Drink 20: The Sinister Minister

The Name: The Sinister Minister                                                                              

The Bar: WXOU Radio Bar (558 Hudson St., New York City) and White Horse Tavern (567 Hudson St., New York City)

The Story Behind The Name:  

Sadly, this post has nothing to do with this fantastic typo from Australian television a while back. I hope you enjoy it anyway.

As mentioned in some previous posts, I work as a magic toy salesman. And as such, some days, I work at the Toys R Us in Times Square. The largest toy store in the world, it's a pretty remarkable place, filled with a functional ferris wheel, an animatronic T-Rex, and tons of stuff that are probably super exciting to kids who walk through the store. But as fun as the store is, once one becomes familiar with the store, it starts to feel remarkably mundane. It's, ultimately, just like any other workplace (although, again, most workplaces don't have a T-Rex). Behind the scenes, the job has perks and frustrations just like any other job. And nowhere is this more apparent than when you step into the Toys R Us breakroom. Which is a breakroom just like any other office breakroom. Which means it is a rather depressing place.

 The only real amenity in the dimly lit breakroom is a television. Now, theoretically, anyone can change the channel on this thing, but as I don't actually work for the store, I don't typically feel like I should. And, it seems, neither does anyone else in the store. Because of this, I have never actually seen anyone change the channel, and it typically stays the same throughout the day. Which means that there are only a handful of things ever on the screen, and most of them are pretty terrible. But I get excited when the Toys R Us breakroom television is on one particular channel: the Investigation Discovery Channel.

The channel SO EXCITING that they couldn't come up with a tagline other than just saying the name of the channel.

Now, I don't have any television feed and simply rely on Hulu and Netflix and other sites for my television viewing needs, so I did not know about the Investigation Discovery Channel until I worked at Toys R Us, and I am so glad that someone who works there likes their programming, because it is amazing. And by amazing I mean terrible. All of their shows are documentaries about "true crime" stories-- various shows about criminals and the people who catch them. Which is fine, and I will admit that some of their shows are probably well done. But, what makes me find this channel really amusing is that there are only so many shows that they can really create. Like, when you make documentary shows about crimes, it doesn't give you much variety. On other non-fiction channels, like National Geographic, PBS, History Channel, or TLC--you know, back when TLC made actual shows that a real person would watch like Trading Spaces and not shows with titles like Breaking Amish: Los Angeles which is actually a show on a channel that calls itself The Learning Channel and that makes me sad-- there's at least a broad range of subjects one can cover. 

In this moment, the Cake Boss realized what his life had become. He was an artist once. He made people happy with his confectionary creations. Now...now, he's on TLC.

But, on Investigation Discovery, it's ONLY crime documentaries. Nothing else. And because of this, Investigation Discovery offers a bunch of shows that are the exact same show-- which follow a basic theme of how a crime was committed and, subsequently, solved-- but with a SLIGHT variation. And, I have to say, the fact that they have come up with some of these shows demonstrates a lot of creativity on the part of the Investigation Discovery executives. There's the show I (Almost) Got Away With It which is told from the perspective of the criminal as opposed to the law enforcement.  There's the show Motive which tells you how a crime was committed but doesn't reveal why until the very end of the hour. Which is really funny because it's usually obvious. There will be opening narration like "Mr. Moneybanks McRichguy was killed by his only son and sole inheritor who received the entirety of his vast fortune. But...what could his motive have been? Could it have been the money? Or...something else entirely?"

Hint: it's not the second option.

One of the worst shows is called I Was Murdered (which is much less ridiculous, albeit much blunter than its original title Stolen Voices; Buried Secrets) which is told from the victim's perspective. And by that, I mean, it is actually narrated by an actor pretending to be the victim. Which I think we can all agree is incredibly disrespectful. "I was a loving wife. An attentive mother. I had a happy life. But all of that was cut short when I was killed. Did my murderers know that I was planning to go to Costa Rica in a month?" NO. NO THEY DID NOT, VOICE ACTRESS, BECAUSE YOU ARE NOT THIS PERSON. AND ALSO BECAUSE YOU JUST TOLD US THEY WERE RANDOM ROBBERS WHO BROKE IN.

