Tag: wine

Enjoy Yourself

I did a short stint in NYC in my late 20s. I followed a girl there, it didn’t work out, happens to the best of us. But I moved there without a job, so I took the first one I found. I found a gig working at a high end wine shop on Wall Street. Literally the wine shop was on Wall Street, so yeah, I worked on Wall Street. We would open at like 8am and there would be a line at the door of coked up Wall Street dudes waiting to buy pints of kettel one. Number one selling item. High end wine shop but mainly just supplying the coked up, stressed out “brokers” trying to fulfill their Hollywood dreams of being a coked up stressed out, usually bald and chubby Wall Street man. The movies lied to you, for every Leo or Charlie Sheen, there were twenty John Candy and Chris Farleys chain smoking cigarettes. I prefer the latter anyways.

There was also this day trader dude who lived above the shop. He was always on so much blow and was not shy about it. Wouldn’t even clean the powder off his nose. Would order a bottle of Clase Azul tequila up to his apartment a few times a day and answer the door, robe open, tighty whiteys underneath and coke on the table. Always tipped well.

Anyway, my boss was a foreign guy named Bob, clearly not his real name. For months I thought he was a Mexican guy. No idea why but his accent was confusing. Turns out he was an Arab dude who disappointed his family and disgraced his religion because he just loved wine that much. I don’t mean that in a bad way, like the dude fucking LOVED wine, he KNEW wine, and could talk about it like no one I’ve ever met. He lived the life. Left his family to move to NYC, washed dishes, waited tables, lived the NYC restaurant life through the 80s and had some ridiculous stories. At one point he was managing a high end hotel in manhattan and a “can’t mention the name” Indian elite got in a fight with him because his “hooker department” was low class. So he had been through the wringer and in his older age decided to sell overpriced wine to dorks that didn’t know what to do with their money.

Dude loved life, loved wine, and always made work fun. He reminded me of a middle eastern version of old fezziwig from Scrooge. Just knew how to make work a good time and make his employees WANT to work hard for him. One of his biggest ways of making the days go by a bit faster and seem a bit less shitty, was to randomly open bottles of wine. Sometimes $15 whatever, sometimes rarities from the cellar. The whole staff would get a taste. From the guys in shirt and tie “salesmen” to the “basement guys” hanging out with the rats stocking the wine cases, to the delivery guys riding their shitty ass bikes through the streets of manhattan delivering booze to the thousands of New York hermits/boozebags who don’t leave their million dollar apartments. AKA everyone got a taste. And as he poured your glass, he would always say, in his nondescript but smooth as hell foreign accent, ENJOY yourself. Yes, sometimes you were drinking wine at noon. Sometimes it was a bottle of Chataneuf du pape or Penfolds Grange. Some of the people knew what they were drinking was special, some others were just tired and working their ass off and appreciated the pick me up. All equal, all wanting to work their ass off for the appreciation. SO, next time you pour a glass of wine, on a Tuesday at noon or a Saturday at midnight, ENJOY YOURSELF. Try to enjoy your job, tip your delivery driver, waiter, uber driver, etc. Toast to them. Toast to yourselves. We’re all working, but it doesn’t mean we can’t ENJOY OURSELVES.

do you really wanna drink that??


what goes into the drink you drink? The booze. the water. the juice. and even…the ice cubes? 

the cocktail is a special thing. mainly because for the most part you cant find one for under 12 bucks that lives up to the cost. if I’m paying 12 bucks for a drink it better either get me very wasted, very fast, or be damn good, and also get me somewhat wasted, somewhat fast. if your bartender is using some minute maid, from the can, or pre maid bullshit, and then charging you 10 bucks for that margharita, you have every right to drink that shit, and walk out. But tip your bartender, its not their fault the owner is a douchbag. 

Ice machines. Store ice for what seems like centuries. Never getting quite freezing enough to freeze things, but just cold enough so ice wont melt completely. You know what thats the perfect storm for? a bunch of shit growing inside of every ice machine across America. i have no solution for this, and to be honest i just drink up anyway, knowing there is so much shit inside of all of my iced drinks that i don’t even care anymore. helps build the immune system i guess. i just wanted to ruin ice for you. 

How about wine? Ill give you one tip for ordering wine in a restaurant, if your going to over pay for wine, atleast buy the bottle. wine is the most overpriced thing you could get in a restaurant. usually a 33% markup. So…a bottle that goes for 10 bucks in the liquor store? You know, the one you might buy on a monday just to make the start of the week a little less shitty, but certainly aren’t treating yourself? Yeah, that bottle. that will run you about 30 bucks in a restaurant. and an even worse markup for the glass. so first, i would say bypass the wine, and just go for the martini. But if you definitely need some wine. BUY THE BOTTLE. not only is it a bang for your buck. but atlas you’ll be drinking a freshly opened bottle, and not some swill thats been sitting around for a week. you ever think of what restaurants do with wine once its opened? you get a glass, thats coming from a bottle that has already been opened. if that wine hasn’t been ordered recently, it may have been sitting there for days, waiting for the poor schmuck like you to order a glass. so in the end your not only paying a crazy markup for your perfectly measured out 8 oz pour. but your paying for your perfectly measured out 8 oz pour and not a drop more, of some stale ass wine thats been waiting around for some asshole to choose it like yourself. Enjoy your week old glass of cabernet that you could have paid the same price for a bottle at your local corner store with the cork still in. 

what about those long rubber tubes that transport your beer from a cellar that may be feet away, or may be a mile away? What. Are. You. Drinking. I’ve made it a rule that i wont drink draught beer anymore. you ever think of that? Beer, which contains sugar, and water, and yeast, all things that are prime for growing…”things” being transported through long rubber hoses, in the dark, that may never get replaced or even cleaned. never mind the faucets that the beer is coming out of. one side of me says fuck it. when I’m putting a few back, who gives a shit where its coming from. I’ve consumed much worse as a young man playing beer pong in questionable basements. Much. much worse. but I’m not as young as i used to be, and quite frankly, I’ve developed standards. and some of those standards don’t want a months worth of mold infused in my Belgian triple. Shit, i don’t want mold in my Budweiser either, even if it may enhance the flavor. so keep an eye out. does it look like your bartender knows what the fuck they’re doing? does it take them 5 trys to get one glass of decently poured beer? does it look like they wash their hands? is there lipstick around the rim of that glass? is there things growing inside of the toilet bowl of that establishment? chances are, if the toilet bowls look like shit, then your probably drinking shit as well. all plumbing leads to the same place or however that saying goes. So watch it. you may be having a floater in your next IPA. my suggestion. stick with the bottles and cans, or buy a bartending book and make your own cocktails at home. or get wasted enough where you just don’t give a shit. all good ideas. CHEERS, SLAINTE, SALUTI, PROST!