New Orleans, 1850 — The Sazerac Coffee House — Bartender Leon Lamothe adds absinthe to a brandy cocktail. The world changes, if only by a little. The cocktail Mr. Lamothe was making contained brandy, sugar, and Peychaud’s bitters. It was called the Sazerac, after the French Quarter coffee house where it was born. By the 1870s, the Sazerac’s recipe had changed. Rye whiskey replaced brandy. The world, thus changed, became somehow better.

A lot of people will tell you a lot of things about how to make a Sazerac. I’m one of them. I’ll tell ya one thing for nothin’, if it has crushed ice in it – it ain’t a proper Sazerac. My first was served in a tumbler filled with crushed ice. The sweetness of the Peychaud’s and the simple syrup made sucking the last of the rye cocktail through the crushed ice magnificent. I was in love. But, we grow and we change. Nowadays I like the ice when I’m giving it a stir or when I’m chilling a glass. By the time I’m pouring my cocktail, there’s no place for ice.

My preferred recipe is copped from Gary Regan’s The Joy of Mixology. You might recognize Mr. Regan from the label of a bottle of Orange Bitters No. 6. Tho’ he looks rather olde timey, he’s a right-now sorta guy. Mr. Regan suggests washing the glass in Herbsaint, which is an absinthe substitute from New Orleans. Geographically appropriate, yes. (There is another reason: When his mixology book was published, absinthe was not legal in the U.S. Today it kinda sorta is.) I use a bottle of Kübler Absinthe. This change is based exclusively on the contents of my liquor shelf. For rye, you can never go wrong with Old Overholt.

I highly recommend Mr. Regan’s glassware suggestion – a champagne flute or a cocktail glass. He has very compelling reasons for doing so and they’re in his book.

First step, wash the chilled champagne flute with absinthe. Just pour a drop and swirl it around and throw it out. If you’re smart, you’ll pour a little too much and then – after washing the interior of the flute – drink the absinthe. It’s only a drop, really. Also, I’m not a bartender and I only do this when it’s my cocktail. It’s more eco-friendly to drink the absinthe. I hear this green thing is going to be big. Let’s get with it. Meanwhile, in a mixing glass add and stir –

Three ounces straight rye whiskey

3/4 ounce simple syrup

Peychaud’s bitters to taste (which means dump a whole lot in there)

Once the ice has diluted, strain the liquid from your mixing glass into your drinking vessel. Be sure to stir your Sazerac. You can give it a good stir before tending to the absinthe wash. You want the melted ice to dilute the cocktail in a nice way. But strain, yes, and season the rim with a twist of lemon. Anything that happens afterwards – you’re on your own.

The Sazerac is my favorite cocktail. Be careful with it. One will put you right. Two – well, I hope you don’t have anywhere to be tomorrow. By three? Tho’ I’ve been there, I can’t recall the circumstances… Exactly.

Snow Ghost; Great Northern Brewing Co.; Whitefish, Montana

Pilsener Lager; Bayern Brewing; Missoula, Montana

Jubelale; Deschutes Brewery; Bend, Oregon

• The Bedford Avenue Duane Reade has hit upon a canny idea to fight Williamsburg hipster anti-corporate NIMBYism. Add a growler bar and an extensive selection of craft beers. “In this neighborhood, I feel like that’s something people would go for,” said a man on the street whose quote I have taken out of context. [NYT]

• Exactly how does a beer achieve an “organic” certification? The better question might be, are there any that are actually worth drinking? Craft Beer sets out to answer both questions. [CraftBeer.com]

While doing some research yesterday, I began to wonder what state had the most breweries in the U.S. in 2010. Because I couldn’t find the data I wanted, I started collecting it myself.

The results were not what I expected. States with smaller populations actually had the largest per capita number of breweries. Vermont, with a population of just over 600,000 people topped the list, beating California which is just shy of 40 million people.

Go figure. Just because there are more people and more of a certain thing in a place, doesn’t mean that it diffuses as far into the culture. I think. I guess. I suppose.

