Drink 10: Shut the Box

The Name: Shut the Box                                                                      

The Bar: The Rum House (228 West 47th Street, NYC)

The Story Behind The Name: Firstly, I'd like to apologize to fans of this blog for the lack of posts recently. I've just been super busy and really haven't had the time or the opportunity to go out to bars lately. This means I haven't had anything to write about for the past month. I'd furthermore like to apologize for the fact that, after a long wait for this post, the story behind the drink name is weird.  And not that funny. Seriously, I have a feeling that I'm the only person who will actually find this story funny at all. So, I apologize if this is super underwhelming. I promise there are bona fide good stories behind the names of drinks to come.

As you already know, I work as a magic toy salesman, and like any job, there are positives and negatives. One of the negatives is that the job can be almost excruciating when it's slow in the store. For one thing, I work partially on commission, so when it's a slow day, you know you're not going to be taking home a big paycheck and there's nothing you can do about it. But, that's fine, and a busy day can more than make up for it. The worst part of slow days is the fact that, when there's no one in the store, it means you're doing absolutely nothing. And you have nothing to distract you. If it's really slow, you end up standing around with nothing else to keep my mind occupied, waiting for someone to walk by. You get bored. And anxious. And the sound of a Kidz Bop cover of New York, New York playing for the fifteenth time that day can really drive you insane. You just want to do your pitch for someone, not because they might buy the toy, but because it would mean that you're doing something, anything. Unfortunately, on days like this, when someone finally does walk by, I get excited, put on a too-wide smile and over-eagerly say "HEY WANT TO SEE A MAGIC TRICK?!" while shooting lights out of my fingers and it ends up scaring my potential customer off. It's a bad cycle. To keep myself from getting to this pathetic point, it's a good idea to wander a bit and find something entertaining. Luckily, I demonstrate in the giant Toys R Us in Times Square, and in the world-famous FAO Schwarz. And these stores have no shortage of fun things to look at.

A couple of days ago I had one such slow day and wandered about. I happened upon the board game section. Now, if you go to any toy store, I highly recommend you go to the board game section because there happen to be a lot of board games out there. Way more than you would have thought existed. And you will not have heard of most of them. Amidst famous games like Monopoly and Clue, you will find some really weird and obscure ones. Sure enough, I happened upon one such board game on this particular trip, and I took a picture of it.

 

The game is called Shut-the-Box.

And, perhaps because it had been a very long and very slow day, and perhaps because I'd been working for several days in a row and been taking on extra shifts, I just thought this was the funniest thing I'd ever seen.

It's nothing about the game itself. It looks like it could be interesting. It has tiles. And numbers. Reminiscent of Rummikub-- a game I really like. And there are dice which is, you know, pretty standard for a board game. It's nothing about the game itself that was funny at all.

No, I found it hilarious solely because of the name.

Shut The Box.

The name of this game seriously had me laughing audibly in the aisle of the toy store. People were giving me odd looks. Then I shot light out of my fingers and they gave me odder looks.

You're probably wondering why I found then name Shut The Box so funny. Well...I honestly couldn't tell you. As I mentioned at the start of the post, I've been really busy and maybe feeling overworked has caused my mind to slowly deteriorate to the point that I find this combination of three words to be the epitome of humor. I couldn't tell you, but this is possible.

I guess the main reason that I found this name so funny is that it struck me as quite simply the worst thing you could ever call a game. Seriously, if someone asked if you wanted to play a game called Shut the Box, there is no way you would say yes. The name gives a pretty clear indication of what the game is going to involve (namely, shutting boxes) and it's less than thrilling. There's a box. And you shut it. It's on par with calling a game Dry the Paint or Throw the Stick. This game sounds like the creation of a babysitter who is out of ideas.

Babysitter: Hey, kids, we're going to play Shut the Box.

Kids: How do you play?

Babysitter: Here. Shut this box.

Kids: Okay.  (They shut the box) There. We shut the box.

Babysitter: Congratulations! You win! (The babysitter opens the box again) Let's play again.

I should clarify that I don't actually think this is how the game is played. There are certainly actual rules, and an objective other than simply shutting a box. Or, maybe the point of the game is to shut a box, but there are obstacles you put in your competitor's way. I don't know. I honestly have no idea how this game is played. All I know is that the name alone struck me as really, really funny. 

