The Name: The Return of Dante
The Bar: The Frying Pan (Pier 66, West 26th St., NYC)
The Story
Behind The Name: In my senior year of college, I took a class that was entirely about the famed Italian poet Dante Alighieri and his masterpiece The Divine Comedy. It's a truly extraordinary and evocative work, and I am all too familiar with the reverence in which the poet Dante is held. I once visited Italy, and Dante's name and image are pretty much everywhere.
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| He even has his own street in Florence. |
And yet, despite all of the connotations of the name "Dante," I must admit that the name of this drink has absolutely nothing to do with Dante Alighieri, but with a different Dante altogether--one who's a far more infernal nuisance than Alighieri ever could have been.
I'm currently working at a call center at a transportation company's New York office. I don't know if I'm allowed to talk about it, since the job is through a temp agency and I believe they have strict rules about posting about your jobs on social media. But I'll just say that it's a taxi-like service whose name rhymes with "MacGruber."
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| Here's an unrelated picture of a car door. |
Anyway, my job involves calling some of the drivers who work for this totally unknown company and collecting feedback from them so the company can improve their partnership. Most of the calls are fine, but as with any job of this nature, you occasionally have to call someone who's particularly irritable and who is more than happy to take out all of their frustrations on the temp who has been hired to reach out to them for helpful feedback. And, sure enough, one day I had to call a driver named Dante, and he was one of those especially combative individuals. As soon as I said the name of the company I was calling from, he launched into a tirade about how terrible the company (and, by proxy, I) was. And this tirade was in no way focused on the topic I was supposed to be calling about--he just had at it. Considering the extent of this rant, he probably should have paid me a fee for acting as his therapist in that moment. Most of the time, when these drivers are upset, I'm able to calm them down somewhat by explaining that I understand their frustrations, and that I'm specifically looking for feedback to try and help the company improve, and many of them seem genuinely appreciative at the end of the phone call. But Dante wasn't listening to me. In part because he wouldn't let me get a word in edgewise. During his rant, I would occasionally try to chime in but he just kept continuing almost as if he had my side of the phone call on mute. My side of the phone conversation basically consisted of me saying fragments of words and Dante's name over and over again.
Dante...Dante...D...Da...Dante...I understa...Yes, I...Dante...Yes, I understand bu...Da...Yes, Da...Well if you'd let...Yes, I under...Dante...DANTE...I'd love to address that concern but...No...Yes, Dant...Dante...D...
That went on for about eight minutes. Now, Dante was far from the only longwinded and angry person that I've called, but for some reason this call was particularly frustrating and it clearly showed on my face and in my voice, because after a while, all of my co-workers had stopped making calls and were just starting at me, waiting to hear how this conversation would unfold. Eventually, Dante did let me get maybe two sentences in, before he once again started screaming at me. Finally, after close to fifteen minutes, there was a pause, so I hastily thanked him for his feedback and said I hoped he'd have a nice day and hung up. As soon as I hung up, I remember muttering, "Go drive your car into a river, Dante," and some of my co-workers began applauding.
Again, this wasn't the only time that I've had to deal with a difficult person on the other end of the line, but for some reason (perhaps because of his name) Dante really seemed to stick with everyone who was making calls. Suddenly, the name Dante began to represent every difficult customer that we'd ever called. If someone is on a frustrating call, the person they're calling is referred to as "a Dante." Dante, essentially, became an unofficial part of the call center team with how much we talked about him. As time went on, the myth of Dante only continued to grow. Somehow, everyone began fantasizing about me coming face to face with Dante at some point and having a grand confrontation. "What if Dante shows up at the office? We'll have your back, Miles!" they all promised. And yet it got stranger from there. At some point in the Dante v. Miles showdown we'd all come to imagine, it was decided that at various points, Dante and I would kill each other, and then return from the dead as zombies, only to kill each other again. The various stages of our feud are, at this point, more complex than most action movie screenplays, and each of us has returned from death multiple times to seek revenge. It's really gotten quite intense. And is made all the more humorous to me when I remember that this Dante guy probably has no recollection of me calling him and certainly has no idea of the affect he's had on this group of temps.
Ordering
The Drink: Making these calls isn't exactly the most thrilling job. But it's definitely made more tolerable when you get along with the other people who you're making calls with. And this is a really fun group (which explains how our fictional representation of zombie Dante has gotten so out of hand). And so this past Wednesday, after work, we all decided to go out for drinks. I haven't gotten a What's-That-Drink drink in a while (sorry to all you What's That Drink fans out there! I've just been really busy!), but considering how my imagined feud with the evil force of nature that is Dante the Macgruber driver had become such a fixture within the group, I felt that it needed to be memorialized in custom cocktail form. We made our way to a bar called The Frying Pan, which is located on a boat docked at Pier 66 in the Hudson River. And while the food and drinks are fine, its scenic location really does make it worth a visit. The steady rocking of the boat is wonderfully calming, and watching the sun set on New York City surrounded by friends and alcohol was a truly great way to end the day.
When I placed my unusual drink request with the bartender, she began making the drink with absolutely no hesitation and an enthusiasm that it's always fun to see when I order one of these weird drinks. I had been a bit concerned that they might turn down my request, if only because the house cocktail menu was limited, but this bartender seriously crafted The Return of Dante as if she'd been making them regularly. It was impressive. She was so confident, and the drink sounded good enough, that my co-worker Matt Charles decided to order one too.
The Drink:
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| Me and my co-workers Brad and Brendan. We did a whole photoshoot with the drink, and this was somehow the picture where we look the least stupid. |
Tequila
Triple Sec
Grapefruit Juice
Splash of Soda
Assessment
of Drink: It was good! I always expect something with grapefruit juice to be really bitter, but this drink was actually quite sweet, with the grapefruit only coming in subtly at the end. It was accented nicely--and the bitterness was probably muted--by the triple sec, with the double dose of citrus brightening the drink nicely. The best part, of course, was the tequila, which was definitely at the forefront. I actually thought this drink was better (and stronger) than the other two cocktails I'd ordered before. Matt Charles liked it so much that he actually ordered it again on his next round. Ultimately, it wasn't a complicated cocktail, but the triple sec and grapefruit juice were great at complimenting the tequila and not overpowering it.
Does It
Live Up To The Name: I mentioned before that, in college, I took a class all about Dante, so the second I considered what I'd do with this drink, I immediately started devising a menu of cocktails to represent every circle of hell in Dante's Inferno. But that's far more involved than I would ever anticipate. Knowledge of the Divine Comedy is certainly not a requirement to get your bartending license. The grapefruit juice gave the drink a reddish tint (definitely more red than pink, which was surprising considering the ingredients) which could feasibly be seen as a more demonic color. And considering that the most famous part of the Divine Comedy is the Inferno, that red color was a tenuous connection, but one that could certainly be made if you reach a little bit. Plus, one could argue that any cocktail is a little bit sinful because of the alcohol, so having any drink at all could potentially land someone in the Inferno.
Unexpectedly, the more I thought about the name, the more I thought that this bartender managed to capture the "Return" part of it better than the "Dante." After all, if you drink too much of a tequila drink, you'll definitely feel it enacting revenge the next morning.
The Frying Pan is a really fun place. It has a setting that can't be beat, and the bartending staff clearly is there to encourage the feeling of fun and relaxation that makes it such a popular NYC spot. Whether you go there for the view or for the drinks, you're going to have a good time.
And, if you ever call for a car and your driver is named Dante, let him know that Miles is ready for him. He'll have no idea what you're talking about.
