Magnet #287 - Miller High Life's Girl in the MoonSo in 1933, the 21st Amendment was repealed, and today marks the day prohibition was officially lifted.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I'm more of a hard likker chick, my drink of choice being the ever-so-outdated Tom Collins with a splash of cranberry.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?
3 comments:
Ha! I was going to text you today about the fact that today is the 75th anniversary of the end of Prohibition, and see if you had a magnet to celebrate that fact. But of course you already knew!
I tried commenting on this post yesterday from my phone, but alas, Phone!Internet is not always Reliable!Internet. So we're trying again today...
I've never had a Tom Collins, but it definitely sounds like an interesting drink. I'm not a huge hard liquor fan, but if I'm going to have a mixed drink, it's got to be something with gin in it--they're the only ones I like.
I'm currently on the hunt for a new favorite, go-to drink. My previous one was a gin and tonic with a splash of lemon juice, but ever since my tonsilectomy in February I've disliked the taste of tonic water. (The doctor dropped my tongue while using the electrocautery unit to control bleeding at the back of my mouth... burned up some important taste buds, apparently, and some tastes just never came back quite right.)
So, I think next time I go out, I'm going to see if someone can find me Mr. Tom Collins!
Ok, owwww to the tonsilectomy AND the electrocautery unit. Poor thing!
Definitely see if you can find a bartender to make a Tom Collins - I hope it's good! But don't be getting into any bar fights, GG.
And, Erika, oddly enough, I only do the "this day in history" searches every so often, and sometimes I strike gold by having a matching magnet. Got lucky with Prohibition, I did.
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