Before I get to a sample of the data, I want to share my methods for the data collection.

First, I pulled all of the state-by-state population numbers from the 2010 Census. That includes all fifty states plus Washington, D.C. for a total of fifty-one entries. Second, I used Beer Advocate’s current list of Beer Places in the U.S. to get a statewide number of breweries. For this number, I combined both state-by-state numbers of breweries and brewpubs. The Brewer’s Association defines a brewpub as “A restaurant-brewery that sells 25% or more of its beer on site.” They brew beer. Fair game. Then I calculated how many breweries each state had for each 100,000 residents.

This list is, of course, unofficial. These numbers have not been collected by any official agency or professional number cruncher. This 2010 per capita list was created primarily as an intellectual exercise. I welcome input, arguments, corrections, clarifications, and questions.

The data for previous years has been expertly compiled by the Brewer’s Association (2008) and by Lug Wrench Brewing (2009). I have not included their data in my chart, but I have referred to it for the purposes of this informal analysis.

Also, I have created a public Google spreadsheet of the data (plus here is a version you can manipulate). If you would like a copy as an Excel file or PDF, my contact info is in the sidebar.

That all said–

2010: Top 5 Breweries Per Capita U.S. States

2010: Bottom 5 Breweries Per Capita U.S. States

The results indicate that even though a state might have the highest population, it does not have the highest number of breweries/brewpubs per capita. California’s population (37,253,956) makes it the highest-populated state in the U.S. and it also has the most breweries/brewpubs (255). However, it is No. 19 for per capita breweries on my list.

Vermont, which is No. 1 per capita, is the the 49th largest state by actual population. Since 2008 (at least) it has been the state with the most breweries per capita, according to the Brewer’s Association and Lug Wrench. The Top 5 shifts from year to year. Montana was at No. 2 in 2008, No. 3 in 2009, and has fallen to No. 4 in 2010.

Wyoming was the least-populated U.S. state in 2010 and yet it makes it into the Top 5 for per capita breweries. Montana is the forty-fourth most populated state, and it consistently remains in the Top 5.

To put this in perspective, states with the largest populations actually have the smallest per capita number of breweries. So Texas has 0.15 breweries for every 100,000 people, while Vermont has 3.36 breweries for every 100,000 people.

What conclusions can we draw from this informal sampling?

Except for North Dakota (Midwest), the Bottom 5 states are all southern states. Meanwhile, the Top 5 are in the Pacific Northwest and the Northeast.

Though these northern states in the Top 5 have smaller populations of people, those people help foster environments that are rich in brewing beer – mostly craft beer. Does that mean those in the Top 5 produce the best beers in the country or, necessarily, have the best beer cultures?

No, not necessarily.

It does make me wonder… What’s more important? To have more to enjoy or to be able to enjoy less more?

All I can say is definitively is – let’s all go to Vermont and get drunk.

• Dogfish Head’s Sam Calagione does a beer and movie pairing. [Huffpo]

• Victory has installed 345 solar PV panels from SunPower Builders on its brewery. The system is expected to generate 82,000kWh of energy yearly. [Victory]

• Tech-company Nvidia has built a keg computer that combines a keg of Sierra Nevada and a gaming PC. It’s on display at this year’s Computer Electronics Show. [Tom's Hardware]

I’m a sucker for little plastic goats. As it happens, the Ayinger Brewery‘s Celebrator Doppelbock just happens to arrive with a little plastic goat on a string. Having picked up a bottle around the holidays, I wondered if it was part of an Xmas promotion. Drink fifty bottles of Celebrator and decorate the tree.

The goat has a greater purpose than just beer-bottle candy, though. It comes from the style of beer – doppelbock.

A bock is a style of German beer that is, essentially, a strong and sweet beer. Not too sweet, mind you. But sweet nonetheless. Bocks are lightly hopped and malty. Bocks were first brewed in the German town of Einbeck in the fourteenth century. Bavarians adopted the style in the seventeenth century. They pronounced Einbeck as “ein bock,” which translates to “a billy goat.”

