20. October 2011 by Dan.

Highballs are your “and” drinks.  Gin and tonic, scotch and soda, vodka and cranberry juice, and so on.  They’re usually served on ice in what is unsurprisingly called a highball glass.  Some places list a Bloody Mary or Long Island Ice Tea as a highball because that’s the glass they use, but those drinks are a bit complex to meet the definition.  You could serve a beer in one too, but that wouldn’t make it a highball.

One story goes that the highball is named for the ball in a steam locomotive that would rise to the top of a glass tube when the boiler pressure reached maximum, alerting the engineer that it was time to “let off steam.”  That’s an endearing theory, but I’ll bet someone drinking highballs made it up.

The phrase “ball of malt” is an old Irish reference to a small glass of whiskey, so using a taller glass and adding water to soften the blow could have led to the name highball.  This explanation maybe isn’t as romantic, but it’s more believable.

We’re in the fall shoulder season now, caught between summer madness and winter sports, but it’s a great time to visit if you enjoy outdoors peace and quiet.  We’ll hope to see you if you’re planning a trip to let off some steam of your own.

Your favorite bartender,

-Dan

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5. October 2011 by Dan.

My friend John Smith (pictured above) sent this story, and I thought I should pass it on:

In 1952, Armon M. Sweat, Jr., a member of the Texas House of Representatives, was asked about his position on whiskey. What follows is his exact answer, taken from the Political Archives of Texas.

“If you mean whiskey, the devil’s brew, the poison scourge, the bloody monster that defiles innocence, dethrones reason, destroys the home, creates misery and poverty, yea, literally takes the bread from the mouths of little children; if you mean that evil drink that topples Christian men and women from the pinnacles of righteous and gracious living into the bottomless pit of degradation, shame, despair, helplessness, and hopelessness, then, my friend, I am opposed to it with every fiber of my being.

However, if by whiskey you mean the lubricant of conversation, the philosophic juice, the elixir of life, the liquid that is consumed when good fellows get together, that puts a song in their hearts and the warm glow of contentment in their eyes; if you mean Christmas cheer, the stimulating sip that puts a little spring in the step of an elderly gentleman on a frosty morning; if you mean that drink that enables man to magnify his joy, and to forget life’s great tragedies and heartbreaks and sorrow; if you mean that drink the sale of which pours into Texas treasuries untold millions of dollars each year, that provides tender care for our little crippled children, our blind, our deaf, our dumb, our pitifully aged and infirm, to build the finest highways, hospitals, universities, and community colleges in this nation, then my friend, I am absolutely, unequivocally in favor of it.

This is my position, and as always, I refuse to compromise on matters of principle.”

Your favorite bartender,

-Dan

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