In general, the Investigation Discovery channel is a wonderful blend of being slightly informative, but also just incredibly trashy, and I must say that its bad reenactments and overly dramatic narrations are just remarkably entertaining. I'm pretty sure that they have used the same stories (and, most likely, the same footage) for all of these different shows too.

But, for all of my badmouthing, Investigation Discovery also offers my favorite television show of all time. More than Breaking Bad. More than Arrested Development. My favorite show is called...Sinister Ministers.

See?! It's a real show! And the tagline is "Collared" which makes me really happy.

Full disclosure, I have never seen a single episode of this show, but the very fact that it exists fills me with joy. I laughed out loud when I saw a commercial for it. The show is about priests who did illegal things, and that's obviously not what makes me happy. It's JUST the title. Because you KNOW that they were filming an episode about a criminal priest and then someone realized that "sinister" and "minister" rhymed. And then they said "Wait, we can't just waste that. We need to make this into a show." And that's what they did. Because Investigation Discovery are true pioneers in the golden age of television. Somebody give these folks a Peabody.

As I said, I've never seen this show, and I never plan to. I probably wouldn't care for it if I did. But, in the meantime, let's just be glad that this rhyming title exists and that they just went for it.

Ordering The Drink: As I said in my last post, I'm doing a month of Halloween-themed drinks (I figured the "sinister" part of this drink name made it appropriate) and wanted to go to some haunted bars to order drinks. One bar that consistently came up when I researched haunted bars in NYC was White Horse Tavern. White Horse Tavern is a rather famous bar in Greenwich Village, which was once frequented by some of New York's most prominent literary figures, including but not limited to Bob Dylan, Anais Nin, Norman Mailer, Hunter S. Thomas, and Jack Kerouac. But the figure most commonly associated with the tavern is Dylan Thomas who, it is alleged, had a drink there the night that he died. If that's not spooky enough, it is said that he haunts the bar, and people have reported seeing him sitting at his usual table having a drink.

It is also said that Thomas haunts the Chelsea Hotel. Which might make more sense since, you know, that's where he actually died.

Because of this, I purposefully set out to have a drink at the White Horse Tavern this month. It's a hopping place-- and while it is often visited by tourists due to its famous past clientele, it doesn't feel particularly touristy, which is a plus. I took a seat at the bar and, as always, told the bartender that I had an unusual request, and wondered if he could make me a drink based solely on a name. He looked away for a second, considered, and then said, "No."

Now, I've always known that, if I did this blog long enough, I would eventually meet a bartender who wanted nothing to do with this. Bartenders have to put up with a lot, after all, and I can see how it would be a bit of an annoying request (which is why I always leave a substantial tip and try to be as polite and unobtrusive as possible). But, nonetheless, I was a bit surprised to meet with my first refusal.

"No?" I asked.

"Not tonight," he said. I said that was fine, and ordered a cider (which was very cheaply priced and came in a huge glass which was great). The bartender later explained that, apparently, I had "missed the excitement," and something had happened right before I arrived (he didn't elaborate, but my guess is it probably involved drunk people), so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and say that on another night, he might have made the drink for me. And he was perfectly pleasant otherwise, and never came across as rude. Still, I found the rejection fairly disappointing, as I have received a regularly positive response elsewhere. I finished my cider and took my leave-- with no sign of Dylan Thomas' ghost.

But, I still wanted my drink. And, as I stood on the street, I could hear the sound of bar ambience. Directly across from the street from the White Horse Tavern, I saw a sign.

This sign, in fact.

I entered the establishment-- which, as the sign says, is called WXOU Radio Bar-- and had high hopes. It felt like a pretty standard dive bar-- that sort of comfortable, reliable, place that every neighborhood needs. As one would expect from a place with "radio" in the title, the music was fantastic, with a jukebox full of old-time, feel-good classics prominently on display. The place was smaller than White Horse Tavern, but was similarly bustling, but the clientele did seem to be more neighborhood locals as opposed to tourists. Which was a great sign.

None of these people are looking at maps or wearing "I <3 NY" paraphernalia, so, yeah, probably not tourists.

