AlleyArt: Stars by Laura Robert

Laura Robert's art installation in Felicia's Alley this year is designed to dance with the Alley lights, resulting in whimsical, dangling "stars." Like many of Laura's creations, the hanging art is crafted from found trash/treasures, usually from the beaches of Cape Cod.

This is Laura's third show at Felicia's (her first and second shows are also described on our blog with accompanying photos), and by far the one that is most intimately connected to the atmosphere in the Alley. The show will run through September 27.

Join us for a closing reception on September 27 from 5pm-6:30pm, and take some "stars" home with you.

Felicia's Atomic Lounge hosts outdoor sustainable alley art shows in the warm months, featuring a different artist every month. Artwork made with a minimum of 50% recycled/reused/repurposed materials is preferred. Proposal guidelines can be found here:

http://feliciaspeakeasy.blogspot.com/2009/06/felicias-alley.html

Beer Mimosa

Maybe I'm too lazy, or maybe I'm too busy, but whatever the reason, I simply haven't jumped on the beer cocktail bandwagon yet. Leah's definitely had her hands full with incoming produce from our awesome farmer: scapes, black caps, and soon, plums.

Those black cap (black raspberry) cocktails are CRACK. We've gotten a lot of people completely addicted to them, and now they want, want, want and we sell, sell, sell. Stop by the Lounge this week for a fix.

But back to beer. Typically, I'm a purist. I like my gin on the rocks with no mixer, my wine in a glass with no spritzer, and my whiskey swigged straight out of the bottle. Beer is no exception. So when Frederic at Cocktail Virgin (Slut) announced that this month's Mixology Monday theme is beer cocktails, I knew I had some work to do.

Or not. Because the day before I read Frederic's post, I actually made a beer cocktail. It wasn't on purpose. I was just too lazy, I mean, busy, to go out and buy champagne when I had a craving for a mimosa. I opened the fridge, and next to the orange juice was a can of PBR, beckoning me to take a risk.

Ice cold PBR and orange juice. Weird, or genius? It worked for me. The recipe is complicated. so pay attention:

PBR Mimosa, aka The Lazy Girl

PBR

orange juice

champagne flute

Open the can of PBR. Take a swig from the can. Fill your champagne flute halfway with PBR. Chug some more beer from the can. Add orange juice to the PBR in a champagne flute, take a sip, and proclaim loudly, "This is the shit! It tastes just like a mimosa. Who needs champagne?"

Local Notes

Hey! I forgot to tell you that about the cute little pictorial-cartoon review we got in the Cornell Daily Sun in March. A talented gal named Maggie Prendergast draws a weekly column (that's right, she draws the column) about local food joints.

You can see the Felicia's review/cartoon from March 31 here: http://fromthedeskdrawer.blogspot.com/

Bitter About Flowers

Welcome to Mixology Monday! Okay, you caught me. Today is actually Tuesday. I waited until the eleventh hour to write my post, and then company showed up and we drank a bottle of 2009 Cotes Du Rhone instead. As a result, my writing skills rapidly deteriorated into giggles and yawns. Hazelnut coffee in hand, I begin my belated post a day late and a bottle of wine lighter.

Hosted by Dave at The Barman Cometh, this month's Mxmo topic is floral cocktails. Rhubarb is NOT a flower, so despite the fact that I just picked fifteen pounds of it and will start shaking up Rhubarb Martinis at the Lounge tonight, rhubarb is not what I am going to write about.

I am also not going to write about violets, though I spent an hour picking them yesterday. They are destined to become violet syrup, and eventually a blueish cocktail of some sort.

And I'm not writing about the exploding purple lilacs in my yard. Stunning and tasty as they are, for now I'm simply going to snort them, and maybe float a few in a drink as garnish.

Instead, the topic of my post is lavender bitters. Leah started making her own bitters a few summers ago: orange bitters, coffee bitters, lavender bitters and soon: rhubarb bitters. Usually I don't like lavender in my beverages because I feel like I'm drinking massage oil or lotion, but the lavender scent dances gracefully with the already floral essence of gin, turning an everyday drink into a culinary delicacy.

