Mark 2:27

Morning there, Markie. Hey Francis. How

Francis 2:29

are you? I am just grand. Thank you. I have to say I had a little donut this morning on my way to work.

Mark 2:34

Donuts are awesome.

Francis 2:35

Not this one.

Mark 2:37

Not this one. I have to say you, you wanna talk about indulgences? You wanna talk about why I'm the size I am? Yeah. Donuts are almost the perfect food. They're, oh, okay. I think you're going a little fine. You're gonna fry bread and put jelly in it. Yeah. Okay. Really. And sometimes you're gonna put chocolate on top. What's better than that? Yep. Little puddin in the middle. I have,

Francis 2:59

I have to say, I'm not a, I'm not a huge fan of the average donut.

Mark 3:03

I agree. I don't

Francis 3:04

like, I don't like, you know, box donuts or I like bakery donuts. Well, I, this comes up because I had read, uh, just recently, and we haven't been there, but I want to go, of course, you introduced me to the famous Italian donut called the, uh, bomb bologna. Yeah. Which is a. Perfect little fried bit of dough that's better than almost any American donut. And if you've never had a balog, they're remarkable. Yeah. They're fresh donuts with a little bit of cream in them, or a little bit of jelly. They're beautiful. Uh,

Mark 3:33

we are so jaded, I think with The Dunking Donuts, the, the par baked donuts that was made someplace else and then's finished in the, the little donut shop. But they're everywhere. You can have a Dunking donut or a muffin at Dunking Donuts. Yeah, it

Francis 3:47

is, it is to it. Those kind of donuts are to real donuts. What chips? A hoy is to your mom's chocolate

Mark 3:53

chip cookie. That's exactly right. and you know, obviously if as people have cut costs and. And ingredients have changed. E even they are not what they were 20 years ago. Well, you

Francis 4:02

know, that's the thing. I used to love Dunking Donuts. Mm-hmm. And I don't think it's just that my palate has changed, but the chocolate icing on them was different. The, the texture of the donut was different, less stable. But if you got it when it was fresh, it was delicious. And the coffee in Dunking Donuts was even different.

Mark 4:15

I had a donut from someplace else and just like a supermarket bakery recently. Mm-hmm. And the chocolate on top. Instead of being actual chocolate that would melt. They didn't wanna make it to the donut to make a mess. So they put like this chocolate. Wax stuff on top that wouldn't that refuse to melt. Mm-hmm. That's really bad. And you know, one of the things we've talked about a lot on the show is one of the pleasures you get from something like chocolate is that it changes texture in your mouth. Yeah. Textural dynamic. And I was just like, ah, you know, you really messed this up. this thing that I, that would've been pleasurable. You really messed up. Do you remember,

Francis 4:51

um. When you used to go into a fast food restaurant and you could order a milkshake mm-hmm. I defy you to go into a restaurant and order a milkshake or to find milkshake listed anywhere. Uh, you can get a thick shake. You can get a shake, but, uh, you can't get a milkshake. And one of the, I think the last time I had a, a. Thick shake from a fast food restaurant was probably about a dozen years ago, and what I found disturbing about it was that I had put it down on the counter, and an hour later I came back and it refused to melt. It was still thick. Yeah, it was room temperature, but it was thick, and I thought to myself. Oh, I don't, I don't want, I don't, Vista Softy also is another one. Mr. Softy ice cream trucks. Uhhuh, can't do them anymore. Had a cone, didn't melt. Just was like talking. I'm talking. It's a hot day. I'm like, it's, it's gonna melt. It's got it. Why

Mark 5:38

it's melting. I, I mean, I, here's what I don't understand about that, but they, to me, because it did

Francis 5:41

melt eventually,

Mark 5:42

it just didn't melt enough in the right way. I understand the logic of, Hey, we need to make this shelf stable. We need to make this so that you can drive around town in, in a hundred degree day and it won't melt. I, I understand all that, but. You, there's gotta be a recognition that the pleasure of chocolate, the pleasure of ice cream, the pleasure of, of substances like that, of an Italian ice, is that they indeed melt well. And that's, that's part of the pleasure of it.

