Happenings

Wed March 8, 2023 – 7-9:00 PM This early spring weather brings a return of the white sangria that will be served for the In the Company of Writers presents a series of personal and conversational dialogues featuring guest writers/poets followed by an open mic forum. The Chicago blues music of “Mr. Jimmy,” welcomes you, continues during intermission and closes the evening. The next in the series features John Desjarlais, a published author, and speaker. In-person sign-ups for open-mic are 6:30 – 7:00 pm and guest authors begin at 7:00 – 8:00 pm with open-mic readings from 8:15 – 9:00 pm.  These inspirational gatherings will elucidate and entertain those attending. If interested in reading your work, you may sign up at the door or online athttps://thebrandybar.com/writers-open-mic/  Presentations are limited to five minutes.  A former producer with Wisconsin Public Radio and retired professor of journalism and English, John Desjarlais writes historical novels and contemporary mysteries. His first novel, The Throne of Tara: A Novel of Saint Columba, was a Christianity Today Reader’s Choice Award nominee, and his medieval thriller, Relics, was a Doubleday Book Club Selection. Bleeder, Viper (a Catholic Arts and Letters Award nominee), and Specter The Light of Tara: A Novel of Saint Patrick. constitute the ‘Higher Mysteries’ series. Blood of the Martyrs and Other Stories collects short fiction previously published in a variety of literary journals. 

Thurs 3/9 – 4-9:00 PM – Crazy Horse cocktail specials: Incredible! By some strange computer technical sidetrack, we found that low and behold, the Crazy Horse Memorial is still under construction after 70 years and still going on…. Everyone remembers the Oglala Lakota Chief “Crazy Horse” and “General George Custer” and the unforgettable battle at the Little Bighorn where the General met his match in the Chief on June 24,1876. If completed as designed, it will become the world’s second tallest statute, after the Statute of Unity in India. When the carving of Mount Rushmore began in 1927, the local Lakota Indians objected loudly. The Black Hills of South Dakota, by treaty, belonged to them. After Chief Henry Standing Bear’s request for a Crazy Horse monument was made to the sculptor of Mount Rushmore, Gutzon Borglum, and remained unanswered, the Chief wrote to Korczak Ziolkowski, who had assisted in the carving of Mount Rushmore. The Chief asked him to help the local Native American tribes etch their own heroes into rock. Thus began the Crazy Horse Memorial. 

The monument is being carved out of Thunderhead Mountain on land considered sacred by the Oglala Lakota and lies roughly 8 miles from Mount Rushmore. The memorial master plan includes the mountain carving, an Indian Museum of North America, and a Native American Cultural Center. It will depict the Oglala Lakota warrior Crazy Horse riding a horse and pointing to his tribal land. The Chiefs felt it was most fitting to have the face of Crazy Horse sculpted since “Crazy Horse is the real patriot of the Sioux tribe and the only one worthy to place by the side of Washington and Lincoln.”

The face of the sculpture, a towering 87 feet, was dedicated in 1998. When completed, the sculpture will stand 641 feet long and 563 feet tall making it the world’s largest sculpture by far. For a size comparison, the head of Crazy Horse alone is 27 feet taller than the 6 story heads of Mount Rushmore. In fact, if you were to stack all the heads of Mount Rushmore on top of one another it still wouldn’t reach half the height of Crazy Horse. The horse head alone could easily fit two of Lincoln’s inside of it.  After the death of Ziolkowski in 1982 the family took charge of completion of the sculpture and instead of completing the horse first, chose to finish Crazy Horse’s face first. The head and face has now been completed and work is under way on the much larger horse portion. As of 2022, there was no timeline for when the monument would be completed. However, the hand, arm, shoulder, hairline, and top of the horse’s head are anticipated to be finished by 2037.

Crazy Horse cocktail specials: Crazy Horse – Oglala Lakota – 1840-1877 -Douglas fir, rum, calvados, Cointreau, CB Frost, cranberry & orange juice; Sitting Bull Lakota – 1831-1890 – Courvoisier, rum, maple syrup, pumpkin puree, allspice, sour mix; Red Cloud – Lakota -1822-1909 – CB Frost, Apple cider, lemon juice ; Geronimo – Chiricahua/Apache – 1829-1909 – C & K brandy, limoncello, lemon juice, apricot jam, fresh sage leaves; Wilma Mankiller – Cherokee-1945-2010 – Cointreau, rum, Tina Maria, fresh brewed coffee;  1/2 price Armagnac/Calvados flight

 

 

 

Wed. 3/1 – 4-9:00 PM $5 special straight pours – Armagnac de Montal VS – fruity, ripe aromas of banana, nectarine, peach, and date emerges from the aggressive alcohol. Entry is sweet and smoky; flavor at mid-palate is sugary, laden with wood that wipes out fruit elements.  Or – Clear Creek Plum – Viewed as the gold standard for slivovitz in the world. This lively kosher spirit shimmers and has an aroma and taste of small yellow Mirabelle plum and unripe peach. This eau-de-vie is pure, transparent with ripe fruit, and ends with a slightly bitter orange taste. The length on the finish is solid and clean.

Thurs. 3/2 – 4-9:00 PM – Have you ever enjoyed our Jack Rose Cocktail? Considered by some bartenders to contain that perfect ratio of 8 parts base spirit (applejack), 2 parts sour (lemon or lime), and 1 part sweet (grenadine). This ratio is a great starting point for many drinks. The formula renders a slightly tart drink with a subtle sweetness. It’s easy to add a little more sweetness if needed. The drink was a celebrity appearing in Ernest Hemingway’s 1926 classic “The Sun Also Rises” and a favorite drink of author John Steinbeck as well as appearing in Tennessee Williams’ 1951 play, “The Rose Tattoo.” The drink has a history as early as a 1905 in an article in the “National Police Gazette” that credits a New Jersey bartender named Frank J. May as its creator. Another story in a 1913 news article comments that sales of the drink were suffering due to the involvement of Bald Jack Rose in the Rosenthal murder case. The most likely explanation is that it is a simple portmanteau — it is made with applejack and is rose-colored from the grenadine.