Some of you are probably completely confused right now and have no idea why I found this funny at all.  I'm hoping that some of you, though, might understand why it's funny. "Yeah," I'm hoping you will think, "That is a boring name and that fact is kind of amusing." But...even if you fall into this second group of people...I want to stress to you that I found this REALLY funny. Much funnier than it actually is. And I'm aware of that. It's nowhere near as hilarious as I found it to be. Not even close. But...even now I find this idea inexplicably hilarious.

I think I've been around toys way too much lately.

This is apparently what the game looks like. And now I'm confused because...that's not a lot of stuff. MAYBE THIS GAME ACTUALLY DOES JUST INVOLVE SHUTTING THE BOX. MAYBE IT IS ACTUALLY THAT STUPID.

I've since looked up the game and the mystique just gets weirder and weirder. Apparently, it's a classic pub game and has many other names-- including Batten Down the Hatches, Canoga, Casablanca, Clapper, Double Shutter, Down & Out, High Rollers, The James Bond Box, Klackers, Klipp Klapp, Lights Out!, Nine-Up, Numbers Down, Shut Eye, Stop-Stop, Trick-Track, Wake Up Giants!, Zoltan Box, and...my favorite of this list...Zock.

The game involves "opening" a series of tiles which you then "shut," depending on the roll of the dice. For some reason, these tiles must represent boxes. The game also has weird terminology. There are two types of gameplay-- called "Golf" and "Missionary." I'm sure I could make a joke about one of the styles of play being called "Missionary," but I honestly don't think it's necessary-- it speaks for itself. The rules seem complicated, but learnable...but frankly, I don't want to learn how to play this game. I'd prefer to just believe that the game actually is shutting a box. And that when you shut the box, you win. So, I'm going to go on believing that the name really is straightforward and that the game is ridiculously simple. And that people will pay $24.99 for this at FAO Schwarz.

Here's a really fancy version of the game which, hopefully, comes with the bottle of wine included. Being drunk would make my version of the game much more difficult, I would imagine.

Ordering The Drink: After another slow day at work, I decided to get a drink at the reliable bar The Rum House in Times Square. As far as bars in Times Square go, it's relatively affordable and consistently good. Plus, they unsurprisingly feature a really great selection of rum

The elegant bar at The Rum House

While I have a long list of potential drink names for this blog that I could have ordered...Shut the Box was really on the brain. And even if nobody else finds this funny, it was enough for me to select it as a drink name. While it really is a lousy name for a game, I do think it could be an interesting name for a cocktail. I had no idea what sort of drink I would receive. The name-- out of context-- brings to mind, to me, the myth of Pandora, so maybe that could serve as inspiration? I don't know.

I ordered the drink from a bartender named Ivan, who is awesome. Definitely one of my favorite bartenders that I've met doing this blog. He accepted the challenge without question, slyly smiling at the request as he said "I can work with that." 

Ivan at work.

He went about making the drink with confidence, and after darting about behind the bar for a while, poured the cocktail into a glass. Before serving it, he dipped a straw into the drink and tasted his handiwork. Tasting the concoction seemed to inform his choice of garnish-- a thick peel of lemon. But, before adding the lemon to the drink, he took a lighter to it and held it above the drink, then held the lemon into the flame. This technique is called Flaming a Lemon Peel and it's a really cool technique. The fire slightly caramelizes the oil on the citrus peel and thus enhances the flavor of it, giving the garnish more prominence in the cocktail. Plus, it's a really great bit of showmanship. When there's a burst of flame involved in the making of your drink, you know it's going to be good. With that final flourish, Ivan placed the drink before me.

Sadly, I just missed getting the flame in the picture-- so depicted here is Ivan holding the lemon post-fire

The Drink:

Rye Whiskey

Cocchi Americano

Honey Syrup

Chocolate Bitters

Orange Bitters

Angostura Bitters

Flamed Lemon Peel

Assessment of Drink: Absolutely delicious. Really, really great. What struck me about this is how well-balanced it was. This drink has notes of sweetness, notes of sourness, notes of smokiness, and notes of bitterness, and all four are balances perfectly. The choice of rye whiskey-- which tends to have a bit more spiciness and fruitiness than most bourbons-- was a perfect compliment to the variety of bitters and honey. The Cocchi Americano-- an Italian apertif wine which is used in several classic cocktails-- is a new ingredient for me, so I can't really speak to its individual flavor or how it affected the drink, but it was great to have an unfamiliar and unusual ingredient included.

