DRINKING FISCALLY IRRESPONSIBLY The liquor business has had its ups and downs over the last century and a half, with one big notable 13-year down between 1920 and 1933. Ironically, while the legal liquor business was down during those years, on the other side of the law it was big business. Some of the era still say it was easier to drink when liquor was illegal than after Prohibition, which brought new regulations. And just like when the drinks still owed relatively freely during the Great Depression, during this recession, it doesn’t look like penny pinching is drying up the bottle. Mark Allen, head bartender at Red Feather Lounge in downtown Boise, said liquor sales are on the rise, and it’s not a move toward well drinks, either. While it may be cheaper to drink at home, Allen said he “can’t really see people making what we make at home.â€? Adapting to new trends has been a way for Red Feather to reach out to new customers. “The trickiest part has been localizing our inventory and picking up smaller craft spirits.â€? Looking at the restaurant’s cocktail menu, one sees a mission and philosophy at Red Feather, one of craft, quality and trusting the bartender’s experience. In fact, Allen said the bar just had one of its busiest weekends ever a few weeks ago. Kobel agrees with Allen in that she’s not seeing a decline in business due to the economy. She does say that there has been an increase in happy hour attendance at Pair. Bowers sees a similar increase in happy hour patronage, but tends to attribute it to a cultural shift of people seeking out the afterwork socialization rather than late-night dinner and drinks. His opinion is that there seems to be a return to the bar as a social scene. The fun is coming back. These beliefs are backed up with some impressive stats. According to the Idaho State Liquor Division’s annual reports from 1997 through 2009, liquor sales have increased at a pace equal to, or better than the population growth. Which means people are drinking more. In fact, during the past decade, until 2006, sales of liquor in Idaho were increasing at a rate faster than the rest of the country. After 2007, it paced with the rest of the other states. In the last ďŹ ve years, the number of bottles sold increased from just more than 7.5 million to almost 10 million in Idaho. A closer look shows only Boise and Star decreasing slightly
in liquor sales from 2008 to 2009, but the rest of Ada county more than makes up for it. As with any trend, cocktail preferences will rise, plateau and then fall. To use an old cliche about history, those who don’t know it are doomed to repeat it. That is an understatement when it comes to the martini. One of liquor’s side effects is that memory tends to get a little foggy anyway, so we just might be doomed to repeat it. It’s a curse. As I sipped a martini (gin—very wet—shaken with three olives, always an odd number) one evening, I wondered how the last martini decade compared to those before it. Many have announced the end of the martini, whether it was a slow death, much like cancer or a quick one like a car crash. Martini purists say that each generation, with the increasingly drier gin-to-vermouth ratio, was bringing the martini closer to its demise. Others claim that as we experienced the fear of communism in the ’50s , the illicit vices of that culture made their way into our own melting pot, and vodka began replacing gin as our sacred American spirit, and that was actually the end of the martini. (Author Ian Fleming tried to play peacemaker with the vesper, a martini ordered by his famous British character James Bond that included both gin and vodka, but purists saw that as an abomination, too.) The vodka era redeďŹ ned the martini, and the illicit spirit allegedly imported from the evil empire (even though it was mostly made in America) made the martini rise to the top once again. Personally, I believe that vodka should never be used in a martini. During the 1950s, the martini even made its way into the homes of the modern nuclear family. You would have been hard-pressed not to ďŹ nd a cocktail shaker and a set of martini glasses (albeit much smaller than today’s monster stemware) in every suburban home. The after-work martini was synonymous with the two-car garage, meatloaf Mondays and a dog in the back yard pooping on the lid of the bomb shelter. But the children of the 1950s started smoking pot and taking acid, not sipping their fathers’ drinks. The martini began a slow decline once again. Even though the 1970s were known among bar geeks as a time when fern bars serving California’s ďŹ nest amber wine knocked the martini from its corner barstool, the ďŹ nal nail wasn’t hammered in until Friday, Feb. 17, 1978, when President Jimmy Carter said, “As for the famous three-martini lunch, I don’t care how many martinis anyone has with lunch, but I am concerned
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March 22, 1933: President Franklin D. Roosevelt 1917: In Europe the book is published with a martini became known celebrated the repeal of prohibition with a martini. He drank a dirty martini: two parts gin, one part dry vermouth with a teaspoon of recipe for “martini,â€? its ďŹ rst as “Gin and It.â€? olive brine, an olive and lemon peel as garnish. He offered Joseph appearance in print. Stalin and Winston Churchill a dirty martini when he met with them in Tehran, Iran. 1888: A bartending
1900: Martini & Rossi exports “extra dry vermouth� to compete with Noilly-Prat in the American market. Increased competition was said to give the martini its day in the sun.
1910: A bartender named
1953: James Bond in Casino Martini di Arma di Taggia at 1950s: Vodka Royale orders a vesper: three parts begins to inďŹ ltrate New York’s Knickerbocker gin, one part vodka, one part Kina the martini. Hotel lays claim to inventing a Lillet with a lemon peel garnish. In drink using half gin and half the novels, Bond actually prefers vermouth. John D. Rockefeller, bourbon, but in the movies he drinks who likes it, suggests that the vodka martinis—typical Brit. bartender name it after himself.
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