Barrett's Mixology

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

By Paul Kemp

Rum

Ingredients: Rum, preferably cheap.

Serving Suggestions: Pour into paper cup with ice if available. If not, swill directly from bottle.

Something about Chinese New Year chaps my ass raw. It might be that, in my mind, excessive fireworks displays are reserved exclusively for a particular day towards the beginning of July. Or it may be that the dreadful celebrations here in New York tend to begin at least two weeks before the calendar flips and peter out sometime around Easter if you’re lucky. But it probably has something to do with the fact that the tiny apartment I’ve occupied for the last three years sits directly on top of a Chinese restaurant. And for the last three years the heavy stink of last week’s Lo Mein has managed to pervade every article of my being. Try as I might, I can’t get my suits to stop smelling like they’ve been liberally doused with Eau de The Far East. But this year I was ready for them. I met the charge head on with three 75 cent gallons of rum and a freezer packed to the gills with ice. Sure I had a couple of assignments I was working on, but I figured two weeks locked in my apartment with nothing but my own raving lunacy, some dented tins of tuna, my typewriter, and the rum, of course, ought to produce something worth turning in to my editor. It began easy, as any good bender does—heater cranked, blinds drawn, fresh linens (those were the first comfort to go)—but it quickly devolved. I spent most of the days and nights thrashing about uselessly, cursing the proprietor of Happy Star China through the floorboards, throwing open the curtains only to by horrified by the festivities outside my window. Pretty, it was not. Tom Alagash, a good friend and newspaper compatriot, found me in my sordid state and without a moment to spare. The rum had run out and I was lying stark naked on a rumpled pile of soiled sheets in the corner of my apartment that served as a kitchen. Not much longer locked in that hovel and I would have been drinking the cleaning products. Recognizing the direness of the situation, he cleaned me up, threw some pants on me, and suggested we get out for some air and a bite of real food—his treat. The meal was good and just what I needed. Afterward, I walked back up the stairs to my apartment, content. Best Lo Mein in the city.

Barrett's Mixology

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