Tomorrow, D.C. commemorates two anniversaries: The 40th anniversary of the Martin Luther King Jr. assassination, and the 75th anniversary of the repeal of prohibition. Please do not commemorate these events concurrently.

If you’d like to commemorate Martin Luther King–assassinated 40 years ago on this day–head to Ballou Senior High School at 3401 4th St. SE at noon for the 29th Annual Martin Luther King Jr. Parade. The parade is chaired by Marion Barry.

If you’d like to commemorate the occasion of prohibition not existing anymore, convene outside the Dubliner at 520 North Capitol St NW at 6 p.m. for Budweiser’s block party–complete with Bud Clydesdale photo-op. From the Post’s “now we can drink again” round-up:

[O]n April 7, 1933, President Franklin Roosevelt signed an amendment to the Volstead Act that allowed brewers to sell beer that was 4 percent alcohol by volume instead of the previous 0.5 percent. According the national Brewers Association, more than 1.5 million barrels of beer were consumed in the first 24 hours.

Commence commemorating!

Toronto FC supporter “carl” (when will “gordo” step up?) lashes out at poorly composed Canadian jokes. In advance of tomorrow’s D.C. United home opener, during which we can only hope we’re spared the horrors Columbus, Ohio, went through, Toronto FC fans have begun to hit back in droves. Well, two of them have begun to hit back, but that’s, like, 1/20000th of the Canadian population. “carl” says:

You forgot the flannel-shirt joke.

Hope you’re not paid real money to write this.

Sadly, “carl” could be talking about his own currency.

Rare footage of Canadian soccer hooligans preparing for a trip south after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

The Post ran a fantastic spirits column in this week’s Food section, in which Jason Wilson describes a game he and his brother play called Liquor Store Archaeology. Basically, they try to outdo the other with old-school finds. Sounds like quite a bit of fun to me. Anyway, his current find is a bottle of creme de violette, which he uses to make a Blue Moon cocktail (combined with gin and lemon juice). So, if you’re like me, you’re about to go buy a bottle of creme de violette. In case you get tired of Blue Moons, here are some more recipes to experiment with (And they are experiments. Thanks, Google!):

Blue Moon #2 (adapted from Esquire Drinks Book)

• 2 ounces gin
• 1 ounce dry vermouth
• 1 dash orange bitters
• 1 dash creme de violette

Rainbow

• 1/2 oz creme de violette
• 1/2 oz creme de cacao
• 1/2 oz maraschino liqueur
• 1/2 oz yellow chartreuse
• 1/2 oz green chartreuse
• 1/2 oz Benedictine
• 1/2 oz brandy

Fizz a la Violette

• 2 oz gin
• 1 oz creme de violette
• 1 egg white
• 1/2 tsp sugar
• 1/2 oz cream
• 1/2 oz fresh lime juice

We’re suckers for a name. It’s proven in this article by Gary Regan who created a tasty-sounding cocktail of single-malt Scotch (he recommends Oban or Springbank) and Canton ginger liqueur. He first named this concoction Whisky Qing after the Qing Dynasty, which is around when ginger liqueurs were first made in China. The drink went unordered. When he changed the name to the Debonair, the drink started to catch on.

I think it’s perfectly reasonable to make the jump that people aspire to be the drinks they order. Clearly, if you are drinking a Debonair, then you are debonair. After an unofficial survey of popular drinks ordered in bars, I have discovered that Washingtonians want to be cosmopolitan Manhattanites who study aviation and ride in sidecars with their girlfriend, Margarita. While drinking mojitos. So get your work done and head to a bar where you can live out your dreams. Happy Friday!

This is important. Classy. I like the way it looks. Five times distilled, dual carbon filtered. From Holland. Where the bulbs come from. And that kid with his finger in the dike…Hans Brinker, right? More like Hans Drinker! Good provenance—is that the right word? provenance? yeah?—Jacques de Lat, third-generation master distiller. That’s MASTER distiller. An important distinction. And the bottle. Mwah! Gold—speaks to the brand and the superiority of the product. People are gonna want this. Good work, everybody.