Francis 6:09

I'm, I am always surprised the level to which we will accept the, not, not you and I, but, but people in general. Um, and I, when I was a kid, the standardization of food to make things easier, the level of sacrifice of why you would have it in the first place. I'm sorry, but just those sorts of donuts just aren't that good. They're not worth the calories. Whereas I think if you're on Columbus Avenue and you stop in for a bomb bologna at ba bologna, worth the calories, worth the worth. The extra few minutes at the gym, you know, it seems to be donut month here, but, uh, Bon Appetit Magazine came out with their best places for donuts across America. Mm-hmm. And, uh. Obviously donuts have a road trip. Totally love it. Well, obviously donuts have a, they have a place in our, in our collective consciousness about it. It's very much comfort food. It's very much a treat when we were a kid, but just because it's round and has a hole in it doesn't mean that it's donut and you have. I have a great idea

Mark 7:02

for the road trip from Donut Place to donut place across the country. Yeah, you should have to jog to each one in between.

Francis 7:08

It'd really be worthwhile. So we have in New York, and I haven't been to this place. selection from Bon Appetit Magazine is the donut plant. It's an artisanal donut. Boom, trace back to Mark Israel's lower East Side place, the classic glazed and tre leche. Cake donuts are perfection. Even the jellies in the trademark jelly filled square donuts are house made.

Mark 7:28

Do you know that the jelly in your, most of these, Jelly donuts that you get these, the, the, the gooey kind of jelly that, that doesn't really seem like jelly. Yep. Do you know that that's a powder mix? That the jelly is actually a powder mix and the gelatin's in there, and a lot of these, these JE donuts. So when it bakes, it jellies a little. No. You still, you still put the jelly in later, but. It's a powder mix. And so you mix it. So you get the powder mix, it sits on the shelf for however long you need it, and then you mix it with water or, and the gelatin and, and then you put it in the donut. And

Francis 9:29

yuck. My life is poor for having no, for knowing that. Yuck. My life is poor. Well, I, I, I don't think that's how they do it at the donut plant in New York. I'll bet they don't. Oh, we have a big listenership out in Chicago. I choice out there is dat donuts, DAT donut Uh, every donut at this south side joint is made by hand. Purists will like the raised glazed donuts available in super-sized versions as well, while, uh, cream filled center devotees must have the Boston Cream. That's in Chicago. I, I want to comment on something that is really also sad to me. Even in Bon Petite Magazine and at many of these places in their names, donuts are now D-O-N-U-T-S. We've lost the doughs, we've lost the spelling. We've lost the dough.

Mark 10:09

We've lost the dough in donuts. I really don't like that. And I wanna want they're dos instead of donuts.

Francis 10:15

I want to throw in one other, um, one other, name in the hat for contention for New Jersey. There is a little place in South Jersey Central like this. Mid Jersey Shore, um, uh, just off the mid Jersey shore in Tom's River, New Jersey. And I'm not sure if they're open all year round, but it's right off Route 37. It's not right in the shore town. It's sort of on your way to the shore town. And it's Mrs. OB CO's old fashioned donuts, fried cakey donuts. Uhhuh made fresh every day. Make 'em in the morning, get there early. 'cause when she runs out, she runs out. Mrs. KO's Donuts, Toms River, New Jersey.

Mark 10:52

Gotta go for the real deal. I'm sorry. Gotta go for the real deal. If you're gonna have a donut,

Francis 10:57

where's

Mark 10:58

the trip? You gotta, you gotta go for the real deal.

Francis 11:00

Hey, listen, we'll be back in just a moment. We're gonna be talking about more adult topics. We're gonna be talking about cocktails and cocktail books with Greg Bom. He's uh, reproducing some wonderful old antique cocktail books that you should check out. You're listening to the Restaurant guys

11:12

Hey there, everybody. Welcome back. You are listening to The Restaurant Guys, Mark and Francis,

Francis 11:15

and we are here talking today with Greg Bo. Greg Bom owns Mud Puddle books. You may not have heard of mud Puddle books, but they fill a real need in the cocktail world. They issue classic reproductions of classic cocktail books, things, resources that were unavailable online or anywhere to bartenders. Everybody I know who's in the cocktail business knows about mud puddle books. And, and if you have a serious cocktail enthusiast in your family, you, you, you need to go there. Greg, welcome to the show.

Greg 11:39

Thank you very much.

