Though the inordinate amount of time I spend at the LBV bar might lead you to believe that my culinary skills top out somewhere between pre-heating the oven for a frozen pizza and microwaving the occasional Lean Cuisine, I am actually quite at home in a kitchen and consider myself a fairly proficient cook as well as a skilled baker. And though I love to bake cakes and scones and bread, I’ve never been terribly into pies. It’s not the pie crust that trips me up (baby, please), it’s that making a pie seems like such a waste of good fruit. Doing anything with summer’s perfectly ripe raspberries and strawberries other than eating them whole, as is, seems the epitome of gilding the lily.

So when I ordered the Strawberry Blonde off the summer cocktail menu, I didn’t have great expectations. I expected it to taste about as much like strawberries as a watermelon martini tastes like watermelon (in other words, not at all). But the drink was new, it was summer and I was thirsty, so I ordered it.

But unlike the fruit-based cocktails served elsewhere that taste more like the Jolly Rancher version of the same flavor than like the fruit itself (apple-tini anyone?), this drink is pure strawberry. It isn’t like strawberries, it is strawberries. I know there’s something else in there, alcohol presumably being that it is a bar, but it tastes so fresh, so pure, so summer. It’s like sitting at the bar with a pint of berries from the farmer’s market and getting a buzz to boot. I almost never share my drinks at LBV, other than the polite “would you like to try it” that by now Marie knows better than to accept, but I was forcing people to taste this drink, wanting everyone to know the joy of perfect summer strawberries. It is delicious. When fall comes, the Strawberry Blonde will join sweet corn, bare feet and lazy afternoons on the deck as things I miss about summer.

Lush Jen

The Charles Bronson consists of rye whiskey and maraschino dry cherry brandy with three types of bitters, garnished with small dried plums on a stick. Given the spelling of whiskey, I have to assume it is American in nature as opposed to Canadian, which is spelled sans the “e”. This is good because, by law, American whiskey must contain at least 51% rye. Canadians aren’t quite as strict with their laws regarding distilled spirits. Canadian rye whisky simply has to “possess the aroma, taste and character generally attributed to Canadian whisky”. Seriously folks, that’s the language of the law.

Rye imparts a peppery flavor to the whiskey, along with a slightly bitter quality. This peppery bitterness is balanced exceptionally well with the cherry brandy without being cloyingly sweet.

So why call it the Charles Bronson? Having not asked Johnny, I can only conjecture. Is it that the rye whiskey, with its bitter quality, is a parallelism to Charles Bronson’s bitter vigilante characters in movies such as Death Wish? Or do the bitters themselves represent his acrid onscreen personality? One reason is unquestionable: the dried plum garnish symbolizes Charles Bronson’s visage. One film critic described his rugged looks as “a Clark Gable who had been left out in the sun too long”.

Regardless of the origin of Johnny’s nomenclature, the Charles Bronson is a harmonious blend and I would highly recommend it, especially to anyone of Canadian descent.

guest drinker Dean

If I didn’t know any better I could have sworn I was eating raw cantaloupe melon balls from a freshly prepared summer fruit salad. Maybe the balls of muskmelon first had a few quick spins in an electric food processor or juicer to explain it’s liquid state, but it’s clear this refreshing cocktail is 100% real cantaloupe, no artificial flavorings, no chemicals, no trans fats, nada. The alcohol so easily blends with the cantaloupe that even an intermediate drinker could easily be mislead. Insider Expert Lush Tip: Alcohol is definitely present.

I witness an imported winter wheat vodka and it’s citron flavored twin merging together to form the base of the drink. Next, from a mysterious bottle appears a pale orange concoction which is added to the mixture. This curious fluid is Johnny’s ingenious cantaloupe infused vodka. Add some ice, shake extra hard and done. The cocktail is garnished with 2 olives, both of which are stuffed with healthy portions of prosciutto. This is the best drink I have had at La Belle Vie for quite some time. I have my favorite stand-bys like the Nachito Mojito, Night of the Hunter and The Bad Lieutenant, but I am elated that I am officially adding the Parma to my personal list of choice cocktails. It is the predominating cantaloupe flavor that wins me over… but it doesn’t stop there. Johnny really outdoes himself – he’s also thinking of the health of his drinking patrons. There is an entire 4 servings of real fruit in this drink: 1 whole cantaloupe (this estimate is very scientific and is based on taste alone) and approximately 2 olives. The small portion of meat is a bonus. With the plethora of misleading advertising in the our media today, “low fat”, “no sugar added”, “contains whole grains”, it’s hard to make the right choice. It is refreshing that the Parma does not stray from delivering what it promises. My official recommendation: skip the farmer’s market for your fix of fruit this week and get yourself a Parma.

