This week: we seek direct engagement with Aaron Aites of the band Iran… We learn the greatest name in football… Pittsburgh gets drunk on black gold… and Obama supporters dream of home-grown on the White House lawn.
Drink Recipe: “The Black & Gold”
This week in 1892, William “Pudge” Heffelfinger became America’s first pro footballer — in fact, the receipt for his services is known as “Pro Football’s Birth Certificate.” Our cocktail this week is based on the team colors of one of Pudge’s offspring: the Pittsburgh Steelers.
RECIPE as recounted by Jesse Best, bartend at Olive Or Twist in Pittsburgh, PA:
In a shaker, pour
- a 2-second pour of Blavod black vodka
- 4 oz. Chambord
Shake vigorously, pour into chilled martini shell to create black “bottom layer.”
Separately, in shaker, combine
- a 1-second pour of limoncello
- a 1-second pour sours
Spoon over vodka/Chambord mixture to create upper “gold layer.” Garnish with twist of lemon.
Audio Extra
Download “Buddy” by Iran.
Download
After Dinner Mint Notes on this week’s show
Before interviewing Aaron Aites about Iran, we caught the world premiere of the rockumentary he made with co-director Audrey Ewell. It’s called “Until the Light Takes Us,” and it’s a provocative look at the early-90’s musical movement called Black Metal, in which a few young musicians in Norway quickly moved from inventing a subgenre… to burning down churches… to killing each other. Well worth catching at a film fest near you. Not a date movie.
Lee Dorsey’s “Yes We Can” is this week’s “One For the Road” for obvious reasons. The tune was a hit 38 years before this latest Presidential election, of course… So our DJ friend Tano Sokolow updated it with some Obama speechifyin’. Download his campaign ‘08 remix here.
BTW, if a certain Senator from Arizona had won, we would’ve gone with Ennio Morricone’s amazing “Machine Gun McCain”.
CORRECTION: In this week’s history segment we erroneously state that, in today’s NFL, “a rookie starter earns around $220,000 per regular-season game.” What we meant to say was the average NFL starter makes that much. Rookies can earn a lot less. So sue us.
