As you can tell by the photo, my Great Grandfather Will Holder, was a sail maker. More than that, he was an innovator. He was the first to bring “sewing machines” into a sail loft.  

At the age of 95, my Great Grandfather Holder was asked his philosophy for life. His answer was simple:

“One time you’re down, another time you’re up and you’re down again and you come up again.”

What Will meant is that we need to accept the rhythms of life. Life is not a never ending ramp of continuing success. Life goes up and it goes down. It is these cycles that make life so wonderful over the long haul. The downs help us appreciate the ups that much more.  

Famous baseball player now General Manager, Derek Jeter, made a related comment recently:  

“I understand that players are going to struggle, and quite frankly I like to see players when they struggle because everyone’s going to do it. It’s just a matter of seeing how you’re going to bounce back.” 

So too – we are all living this cycle of ups and downs. We are living it both daily, weekly and monthly. There are even cycles within cycles. What I’m finding is the the important thing is to not get into a “funk” and fixate on the downs. We need to embrace both the ups and the downs as simply part of life.

The ups can be significant things in your personal and professional life. For me, they can be as simple as the beauty of the ducks on the lake in the morning, a phone call from a good friend or our amazing dog Lexi sharing her never ending love. 

My recipe this week is an EPIC UP… of an experience. It comes from the new Craft of the Cocktail by the amazing Dale Degroff. It’s called the RITZ COCKTAIL – as he writes – it’s his tribute to the Ritz cocktails of Paris and Madrid: 

Ingredients: 

• 1 ounce VSOP Cognac
• 1/2 ounce Cointreau
• 1/4 ounce Luxardo maraschino Liqueur
• 1/4 ounce fresh lemon juice
• 2 ounces Champagne
• Flamed orange zest coin for garnish (optional)

Directions: 

Shake the first four ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice. Strain into a cocktail glass and fill with the champagne. Garnish with the flamed orange zest coin. 

Cheers,

Doug 

This week on my morning jog around the Beach Bar Lake, I turned the corner, stopped and snapped this photo. The scene struck me. It offered a path. It offered hope to those who believe that tomorrow can and will be better than today. 

For reasons I don’t fully understand, it also reminded me of a quote from The Empire Strikes Back – after Yoda raises an x-wing from the Dagobah swamp:

LUKE:  I don’t believe it.          YODA: That is why you fail

LINK to Video Clip

As I jogged, I thought about how as we journey together in this upside down world, believing in better can be challenging.

The words believing in better connected me to a song  by Lennie Gallant, a legendary Singer / Songwriter from Prince Edward Island. I stopped and hit play on his song, Believing in Better, on the album of the same name (available on streaming services). It was the perfect connection to the image… as I jogged forward into the rising sunlight.  As he sings in the chorus:

Don’t let it go, don’t let it fade,
Believing in better when things get worse.

Here’s the song on Apple Music

My conclusion as I jogged listening to the title cut and others on the album (well worth listening to by the way), was that believing in better is a choice. 

We can choose to believe in better or chose to believe in worse.

I choose better 🙂

Dale Degroff’s Classic Cocktail Book was updated and published this week “The New Craft of the Cocktail.”

Dale is the definitive expert on cocktails and cocktail techniques.  What I also LOVE in this revised edition is he has highlighted cocktails from craft bartenders and those that he has created or optimized himself. They alone are worth the cost of the book.

My recipe this week is from the book – it’s one of the “craft” recipes – this one from David Thompson of the Capital Hotel in London who won first prize with this drink in the first annual London Absolute Vodka Cocktail Contest.

It’s called ABSOLUTELY BANANAS – and it gets a big thumbs up from my wife

Add the following ingredients to a shaker:

• 1 1/2 ounces of Vodka
• 12 ounces of Creme de Banana Liqueur
• 1 1/2 ounces of Pineapple Juice. 

As dale explains, shake very hard to a slow ten count – a layer of foam from the pineapple juice will float on top of the drink and make a great presentation.  

Cheers,

Doug

I find that fall and spring are both filled with hope and opportunity. Part of this comes from being born and brought up in Maine, New Hampshire and Prince Edward Island.  