When it comes to the commercial stuff, I'm bitter about bitters: There is absolutely no reason to include the artificial and potentially harmful caramel color (Peychaud's, Fee Brothers, Angostura), Red #40 (Peychaud's, Fee Brothers), or Yellow #6 (Fee Brothers). And bitters that are chemically produced in a factory down the street from you are NOT "locavore." You drive me crazy when you buy a bottle of mass-produced bitters from the Super Walmart and proclaim them "locavore." You want locavore? I'll give you locavore upside your head. Bring it on.

As soon as we mow the lawn, plant mint, stack the wood, fix the windows, replace the ice machine, build new porch benches, install stair lighting, repair the brick steps, and clean out the gutters, we're going to start bottling our own bitters. Get ready: we're bitter and we can make it better.

In the meantime, you can dream about this lavender gin and tonic, but if you want to taste it, you'll have to come to Felicia's:

Lavender Gin and Tonic

1.5 ounces gin

2 dashes of lavender bitters

tonic

Fill a rocks glass with ice. Add gin and bitters. Top with tonic. I know, you don't have our lavender bitters - yet. Bookmark this page, drop by to stack some wood, and give us a few months.

Save the date! Rapture Party 5/21/11 from 6pm-close at Felicia's Atomic Lounge. I'll be live twittering the rapture, too. Follow me on twitter at @ameliasauter

Wood Pairing

Dear Felicia,

I know spring is filled with all kinds of great stuff like planting herbs and watching flowers bloom, but I just got a shit-ton of firewood delivered (shit-ton [shit tuhn] - noun 1: five cords; 2: 4ft by 8 ft by 20 ft pile of wood). I'd like to know what alcohol you recommend pairing with this task.

Signed,

I Want to be Stacked

Dear Stacked,

You are definitely going to want a drink for this job. Think wood. A high-end bourbon, a smoky scotch, a nicely-oaked chardonnay, or a tannic cabernet saugivnon. Or go rugged and do a couple of shots of Jim Beam; that's one of my work boot favorites. Beer also pairs well with wood. There are some great scotch ales on the market, like Oksar Blues Old Chub. If it's raining, consider a boilermaker.

You're going to need all the help you can get.

Love,

Felicia

Mixology Monday: Tomato Zinger

I am so excited that it is Spring. Please reassure me it's not going to snow again so I don't impulsively buy a plane ticket to Cancun where I can suck in tropical sun and tropical cocktails until I explode into a million droplets of warm joy.

Because Felicia's likes to use raw materials in our cocktails, Spring is a critical time of year for us and for our favorite farmers at Tree Gate Farm. This weekend, I cut back the mint and oregano, and planted a bunch of rhubarb roots to meet your unquenchable demand for Rhubarb Martinis. We transformed over 20 lbs of rhubarb from Tree Gate into martinis last May! I'm feeling piggish as I reminisce, and must confess to you that I found a pound of last summer's rhubarb in the freezer yesterday and cooked it with some sugar, then proceeded to eat it all right out of the pot. Forgive me. I'm sorry I didn't share. (Okay, I'm not sorry. If I found another pound right now, I still wouldn't share it. Seriously, Rhubarb and I are monogamous.)

As we dive face-first into Spring, Mixology Monday this month is hosted by Spirited Remix. Chris asked everyone to post about their all-time most amazing cocktail creation, and later this week he will put all of those cocktails on his website so head over there to check it out.

I'll be honest with you, I'm not a great cocktail maker. When it comes to our fresh philosophy, Leah is the one who you'll find in the kitchen making something unusual with coriander syrup or cucumbers or whole vanilla beans or fresh horseradish or wild ramps or lovage from a neighbor's garden. I'm more tame in the cocktail creativity category, and content to be her taste-tester.

But a couple of summers ago, I actually created one drink that I fell truly, madly, and drunkenly in love with: the Tomato Zinger. Since it requires fresh-picked cherry tomatoes, I tend to forget about it in the winter. Last week, however, Leah and I taught a cocktail class at Tompkins Cortland Community College and played a version of Chopped that we called Shaken. We asked the students to create cocktails using three required ingredients: cherry tomatoes, rosemary, and limes. All the resulting drinks were delicious, but I was left pining for summer and for another hot affair with the Tomato Zinger.

