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2 weeks ago | 
robertsimonson.substack.com | Mary Kate Murray |Robert Simonson
It should come as no surprise that we love home bars at The Mix. In this new feature we’ll spend some time At Home With home-bartenders, bartenders, bar owners and writers in their home bars. Some bars are in basements, some not, but each is unique and, wherever they are, you are sure to get a good drink and some interesting conversation. We’ve been looking for a house for the past few years. We’ve mostly looked in upstate New York, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, Robert’s home state.
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2 weeks ago | 
robertsimonson.substack.com | Robert Simonson
From 1998 to 2006, I was editor-in-chief of Playbill On-Line, the theater news website. During that span, I spent every Tony Awards night not at home, comfortably enjoying the ceremony from my living room; not on an aisle seat at the actual event; but in the awards press room, reporting on the proceedings in real time. When I joined Playbill, and was first told I was going to represent the publication at the Tonys, I was excited.
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3 weeks ago | 
robertsimonson.substack.com | Robert Simonson
Paid episodeThe full episode is only available to paid subscribers of The Mix with Robert Simonson
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3 weeks ago | 
robertsimonson.substack.com | Robert Simonson
With Kees, a new West Village cocktail bar due to open this fall, Jeff Bell hopes to bring back the glamour of mid-20th-century Manhattan. “It’s trying to capture the essence of what you would have gotten at Stork Club or El Morocco,” Bell told The Mix, mentioning two of the most famous nightclubs of post-Prohibition New York. Both began life as a speakeasy and evolved into high-profile destinations of cafe society from the 1930s to the 1960s. “A special occasion place,” Bell continued.
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4 weeks ago | 
robertsimonson.substack.com | Robert Simonson
Welcome to the latest edition of “On a Toot!,” a feature in which I try to remember some of the liquid highlights of the week, and other highlights in general. “On a Toot!”—which made its debut on March 10, 2023 (accept no imitations!)—will only run on Fridays and will only be available to paid subscribers. We hope you enjoy it.
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1 month ago | 
robertsimonson.substack.com | Robert Simonson
The world of adult beverages has its rivalries. Peru and Chile will be forever be bickering over who owns Pisco. Both Scotland and Ireland will always insist they invented whiskey. Those are ancient battles. More recently, we have the Crush Wars. The Orange Crush is an easygoing beach cocktail made of orange-flavored vodka, triple sec, lemon-lime soda and freshly squeezed orange juice, served in a pint glass over ice. It first emerged in the 1990s. And both Maryland and Delaware claim it as their own.
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1 month ago | 
robertsimonson.substack.com | Robert Simonson |Mary Kate Murray
A good time was had by all at the 2nd Annual Bar Regular Cocktail Mixer, held on a recently warm, sunny Saturday in New Brunswick, New Jersey, at the fabulous Stage Left restaurant. Stage Left owners and Restaurant Guys podcasters Francis Schott and Mark Pascal were our generous hosts. Bar Regular and barman extraordinaire Dale DeGroff was behind the ba…
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1 month ago | 
robertsimonson.substack.com | Robert Simonson
Hong Kong was calling, and the call was coming from Brooklyn. Lorenzo Antinori was in town. Antinori is the founder of Bar Leone, a cocktail bar in Hong Kong which is currently ranked No. 2 on the World’s 50 Best Bars list (for those who follow such lists, and many, many do). He was staging a pop-up version of his bar at Bar Madonna, a fairly new place in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, which is not yet on any lists at all. I’ve never been to Hong Kong. But I had experienced Bar Leone in a way.
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1 month ago | 
robertsimonson.substack.com | Robert Simonson |Mary Kate Murray
You keep The Mix with Robert Simonson running. To support us, please consider becoming a paid subscriber or a Bar Regular!About a year ago, Robert quoted A. J. Liebling, saying, “Freedom of the press is confined to the people who own one.” He mentioned that Liebling was referring to the big press, but even still, this applies to The Mix too. We write whatever we want here, free of interference from sponsors or advertisers, because you, the independent readers, help keep us going.
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1 month ago | 
robertsimonson.substack.com | Robert Simonson
In the decades leading up to the cocktail revival, which arrived in the mid-1990s, the London cocktail scene was dominated by Italians. Bartending in hotel bars—the main places where you could get a cocktail in London then—was not seen by the British as a desirable career with room for advancement, so they were content to cede those positions to immigrants.