[Free Stuff by Wilfrid: May 24, 2010]
A book launch with cocktail sampling. Hard to argue with that kind of invitation.
The book in question, How To Booze: Exquisite Cocktails and Unsound Advice, from Harper Collins.
The launch party at Powerhouse Books in DUMBO was unsurprisingly busy and lively, not least because three recipes from the book were being shaken in jumbo shakers and freely poured. The Last Word is a sort of Aviation made challenging by the addition of green Chartreuse. Not my favorite. I was drawn inexorably to a variation on the Sidecar, the Odd McIntyre. In fact I was drawn there several times, in between bits of sushi and cheese.
I spoke briefly with Jordan Kaye who contributed the refreshment-related anecdotes which intersperse Marshall Altier's recipes in the book (he later read a droll piece about being a "bad drunk"). Just long enough to belabor him with the information that the name of the Odd McIntyre could only possibly derive from the Broadway columnist O.O. McIntyre, a long-forgotten rival of Walter Winchell and one of the few people, surely, to boast the forename Odd (Oscar Odd, if you are interested). Perhaps this will be included in the second edition.
Salut.
