La côte gauche

Left Coast Libations has gone to press.

According to C.Mixeur, the woman at the printers exclaimed "Did you do this yourself? This is very impressive!"

This could mean one of two things: either she was a discerning studier of fine publishing work and was genuinely impressed by the quality of our craftsmanship, or; she had already sized up C.Mixeur as a complete incompetent boob and was shocked to realize he could put two words together, let alone design the layout of a booklet. C. did not specify whether or not she was patting him on the head as she praised him.

Since last mention of Left Coast Libations on this site, we have accumulated a few more figures of repute. Two of these fine young gents hail from the provincial mecca of Vancouver, British Columbia. Having played hundreds of games of Risk as children, we are ecstatic over the strategical implications of having BC represented. We now feel confident that the Munat Bros will soon successfully occupy Idaho and Alberta.

Thanks, therefore, are owed to Josh Pape of Chambar and David Wolowidnyk of West for joining in our gay little romp. Welcome to the terrordome, boys.

Also entering into the fray, having just awoken from some extended benzedrine binge in the Sierra del Ajusco-Chichinauhtzin, was our good friend Keith Waldbauer (he claimed our emails had gone into his junk folder...we know better).

And apparently there was some sort of night-long, drunken, semi-sadomasochistic experience in which C.Mixeur was able to extract recipes from Jay Kuehner at Sambar right here in Seattle. I do not know the details of this incident, apart from receiving some text messages from C.Mixeur with many misspellings and punctuation errors, along with some references to Guantanamo Bay.

(Editors Note: Duggan McDonell responded after the deadline, clearly recovering from a peyote binge in Coahuila, also claiming email issues as the root of his lack of previous involvement. The Munat Bros have already plotted their revenge. At the Boca Loca Cachaca rooftop pool party during Tales of the Cocktail, as Duggan is lounging in the pool whilst being interviewed by Food and Wine Magazine, C.Mixeur will perform a "cannonball" upon his head.)

At this point, we offer what they call a "teaser" of Left Coast Libations. Specifically, here is the introduction scripted by yours truly, T.Mixeur.


In 1989 my father and mother moved from Connecticut to the Seattle, Washington, area.

My father's older brother, Stan, who resided in Vermont, nearly disowned him for this transgression.

In a letter declaring his intention not to attend my parents’ 20th wedding anniversary in Seattle, Stan decried my father's betrayal-ridden decision to abandon “the cradle of American Culture and the birthplace of the Revolution” for the loathsome Left Coast, which he described as “the bastion of every tawdry, tinseled, and tasteless crackpot creation of the past 100 years.”

Dear reader, nearly twenty years later, it is with great pleasure that we present to you the Crackpot Creations of the Tawdry, the Tinseled, and the Tasteless from our beloved Left Coast.

Contrary to popular perception, “American Culture” is not a misnomer. But contrary to Uncle Stan's position, it is a culture that, in fact, has many cradles. Here on the Left Coast, where the population boom occurred and is occurring during our lifetimes, we witness daily the insidious homogenization of our surroundings. And it could be in reaction to this seemingly culture-crushing wave of modernity that the mixologists and craft distillers of our part of the world have come to pursue such dedication to their craft.

It is a craft that eschews the mass-produced in favor of the homemade, from scratch, and small batch. It is a craft that studies, heralds, and preserves traditional methods dating back hundreds of years. At the same time, it is a craft that cherishes the use of local products and community-building that, while often perceived to be recent additions to the collective consciousness, are actually ancient values being resuscitated after centuries in the doldrums.

Our Left Coast community is far from an exclusive club. In fact, it is one that warmly opens its arms and welcomes anyone who expresses love and passion for this craft. Contained within this simple book are original cocktail inventions of many of the West's most inspired, skilled, and respected mixologists. They have provided these recipes for one simple reason: we asked them to. None of them have been paid or promised extravagant favors. They choose to participate both to affirm their place in a community over which they feel great pride, and to share what they have learned and accomplished.

The rights and credit for the recipes within belong to the contributors. However, reproduction, replication, and variations are not only permitted but encouraged. We ask that upon serving one to your loved ones or patrons (or both at the same time), you be sure to mention what virtuoso first ushered this delectable concoction into the world.

In addition to the private proclamations of gratitude we have already bestowed upon the contributors, we would like to offer a public thank you for their generosity. We hope their participation in this project was enjoyable and will serve them well in some capacity at some point in time.

As for those of you on the receiving end, we hope you find this useful and inspiring.

Ted Munat
Munat Bros.
Seattle

Comments

Anonymous said…
Whoa, dude! How come I got to do the cannonball? And how did you know about the lady patting me on the head? Were you following me?

I'm glad that you started off by posting the most boring part of the book (the part you wrote). This way the excitement will build as readers work their way to the thrilling epilogue (the part I wrote).
Anonymous said…
alright boys, calm down. I'll do the cannonball. If I start drowning, please save me.