Goats have since adorned bottles of bock beer. The Thank Heaven for Beer blog notes that the appearance of a goat (or a ram) also indicates that a bock is a strong beer.

And a doppelbock is a stronger version of a bock. Double bock. Doppel bock. Hotcha.

Ayinger’s Celebrator Doppelbock is a mighty fine example of the species. The groupmind over at Beer Advocate gives it an A overall, lauding both its drinkability and complexity. I agree. Served in a bell glass, this doppelbock really opens up. It’s like a buncha monks decided to have a party in your mouth. Coincidentally, monks often drank bocks and doppelbocks during their fasts.

Brooklynites can pick up a bottle retail at Brooklyn Beer & Soda. Watering holes such as the Fourth Ave. Pub, Mug’s Ale House, and Radegast Hall have some Celebrator’s behind the bar.

I’m spending my second Xmas out in Montana. The cold weather is a comfort. I have on thermals, jeans, a T-shirt, a flannel, and a wool sweater. The snow is about a foot deep. I might go fall down a ski slope later this week. There’s a fridge full of local and West Coast beers. Not too shabby.

Last year at this time, things were not going so well. I was looking at starting the New Year out of work. A writing project I’d been working felt stalled. I didn’t know what was going to happen. Being out of town helped me put some distance on cold reality.

I knew that if I allowed any of the psychic junk going on in my head to interfere with the holidays, I’d not only be a wreck that year – but every year thereafter.

The only way out is through, y’know.

Lately I’ve had that quote from Eleanor Roosevelt circling around in my head: “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” And to that I like to add some David Bowie: “I’m not a prophet or a stone age man, just a mortal with the potential of a superman.”

So there ya go.

When it gets cold again, I can think. It’s when I can see how everything falls. This year, 2010, has been a year of incredible highs and incredible lows. I got married. I went to Spain. I got to spend time with a lot of friends and family. I drank some nice beers. Those were the best things.

The bad was bad, and I don’t see the point in dwelling on it. The same goes for the people in my life who make things suck. I have shoved them out the airlock of my brain and watched them explode.

So as December rolls around and things turn towards Xmas, I like to assemble a collection of music that will keep me going through the season.

Here’s some music for you to enjoy. It’s a zipped file. If you want to know what you’re getting into before you get into it, here is the track list –

1. “Cosmic Christmas” – The Rolling Stones
2. “Xmas Riff” – T.Rex
3. “What Christmas Means to Me” – Stevie Wonder
4. “Who Took the Merry Out of Christmas” – The Staple Singers
5. “All I Want Is Truth (for Christmas)” – The Mynabirds
6. “Home on Christmas Day” – Capt. Elmo McKenzie
7. “Child’s Christmas in Wales” – John Cale
8. “Getting Down for Xmas” – Milly & Silly
9. “Christmas Time Is Here Again” – The Beatles
10. “Little Drummer Boy” – Hoot Owl Boys Choir
11. “If Christmas Can’t Bring You Home” – The Reigning Sound
12. “It’s Christmas Time” – Yo La Tengo
13. “Christmas in Heaven” – Monty Python
14. “Auld Lang Syne” – The Black on White Affair
15. “Silent Night” – Leonard Cohen
16. “Little Drummer Boy” – Lindstrom

Enjoy. Deck some halls. Fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la- Fa-la.

Featured at the top of the post is a glass of Til Fra (To From) by Mikkeller. It’s on tap at the Double Windsor in Brooklyn.

Oh, man, it’s good. This birch oatmeal stout is what Xmas tastes like. It’s one of those beers that doesn’t seem like much when it’s cold but as it warms up, it becomes fantastic – just what we wanted for the season.

It’s on tap at my friend Dave’s apartment. Stop by sometime, whydontcha?

