Wine tasting in the Yarra Valley

After Melbourne meetings, a swim and steam bath, dinner with Rod Eddington and a good night's sleep, I got up on Saturday, 13 May to take a tour of the Yarra Valley with Victoria Wine Tours. It was a splendid day and there were six of us in the van. Two guys out to drink, three women out to celebrate one of their birthdays and me to look for Yarra Edge, a single vineyard Cabernet Merlot I had had at Vlados on Thursday evening.

I found the wine at Yering Station where the group shot was taken around 4 pm. I bought two bottles to take back to Tokyo.

Dinner at Vlados

Well, it was a classic night at Vlados, the best steak house on the planet I reckon. Donald and I met up with his step son in law who was also in Melbourne on business. Here they are on the way down the stairs pointing out the poor cow. I was over at the Long Room on Collins Street wrestling with Bullwinkle.

Sydney

I have been in Australia for the past couple days. From my room in the Marriot I could see the Opera House. The morning light was nice, but the window was dirty. Maybe that helped this shot.

Drinks recipies from 1982

In 1982 Esquire magazine published a guide to bars in America. I took it out of the magazine because I had been a frequent visitor to the US recruiting teachers for Time-Life Educational Systems’ Japan instructional services. I would spend two weeks traveling across the US from the West Coast to New York interviewing teachers who had sent in their applications, transcripts, letters of recommendation and indicated they really did want to pay their own way to Japan and work for a pittance!

I would set myself up in a nice hotel in the middle of San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, D.C., New York, Boston, and schedule the appointments on the hour from 9 am to the early evening. Then I would go to dinner with friends living in those ciites, or just wander out to areas where there were plenty of bars and restaurants to choose from. So I thought this bar guide might come in handy. In fact I have not traveled in the US like that since joining Grieveson Grant and continuing working with the Brits at James Capel, HSBC and now FTSE.

This week I took the drinks folder out of the cupboard in Izu and opened up a few pages of various documents in it. Besides the wine temperature guide I will send to fellow Izuvian Roger Marshall, I thought it would be good to liberate some of the drink recipies in the Esquire guide. Here are some. If you want more, let me know. They are classified by city, so you can ask me for bars and cocktails for the following cities.

Atlanta
Baltimore
Boston
Chicago
Cincinnati
Cleveland
Dallas/Fort Worth
Denver
Houston
Las Vegas
Los Angeles
Miami
Minneapolis/St. Paul
New Orleans
New York
Philadelphia
St. Louis
San Diego
San Francisco
Seattle
Washington, D.C.

China Club Punch
1 oz. Light rum
1/4 oz. Dark rum
1/2 oz. Tequila
1/2 oz. Apricot brandy
5 drops Galiano
5 oz. Pineapple juice
1/4 oz. Grenadine
Squeezes of lime
- Mix, pour over ice and add an orange slice

The Fan Club’s Ice Tea
Fill a tall glass with ice cubes and add one ounce each of light rum, gin, vodka, and tequila. Add a dash of Triple Sec, a splash of sour mix, and shake. Fill the glass to the top with cola and garnish with a lemon.

Busy Bee
Add two ounces of brandy to one ounce of Galliano. Stir, don’t shake. Serve over ice.

Root Beer Float
Pour into a blender one shot of Kahlua, one sixteenth of an ounce of Galliano, and three ounces of cola. Add three ounces of vanilla ice cream and blend.

Cold Duck
One part Burgundy and two parts Champagne.

Cayman Island Rum Punch
Mix a pint of dark rum, a pint of 151-proof rum and three cups of light rum. Add enough of the following mixture to make three and a half gallons+ one part each of pomegranate, mango, and orange juice and a half part each of pineapple, pineapple-coconut and grapefruit juice. Serve from a jet-spray machine like the ones lemonade is often made in.

Butchie’s Special from the Dan Lynch on 2nd Avenue
Mix about a half shot each of vodka, Kahlua, dark crème de cacao, white crème de menthe, and Amaretto. Add milk or cream and shake well. Serve over cracked ice or straight up. Garnish with a cherry.

The Borgia Café’s Prussian Princess
In a shaker, mix an ounce of apricot brandy with an ounce of Harvey’s Bristol Crème (or dry sherry if you want it dry) and two ounces of gin. Shake and serve over ice.

There were many more, mostly standard cocktails with the bar or bartender’s name on them. Ha! Can’t fool me.

Let me know how these turn out.

PS. The picture at the top has nothing to do with drinks, the US or me. I'll replace it when I have a decent cocktail photo.