Both spring and fall are times for rebirth. Both engage a ritual of putting away one set of clothes and pulling the next season’s clothes from the back of the closet.

With the crazed world of today, rebirth is something we all need more of. We need to restart and disengage from the political and covid “noise” that can consume us. 

Spring has the growth of sunlight hours, the return of birds, plants and warmth. Fall has the  mist over the lake each morning as the heat of the water releases – as you can see in the photo from the Beach Bar. Fall also has the harvest, the anticipation of the holiday season, the restart of school and work.  

This week, as the heat broke, the hummingbirds left to go south and a fleece was needed for my jog around the lake. I experienced a rebirth of energy as everywhere I looked there were fresh ideas coming to life.

Working with my long time friend, Renee Strom, a totally new type of visual event was created – a Jump Start Your Brain – THINKING ADVENTURE. It embraced the benefits of ZOOM and created a level of energy and engagement that I haven’t seen in six months of digital events.  Actually, it was the second amazing event – the other was a Raptor Zoomie held by the University of Minnesota Raptor Center.

A call with Maggie Nichols sparked excitement as she outlined fresh Eureka! Ranch offerings that are wicked cool.

The amazing Brain Brew Custom Whiskey team blew my mind this week with very creative covid safe live experiences and wow upgrades to our products and operations methods. 

I STRONGLY RECOMMEND – that you embrace REBIRTH right now. When you embrace the Fall as an opportunity to change what you’re doing and how you’re working / living – a spark of energy will grow within you!  

What are you waiting for – Get Up! Get Out! Do Something Different!    

My “recipe” recommendation this week is a book that everyone needs to read. 

Ruhlman’s Twenty: 20 Techniques 100 Recipes A Cook’s Manifesto.     

It’s the best cookbook I’ve ever read! (Sorry Julia Child and Francis Mallmann)

It will also set you on your way to a REBIRTH of your cooking this Fall.  And with your cooking restarted – more of your life will restart as well. 

Ruhlman’s Twenty is a totally different type of cookbook. It will shake up how you think about cooking. Like many during Covid, I’ve gone through cooking phases – bread phase – gourmet phase – grilling phase. This book has opened my mind to a totally new way of thinking about how I cook. 

I knew it was a SPECIAL BOOK when I opened it and found that technique number one is THINK.

Special thanks to Phillip Kurtz, Director of R&D at Brain Brew & Master Chef, for the recommendation of Ruhlman’s book!   

Enjoy!

Doug

Talk around the Beach Bar over the past week has been about the anger inherent in tribalism across today’s world.  

When we are THANKFUL we embrace the good in the world. 

When we are ANGRY we digest the bad in the world.   

Expressing anger makes us feel good in the moment – as our ego is stroked and we feel a sense of belonging to our tribe. However, the good feelings are shallow and destructive.

Thankfulness provides a lasting warmth to our body, mind and soul. It creates a two way connection. When we express gratitude to others, their reaction mirrors positive feelings towards us. 

This idea of thankfulness sparked memories of my dear friend Scott MacAuley – who passed away 12 years ago – his funeral was September 15, 2008. Scott was the visionary who helped create the College of Piping and Celtic Performing Arts of Canada on Prince Edward Island.   

Scott had always been thankful for life. He was always filled with joy. This natural spirit grew as his life was coming to an end.   

He was thankful to people – but also was thankful of the beauty of the sound of the waves on the ocean, thankful of a unique building design and thankful of the special tang in a cocktail sauce that we had on fresh Malpeque oysters in the kitchen of my farmhouse on the island.  

If Scott was with us today he would be embracing the good.  

I encourage you to embrace thankfulness – just as Scott did. It could well be the antidote to the tribalism around us.  

In memory of Scott who is buried in Dalmore, Isle of Lewis, Scotland, I created a riff on a Rusty Nail. The classic Rusty Nail was a drink of the “Rat Pack” in the 1960s. It uses Drambuie, a liquor from the Isle of Skye in Scotland. Legend has it, the recipe was from Bonnie Prince Charlie in 1746. 