Don't tell Rhubarb I'm cheating on her.

Felicia's Tomato Zinger

5 small Sweet 100 cherry tomatoes
pinch of sea salt
1/2 ounce lemon juice
1/2 ounce honey syrup (equal parts honey and water)
1 3/4 ounces gin

Muddle four cherry tomatoes, sea salt, honey syrup and lemon juice. Add gin and shake with ice. Strain into a chilled martini glass and garnish with the remaining cherry tomato.

Craft Cocktails

When I hear 'craft,' I think feathers. Beads. Pipe cleaners. Felt. Sock puppets. What the hell is a craft cocktail?

The adjective 'craft' does, in fact, refer to cocktails that are handmade, though not with a glue gun. In 2006, a smart bartender guy named Camper English made a list of some of the elements that he believed earned a drink the title 'craft cocktail' in San Francisco:

• fresh juices
• muddled fresh ingredients
• seasonality
• cocktail-food pairing
• fancy shmancy mixers instead of el cheapo soda guns
• infusions
• homemade ingredients, like syrups or bitters
  
• an actual drink menu

If the craft cocktail is vintage or classic, it's extra cool. If it has a good name, like the Horny Ninjarita, it's extra-extra cool. If it contains bacon, it's extra-extra-extra cool.

Beware. Like hipster fashion choices, some of those craft cocktails are overrated. Many of them can't be created at home unless you quit your day (night) job, invest in weird ingredients, build a complicated home bar, and install a commercial kitchen.

And seriously: Have you actually tasted a drink with bacon and liked it? Or even more telling, liked it enough to have seconds? The idea is fun, but in reality, not so good. Just like hipster eyeware and men with skinny jeans: Those giant eyeglass frames and teeny pants that sag in the manbutt might be interesting style concepts, but they both look pretty comical when you put them on. In twenty years, your kids will be laughing at you, not with you.

Fresh is good; handmade is awesome. Sock puppets rule. But don't go overboard. Glue guns can be addictive, and your craft obsession can quickly grow out of control and take over your life. STAY AWAY FROM PLASTIC FLOWERS. And never get so snobby about your drinks that you can't enjoy a Natural Light beer when your neighbor offers you an ice cold can.

Happy New Year: Beets and Drinks and Drunks

A new floor for a new year

My mom sent me an email last week to let me know Felicia's made Rochester's daily paper again. The topic this time was drinks without alcohol.

This is a hard one for me. I find it's not possible to re-create the flavor of bourbon or gin without, well, bourbon or gin. If I'm not imbibing alcohol, I go for simplicity. Give me some plain seltzer water and I'll be happy. Leah bought me a home soda machine for Christmas and I shrieked like a little kid when I opened it. A box full of happy for only $99.

When the writer for the newspaper contacted us, Leah and I suggested substituting sparkling cider or sparkling grape juice for champagne in mimosas or mimosa-like drinks. The writer was drawn to our spiced beet bubbly, and said:

This recipe came to us by way of Amelia Sauter of Felicia's Atomic Lounge in Ithaca, where seasonal, locally grown ingredients are on the bar with the booze. In winter, that means Finger Lakes beets. Even if you are a fan of beets (which Sauter was not before her cocktail chef Leah Houghtaling changed her mind with this concoction), roasting them and then making a simple syrup with them is a lot of work. Double or triple the syrup recipe and save some for later. It will stay fresh in the refrigerator for at least a week.

I love how Leah is called "my" cocktail chef. I'm a lucky girl, aren't I? I own a cocktail chef AND a soda machine. Truth be told, Leah is the creative force behind Felicia's and I am her devoted pawn who also happens to answer all emails and media requests. But the best part is that I get to taste-test all of her concoctions. It's also true that until the spiced beet bubbly, the only beets I ever loved were the ones specially prepared by my mother.

Here's a link to the full article on non-alcoholic bevvies in the Democrat and Chronicle:

http://www.democratandchronicle.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=201012280304

Happy new year and don't drink and drive like this passerby who flipped his car outside the Lounge on New Years Eve:


And to answer both of your questions:
1) No one was hurt.
2) Nobody, including the driver, seems to be able to satisfactorily explain how exactly he ended up upside down in the middle of the street.