Once I asked the bartender if he'd be willing to make a drink for me based solely on the name, he sighed a little bit and looked kind of frustrated. He considered the request for a while, and I was genuinely worried I would be turned down for the second time that night. "What is this for?" he asked, suspiciously. At this point, I was most certainly not going to tell him that I run a blog because I had a feeling he would just kick me out then and there, so I lied and said it was "just for fun," and assured him that I would really be happy no matter what. Ultimately, he agreed, and I gave him the name "Sinister Minister." He set about making the drink...but not before double checking that this wasn't a pre-existing drink. He seemed to think I might be testing him but, I assured him I was not.

The Drink:

The Sinister Minister-- the white ring on top is, to me, the minister's collar but that was definitely unintentional.

Rye

Captain Morgan Spiced Rum

Orange Juice

Cranberry Juice

Sour Mix

finished with Ginger Ale and Club Soda, with a Lime garnish

 

Assessment of Drink: My bartender, after getting over his suspicion concerning my drink order, loosened up quite a bit and I think (and hope) he enjoyed making the drink. After he set it down and explained the drink and its ingredients, he joked "Now, that'll be thirty-eight dollars." He also seemed very concerned about his creation-- apologetically saying that he had never made the drink before so he really had no idea what it was like. He tried a tiny bit with a straw, though, and seemed to think it was okay. Later, after I had finished half of it, he returned and asked me how it was, saying "I hope it's drinkable." Poor guy. He really seemed to not want to let me down.

I wanted a picture of my bartender, but, again, was pretty fearful about getting thrown out/judged so I tried to take it sneakily and it ended up being a really bad picture.

And he didn't let me down at all! I thought this was a really good drink. It had a lot more going on in it than in a standard cocktail you get in a divey bar like this. I liked all of the flavors individually, but didn't know how these would work together. But I thought that the rye and the spiced rum really worked together well-- the spiciness bringing out the subtler tones of the rye, while the fruit juices added some necessary sweetness (although, I would not describe this as a "sweet" drink at all-- probably due to the tart cranberry).

But, this drink was, admittedly, imperfect. I feel like by playing with proportions a bit more, this one would be perfected but, as is, it was definitely serviceable but needed a bit more fine-tuning. The big thing was the sour mix. Now, I'm a fan of sour mix (my drink of choice when I'm not ordering drinks with weird names is a Whiskey Sour, after all) but in this case it was out of place and a little bit too overpowering. With a little less sour mix, it might have worked really well, but with so many flavors working with each other, the sour mix seemed to stand out and that was unfortunate, because it masked a lot of the other nice flavors going on. And, which finishing the cocktail with club soda was necessary (more on that in a bit) it watered down the drink a little bit too much. Had the rye and the rum been a bit more prominent, I think this could have been a truly excellent drink. As is, it was still very nice, and definitely lifted my spirits for the evening.

Does It Live Up To The Name: I had wondered how this drink would turn out, and figured there were many ways one could go. And my bartender at WXOU Radio had a great solution and used the tried-and-true strategy of building upon a pre-existing cocktail. In this case, he used The Presbyterian, which is whiskey, finished with ginger ale and club soda. As he explained the drink, he seemed to not stand by this, saying the jump was "a leap," but, to me, this explanation works really well. And, since the rye, ginger ale, and club soda represent the Presbyterian minister, that means the other ingredients must be the "sinister" part of the equation. And I thought this was great. The spiced rum is not just any spiced rum, it was Captain Morgan, and pirates are DEFINITELY sinister. And the tartness of the sour mix and, especially, the cranberry juice (as well as the devilish red color that it loans the drink) could definitely be perceived as "sinister" too. That means the only superfluous ingredient here is the orange juice

The most sinister of all beverages.

So, in general, I thought this was one of the best interpretations of the name that I've gotten for this blog. And, like I said, tasted good to boot. All in all, I had a much better time at WXOU Radio Bar than at the White Horse Tavern. It may not have the literary history or name recognition, but if you're ever in the neighborhood, give WXOU a shot. Good drinks, good music, and a good time had by all. Nothing sinister about that.