JdBLetter Vol. 7 - The Undiscovered Country

What is there left to say?

I blew my Christmas load last week, and this will probably be the last newsletter of the year, so why don’t we do an extremely run-of-the-mill 2021 recap?? (I’d like to think of myself as one of those people who will spend the winter break crafting a newsletter, but I’m not.)

My work life is divided, somewhat neatly, into three buckets: Proteau, Restaurant Workers’ Community Foundation, and “JdB LLC” (not a real LLC lol).

Proteau

Proteau has had a pretty interesting year, to say the least. It was our first “full” year being in the market and we started off with an amazing January, thanks in part to the fact that it is “Dry January” AND we got a writeup in The New York Times’s Wirecutter, listing Ludlow Red and Rivington Spritz as some of the best zero-proof drinks on the market. Seriously, there were a few desperate weeks where I was frantically scrambling to make sure our shipping warehouse was adequately stocked and I got really, really good at replying to customers asking why it’s taken over a week to received their order. (“We’re a small team.” Is a euphemism for: “We’re not amazon, please chill” and you know what, it works.)  

My first Covid-era travel was to our bottler in Missouri to oversee another bottling run. I find sometimes people are surprised to hear that we’re not continuously making Proteau in a little factory in NYC. Producing in large batches allows us to make a far more consistent product. I think another misconception about the beverage industry is the people expect all of these fun, pretty, and delicious drinks to come out of some Willy Wonka-esque facility when the reality is much more drab and mundane. Although cerain equipment like tunnel pasteurizers can be thrilling in their own right. 

 

And I buried the lede here, and you’ll probably be hearing more about this in the upcoming months, but we’re in the process of launching an equity crowdfunding campaign with Republic.co. We’re still in the pre-launch phase, so all I can do is encourage you to take a look at our campaign page (and see terms and conditions at republic.co), and let me know what you think! 

Restaurant Workers’ Community Foundation

Restaurant Workers’ Community Foundation also had a pretty amazing year as well. 2021 was nothing like the grueling pace of 2020, where we raised over $6M and launched one of the biggest and longest-running Covid relief funds, but it was transformational nonetheless. Most significantly, we hired our first full-time staff, Executive Director Kiki Louya. Her tenure began in April 2021 and she really hit the ground running, executing a spectacular fundraiser at the end of September. We also recently brought on Cheryl Williams to be our Director of Finance and Operations last month. In 2021 we were able to grant out over $1M to organizations that are working to support and transform the restaurant industry, and we are about to announce another $0.5M in year-end systems-change grants. 

As we head in to 2022, it looks like Covid is going to be ravaging the industry for a long time to come. If you’re able, please consider donating to Restaurant Workers’ Community Foundation’s general fund, our Covid Relief Fund, or our Racial Justice Fund, which we also launched this year with the goal of uprooting anti-blackness and dismantling white supremacy in the restaurant industry. 

JdB LLC

JdB LLC had a great year as well, thanks in large part to my partnership withFood52 as their resident drinks expert. In August, we launched the Drink What You Want video series on Youtube and it has been so much fun sharing my expertise with everyone as well as offending people who can’t wrap their minds around a dude wearing lipstick (#Annette). You can watch all of those videos HERE, and read all my recipes HERE. 

I also kept my freelance writing gigs going and rather than list them all here, as this newsletter is already getting kind of long, I’ve freshly-updated my website so all of my writing I’ve ever done can be found HERE, and you can check out all the media I’ve appeared in HERE.

 

And my book, Drink What You Want: The Subjective Guide to Making Objectively Delicious Cocktails continues to do well(-ish) and feel relevant. June 2020 was not exactly the ideal time for a frivolous cocktail book to come out, but fortunately, the subject matter is evergreen. It’s the gift that keeps on giving! If you already have a copy a.) thank you! And b.) even though Amazon is the devil, it really helps book sales to have reviews on the site as often times smaller retailers use amazon ratings when making buying decisions. If you have a spare moment, please leave a (glowing) review. And if you hated the book but somehow made it here, 600 words into my seventh newsletter…I don’t even know what to say…congrats?

Odds and Ends To Finish Out The Year

I absolutely love that in 2021 I got to monetize my love of Drag, and Alaska is the most famous Drag performer I’ve interviewed to date. Read it HERE.

And here’s a little bonus recipe I did for a Mulled Martinez that you can make a big batch of in advance and just pour as you need. It’s also, I think, the first drink I did that can be served either hot or cold. Check it out HERE

Thanks for reading! Happy Holidays, Happy New Year, and all that. 

Love,

-JdB

JdBLetter Vol. 6 - Navigating Grief and Joy

Bear with me here…

Do you remember when Carrie Fisher died? I do. Vividly. The fact that a huge celebrity’s death is well-remembered should be unremarkable except for the fact that I was pretty much drunk and spiraling throughout the entire multiday period between her heart attack and eventual death.  

