okay, So you can see photos of all of Matthew's really gorgeous creations and also some of the fire damage at Eat Your Drink on Instagram, and his beverage photos are truly stunning.
They're so beautiful.
His book is called Eat Your Drink Culinary Cocktails, and he'll be at the Library bar at the Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood for the next few months, one day week until Monley reopens the spring. All very exciting. You can find ologies at ologies on Instagram and Twitter. I'm Ali Ward with one L on both, and there's more links up at aliward dot com. Thank you to webmaster Kelly Dwyer for the beautiful site updates. She just did him looks great. You can join the Ologies podcast Facebook group.
It's admined by Aaron Talbert and birthday Lady Hannah Lippo.
I Love Your Girl.
Merch is available at ologies merch dot com. Thank you Shannon Feltis and Bonnie Dutch for managing that. Thank you as always to the ever spirited Stephen Ray Morris for all of his stellar editing. He also hosts the per Cast, which is about kitties and c Jurassic Wright, which is his love letter podcast to dinosaurs and special editing help this week also from the lovely Jarrett Sleeper of the mental health podcast My Good Bad Brain.
Check that out too.
Now, if you stick around until the end of the show, you know, I tell you a secret, And today's secret is that I have this yellow sweater. I feel like this yellow sweater has me. Really, It's the most comfortable article of clothing I've ever owned. I wear it every day and it's become a problem. It's become a bar saying like I can't wear this again. I have pictures on my Instagram I'm in this yellow sweater and all
of them. So just don't judge your old dad. You find something you like, you stick with it, and you wash it when you can.
You wash it when you can. Okay, Stay warm.
Merry Holidays Bybee Hacodermatology, hobbiology or do zoology, lithology, technology, meteorology and patology, anthology, seriology.
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