Also, I cannot stress enough how great the flamed lemon peel was. I don't know how much it actually changed the taste of the drink, but the showmanship was phenomenal and made this drink memorable. I mean, if you have a chance to invent a drink and put anything you want in it, why not include fire?

As I sipped my Shut the Box, Ivan and I talked and I commended him for his choice of rye whiskey (funny how I got rye at The Rum House, but didn't get it when I ordered a drink at The Rye House). He mentioned that rye is an ingredient in one of his favorite cocktails called the Final Ward-- a play on the more classic The Last Word, but the Final Ward uses rye in place of gin. I already mentioned that Ivan is one of my favorite bartenders I've met doing this blog, and I really want to stress how personable he was. It helped that the bar was not yet busy, but he spoke to me at length about the drink and his thought process behind making it (he seemed to really enjoy the task of having to make a drink on name alone, as it meant he didn't have to make a drink based on any specific flavor profile) and showed genuine interest in the blog and this whole experiment. Even though I was at the bar alone for this particular order, I felt very well taken care of. I'll definitely be returning to The Rum House with some friends should I ever be in the Times Square area.

But even if Ivan had been sullen and rude, this would still be one of the best drinks I've had for this blog thus far. It might even be my favorite-- I just can't decide between this one and My Only Jacket. But, who says it needs to be a competition? Both are great drinks-- and I think that what makes both of them succeed is that the bartenders made a drink that they would want to drink. Given Ivan's predilection for rye, you could see his handiwork in the drink. Although I only got the one drink, I was honestly tempted to order another. It was really delicious, and one that I think would appeal to a broad range of tastes.

Does It Live Up To The Name: Yes...but I'm not really sure why. Maybe because the drink was so tasty and I was so hard-pressed to find fault with it, it just seemed right. There wasn't anything particularly boxy about it, but...I don't know, it worked. The color-- a kind of light tan-- looked like the color of a soft wood, and for some reason when I hear "Shut the Box," I immediately think of a wooden box. And the lemon garnish-- because it was such a wide piece of rind rather than, say, a twist, acted a bit like the lid of the box-- placed on the shut the box. And maybe lighting it on fire implies welding the lid shut? I don't know if that makes any sense. And I don't care, it makes sense to me.

As I mentioned, Ivan talked a bit about his reasoning behind the name. He said at first he was thinking of something like tequila-- some sort of bolder liquor that really packs a punch. But ultimately he decided against it. Since the drink was not called, say, Slam the Box, he wanted the drink to be smoother and calmer. And he wanted it to feel complete-- since the box is shut, there's nothing else to be done. I can say that he definite succeeded-- it was a very full drink and was incredibly smooth.

But, ultimately, Ivan's reasoning behind the name seemed to be that this drink fit the name because...it just did. And I can't really find fault in that. This name doesn't have any obvious connections to anything relating to mixed drinks, so it's not like he missed some big opportunity with the name. And, let's be honest, a lot of drink names have very little to do with the drink. What about a Sidecar makes it like a sidecar? What makes a Sazerac a Sazerac? Probably the worst offender for me is the Mint Julep, which sounds like a delightful and light and refreshing drink, yet which is pretty much straight bourbon cut only by mint and, depending on who you ask, some sugar. That certainly sounds delicious, but is a far cry from the whimsical-sounding name of "Julep." So, while there's isn't something about this drink that particularly screams "Shut the Box," it undeniably worked. If I saw this drink under that name on a drinks menu, I wouldn't question it in the slightest. And, in many ways, the fact that the drink works so well with the name despite not having an identifiable connection to it makes this one even more impressive.

All in all, despite the potentially strange choice of "Shut the Box" as a drink name (and I really do apologize to everyone out there who is completely confused as to what I find so funny about this) the Shut the Box is definitely one of the most successful outings I've had in my pursuit for unusual drinks. Much thanks to Ivan, the Rum House, and the makers of obscure board games everywhere for a truly fantastic drink. This drink was a great way to end an otherwise slow day of toy-selling.

Justin Bieber also has his own board game. And now I'm sad again.