(Empty bottle of Trump Vodka on the Champlain Street NW side of the Church of Christ, Scientist on Euclid Street NW)

Yesterday, I received this e-mail in my inbox announcing something called Shecky’s Girls Night Out. You’re invited … if you can get your priorities straight in time:

I do not envy the woman forced to choose between these two lists. True, as a sassy, independent woman, I find alcohol and frivolous purchases irresistible. But as a batshit crazy woman, I need to maintain my ongoing surveillance of my ex-boyfriend’s online photosets, and consider not drinking a latte “doing” something. Now I know what Sophie felt like.

Washingtoniennes have until April 15th to decide.

State flower, state tree, state bird…why not state cocktail? At least that’s what state Sen. Edwin Murray (D-New Orleans) thinks. He’s proposed to make the Sazerac, which was invented in New Orleans, the official state cocktail. According to Janna Goodwin, a researcher for the National Conference of State Legislatures, this would be the nation’s first state cocktail.

In the event that this opens the floodgates of states frantically claiming cocktails for their own, D.C. should be prepared. When I think of the nation’s capital, I think single-malt Scotches. I’m pretty sure we can’t lay claim to those. Anyone have thoughts to what D.C.’s cocktail should be?

Spitzer mania has spread to the bar. Rochester mixologist Chris Carlsson has created the Eliot Spritzer, a layered cocktail with Champagne then absinthe (insert crazy joke) then Campari (for a bitter ending, according to Carlsson). Clever. But what I want is a cocktail designed for Ms. Ashley Alexandra Dupre; I really don’t want to be picturing Eliot Spitzer while I’m sipping on a drink. How about something like vodka (for class), red bull (for trash), and Grand Marnier (for…she’s gonna be rich once that record deal rolls in)?* Or maybe it should be a sparkler as well: Champagne (for sexy), Frangelico (for she’s nuts), and Cognac (for…she’s gonna be loaded once that book deal rolls in)?*

*Have caution when trying these at home. They have not been tested. I’m at a desk. Dreaming about happy hour. But not there yet.

This past weekend was the Washington D.C. International Wine & Food Festival, an event where you wander the Reagan Building with an empty wine glass, trying to get people to pour wine into it. I stopped by yesterday hoping to learn a lot about wine. Here’s what I learned:

1. Be aggressive. This place is packed with people, and they’re not above pushing you out of their way for a splash of Pinot Noir.

2. Beware of women’s purses. They look innocent but are actually disguised weapons. One quick turn and even the most petite woman can send you stumbling away from a table. Where she is now enjoying a sip of wine.

3. Bring an old person with you. Even if you are able to maneuver yourself to the front-and-center of a table, if an old person appears, you will be trumped. I’m sure it’s assumed that they have more money than you. Actually, I’m sure they do have more money than you.

4. Look like you have money. Older people will always look wealthier. But don’t discount the possibility of looking like a trust-fund kid. I recommend a single strand of pearls for the ladies and a blazer for the gentlemen. It doesn’t hurt to drop lines like, “Oh! Wouldn’t this Chardonnay taste lovely on a summer day on the boat?”

5. Don’t get hammered. Don’t be that guy. That guy accosted my boyfriend and me. He wanted to know why my boyfriend is so tall. And he said it’s really important to buy good vinegar (but hard to find). And he said the port he was drinking was the best fucking thing in the world. And if you saved it for 20 years, it would be orgasmic.

6. Try the port. The best table was the table where I tried a sherry, a tawny, and a ruby. Enlightening and delicious.

Just south of the City Paper offices on Champlain Street. Somebody already got to one of them, but the other’s intact.

In this week’s Show & Tell, I profile Moe Harris, international flair bartender and local barkeep molder at Arlington’s Professional Bartending School. Harris is constantly in motion-and usually spinning bottles above his head-but I managed to catch up with him last week at Rhino Bar, where he was competing in the D.C.’s Fastest Bartender Contest. Turns out Harris isn’t just show; he’s also really, really fast.

