Cinco de Mojito

This is a day where you're more than certain to hear us whistling our favorite countdown tune: uno de enero, dos de febrero, tres de marzo, quatro abril.  cinco de mayo...where we stop and cheer before June and July get their due.   

Usually, by cinco de mayo it's warm and wonderful, with all things weather hinting fiercely at the arrival of summer and all that portends: full tables on sunny café terraces, the challenge to find empty chairs at Luxembourg garden, empty Velib stations, longer days and later dinners.   By May, the worst of the winter and wetness of spring are behind.  Usually.

Not so today as the wind whipped like a wild thing and forced us to bundle in heavy (though fashionable) coats and scarves and boots.  Oh, the sun gave hope, but offered little warmth.  Summer feels as far away as ever, but for the bags of fresh mint that lay waiting to be mortared and pestled into that hot weather favorite, the mojito.   Nor could we imagine a rosé; drinking the pink today would be like wearing white before Memorial Day.   

Wearing white, of course, reserved not even for the seis de junio - but for our favorite damn day of the year: seis de julio.   Ya falta menos.

Portable Potable

A new neighborhood storefront brings temporary relief from the sprawl of trendy, overpriced clothing boutiques and puts some spice in our season. It's called Take Away Cocktails and serves up exactly what it's named, drinks you can drive away with.

It's not a bar; it's a store where you buy what you need to make your own bar. For instance, Santa Claus left me two brown bags under the tree, one with a delicate bottle of Polish vodka and a premium organic-styled glass container of bourgeois tomato juice. Also in the bag, bottles of Tabasco and Worcestershire, and small plastic take-out containers with first class celery salt and black pepper. A lime and celery. And horseradish, not just the kind in the jar - the real deal, the root. We had to grate it ourselves. It was a Bloody in a Bag. Brilliant.

Oh, and the other brown bag? Four Bloody Mary glasses. Just to be sure we drank them out of the correct receptacle. I love it when details matter.

Needless to say, the Christmas morning Bloodies were an outstanding accomplishment.

This little booze boutique opened its temporary doors early in December and sadly closes in just a few days, on New Year's eve. It's a damn shame, because the concept is clever and classy, though destined to fail, I'm afraid, since I don't know that many Frenchies who are huge consummateurs of cocktails, and France is not exactly known for its
to go culture. But it's a nice try.

I was hoping for an extension of carry-out cocktail service, but it's unlikely. We'd better dream up a good drink menu for New Year's Eve, and stock up our bar before they're out of stock - and out of town.

Does this count as an infidelity? I must admit, the novelty was nice. But nothing could keep me away from my corner bar stool for too long.

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The Corner One

It won't be empty for long, that coveted corner stool.

Dee Dee Sue is coming back to town. She's swinging in on Saturday, and it seems that activity at the office might finally start picking up.

She arrives like the migrating birds. A sign that summer is coming. The days begin to last longer. It's time to drink rosé at lunch. The bar smells of the crushed mint of a Mohito. Your liver gets exercised after a long, lonely winter.

There are sunny, silly months ahead.
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Afternoons are Hard

So it's 4:00 in the afternoon. I stop by the office, and there's that dilemma again. Coffee or....? A beer? A glass of wine? A kir? Is it late enough in the day for a cocktail? (Is it ever too early?) Or will a little caffeine power me through the witching hour of the evening and leave me with all my wits and a clear head tomorrow morning? In the summer it's an easier choice, somehow. What would you do?