Francis 11:40

Uh, mud Puddle Books. I remember Greg, uh, when I started in the cocktail business, um, I had been a bartender for a number of years, owned my own place for less than a year, and I, I had a great good fortune to meet, DeGraff, sort of the founder of the Modern Cocktail Revolution. And, um. I was amazed when he schooled me, uh, in cocktails. 'cause I didn't think cocktails could be really complex. I was sort of a wine snob. And then I was amazed once again after we became friends and he took me into his little office stacked with Out of print cocktail books, hard to find cocktail books, things that his never torical cocktail books that

Mark 12:14

were, that were 50, a hundred

Francis 12:15

years old. And, um, you know, having had the, the, the privilege to be able to go into Dale's office and read through some of those things, or to be able to call up my friend Dale when I had a question and he could verify things historically for me in books. Um. One of the surprising things is these books did not become re available. Um, they're not always accurately quoted on the web. Good information is still somewhat hard to find, and then you come out with mud puddle books. What, what was your motivation? Where did you come from? How did you find a love for this particular genre of, of book?

Greg 12:46

Uh, well, my family's been in book publishing for, uh, three generations. So we were publishing books, uh, at Sterling Publishing Company, which is our family business. By a guy named Salvatore Calabresi.

Francis 13:00

Sure.

Greg 13:00

Um, and actually you mentioned Dale Degra. The first time I met him was we brought Salvatore Calabresi over from London for an event, uh, at the Rainbow Room hosted by Dale Degra, uh, for the book launch of, Salvatore's Classic cocktail book. So that was my first entree into this world, was through the book side of it. And, uh, that book, first of all, sold incredibly well and, um. The, uh, I would go to Salvatore's Bar in London probably twice a year, each time for a week, and just sit at his bar in the Waynesboro Hotel called the Library Bar and have wonderful cocktails. And 10, 11 years ago, it was not easy to find a great cocktail in New York City.

Francis 13:38

Right.

Greg 13:38

So, being a book geek, I turned to books and started collecting cocktail books. Um, at that time the books were more pieces of history. Like Dale Degra would know what to do or with, uh, some of the ingredients that he couldn't find or what they were. Most people didn't, I didn't have access to most of the ingredients in these old cocktail books 10 or 11 years ago. Uh, so they weren't really useful. They were fun, but they weren't useful. And now everything's changed with the amount of bitters you can find if you can't find some, an ingredient to look it up on the internet and there'll be a recipe on how to make it. And so these books, which were once not terribly useful, um, have become actually useful. So it made sense for us to publish.

Francis 14:19

Well, you know, one of the things that I find very interesting about cocktail recipes and cocktail books, you know, recipes for pastry are best adhered to exactingly. You know, pastry is chemistry, but recipes for cocktails are like recipes for savory food. I think that I. With good bartenders. You know, there are adjustments made all the time for the level of sweetness or the level of tartness, and there are adjustments made with the sensibility of the fact that a hundred years ago, people had a sweeter palette than we have now. And there are adjustments made with the idea that maybe a lot of bar recipes weren't completely accurate, or spirits may have changed over time. So it still takes to read an old cocktail book, it still takes a, a, you need to bring a fair amount to the table. But like you said. Those cocktails can be reproduced reasonably today. And, um, it's how individual bartenders interpret those recipes, um, that, you know, makes life interesting. I think.

Greg 15:15

Yeah, I mean there's definitely, when you read the books, if you just make the recipes out of the books, that's gonna be, uh, it may not always be successful, but we're very careful in what books we do publish. In my office, I have 2,800 antique cocktail books. Wow. And we've so far done reproductions of 12 of them. And not because we couldn't do more, it's just that we've chosen ones. The first group we did were books like, um, by Harry Johnson and Jerry Thomas that had great historical value and great bartender advice from a time when bartending was a very respected profession. And that's been lost. It's not, now it's back again, but this kind of bartenders that needed a role model. We published these books so they could read about role models granted there from the. Late 18 hundreds, but made sense. And then the second six books we published were books that were full of recipes so people could read about pre-prohibition recipes and see what they're all about. Um, but yes, you do have to have a good amount of knowledge to dive into these books 'cause some of the booze has changed and some of the, uh, people's palates have changed. Certainly.

Mark 16:18

Greg, when you're re-editing these, I'm sorry, republishing these books, are you re-editing them at the same time or are you publishing them exactly as they were produced?