Apologies for the brevity of this post. I’ve been hit with a lot of freelance work lately, and I’m a little fried. There will most likely be one more post to hit before I completely shut down for the holidays. I wish you and yours a very wonderful non-secular winter wonderland of joyous celebration.

Have a beer.

Yes, OK, I take umbrage with Philip Gourevitch’s Ten American Whiskeys That Made the World News in 2010 a Bit Less Unbearable over in that New Yorker rag.

It’s not because I disagree with pairing whiskey with politics. No. As 2010 closes, the U.S. Senate has done its level-best to make drinking compulsory in understanding its decisions. If not for it. At least for me. The GOP has long been a party of monsters. It is now unafraid to stand revealed.

I digress.

At first I was heartened by Mr. Gourevitch’s blog post. I saw Four Roses and was excited. An unopened bottle of Four Roses was in my home, awaiting its deployment in some Friday-night Manhattans.

Four Roses is one of those cheap-ish bourbons that are always welcome. Prior to its Kentucky distillery being bought out by Japan’s Kirin Brewery, Four Roses was known as being little more than amber-colored paint thinner.

Today, it’s a fine mix of sippin’ bourbon. Straight, it runs a little hot. But with an ice cube or two, Four Roses releases its flavors of oak and spices and gold kryptonite and rich mahogany… It’s nice.

Gourevitch’s list stops at nine, and I’m OK with that. I also can’t argue with his taste in American whiskeys. I wouldn’t turn down a glass of any of them. Still, I stumble.

The list, which includes Noah’s Mill and Pappy Van Winkle, 15 year, has the caveat – “None of them costs much more than a night of beers at most American bars.” If you’re drinking those two, you’re having a pretty good night at the bar – even in New York. I think Gourevitch is drinking with Paul Rudd at nine-dollar beer night, every night.

You can do well for under forty bucks (thirty bucks even). There’s another list that can be made. I assembled my own. These are some bourbons (and its buddies) that aren’t very expensive and hold their own both straight and on ice, as well as in cocktails.

1. Buffalo Trace
2. Four Roses
3. Wild Turkey
4. W.L. Weller, seven year
5. Evan Williams
6. Rittenhouse (rye)
7. Famous Grouse (scotch whisky)
8. Bulleit
9. Old Overholt (rye)
10. Rebel Yell

Make haste to your liquor store. We have 2011 and its political horrors and world upheavals to look forward to yet.

There are days when everything is just too complicated. The only thing you can do is dump out your coffee and go back to bed for an hour. I had one of these recently. On my way back to bed, I grabbed my copy of Pete Dexter’s Deadwood and a stack of cocktail books.

Dexter’s 1986 novel could almost be confused as a non-fiction account of Wild Bill Hickok and Charley Utter’s experience in Deadwood, South Dakota in the 1870s. For those familiar with David Milch’s Deadwood TV series, many of the real-life characters are here as well – Seth Bullock, Solomon Star, Al Swearengen, Calamity Jane, and E.B. Farnum – but the lens that they’re seen through is more Deadwood Historical Society than HBO. Nothing against HBO, of course. The series is, in my opinion, one of the finest television series ever made.

Both feature sex, guns, and drinking as characters themselves.

In Dexter’s book, the men of Deadwood spend their time at the saloons guzzling copious amounts of gin and bitters. Picture a hulking bounty hunter carrying a human head in his rucksack elbowing up to the bar. He then orders the first of many pink cocktails. Right there is Dexter’s vision of Deadwood saloon life.

Yes, there was also whiskey and beer, but gin and bitters was the new drinking fad for all of the miners and outlaws and cowboys of Deadwood. These were the years of the Gin Cocktail, which basically consisted of gin, bitters, and simple syrup (or gum syrup).

One notable cocktail that would have been available back when Wild Bill could sidle up to a bar in Deadwood was the Yellow Daisy. The Savoy Cocktail Book offers a recipe:

• 2 Glasses Gin.

• 2 Glasses French Vermouth.

• 1 Glass Grand Marnier.

• Before shaking add a dash of Absinthe.

