Cocktail Chat | NYE 2011

It’s the day to reflect on what’s gone on over the previous 364 days. 

I can honestly say, until now I’ve never been as conscientious about maintaining a journal or log.  I suppose we can blame the liquor! 

I start every morning starts with a meditation from a fantastic little book, 365 Tao.  The meditation for today, the last day of the year and the last one in the book is entitled, oddly enough, “Continuation”.  Master Deng suggests that life is a series of cycles.  Endings are merely the lead-in to new beginnings.  Interestingly enough, Deng also suggests that the stage for any particular ending is usually set mid-cycle, long before the actual ending occurs.  Hmmm….  Things that make you go “Hmmm…”.

I’m definitely feeling this in regard to the current state of this blog.  It’s been a lot of fun and certainly a dilettante experience –  inconsistent, learning many little things about a subject but not being a master of any of it.  I’ve played with my interest in photography in a different way and (trying) to let go of the need to take every shot with my SLR and occasionally using my phone, point & click, or iPad.   And I’ve absolutely held to what I stated at the outset, that this little adventure absolutely would not be my Julie & Julia moment.  And I do feel pretty good about writing 58 entries over 8 months.  I’ve never been this consistent with a journal.  Ever. 

Diletantte Cocktailer has also brought some cool new opportunities.  First & foremost, we’ve expanded our palates beyond Ketel One martinis.  I mean it now when I say I like gin & bourbon!  We’ve added classic ingredient items to our bar that have given our offerings breadth, depth, and conversation opportunities, such as St. Germaine, Lillet, Pernod, & Chartreuse.  The cook in me sees that a cocktail recipe is no different than an entrée recipe, blending disparate ingredients to make a new, complex whole.  We learned that 2011 wasn’t the year of the pomegranate only in the grocery store as we now have two bottles of pomegranate liqueur, gifted to us from friends.  Our friends, A & R, have introduced us to The Drawing Room, an amazing restaurant cum speakeasy here in Chi.  We watched PBS’s Prohibition the old fashioned way – watching it “live” as broadcast – no TiVo  – and understood our Chicago roots in history and “The Great Experiment”.  And we learned how those bizarre and contradictory 13 years are still influencing contemporary American society.  The Partner has given me some wonderful new glassware as has his parents. And just last week for Christmas, The Partner’s mom  gave us an exciting new addition to our bar library with The PDT Cocktail Book from the St. Mark’s speakeasy.

Forty-eight down.  Two hundred twenty seven to go, huh?  That’s only 17% of H & M’s tome sampled.   Master Deng says the ending is set mid-cycle.  I feel it in this case.  For the past couple months I’ve been feeling that the blog was getting a bit stale.  I’ve been itching to use the new gifts and resources and add them to the blog.  Thus, I’m wondering, do we really need to sample every one of the 275?  Hasn’t the bible served its purpose in expanding our palates?  Is it time to move on?  

When this project first started, all we had was a dusty recipe book pulled from the back of a cabinet and boredom with our current tastes.  Now, eight months later, our cocktailing horizons have expanded.  So, I’m feeling the need to evolve Dilettante Cocktailer.  I’m not sure how that will happen or in what form it will take, but this project has led me to a number of different experiences and new resources that I’d like to explore & share.  Plus, an added benefit might just be to get The Partner to find some other way of responding besides the now classic refrain about “these classic cocktails…”.

So here’s to ending and continuation.  Starting a new cycle, the seeds of which were planted in an earlier moment. 

Here’s to 2012.