Greg 16:25

Exact replicas. In fact, um, we do such exact replicas that when you go and look on eBay and I see one of my own books, I have to actually look at the listing very carefully before I buy it. Think I'm buying, I'm buying an original. I mean, use every single detail from the binding, the paper, stamping on the cover. If it has gold on it, we. So we, uh, are doing exact replicas. The only thing we're adding, is an introduction. So by people like David Wdr, um, or, Dr. Cocktail Ted Hague and Dale de Graff has been one of our introductions. So, to, kind of bridge between modern times and when these books are written, people can see what the value is. But, uh, other than the introduction, they're identical.

Francis 17:06

Who is the audience for these books? Who's buying them? I mean, it, it's in the blogosphere. The cocktail blogosphere is very much alive with people who are interested, both professionally and, um, people who just, you know, are cocktail enthusiasts at home. Who's, who's buying these books?

Greg 17:20

Uh, we certainly, our, our main business is selling Barware books and bidders to high-end cocktail bars. That being said, a full half our business is going to cocktail enthusia. Um, also because of some press we've gotten, like GQ called our books last year, the fifth Best, it was stuff of the year. Fifth best stuff of the year. Number one was a new Mercedes and number five was mud puddle books, cocktail books.

Francis 17:46

That's great. It's a lot cheaper that, that, it was

Greg 17:48

great because people who wouldn't, weren't, uh, normally gonna be our customer would find out about our products. But as of now, it's also a lot of people from the culinary world, a lot of chefs, um, bartenders definitely, but also a lot of chefs and cocktail enthusia.

Mark 18:01

Well, I, for the collector, do you ever sell any of the antique books?

Greg 18:05

I do. I don't, uh, formally sell antique books, but if I have multiple copies, multiple copies don't help anybody. So I definitely, if somebody's using it for a specific reason, if they're doing research or something. My office is actually a working library, so they're 2,800, uh, cocktail books and. Both journalists, bartenders, different people who are doing research come through here all the time. So you'll see, you know, we just had a bunch of bartenders in from Germany and they were going to PDT 'cause it's a great cocktail. Bar. Death in Company was their favorite cocktail bar, and on their itinerary they would come by here to see the books and do a little bit of research.

Mark 18:42

Wow. So in other words, you'll sell one of these antique books as long as it goes to a good home.

Greg 18:46

Correct. As long as I have multiple copies, which is often the case and yes. Good. Certainly consider.

Francis 18:53

Kinda like giving away puppies. Hey, we'll take a quick break and we'll be right back with, uh, Greg Bom of Mud Puddle books. You can find, you can find Greg's books at uh, cocktail kingdom.com and we also some pretty cool barware, and historical reference points that I think you'll find interesting. We'll be back in just a moment. You're listening to the Restaurant guys You are listening to the Restaurant guys, Mark Francis, and we're talking with Greg Bom. Greg is the owner of Mud Puddle Books, which is in the process of reprinting classic cocktail books that have been off the market for many, many years, and I think it's a great service to those of us in the industry, and it's a really fascinating thing. If you're interested in cocktails at all, you can find them@cocktailkingdom.com. Now, Greg, that's your website. But it's not just about books@cocktailkingdomdo.com, you sell Barware as well?

Greg 19:37

That's correct. We sell, uh, barware. Uh, that's pretty much a super high-end barware that comes mostly from Japan, Germany, and the uk. I. Uh, as well as bidders from all over the world.

Mark 19:49

And why don't you talk about the difference between some of the, the barware you might get in, from your website as opposed to what you might get from traditional barware?

Greg 19:57

The, I mean, the concepts are the same. It's shakers strainers, but everything's just a tool, just a little bit better. So, um, one of my favorite things is the three part cobbler shaker. Which is traditionally, uh, not considered a great shaker in this country. We sell ones made in Japan that, uh, all the Tokyo bartenders use, for example, that are extremely, well tooled. They won't leak. They're easy to separate. Uh, we have all different types of bar spoons that are more delicate. There are more elegant, both in appearance, um, and things that are, until we started cocktail kingdom, were almost impossible to find, like, uh, bitters. Decanters. So they're 90 milliliter bottles. That's three ounces. And you can put Bitters into these bottles so you get an accurate dash because the commercial bidders bottles, like the Angus DUR bottle or um, bitter Truth, which is another brand of cocktail bitters are not consistent. The bottles are all different from each other, so you can decant into this. Nice, it's very elegant Bitters bottle to get a more accurate, dash each time.