Harris knows how to throw together any drink you can think of, but his drink of choice is a simple Miller Light. Before the competition, he had a few of those, peeling the labels off the bottles as he drank. He also had a few celebratory shots with his wife, Rhino Bar staff, past students, and fellow flair bartenders. He still won. Harris took first place second at the preliminary trial; catch him at Rhino Bar in the finals on Sunday, March 9.

Stetson’s Bar and Grill on U St. is covered with these ads for LifeStyles condoms (up-and-coming frat house decorators can click for a free poster). The ad series features pictures of half-naked ladies along with tags that describe each girl’s particular “lifestyle”: from “Spontaneous” to “Naughty,” “Impulsive” to “Ready-to-Go.”

These “lifestyles,” of course, suggest the way that the girls like to have sex. Fine. But they also, obviously, play off the name of the condoms, which is why the above ad, situated directly across from the toilet in Stetson’s upstairs bathroom, rubbed me the wrong way. I don’t mind that the girl with the undersized tanktop on the washing machine enjoys a dirty “lifestyle.” The implication that she enjoys a dirty LifeStyle, though, is significantly less sexy.

Last weekend, I found myself milling outside a darkened club in the early morning. Earlier, a crowd of partygoers had filled the club. They had danced to popular music tracks while the wallflowers among them traded conversation and pushed their hips into each other. I had paid roughly 1.6% of my paycheck to attend this event.

Now outside, the crowd grew restless. One man vomitted incessantly onto the sidewalk. Several men struck each other in the genitals with their fists. Another man pushed a police officer. Everybody had to clear out.

In a private residence several blocks away, I sat on a couch next to a musician while a man played music on a record player. Earlier, this musician had handed me several fliers promoting his band. The musician suggested that the man with the record player play a particular record. “If you do not play this record,” threatened the musician, “I will punch you in your face.”

A friend of the musician joined us on the couch.

“Guess how old I am,” demanded the musician’s friend.

“No,” I replied.

“Guess how old I am,” he insisted.

“Twenty-seven,” I guessed. I had intentionally lowered my estimation of his age so as not to offend him.

The man seemed satisfied. “Actually, I am 33,” he informed me. “Though most people guess me to be 29 years old.”

“Often, people will intentionally lower their estimation of a person’s age so as not to offend them,” I explained to the man.

“I have accounted for this,” the musician’s friend assured me.

The musician turned to the man playing records. “If you do not play that record,” theatened the musician, “I will kill you.”

“Are you all right?” I asked the musician.

“No,” he replied.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Everything,” he replied.

I left the musician. In an adjacent room, a man ate tortilla chips and medium spicy salsa. I joined him, and the two of us consumed the chips and salsa with a strange urgency. We did not speak.

Soon, the musician entered the room. His eyes struggled to focus: on what–me, the other man, the chips, or the salsa–I could not be sure.

“Hello,” I said to the musician.

He closed his eyes. “Oh, fuck it,” he said.

“Is everything okay?” I asked after him.

Later in the morning, when this gathering too cleared out, he would be unable to locate his vehicle. Hours later, he would awake, alone, in a stranger’s bed, surrounded by fliers of his own design. Everything was not okay. Everything was wrong. He was not all right.

Fuck it.

Last night, a friend of mine hosted a small gathering in celebration of two occasions: An event where individuals are made to reveal their breasts in exchange for promises of multicolored jewels, and an event where individuals are made to reveal their political preferences in exchange for promises of change, progress, stimulation, 25 years experience in the private sector, Chuck Norris, hope, and tax refunds. My friend hoped to bridge the divide between the two seemingly unrelated events by encouraging the moderate to heavy consumption of Coors Light.