The cocktail fell out of fashion. In June 2003, the Washington Post published an article that followed two writers’ quest to find a Jack Rose in any Washington, DC bar. They were unsuccessful in finding one where the bartender knew the drink. Finally, they bought a bottle of applejack for one of the few bartenders they encountered who knew how to make one. However, with the craft cocktail movement on the rise, the Jack Rose has regained some popularity.

Laird & Company, the oldest distillery in the US (making brandy when George Washington was President) and producer of the applejack that The Brandy Bar uses, is still in the Laird family. When properly made, the apple aromas that are subtle and subdued in the applejack spirit practically leap from mixing glass once mixed. Whether by accident or design, the acids, sugars, and tannins in grenadine and lemon (or lime) juice wake up the apple brandy by replacing what was lost from the apple during the distillation process, namely the mixture of sweet and tart. While we like to use lime rather than lemon, we leave it up to you. Lime a little sweeter and lemon a little tarter……

Brandy Bar Jack Rose – Laird’s applejack, lime juice, grenadine; Jacque Rose – Calvados, lime juice, grenadine; Jack Rose with lemon – Laird’s applejack, lemon juice, grenadine; Paris Jack Rose – Laird’s applejack, gin, sweet & dry vermouth, orange-lime-juice, grenadine; Irish Jack Rose – Irish whiskey, Calvados, lime, grenadine; Fruit/infused flight – 1/2 price

 

Wednesday 2/22 – 4-9:00 PM – $5 straight pour specials: Bols Strawberry – This liqueur is a harmonious combination of the finest natural ingredients, a distillate of refreshing citrus fruit and real strawberry juice — or – Clear Creek Marionberry – A type of blackberry that is a cross between the Olallie and Chehalem blackberry varietals developed in Marion County, Oregon, in 1956. Dry on the nose but a sweet, earthy, finish that is reminiscent of summer in the Northwest.

Thurs 2/23 – 4-9:00 PM – “Hair of the dog” short for “hair of the dog that bit you” is a colloquial expression used to refer to alcohol that is consumed as a hangover remedy with the hope of lessening the effects of a hangover. In Scotland in the late 1800s it was a popular belief that a few hairs of the dog that bit you applied to the wound would prevent evil consequences. But applied to drinks it means if you have drunk too freely, take a glass of the same alcohol with 24 hours to soothe the nerves. The earliest known reference to the phrase “hair of the dog” in connection with drunkenness is found in a text from ancient Ugarit dating from the mid to late 2nd millennium BC, in which the god  “IIu” becomes hungover after a drinking binge – a salve is applied to the forehead, which consists of “hairs of a dog” and parts of an unknown plant mixed with olive oil. It is possible that the phrase was used to justify an existing practice, as the idea of “like cures like” dating back at least to the time of Hippocrates.

However, if you are looking for a scientific explanation: There are at least two hypotheses as to how “hair of the dog” works. In the first, hangovers are described as the first stage of alcohol withdrawal, which is then alleviated by further alcohol intake. Although “…Low [ethanol] doses may effectively prevent alcohol withdrawal syndrome in surgical patients”, this idea is questionable as the signs and symptoms of hangover and alcohol withdrawal are very different. In the second, hangovers are partly attributed to methanol metabolism. Levels of methanol, present as one of those chemical substances produced during fermentation have been correlated with severity of hangover. As both ethanol and methanol are metabolized by alcohol enzymes and ethanol has a greater binding affinity for this enzyme than methanol– drinking more of the former effectively prevents (or delays) the metabolism of the latter;

Other countries naming of “hair of the dog” — Hungarian kutyaharapast szorevel – “You may cure the dog’s bite with its fur.” Portuguese- uma rebatida “to strike away.” Polish [wybijać] klin klinem to dislodge a wedge with a wedge.” Russian –  onoxmenka (opohmelka, “after being drunk”) – a process of drinking to decrease effects of drinking the day before. Estonia “peaparandus”, – “head-repair”. Romania – “Cui pe cui se scoate” (A nail (fastener) pulls out a nail). Italy “Chiodo scaccia chiodo” and  Spain – “Un clavo saca otro clavo” (A nail pulls out another nail); and in Turkey “Çivi çiviyi söker” –   “a nail dislodges a nail.” German – “having a counter-beer” (ein Konterbier trinken). Norwegian, “repareringspils”,- a “beer to repair”. In Finnish, “tasoittava” (smoothening) or “korjaussarja” (repair kit) and in Czech “vyprošťovák” (extricator). In Swedish, “återställare“, “restorer”.  Dutch, – “reparatiebier” – “repair beer”. In Finland – ”tasoittava”, the repair kit. Puerto Rico “matar al ratón”, or “to kill the mouse”. Cape Africa babbelas  “kopskiet”, or “shot to the head”. In Tanzania, Swahili “kuzimua”  “assist to wake up after a coma”.

Hair of Dog Cocktails: Espresso Martini -CB Frost, Kahlua, espresso, simple syrup; Bloody Maria – Korbel brandy, homemade bloody Mary mix -spicy and slightly hot; Corpse Reviver – Calvados, St. Remy XO, Antica sweet vermouth; Dead Rabbit Irish Coffee – Cognac, Kahlua, Dark Cacao liqueur, coffee topped with whipped cream; Morning After – CB Frost, gin, lemon juice, topped with ginger ale; 1/2 price US Flight