Francis 20:57

Well, you know, one of the. Early bars that, um, I love in New York City, uh, was opened up when I still had my apartment down in the East Village. It's called Angels Share. Angel. Oh,

Greg 21:07

you got in? Yeah. That was certainly, uh, influential in a great cocktail bar.

Francis 21:11

Oh, it's it's fabulous bar. And it opened, God, I moved out on New York long time ago, the nineties, you know, so, or yeah, the nineties. So

Greg 21:18

it opened in 1996. I.

Francis 21:20

Yeah, that's, that was the same year that I moved out, was that when they opened? And I still go back there once in a while. The thing about it is that is a Japanese bar. It's sort of behind a hidden door in a Japanese restaurant. And um, and they practice a different style of bartending. And when you talk about there being Japanese bar tools, I remember thinking. You know, being confronted with Japanese bar tools and the Japanese methods of bartending, there are slight differences other than just higher quality. So, for example, uh, an American barto, you would bend a little bit so you can stir in a certain way, whereas a Japanese bar spoon wouldn't bend. Uh, and so there's a different way that you stir and there's a different way to shake. And there's a whole different, um, methodology there behind Japanese bartending, which is fascinating that I was first introduced to there. but you, you are very involved in, publishing, a book on Japanese cocktail technique, uh, just coming up, aren't you?

Greg 22:08

Yeah, that's correct. Um, the most famous bartender in Japan, by far, by leaps and bounds is a guy named Kazu uda, U-Y-E-D-A. Um, and he actually created one of the shakes you're referring to called The Hard Shake. Not that all Japanese, bartenders use the hard shake at Angel Share. There's one guy there named Shige. Um, who's the bartender? He uses the hard shake. Other ones. He uses different ones. And, uh, we're actually flying Mr. Uaa into New York for his book launch at an event, And the book's called Cocktail Technique, which is a famous book in Japan. And it's the first time it'll be available in English, really explaining how Japanese bartending is different, how they stirred differently, like you said. I mean, their mixing glasses are beautiful, which you would've seen at Angels Share, but also the, as you mentioned, the way they stir is different. And this is kind of a glimpse into that whole world.

Francis 22:54

Sounds like a blast. you can go right to cocktail kingdom.com and find out more. Hey Greg, thanks for being on the show with us.

Greg 23:00

All right, thank you so much for having me. Thanks Greg.

Francis 23:02

We'll be right back. You're listening to the Restaurant guys on Restaurant guys radio.com. You're

Mark 23:07

listening to the restaurant guys, mark, Francis. Francis. A lot of these books that, that Greg's talking about, a lot of these that he's brought back simply weren't, aren't available. I mean, if you're not a collector, if you're not somebody, you know you want to get the Policeman's Gazette. Uh, from 1908, and you want to find those documents. Uh, there's, there's really one place you can go find it. It's at his library. Yeah. that's in Manhattan or

Francis 23:28

Dale's library, or, that's the thing about a lot of these guys who, who sort of led the cocktail revolution, they painstakingly found this information. They didn't like Google it in 1996. They went and they found this information. They found these old books and then. They reinterpreted them to make something that, you know, we could drink in

Mark 23:43

modern times. But one of the things that Greg's really, that's really cool and I think that that really, Greg's really open to people coming and seeing his books. He's not just a collector, he's sharing these collections. Yeah, it's his library, personal library. You know, we talked about the, the republishing of. Of some of these books, but at the same time, he's got this 2,800 book collection where you can make an appointment if you're, you know, somebody in the industry, somebody who's serious about this, and go and do research like a library. And, he'll go there with you and, open this library up to you. And I think that's, that's really amazing, I think of, of, of all the things he's doing. That's the, coolest thing that he is doing.

Francis 24:18

Ah, he brings our, restores, our

24:19

Faith in cocktail humanity, huh? Anyway, well, we hope that you've enjoyed this last hour with The Restaurant Guys. I know that we certainly have. I am Francis Schacht. And I'm Mark Falco. We are The Restaurant Guys on restaurantguysradio.com