archival allure

Great drinks for your Friday Cocktail literary needs!

Imbibe on concoctions such as Oscar’s Wilde Thang (3 oz Vodka Citron, 1 oz Cointreau, 1 oz Fresh Lime juice, 2 oz Cranberry juice)!

Or others like:

Cormac McCarthy’s Bloody Meridian

Jack London’s Call of the Wild Turkey

or The Ernest Hemingway Special

kr

(Source: raincoaster)

The Broken Coil!!

Today’s drink is inspired by a mess that occurred last Friday in my library. Not your run-of-the-mill disaster, last week’s flooding situation involved bubblegum-pink liquid streaming down columns and sneaking through ceiling cracks (the way being paved many times over from previous leaks). It looked a little like this:

The HVAC unit in the room above had sprung a leak after a coil broke - and the floor was a sea of shocking pink antifreeze.


This situation obviously needed a cocktail to commemorate its bizarreness (besides the happy hour beer it immediately inspired).



Broken Coil

1.5 oz gin
.5 oz apple brandy
2 dashes of grenadine
2 dashes pink grapefruit juice
1 tbs lime juice

• Shake ingredients well and strain into a martini glass.
• Garnish with plastic sheeting. Not really

I thought about making this drink more sweet and potent for some gut-rot action that simulates what I imagined was happening to my skin as drops of antifreeze rolled off my arms. But an enjoyable cocktail sounded better.

Be prepared for any disaster with careful drink planning post-cleanup!!

*no books were harmed during the making of this drink, and only one was harmed during the disaster.

kr

The Sticky Shed

This week’s cocktail is named after the tragedy that happens to magnetic media: Sticky Shed Syndrome. When the binders in magnetic coating start to deteriorate, the coating separates or flakes from the plastic substrate. This is not good. One creative solution to this devastating sickness is called ‘baking’, where the tape is actually subjected to relatively high temperatures (not standard oven baking temps) in order to remove the moisture and temporarily repair the tape.

The Sticky Shed cocktail is a hot drink and uses Goldschlager for its flaky ingredients that remind me of sticky shed.

5 oz Apple Cider (or juice) heated
1 oz Goldschlager
To spike that, add 1 oz of Applejack (apple brandy)

- OR - for that brown magnetic tape color (sort of):

1 package of instant hot chocolate (prepared per instructions)
1 oz Goldschlager

This week’s post is also a shout-out to those at the Association of Recorded Sound Collections conference in New Orleans (which is too alcohol soaked to do a city-specific feature).

Disclaimer: I have never wanted to, nor intend to, drink Goldschlager. This drink is not kid-tested, mother-approved, but is animal-friendly (I hope). It is merely a conceptual interpretation of a preservation term. Friday Cocktails urges you to please drink responsibly (even if it means no Goldschlager).

kr

With so many of my nearest and dearest attending annual conference of the American Institute for Conservation in Milwaukee, WI, today’s post focuses on what made the city famous. BEER.

Unfortunately, most of these breweries have been bought and sold to other major brewing companies, so let’s just focus on the product (pretending that PBR actually exists physically).

A list of the main suds hailing from Milwaukee:

Old Milwaukee

Schlitz

Pabst Blue Ribbon

Blatz

Miller

Interesting factoids:

“Proximity to the large beer-consuming population of Chicago - and the easy and inexpensive lake transportation thereto - was always a boon to Milwaukee’s brewing industry. For example, the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 boosted sales of Milwaukee breweries enormously. Schlitz’s frequent shipments of beer to the devastated city earned it the slogan, “The Beer That Made Milwaukee Famous.” Schlitz enjoyed a 100 percent jump in sales immediately after the Chicago fire.”

from beerhistory.com

“The 1980s and 1990s saw a decline in the Pabst brand, and eventually, the company left behind its Chestnut Hill brewery complex on the northwest edge of downtown Milwaukee and relocated to San Antonio.”

from associatedcontent.com

For a bar snack, how about making your very own beer-battered cheese curds!! Delicious, I’ve made ‘em myself.

Recipe:

8 oz Beer
1 t Baking Powder
1 cup Flour
1 Egg
1 t Salt
Cheese curds (approximately 1 12 oz bag)
1. Whisk ingredients together

2. Dip cold or frozen cheese curds in batter mix and fry in deep fryer until golden brown

3. Drain on paper towels and Enjoy!

Maybe listening to bizarrely-titled Austin band What Made Milwaukee Famous while squeaking cheese curds and tossing back a brew will round out the experience.  Oh, with a Brewers game on mute.

MassD!  the OG of the PresD!

[mass deacidification - the original gangster of the preservation department]

This week I’ve been dealing with some shipments of books that were mass deacidified, a process that reduces the acidity of papers and books before they get brittle. My department shortens the name to Mass D. I think this sounds like a pretty awesome rapper name, and before I get my team gold necklaces with MassD in script, I thought I’d celebrate by creating a Friday Cocktail befitting of this Notorius V.S.P (Vendor-based Service in Preservation).

Courvousier, a cognac, is of course a favorite among today’s tough wordsmiths. Check out Busta Rhymes & P.Diddy enjoying the drink’s unique qualities.  Cristal is also mentioned in various songs. But these are slightly too pricey for a librarian’s salary.

So, for the MassD, it’s a simple Gin & Juice cocktail, with an alkaline twist - add selzer or ionized water

Gin +
Juice +
Alkaline mixer =
MassD

Combat the acidity of the fruit juice with selzer water or club soda. Those sodium bicarbonates are quite good at preventive preservation of your health.

If you want to get really crazy, try rimming the glass in bicarbonate salts.

Sip your MassD in Snoop Dog style, laid back. Include a pH pen to jot down some digits on cocktail napkins, should you get real lucky.

kr

This Friday Cocktail post is less about a specific drink and more about a lifestyle (even if just for one evening).

So - you just finished your first full week at a new job that has required lots of meetings, introductions, tours, training, and general stress. What do you want to do?

Copy Cataloging!!

That’s right, you check the OCLC (Occasionally Contributed to Liquor Cabinet) to see what’s there. Find the spirit (or beer, should the OCLC be based in the fridge) of choice and start to relax.

In order to avoid thinking too much and making decisions (unlike the rest of the week), you want one drink followed by exactly the same thing that evening. Enjoy the kick-off to the weekend with a little copy cataloging!

kr

This week features two drinks of very different natures - named after the bartending/drinks sections of the Dewey Decimal and Library of Congress subject headings.

641
A Campari-chamgpagne cocktail, in honor of my sister, who loves Campari and the Dewey decimal system. (As I am a fan of the LC, we’ve had many heated arguments over the inherent advantages of our preferred cataloging system. It can get ugly.)

I part Campari
4-5 parts chilled champagne
Lemon or orange twist

Run the citrus around the glass rim and then twist into drink and drop in (or perch on rim).


TX 951
To capitalize on the TX prefix in the call number, this drink is really just your basic Michelada, spiced up to your personal preference. Main ingredients: salt, citrus, and Mexican beer.

Lime wedge or juice (depending on how much you want)
12 oz Mexican beer
Course salt (for rim of glass)

snazzin’ it up:
for an simple added punch add-
1-2 oz tequila

for a spicy punch add -
2 dashes of Worcestershire sauce
Dash of Tabasco sause
Splash of soy sauce
Black pepper to taste
(or any combination of these)

Using a light beer (Pacifico, Sol) or a darker beer (Negro Modelo) can change the taste as well. Experiment!

Now enjoy.