“There’s a really bad burnt plastic aftertaste.” -Shannon “It looks like a spaceship in a coupe.” -Marian “This tastes like, if a kid was trying to make an orange Julius and fucked it up.” -Robby Tastes like a melted blue Otter Pop.” -Tristan Hot tip: Pour some Prosecco on it.Ī very blue combination of brandy, blue curaçao, Parfait Amour, lemon juice and cream categorized as an after-dinner drink and described by Mario as “cool, incredibly smooth.” Technically, he’s not wrong. It’s democratic and balances that ‘70s aesthetic with all the benefits of an easy-drinking vodka cocktail. Verdict: This is actually delicious in its current form. “It reminds me of an army green wingback chair. “It would make a great brunch cocktail.” - Shannon It was a very serious, very scientific affair that yielded some surprising winners, and a few that we needed to retool.Ī shaken, orange juice- and vodka-based cocktail, originally served at the San Francisco Playboy Club. So how well do these drinks really hold up in 2015? We called on a few of our favorite bartenders-Tristan Willey of Long Island Bar, Robby Nelson of Long Island Bar and Prime Meats and Shannon Ponche of Leyenda and Clover Club-along with PUNCH Editor-in-Chief Talia Baiocchi and Managing Editor Bianca Prum, to taste five drinks that showed unorthodox promise (or just sounded irresistibly weird). And the drinks contained within the pages of this book are as much a record of the kitsch and playfulness that have defined this era of drinking (Champagne is referred to as “giggle water” wine coolers abound), as it is to a 1970s idea of connoisseurship. It describes the cocktail’s recent shift, according to Mario’s introduction, from “the isolated hobby of a few to a basic part of every man’s liberal education,” and gives us a window into the party hosts that came before us: “With immense relish he becomes the director of a zestful drama every time he offers drinks.” As Mario tells it, the home bartender is both actor and dramaturg. He sees himself-and this book-as your ticket into his world.īut more importantly, Playboy’s Host & Bar Book represents a pivotal moment in American drinking culture. He wants you to know that he has sipped rum on Caribbean beaches, walked among the vines of Bordeaux, drunk aperitivi in Italy and definitely had sex with a woman. As the dust jacket tells it, “his frequent overseas trips him up to date on the latest developments concerning food, wine, and spirits.” With the introduction of each family of spirits or type of French wine, he plants the flag of a connoisseur with drama and no shortage of flowery descriptors. When the book first came out in 1971, Mario had served as Playboy’s Food and Drinks editor for almost 30 years. Because we could all stand to infuse a bit more flair into our home entertaining regime. Many of its recipes may need a bit of tweaking for modern palates, but this wide-reaching volume is still relevant to home bartenders everywhere. And while it often reads like you’re sitting in your overbearing uncle’s shag-carpeted basement listening to him mansplain the origins of rum-based cocktails, it isn’t just a kitschy relic. Thomas Mario’s magnum opus of drink is a delightfully retro combination of entertaining manual (there are tips on hosting luaus and après-ski parties), wine and spirits primer and compendium of over 700 recipes, aimed to turn the average man into a consummate playboy-entertainer. Learn your way around a stiff martini, the photo suggests, and she will find her way to your stiff martini, if you catch our drift, old chap. She looks at him hopefully, gratefully, clutching his forearm as if to say, Baby, tell me about those ingredient ratios again? Their heads and bodies touch-a very clear indication of what will happen after the night’s activity shifts from the bar cart to the bedroom. In its foreground we see a couple: the man, laughing, pours what looks like a pitcher of martinis into a glass for an ample-chested and wide-eyed woman. In fact, there’s only one photo in the entire book that prominently features a woman. Playboy’s Host & Bar Book contains no nudes.
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