Two Notable Schenectady Cocktails
It’s Friday! You made it! We’re almost to the weekend. But hey, it’s five o’clock somewhere.
Sensible people might wait until work is done on Friday before they head out to a bar and order a cocktail or two. Say what you will, but they are a delicious way to unwind. Sure, you can meditate, exercise, or do breathing exercises. Those are great for relaxing too. Heck, they may even be better for reducing stress and easing tension.
Still, at the end of the week, I’m pouring a drink and leaving my yoga pants in the closet. Actually, for all of March, I’m also going to be drinking at the beginning of the week too. Because Albany Distilling Company is hosting its 3rd Annual Cocktail Contest, and it’s going down every Monday night in each of the four corners of the Capital Region.
Just this past week, it was held in Schenectady at Backstage Pub. Yours truly was there representing Yelp at the judges table. And now, I’m back to tell you about what you missed. Because there were some remarkable drinks served, from some unlikely places.
A Dry Event on Fat Tuesday
This isn’t so much about today’s festivities as much as it is a revelation about March in general.
Today is Fat Tuesday! While I don’t observe Lent, I’m always down for a party. It’s true. Give me a reason to celebrate, anywhere around the world, and I’ll take it. I’m looking forward to the day when Diwali is celebrated more widely across America, because all those lights, colors, and sweets are just awesome.
As it just so happens, on this day when there are so many people trying to sneak in their last few vices before Ash Wednesday, I’ve organized a totally dry Official Yelp Event. That was entirely by accident, but we had no problem filling the guest list at Mazadar.
I suppose we might be able to still fulfill the spirit of Fat Tuesday by indulging in gluttony. And perhaps, once the event is over, I might head out for a post event drink. Ouzo is one of the secrets of my trade, because if you’ve overeaten, a glass of that stuff will ease the discomfort. Although really, it could be any anise based spirit. Absinthe is fantastic, if occasionally hard to find.
But I digress. We were talking about Fat Tuesday and what it has to do with Earth’s position relative to the Sun.
Feeling Like Garbage
It’s Monday. I’m coming off a weekend on the bat mitzvah circuit in New Jersey. And I’m not feeling all that great. While I’m tempted to blame my spike in weight on the challah, bagels, cream cheese, hummus, donuts, baked brie, tater tots, cake, and ice cream from the festivities, that wouldn’t be fair.
New Jersey often gets a bum rap. Frankly, I can’t bring myself to throw the pork roll, egg, and cheese sandwich under the bus either. Because if anything were a distillation of New Jersey, it would be this diner staple.
Part of me wonders if the Nick Tahou Hots garbage plate is a similar distillation of Upstate New York. I had a local knock off version last week at The Excelsior Pub in Albany. Now I have a craving to go to the mothership.
The most remarkable part of that sentence is that after eating a garbage plate, and feeling like garbage, I totally want another.
If none of this makes sense, read on, and allow me to explain.
The Best Capital Region Cocktail Makers
There’s no reason to wait for the Times Union’s Best of the Capital Region. The results from that survey will be coming out later this month. But what will they really tell us? I shudder to imagine.
Years ago, AOA Greg asked me to write a story about the best donuts in the Capital Region. And I explained to him at the time, that the only way to do the story justice would be to eat all the donuts in the Capital Region.
This is one of the reasons why I’ve been excited about Albany Distilling Company’s 3rd Annual Cocktail Competition. The best is chosen by a panel of judges, only after trying them all. Well, almost. The way this works is very much like the All Over Albany Tournament of Pizza. If you’re not familiar with the form, let me explain.
No Nuts
Snow delays and Mondays always get me down.
It’s the end of February and winter is still putting up a fight. Good on you, winter. We’re in Upstate New York, dammit. It’s supposed to be frigid, snowy, and hostile to human life. This is where we’ve chosen to call home, and fortunately we have developed lots of coping mechanisms to deal with this choice.
One of them is the delicious fatty, carb-loaded foods. And another is the warm and welcoming taverns in which to enjoy them. So tonight feels like the perfect time to head to The Excelsior Pub for their version of the Nick Tahou Garbage Plate. This will be my first one ever, so I’m looking forward to reporting back on that next week.
Tomorrow’s post will be about cocktails, and today we’re going to be covering the other thing that gets me through my days in this arctic tundra: coffee!
Emily L Goes Shopping
Where do you shop for food? One of the things I found about life in the Capital Region is that people are rarely neutral when it comes to grocery shopping. My hunch has always been that part of the enthusiasm for new options to buy food in the Capital Region is the duopoly that Price Chopper and Hannaford enjoyed for so long.
All of a sudden, it makes sense to see the throngs of people coming out to the opening of a new supermarket, when you stop to realize that the area was lacking any meaningful competition or innovation for years and years.
One of the bright spots of the Capital Region grocery scene has always been the international markets. These days we’re getting away from the term “ethnic” because truly in this part of the world can you really call an Italian market an ethnic grocery? I’m not convinced. Nor am I convinced that we need to bring our ethnocentrism into our views on food.
That aside, every time I pop into the Asian markets, I’m surprised and delighted by the diversity of their clientele. Yet, I also know that there are always people who resist the new, and are uncomfortable when they don’t know what to expect. Which is one of the reasons why I love the latest guest post that Emily L has written for the FLB.
Pics of Pizza at Jon’s
When Jon sends a note asking if you want pizza, the only answer is, “Hell yeah!”
This, of course, happened on Friday when my in-laws were in town. And if they happen to read today’s post, they are going to learn my secret. Because while I was out running errands to pick up ingredients to cook for our family’s dinner, I also included a stop at Jon’s house.
In theory, I suppose you could call it a pre dinner snack. But I probably ate close to a full pizza during the time I was hanging out in his backyard as Jon fired pies in the wood fired pizza oven he built with his own two hands.
One is tempted to say that friends with pizza ovens are the best kinds of friends. But it’s not just the oven that Jon brings to the table. He’s a pizza obsessive, and that’s a very good thing indeed. From the dough. To the sauce. To the toppings. To the technique. Every step along the way is very well considered. Temperatures are taken. Ingredients are carefully sourced.
And on Friday, when he asked me what I wanted on my pie, I knew right away.
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