Since when do you drink beer?

Magnet #1239 - Sip Happens

Something's up when someone you've only known since March asks that question.

The answer being, any time I can't trust a bartender to make my signature Tom Collins/splash of cran right, and they don't have any cider available as backup.

You just know it's not worth it when you're in a dive bar and you see that blank look when you ask for this old man's drink, that look of, hang on, I have to look up this cocktail before I make it for you.

And, if it's not a wine place (dive bars usually aren't, but also wine's actually my last resort), then beer's your best bet.

But you know what? Sometimes? You just need a beer.

And then? Sometimes? You just need a professional Twitter account the morning after.

Have you seen Tom Collins?

Magnet #287 - Miller High Life's Girl in the Moon

So in 1933, the 21st Amendment was repealed, and today marks the day prohibition was officially lifted. And the next day, sales for headache powders went up.

My sister got this for me up in Milwaukee, WI, I believe after having taken the tour of the Miller Brewing Company. I gotta say that I don't think I've ever had a Miller High Life, but then, I'm not much of a beer-drinking gal.

I'm more of a hard likker chick, my drink of choice being the ever-so-outdated Tom Collins with a splash of cranberry. No, seriously. It's been my signature drink since my freshman year of college. No real reason why.

If the bartender knows his stuff, he knows that it's simply gin with soda water, lemon juice and sugar syrup, and then the splash of cran. If they look at me with a blank look, I know I'm in for long night of subpar drinking. In fact, that's always why I add the splash of cran, because it will generally mask how bad the bartender made the first drink. Which then gives me time to drink it, and then decide whether to switch drinks midstream.

There are a few really great places to get a Tom Collins in town - One Manhattan, down in the meat-packing district, or even upstairs on the rooftop bar, Plunge, at the Hotel Gansevoort around the corner. But, the last, best one that I had was at this bar, ironically called Prohibition on the Upper West Side.

It's the one that Thorsten Kaye from All My Children just loves to plug - and why wouldn't he, it's owned by one of his BFFs who happens to be married IRL to TK's onscreen love, Alicia Minshew. Of course, my cynical side is still trying to figure out if TK really does like their fish tacos there, or if he's just trying to get all the women from Tri-State area and beyond to come visit Pro, in hopes of seeing him at the bar. I'm not gonna lie, that gambit's worked, for me and several of my friends.

Speaking of gambits...so, until I started writing this post, I never knew the story behind Tom Collins. But here's funny, according to the wiki, apparently, back in the 1870s, someone would be in a bar, and ask people if they'd seen Tom Collins. At least one person would say umm, no, and the first person would rile him up saying "well, he was in here talking about you," and then that other person would get ticked off and go running after Tom Collins to beat him up.

Hahahaha - I'm sure that gag was much funnier in the 1870s. Nowadays, it's likely to start a bar fight. Hey, maybe that's what happened to Plaxico?