When I arrived, many party-goers held sheets of paper informing them how to better become intoxicated based on verbal and visual cues from the Cable News Network. Some wore beads. On the television, a permanent graphic read “BREAKING NEWS.” Neon lines spun from Wolf Blitzer’s fingertips and onto intricate maps of the contiguous United States.

Soon, an intoxicated woman approached me. She bore a tray of oven-warmed delicacies decorated with miniature American Flags. “WANT SOME FRIED SHIT?” the woman inquired. “WANT SOME FRIED SHIT?” she repeated. “TAKE SOME FRIED SHIT.” I plucked some fried shit by the flag and transferred it to a paper plate, also decorated with an American Flag. This satisfied her.

The woman settled on a chair to watch the news break. ROMNEY WINS UTAH, explained the television. MCCAIN WINS ARIZONA. TORNADOES HIT TENNESSEE. Neon lines spun from a meteorologist’s fingertips onto intricate representations of weather patterns.

“I ATE TOO MUCH SPINACH QUICHE,” the intoxicated woman explained to the television.

“Maybe you drank too much spinach quiche,” one man offered.

“I AM GOING TO SIT ON THE COUCH,” countered the woman.

She sat on the couch. “TONIGHT, I AM GOING TO SLEEP WITH YOU,” she informed the hostess. “I AM GOING TO SLEEP WITH YOU IN YOUR BED.”

Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton took Arizona, Arkansas, California, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oklahoma, and Tennessee. Barack Obama took Alabama, Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, New Mexico, North Dakota, and Utah. Wolf Blitzer felt each state with his magic fingers.

I grew tired. As I moved to leave, I found the intoxicated woman standing alone. Her gaze had moved from the television set to a full-length mirror. She stared into it deeply. Her tray of fried shit sat, neglected, on an adjacent table.

The hostess approached the intoxicated woman and placed a hand lightly on her shoulder. The intoxicated woman intended to sleep with the hostess, in her bed, at the evening’s close. “Are you doing okay? Can I get you anything?” asked the hostess.

“MORE,” the woman replied simply. “MORE.”

When Shaw resident Helena Andrews entered U Street haunt Marvin last Saturday night, she could smell that something was up. “When we walked in, you could obviously smell smoke,” says Andrews. “We said, ‘What, are they barbecuing up there or something?’”

Despite the stench, Andrews and pals decided to stick around, order drinks–“white Chimay,” says Andrews–and hang out in the packed bar. “We’re not the only people they let in after it started to smell like smoke,” says Andrews. “And it really smelled like smoke.”

Andrews estimates she was in the spot for “about fifteen minutes” before Marvin’s manager, Sheldon Scott, “came in from outside and said, ‘We need everybody to leave, we’re closing down.’” At that point, says Andrews, “Nobody took it seriously. Everyone kept drinking.”

Says Scott, “We stopped serving when we first realized there was a potential problem.” Later, when staff failed to locate the smoky source, “we decided to evacuate,” he says. “Some people left. Some had to be directed to leave . . . and some people wanted to know more about what was going on.”

“They never shouted outright, ‘There’s a fire, get out,’” says Andrews. “We overheard management saying, ‘We don’t want to yell “Fire” because we don’t want to cause chaos,’” she recalls. “They were not effectively communicating the situation.”

Scott says that management let patrons know that the situation was “a potential threat,” but did not elaborate on the problem. “We weren’t sure what it was at that point,” he admits.

After attempting to get patrons to leave for several minutes, says Andrews, Marvin’s staff “got all crazy about it and went bipolar . . . people started scrambling to close out their tabs. Then Sheldon started shouting, ‘Stop telling people to close up their tabs!’ It was chaos.”

When the building was finally evacuated, Scott says, the fire department was able to locate the source of the smell: a few smoldering cigarettes that had accumulated between the planks of the rooftop deck.

But not before Andrews had finished her drink. “We had literally just gotten our drinks of white Chimay!” she says. “They were humongous. We were downing our glasses. They were trying to kick us out, but we had just gotten our drinks, and we were going to finish them. And we did.”