Jenn Sharon
Are you like me? Do you live on the Kensington/Fishtown border and often wonder where to drink? Which bar has the best prices, vibe or service? I’m here to tell you what’s the what what. First up– Frankford Ave. (more…)
Posts Tagged ‘Drinking’
It was a Dark and Stormy
Thursday, July 1st, 2010
This is all it takes
I decided that this summer was going to be The Summer of Rum. This was based on the fact that nearly everyone I know claims to dislike the spirit. But why? Who doesn’t love a refreshing mojito in the summer? A solid, classic daiquiri was the go to drink of Hemingway, and my partner’s favorite drink at Cuban places. How did rum get such a bum rap? Probably because most folks are introduced to rum via rum and Cokes. Sticky sweet and prone to being over consumed, it’s the first and last rum drink for many and leads to the negative associations. So I decided 2010 would be The Summer of Rum and I would attempt to fall in love with the much maligned liquor. Having no interest in revisiting the bad stopping off point, or in investigating the mojito I know so well, I asked the resident cocktail expert (Jenn) to recommend a rum-based drink. She had an answer immediately: The Dark and Stormy. (more…)
I know where your servers drink
Thursday, March 18th, 2010It’s no secret that ¬†I can’t even begin to pay the bills by working at a gallery. And as this is not a monetized blog, I do childcare to make ends meet. This means I work a lot of hours, and often consecutively at multiple jobs. Meaning, I might sit in the morning, work the gallery till the evening, then go to another family while the parents go out at night. One such Thursday evening I came home at around 10:30 (early night) feeling murderous. My partner wisely thought we should go out rather than cook in, and given my love of Mexican food and the lateness of the hour, we opted for Xochitl. (more…)
Sly Fox Keep the Glass
Wednesday, March 10th, 2010
Tonight it the Sly Fox U Buy The Glass Night at the Abbaye. A supremely affordable $10 will buy you a keepsake pint glass as well as free refills from 7-9 P.M. Featured Sly Fox beers include the Abbey Xtra, Dry Stout, and the Seamus Red Ale, which I recently sampled and thoroughly enjoyed. Who am I kidding? I love almost everything that Sly Fox brews. I’m totally biased. In addition to hanging out and drinking, U Keep the Glass Night also offers the chance to win a whole bunch of swag from the featured brewery. Then you can have a sensible late dinner while you keep drinking. Good times.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010, 7-9 P.M.
The Abbaye 637 N. 3rd St.
At Home with Jenn : Homemade Syrups
Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010Jenn Sharon
The art of mixology to me is about three things:
1) Creativity. The creative process in cocktail making is key. You’ve got to be willing to try a few bad experimental drinks before you land on a great one. Start with a foundation spirit (let’s say gin), and build from there. Ask questions of your perfect cocktailРwhat flavors to YOU think compliment gin? What flavors do YOU like in general? Do you want gin to be the pronounced flavor in your drink? If not, what do you want the pronounced flavor to be?
2) Ingredients. These can include juices, bitters, fruits, syrups and even spices, but of course your main ingredient in the cocktail is alcohol. Having several different ingredients on hand makes experimenting with cocktails fun.
3) Accuracy. A heavy hand may be awesome at a house party, but it can ruin a drink. I’m not saying your drink must be to the exact milliliter of the recipe, just to be mindful of your measurements.
Today I‚Äôm going to talk about ingredients. Well, one kind of ingredient‚Äîsyrups. It is pretty often when I‚Äôm writing for Art in Bars that I‚Äôll want to include a syrup I‚Äôve made but then I have to tell myself ‚ÄúJenn, you are the only person that has a ginger pineapple syrup, so you can not put it in the recipe.‚Äù So, I am going to teach you readers how to make simple flavored syrup. (more…)
At home with Jenn – Fake-Out!
Tuesday, February 16th, 2010Jenn Sharon
Brrrrr!! Winter is here for real. Snow is on the ground, coats and boots are by the front door and winter’s icy hold has turned our thoughts to the playful blooming days of spring.
Oh and of course our cocktails are hot! Spiked hot chocolates and rum covered teas dominate our winter palettes.
But what if the heat in your apartment is on, and you are settled in for the night or maybe you just don’t feel like a warmed libation? Just take everything you were going to put in your hot drink and make it classic and cool. For instance the Fake-Out!:
You’ll need—apple juice, cloves, lemon juice, powdered cinnamon, whiskey, brandy, allspice and honey.
The Fakeout
In a cocktail shaker add:
2oz brandy
1oz whiskey
3oz apple juice
Splash of lemon juice
_ ounce honey
3 or 4 whole cloves
1 or 2 crushed allspice
Pinch of powdered cinnamon
Shake it up and pour it out. All the tasty qualities you’d find in a warmed apple cider, without the heat. The brandy is spicy itself so that helps to bring out the other spices, and the lemon juice and honey help to meld all of the different tastes together.
I think you’ll find this drink to be a delicious manipulation on the traditional drink. Plus your tea kettle will get a night off! Garnish with a cinnamon rim or a slice of apple. Stay bubbly Philadelphia!
An Ode to Beer
Tuesday, February 9th, 2010By Jenn Sharon
Ok readers. I like beer now. Before this fall I wasn’t really into beer for two reasons:
1) When I was a young lass first learning how and what to drink, I didn’t slam brews with the cool kids. I drank whiskey or bourbon. Usually just on the rocks. I somehow knew even then that whiskey would give me more hollers for my dollar. And at 21, I didn’t have a lot of dollars. Maybe it was the inner geek in me, but a $4 beer at 4.6% ABV and at 16 oz versus $6 of Jack Daniels at 40% ABV and at around five or six ounces would equal out to be about 15% ABV for me. In other words, I would have had to drink 3 lagers to equal the same amount of a buzz, and that wasn’t good for my wallet! Because of this I believe I just didn’t get into beer.
2) Just like with wine I feel there is a good amount of snobbery associated with beer. Looking at it, swirling it around, smelling it and talking about it in the context of regions and countries; going to bars with 10 page beer lists and so on. Very much the opposite of the working class coming home from work and grabbing a cold one perception I’ve carried with me all of these years. I mean, can you imagine the Roseanne character Dan Conner trying to order a beer from say, the Abbaye?
Beer, Something Jenn now likes
But then a funny thing happened at a wedding I attended last fall. The bar was wine and beer only; red and white wine and 3 different kinds of beers. Since it was too hot for wine I chose the beer available with the highest alcohol content. That beer was Lancaster Milk Stout and from the first couple of sips I fell in love. I thought that this beer had been brewed for me and me alone. Not hoppy, dark and creamy with a rich, sweet taste. I loved it so much that after congratulating the bride I started asking where she found the beer and where I could get it (Sorry Calen!)
After that I was on a mission to find and drink anything that called itself a milk stout and that broke off into cream stouts and oatmeal milk stouts and so on and while some have been better than others I think this is the niche of beer for me.
But then I realized something – maybe it’s ok if some people are beer snobs, or dorks, or whatever. And without people like that digging up ancient recipes and caring what region of hop or grain goes into a beer there wouldn’t be the creative craftsmanship that brought Lancaster Milk Stout to me. So you live and you learn, and sometimes as a reward you get a delicious beer!