The Spirits #21: The Jasmine

~ Inventing Grapefruit Juice ~ Crocuses ~ The Bar Where No One Gives a Shit About Your Name ~

~ THE JASMINE ~

45ml gin
20ml lemon juice
5ml Campari
5ml orange liqueur

Freeze your glassware. Place all the liquids in the shaker with plenty of ice and agitate ebulliently for five or more seconds. Now strain the mixture through a fine-mesh strainer into your frozen glassware. Garnish with a strip of lemon zest.

You will find instructions for making sugar syrup, grenadine, ice, etc here and my 10 RULES FOR MAKING COCKTAILS here. I have also assembled some bottle recommendations for a cabinet here - and this here is the full archive of weekly specials. Do please share the Spirits with anyone who might like it - and feel free to tag me with your creations on Instagram ou même Twitter!

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A bare bones posting this time, it having been a hell of a week, work- and childcare-wise. In fact I type this one-handed, while feeding a very squiggly baby, in clothes I have been wearing for at least 48 hours, literally dripping with glamour. Ah but it’s been a week not untinged with satisfaction and even a little… is that optimism? Surely not? As I write, the sun is out, the bulbs we planted in Autumn are thrusting towards it and in not very long now, the schools will reopen. Spring is just about here.

The Jasmine feels a suitable way to salute this mental shift. It was invented in 1990 by Paul Harrington in San Francisco as a twist on the class Pegu Club cocktail (gin/lime/orange liqueur/orange bitters/Angostura bitters) and it’s an early harbinger of the cocktail renaissance. I like it as it’s a fresh and intelligent combination of fairly ordinary cocktail ingredients, complex but uplifting. Apparently when Harrington first presented it to a customer the response was: “Wow! You just invented grapefruit juice.” An excellent addition to the repertoire.

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PLAYLIST

No fresh playlist this week I’m afraid (see above… things will be different when the schools reopen mwa ha ha ha ha!) but it might interest you to know that I am now - by popular demand! - archiving the lists, week by week. Here are all the songs that have featured since the Boulevardier. At some point, I’ll retro-engineer the old ones into it to so that once we’re all allowed to have actual cocktail parties you’ll know just what to put on.

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“THE BAR WHERE NO ONE GIVES A SHIT ABOUT YOUR NAME”

I was talking to my friend Nick in L.A. the other day and he was lamenting the sad fate of Downtown L.A. during Coronavirus. Much revived in recent years, the neighbourhood has apparently completely collapsed during lockdown and is now a ghost town, abandoned by all the arty types, a haven of sorts for L.A.'s huge homeless population. It got methinking about King Eddy Saloon on Skid Row, the archetypal dive bar, that has seen through all of DTLA’s myriad changes. Just goes to show, cities never simply move in one direction.

King Eddy’s began life in 1906, as the bar of the King Edward Hotel in Downtown L.A. and following Prohibition in 1919, served as a speakeasy. According to this report, its basement linked up to a vast network of underground tunnels used for smuggling alcohol, including an entire secret bar whose location was “encoded” on the faded murals on the fire doors. When Repeal came in 1933, operations moved back upstairs and King Eddy’s was born.

As Downtown L.A. became more down-at-heel, the place provided solace and diversion for working men, ex-cons, prostitutes, the local transsexual community, drug-addict and basically anyone willing to brave it. Charles Bukowski, John Fante and Tom Waits dropped by too. Beers were unfathomably cheap. It was the bar where no one gave a shit about your name. It would be nice to think some bars could still be like that.

King Eddy’s has been under new ownership since 2012, in a different location - a tactful reupholstering but, by most accounts, it’s not been quiiite the same. I was dismayed to discover that its Yelp page had been gentrified too… but with a bit of careful Googling, I located the trapdoor into the long-since deleted old site, which I had remembered as one of my favourite corners of the internet. The reviews capture some of the affection its patrons felt for the old place. Perhaps it will be like that again soon enough. Some selected highlights:

“I almost don't want to review this place for fear of hipster takeover... but then I remember that this is King Eddie's, and it's such a shithole that I think most of these douches would run from this place in fear […] No one wants to be seen here.” - Courtney H.

“This bar always smells like mildew, armpit, stale beer, and ass.” - Benny B.

“1992 LA riots. All the buildings around us where on fire and the looting was insane. Cops closed down all the streets, so we couldn't drive anywhere.  The very few liquor stores we had in our area where closed… King Eddy's was not only there for us, but also for the more unfortunate street urchins.” - Winter M.

“It's the first place in downtown LA where I didn't get carded! woohoo!” - Amy D.

“The regulars may participate in illicit trade but they are the most friendly people I've met in any  LA bar. The drinks are not watered down and amazingly cheap.” - My D.

“I do remember the bathroom being kind of gnarly in the usual "piss in a trough" kind of way. All in all I think it's a fine way to kill Sunday.” - Matthew C.

“Maybe there's a tranny taking a crap in the corner on the floor.  And???  So what.  Maybe that was because my best friend Liz, just took a crap in the actual restroom and made the toilet overflow again (a classic at King E's) and there was just nowhere else for tranny to take a crap.” - Winter M. (again)

I walked into King Eddy Saloon expecting it to be a cool dive bar in downtown, boy was I wrong. The place was horrible! There was a handful of people in there and the people didnt look like a happy bunch. I ordered a beer which was $5-$6, and when I tried to pay the bartender told me it was cash only, ummm what year are we in again??? I will defenitly NOT come back to this ghetto depressing bar again. - Moni R.

Ah to be drinking there right now.

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SHOPPING LIST

Dark rum, sugar, Angostura bitters and… banana chips. You know those things you get in muesli. You can get them in greengrocers usually or in the baking aisles of supermarkets. If you happen to have banana liqueur, so much the better.

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