Lush Marie

On Tuesday, July 17th Lorri joined us at La Booze Vie as a guest drinker. We apologize to Lorri for our (or was it just my?) state of inebriation. In the next few days the site will be updated with our latest and greatest reviews of Johnny’s masterful cocktails. Parma, White Lotus and Strawberry Blonde to be exact.

Marie: I wanna work at a casino.
Jen: You’d be an excellent dealer.
Marie: No, I mean as one of those girls that walk around.
Lorri: You mean a prostitute?

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Lori and Julia, thanks for the mention of La Booze Vie on 107.1FM. Please join us as guest drinkers at your earliest convenience!

the Lushes

So Michael Jackson is dead. Even though I haven’t been a fan of Michael Jackson since about the 5th grade (when I took down my MJ posters and replaced them with pictures of Duran Duran I’d cut out of Teen Beat magazine), the significance of his death is not lost on me. Despite that, as I watch the world lose it’s collective head over the news, I am left shaking my own head at some of the ways people are reacting. A hundred stuffed animals crammed into the chain link fence surrounding a house in Gary, Indiana makes no sense to me. Nor can I understand my co-worker who called in sick in order to watch hours of funeral coverage on TV.

However, some tributes I can totally get behind. The impromptu jailhouse moonwalk? Love it. It’s original, it’s relevant, it’s thoughtful. Another tribute I can get behind is The Thriller cocktail on the LBV drink menu. The Thriller is, at it’s core, a Long Island Iced Tea. And holy crap is that drink strong (if Johnny had made one for Michael Jackson, he probably wouldn’t have needed all that Diprivan to pass out.) But it was also delicious. I haven’t had a Long Island Iced Tea in years, but tasting The Thriller that night I was left wondering why I don’t order them more often (much like listening to the endless MJ songs on the radio left me wondering why I don’t listen to “Don’t Stop Til You Get Enough” more often.) I don’t know how long The Thriller will be on the LBV drink menu. Perhaps about the same time that the last stuffed animal in that chain link fence gives up its cotton/poly filling to the elements the drink will be gone as well, so you should get one now. The way Johnny makes it can thrill you more than any ghost who would dare to try.

Lush Jen

Let me start by saying that this beverage is served on an unique beverage napkin. It is a black and white photocopy of Banksy’s Fallen Angel. If you take a closer look at the actual piece of art you will notice the angel is stooped over smoking a cigarette with a bottle of booze at his feet – my kind of angel, sans cigarette (note for the gentleman: smoking is the biggest turnoff ever).

The ingredients of this drink are unconventional: red wine, coca-cola, grape brandy and strangely a bitter Italian digestif. Is it the unusual union of red wine and coca-cola that make this drink wrong? No. How about the subtle promotion of digestion? Hell no. I appreciate it actually. Then what is it? I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure I have narrowed it down to a case of the new kid on the block. There always is an outsider that is ridiculed and bullied for no damn good reason. I have recollection of harsh name-callings including but not limited to: four eyes, flat-chested and mama’s boy (no, that last one was not directed at me- I wish I could say the same about the others). It takes a lot of guts to take a risk, stand out and not be average. Clearly this drink is different, it does not follow the typical cocktail formula, but really this is a good different. I have never tasted anything like it before, I can best describe it as a spicy sangria of sorts. Something that I must sip repeatedly in order to analyze over and over again. But that alone is no reason for it to be judged and shunned from the norms of the alcoholic beverage community. Fallen Angel, I promise to pick you up, to drink you, and to open the gates that lead to my thirsty belly.

Lush Marie