The Yellow Daisy was invented by Richard William Clark (aka Deadwood Dick). It was his favorite drink. Savoy describes Clark as quite the raconteur. He was a “onetime Custer scout, Pony Express rider, Deadwood Gulch stage-coach guard, inspiration for all the (64) Deadwood Dick novels of E.L. Wheeler; friend of Wild Westerners, Wild Bill Hickok, Buffalo Bill, Poker Alice Tubbs, Calamity Jane, Madame Mustache and Diamond Dick Turner of Norfolk, Neb.”

(The above recipe is enough for six people, says Savoy. For a more in-depth look at the cocktail, The Science of Drink has shaken one up.)

Now, gin and bitters as a cocktail (or pink gin, as it is often known), originated in the 1820s in the United Kingdom. The English would add a dash of Angostura bitters to their gin, thus giving the gin a pink hue.

Bitters are the mainstay of the current cocktail renaissance. Bitters are concentrated herbs, spices, and botanicals that are infused into high-proof alcohol. Many of these recipes were originally used to create patent medicines.* Bitters are also digestives. Today they are mainly used to enhance the flavor of cocktails.

The exact recipe for the gin and bitters cocktail of Deadwood is nothing more than a few ounces of gin and a dash of bitters. But let’s break it down and see if the exact cocktail can be replicated today.

Harry Johnson’s 1882 guide to operating your own bar – Harry Johnson’s Bartenders Manual and Guide for Hotels and Restaurants – lists the principal bitters that every respectable bar owner should have on hand. These include: Boker’s, Hostetter’s, Orange Bitters, Boonecamp Bitters, Stoughton Bitters, Sherry Wine Bitters, East India Bitters, and Angostura.

So it is very likely that the bitters behind the bar – I’ve not forgotten that Deadwood is a work of fiction, by the way – were Angostura bitters.

These are also the bitters that are most commonly used in pink gin. As are Peychaud’s Bitters, which Charles H. Baker, Jr. lists as an essential bitter for “every bar shelf, be it ever so humble” in his book The Gentleman’s Companion. Baker also notes that a dash of bitters can be accurately measured out to be three drops. The dasher top on a modern bottle of bitters will give you a dash each time you turn it over.

But for the Deadwood variety, there was likely a heavier addition of bitters. So rather than a dash, just start shaking out bitters until you have the color you want.

The English commonly used Plymouth Gin for their gin and bitters cocktail. But what kind of gin would be used in a saloon in Deadwood?

As David Wondrich notes in Imbibe!, his history of the cocktail, unsweetened English gins were not available or even widely distributed in the states until the 1890s. So it’s unlikely they were guzzling Plymouth in Deadwood.

English gins like Old Tom and London Dry were commonly available, as was Hollands (also known as Genever), says Wondrich. Some Dutch brands of the time also included Meder’s Swan and Olive Tree. These were the gins that were most likely used by Jerry Thomas who wrote the first ever cocktail book – 1862′s The Bon Vivant’s Companion.

Hollands is, in fact, the gin Wondrich says Thomas was most likely referring to in his recipes. For the sake of this belabored and wandering argument, let’s say that Bill Hickok was a Hollands gin man. Hollands has a much more malty taste to it than the English variety.

So if you’re looking to drink like they maybe probably would have in Deadwood in the 1870s perhaps or thereabouts, dump a mess of Angostura bitters in all of that.

In part two of this series, I will try to replicate the whiskey that Gus and Call drank in Larry McMurtry’s masterpiece Lonesome Dove, which was published in 1986, the same year as Pete Dexter’s Deadwood. In part three, we’ll look at Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian from 1985 in order to replicate the apocalypse.

*In one of my favorite passages from Lonesome Dove, the Texas Rangers Gus and Call come upon an abandoned wagon. While searching it, Gus finds some patent medicines. Says one of the other rangers, “What do you think it will cure, Gus?” Gus responds, “Sobriety, if you guzzle enough of it. I expect it’s just whiskey and syrup.”