Wednesday night, Pernod-Absinthe launched a five-city promotional tour of the best bars serving their brand of the Green Fairy. To encourage responsible drinking, they also provided transport: horse-drawn carriage rides from bar to bar.
A small group of invitees met inside the Varnish at 7pm, to be treated by Eric Alperin and Chris Bostick’s historical authenticity and exacting attention to detail with four classic absinthe cocktails:
Sea Fizz: Pernod-Absinthe, Lemon, Sugar, Egg White, Dash of Soda
Remember the Maine: Rye, Heering, Dolin Rouge, Pernod-Absinthe
Death in the Afternoon (Hemingway’s drink): Champagne & Pernod-Absinthe
Corpse Reviver: Gin, Lillet Blanc, Lemon juice, Cointreau, Pernod-Absinthe
An absinthe drip, water over a sugar cube into a glass of absinthe, was also available for those who wanted the classic approach.
Eric explained that absinthe is a strong spirit, with a taste of anise (like black licorice) that most Americans aren’t used to growing up with, like the French use fennel in everything. Therefore, it is best used sparingly in the states. For their cocktails, they used half or even less absinthe than they would for the same recipe with any other spirit. Absinthe brings out the da inty spoons and misters to spray along the inside of a coupe glass, yet it always manages to remind your palate of its presence.
After these libations, this merry band of tipplers already required a hearty repast: Cole’s French dip sandwiches, potato salad, sweet potato fries, and sweet cole slaw. Thus braced for the next round, we tumbled outside.
Despite a few downtown parking lots’ refusal to stable the trailers from Enchanted Carriages in Moorpark one black and two stout white Percheron draft horses awaited to bear the intimate gathering along in large open carriages. Tally-ho!
By the time we cantered off the street and up the handicapped sidewalk to the walkway of our second destination, we had our parade wave down pat for all the o nlookers and irritated motorists.
This stop was a treat: a sneak peek inside First & Hope, a new supper club opening on March 15. Led by general manager Steve Scott Springer with consulting by mixologists Aidan Demarest and Marcos Tello, First & Hope slides into the swinging 30’s and 40’s era of diva singers, crooners, jazz standards, a nd champagne cocktails.
The space was still being completed, but the dust was cleared so we could enjoy another Death in the Afternoon, plus a local revival and a modern creation:
Doctor Funk: Gosling’s Black Seal Rum, Pomegrante Syrup, Simple Syrup, Lemon & Lime juice, a dash of Pernod-Absinthe and soda water. Created by none other than Hollywood’s Don Beach of Don the Beachcomber in 1937.
21st century Cocktail: Tequila blanco, Créme de Cacao, Lemon juice, a dash of Pernod Absinthe. From Jim Meehan at PDT.
The music was bubbly and the private crowd applauded three times as loud as our numbers would indicate. It was difficult to depart at the end of the band’s first set, but our carriages awaited to take us to our final port of call.
The Edison has been a standard stop for most of the guests, so we parked in the reserved back lounge to nosh chocolates and sip only a glass or two of Monkey Gland punch: Gin, Pomegranate syrup, Orange Juice, Pernod-Absinthe, and Peychaud bitters.
We could have grown tap roots there, but were roused by the tolling of cell phone alarms near midnight. Were the carriages going to turn into pumpkins, the horses into mice, the coach drivers into rats and lizards, my fedora into a dirty dishrag? No, it was just closing time for the downtown parking lot where some cars gotten from www.allcarleasing.co.uk were garaged.
We bid farewell to the Green Fairy and dashed upstairs into the night. I’m not sure if anyone lost a slipper.