I call it a GREAT SCOTT… as SCOTT was a great human.  And a Great SCOT as well 🙂

GREAT SCOTT

Build over ice & stir:

1 1/2 oz of Tall Stacks – Smoked Bourbon

1/2 oz of Drambuie

Big Splash of Ginger-Ale

A recent quote by chef Jacques Pepin on cooking is great advice on LIVING and INNOVATING, especially in a Covid world:

“Cooking / LIVING / INNOVATING is the art of adjustment.  It is not always about following the recipe.  

The recipe is a guide but also a restraint. When you cook / LIVE / INNOVATE, you cannot just follow the recipe, you have to adjust to the product / SITUATION that is in front of you.  

The pears / ENVIRONMENT might be more or less ripe, more or less juicy, more or less sweet.  Your use of the recipe needs to be adjusted to accommodate the differences.“ – chef Jacques Pepin and the “ / BOLD FACE” are my additions

It’s a shift of mindset to see real time adjustments as part of life – instead of as a frustration. 

It’s a shift of mindset to see adaptations as continuous innovation – instead of as an annoyance

It’s a shift of mindset to see new ideas as a means for working smarter – instead of as a disruption

Special thanks to my dear friend Suzy DeYoung, founder and leader of La Soupe who shared the quote from the famous chef Jacques Pepin on Facebook. 

2 – 1 – 1 COCKTAIL Experience

This week I’m going to give you a “Cocktail Recipe” that is flexible – it is your task to make it great. Your starting point is the basic cocktail ratio:  2 – 1 -1 

This means – 2 STRONG – 1 SWEET – 1 SOUR

• 2 oz of STRONG (Whiskey, Rum, Vodka, etc)

• 1 oz of SWEET (Simple syrup, Honey Water (50/50 blend), Triple Sec Liquor etc.)

• 1 oz of SOUR (Lemon Juice, etc.)

If you do it with Whiskey, Simple Syrup and Lemon Juice, you have a Whiskey Sour. If you do it with Tequila, Triple Sec and Lime Juice, you have a margarita. If you do it with Vodka, Chambord and Pineapple Juice, you have a French martini.

However, this is the starting point.

• If your fruit is sweet, you might turn down the sweetness you add. 
• If your spirit has a high alcohol level you might use 1.5 ounces instead of 2 ounces.

AND – next up, you can add some herbs, bitters, sparkling water, soda to give your cocktail a unique twist.

Enjoy,

Doug

P.S. Congratulations to the Brain Brew team on Paddle Wheel winning a 95 Rating  (“EXTRAORDINARY – HIGHEST RECOMMENDATION”)

Lexi feels it’s the BEST of TIMES!

Around the campfire recently, we talked about how happy our dog Lexi is with Covid-19.  She gets more walks and gets to hang out with us all day.

The conversation reminded me of the famous Charles Dickens quote:

“It was the BEST of times, it was the WORST of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way.” – Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

What Dickens is suggesting is that it is our mindset that determines if it is the best or worst of times.  Consider…

Yes we can feel it is the WORST of times:

• Feeling alone and or isolated
• Stress eating
• Eating when bored
• Hard to stay active

Then again, we can also feel it is the BEST of times:

• Having extra time to destress
• Fewer barriers to eating slower and savoring the experience
• Easier to find the time to get more sleep
• Able to cook and eat healthy versus eating high calorie meals out

This week I’m focusing on it being the BEST of times by celebrating the good and the amazing Lexi. 

NOTE:  I’m partial to Charles Dickens – his writing, his challenges, his entrepreneurship.  He also visited Cincinnati and even stayed at the house of famous whiskey maker Edmund Dexter (our Old Dexter brand is named after Edmund). A Tale of Two cities was published in 1859 – just three years before Jerry Thomas published America’s first Cocktail Book. 

To celebrate Edmund Dexter and to bring some joy to your world, here’s a a fun twist on the Tiki Bar classic the Painkiller using Old Dexter Easy Drinking Whiskey. 

Painkiller

2 oz Old Dexter Whiskey

2 oz Pineapple Juice

1 oz Orange Juice

1 oz Coconut Cream (we prefer the Coco REAL brand)

Shake all ingredients with ice cubes then strain into a glass. Sprinkle some nutmeg on top before serving.

Cheers,

Doug