For those that need a reminder, it was in that maudlin and surreal week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve, 2016. The Election had just happened. My mother had died in February 2014 after an excruciating strike of glioblastoma. I had just come off opening my tenth restaurant in two years. The accumulation of unresolved grief and trauma and stress caught up with me and broke me. (As a preview, I had completely lost my sense of smell from November 2014 to February 2015 for no obvious physical reason.)

After the election I was literally catatonic for days before my husband dragged me to a psychiatrist and I started treatment. But by the end of the year I somehow got it together to host an elaborate sit-down Christmas dinner for 14 people in our not-tiny-but-not-huge-either Lower East Side apartment. And as is one’s wont during the run-up and execution of holiday festivities, I had been mild-to-heavily drinking for days. 

 

Another fun fact about the holidays is that my dead mother’s birthday is December 26th and used to be such a  wonderful coda to the Christmas holiday that my family had once celebrated so thoroughly. As I laid in bed on 12/26/16, hungover and still drunk, exhausted from effort and agonizing over the possible discontinued existence of a famous woman whom I had never met but who uncannily reminded me of my mother in a small but not insignificant way, I fell out of bed.

I’m still not clear what happened but my left foot got tangled up in the sheets and the fall twisted my ankle. I was limping for days. I still feel a rosy discomfort and think of that day and those two women when I find my foot at certain angle. Will that feeling ever go away? I have to say: grief is my body’s most mysterious inhabitant.

It’s not all sad

After my mother died, the generously-proportioned house in Greenwich, CT that I grew up in became too generous and too full of her absence, and my dad downsized, bestowing a lot of…stuff on me and Michael. And a lot of that stuff was Christmas decorations! Every year Michael goes all the way the fuck out when decorating our home, and this year we had the good fortune of Food52 sending a camera crew to document it while I explained my latest recipe for them, the L.E.S. Glogg, which you can read about HERE, and watch HERE.

(And be sure to keep an eye out for my BFF Annette in the comments.)

Some Links: 

If you still think cancel culture is a real thing, read this: Dr Luke Has Never Really Been Cancelled For The Kesha Case

Why Dune's Litany Against Fear Is Good Psychological Advice

Arca played a show this week in NYC and now I wish I had gotten tickets The Uplifting Chaos of Arca's 'Kick' Albums

Let’s end on something fun and not holiday-ey, shall we? 

This short film, set to Rina Sawayama’s iconic “XS” was sent to me by my dear friend Karen Fu and it is overflowing with fabulousness. Watch HERE.

Thanks for reading. Forward this to someone you think will like me. 

Love,

-JdB

JdBLetter Vol. 4 - A New Hope

It is too late in the season to buy watermelon

Speaking of late, I read this piece that got me thinking about why I’m always obscenely early to everything. 

Those of you who’ve known me for a while will probably have the experience of me texting to apologize for being early, or, in rare instances, apologizing for being four (4) minutes late. My new policy that I developed with the help of a therapist is that if i’m going to be less than seven minutes late and the stakes are low, don’t bother with a heads up, it’s more of a nuisance than it is helpful. Anyway, the piece is not long, go read it and come back. 

There Are Two Kinds of People: Those Who Get To the Airport Two Hours Before Their Flight or More, and Those Who Are Wrong

I used to think that i got everywhere early because I feared being late, when actually, in most cases being late would not have been a huge issue (except for things like air travel or shows of course). But instead i now realize that I like to be early because I appreciate being nice to myself. 

It’s nice to show up to the restaurant a bit early and have time to look around and maybe sweet talk them into giving you a nicer table, or get to your friend’s place a little early and pop into that bookstore you’ve been meaning to check out, or walk around the block and see something new. Having time is a luxury and I will do anything to give myself more of it. 

It’s a subtle shift but it casts my hyperfocus on punctuality/being early in a healthier light. I’m not terrified of being late, I just want to get to where i’m going and fucking chill for a minute. Shit.

I can’t get over how great this Eater interview came out. Fun fact: the writer has been working on this interview since January of 2020. The piece was put on hold during the pandemic and we did a catch-up interview a few months ago, and I’m glad it worked out that way, because my life got more interesting in every dimension over the past 18 months. 

Also I was randomly quoted in this article about Danny Meyer investing in Panera Bread. 

I was revisiting some of my old pieces for Liquor.com and came across this one. It’s amazing to see how far the conversation has come since then...Sober Bartenders Say They Feel Great. But Does Not Drinking Hurt Their Business?


If you are in a place where you have the emotional resilience to read something truly disturbing, read this: Artificially intelligent advertising technology is poisoning our societies.

Lastly, I’m really pissed of that I haven’t yet made a charcuterie gingerbread house and this must be remedied immediately. Any volunteers?

Legitimate Drinks Content!!!!1!

Literally this piece went live two hours ago. Thrillist asked me to check in with some of my favorite bartenders to see if they had any fabulous fall recipes, and they delivered! Read it here. (And thank you Lauren, Chris, Masa, Shannon, and Austin)

Music Video Assignments:

Kylie Minogue & Jessie Ware - Kiss of Life }{ Kylie just keeps continuing to give it and i am happy to take it. I’m also loving this trend she has of using vintage cameras that began with her Jimmy Fallon live performance of Say Something that is just stellar (pun intended). 

Thanks for reading. Forward this to someone you think will like me. 

Love,

-JdB

JdBLetter Vol. 2 - The Newsletter Strikes Back

Holy shit I actually wrote another one

Hi!

I’m just as shocked as anyone that I’m sticking with it for second week because I have wild swings in my capacity for self-discipline. 

No alcohol for all of 2020? Sure. 100 pushups per day? Easy. But check in with the unused gummi bear-making equipment that still sits in my kitchen after three years, or the 275 words of a post-collapse sci-fi retelling of The Winter’s Tale I have stuffed in some google doc somewhere and they will offer a differing viewpoint.  

A few people told me that my first newsletter was a bit too long and that it needed more pictures. Speaking of too long... Did you know that my first draft of Drink What You Want was almost 60,000 words? Yep, I ended up having to cut almost 19,000 words in order to get it down to a manageable length. i learned through the process that cuts don’t have to be deletions, so now i have a 55-page document with all the little bits and pieces that didn’t make it to the final draft that I get to share with you. Here’s a bit on shaking v. stirring cocktails:


”Shaken drinks are best enjoyed super fucking cold. I’ll talk more about this later, but one of the primary goals of shaking, as a technique, is to render a drink stingingly cold.

Shaken drinks are also intended to be quaffed quickly, so super-chilling them dulls the perception of alcohol, and lowers aromatic intensity, allowing you to toss it back in a few sips (gulps). I know this sounds like a super alcoholic-person thing to say, but bear with me, shaken drinks reach a state of aeration and chilling as a result of vigorous shaking and only remain that way for a brief time before settling into uninspiring mediocrity. One of my favorite quotes about cocktails comes from Harry Craddock, author of the legendary Savoy Cocktail book. He was asked the ‘best’ way to drink a cocktail. His response was: ‘Quickly, while it’s still laughing at you.’

            The same is not as true for stirred drinks. Stirring is a far less violent act than shaking, and it renders the drink less cold and less diluted. This invites you sip slowly and appreciate the cocktail’s aromatic complexity. With certain stirred drinks it is sometimes possible to get the drink “too cold” and it shuts down, others are not so vulnerable. Generally I find that drinks that are best served slightly less cold are brown-spirit-based drinks and drinks with a lot of complex aromatics and bitterness, like a Manhattan, Old Pal, Vieux Carré. Others, those usually made with un-aged spirits with less aromatics and less bitterness, do not suffer as much from being too cold. The prime example being a Martini.”

All Hail Merrie Cherry

I have a monthly drag interview series for Thrillist.This month I got to interview Brooklyn drag legend Merrie Cherry. She’s a contestant on this season of Dragula and is just an all-around awesome person. If you read the piece i linked to in last week’s newsletter about Bushwig (Merrie is a co-founder) you’ll know that there were some participants who called out the organizers for what they saw to be problematic practices. 

By design, these interviews are meant to be pretty light—I started doing them as a mid-pandemic check in with drag performers who had seen their worlds contract dramatically. This touched on relatively “real” subjects, such as the pay practices of a still-growing festival like Bushwig, and also what it’s like to film a TV show while mourning family. Read the interview HERE.

#PicklePlay drops today

One of the best things to happen to me in 2021 was getting connected to Food52 as their first-ever resident drinks expert. We have a monthly series called, of course, Drink What You Want, and each month is an escalation of what I can get away with. For instance, they let me completely bleach and re-dye my hair in between video shoots so they didn’t look like they were shot on the same day; I do many of the videos holding our cat Felix; I wore a shirt with Homer Simpson’s buttcheeks on it and no one batted an eye. 

And this month I made a series of dick jokes under the auspices of talking about how I like to ~play with pickles~ when making Gibsons. I’ll shut up now. Watch it here.

Now please familiarize yourself with these music videos:

  • Paradis - Garde le Pour Toi | I was acutely melancholy this week that I never saw this song performed live, and never will. My killer app for fully-immersive, plug-into-my-brainstem VR is recreating live music performances, and this is on my list. 

  • Kylie Minogue and Years & Years - A Second to Midnight | This is one of the best-edited and smartly-conceived music videos I’ve seen. Singlehandedly makes the case for music videos as an art form. (Hat tip to Julia Bainbridge for this gem.)

  • Bjork - Hidden Place | Every effort that i put into my skincare routine is so that i can have skin this good.

How Are You Feeling?

I’m sure many of you are familiar with the excellent Feeling Asian podcast (I was a guest on a couple months ago.), but did you also know that they have a side-splittingly hilarious live show? Well, now you do. Their most recent show which features me as, you guessed it, the token white guy. I show up at the 1hr 22min mark, but you should watch the whole thing.

Thanks for reading. Forward this to someone you think will like me. 

Love,

-JdB