MARTINIS AND MUNESH :MAKING MERRY AT THE OLD KING COLE BAR

MAKING MERRY 

Old King Cole

Was a merry old soul,

And a merry old soul was he;

He called for his pipe,

And he called for his bowl,

And he called for his fiddlers three!

And every fiddler, he had a fine fiddle,

And a very fine fiddle had he.

"Twee tweedle dee, tweedle dee," went the fiddlers.

Oh, there's none so rare

As can compare With King Cole and his fiddlers three.

Cooling his heels in the lobby of the St Regis hotel in midtown New York, as a young banker Sood is not a merry soul. To start with, his client is late. As he takes in the ambience of the marble clad lobby, elaborate draped canopies, carved plaster moldings, he is overcome by annoyance at the client who has put him up at a rather less impressive chain hotel and has personally very conveniently turned up a day later and checked into the St Regis on the pretext that no rooms were available at the other hotel. Swept up by the old world charm, Sood  relaxes and starts noticing the bold and the beautiful walk through the lobby into the bar on the other end. One day, he swears, one day - this is the place he will stay and that is the bar that he will drink in. 

Many moons later, Sood checks in at the hallowed lobby of the St Regis hotel, and soon takes refuge in the dark, woody warmth of the KingColeBar. The marble lobby contrasts the dark, lounge, gentlemen's club feeling of the bar (women were not permitted into the bar area until the 1950's). This bar is famous for the huge mural by Maxfield Parrish (one of the greatest American illustrators), depicting the eponymous nursery rhyme, which runs from one end of the bar to the other and stares down at the patrons. The clientele is well heeled, old school New York  a few midtown bankers and a few fashionable women, taking a break from shopping at Tiffany's around the corner  and most importantly, no tourists! 

The house specialties are the stiff martinis and of course, the signature drink is the Red Snapper, the St Regis version of the Bloody Mary - there many claimants to the invention of this drink, including Harry's Bar and also the Hemingway Bar in Paris (we prefer the Hemingway bar legend). The drink bar snacks are excellent and Sood finds himself munching Wasabi crunches, pretzels and macadamias and examining the bar matchbox for his collection (it has a picture of the mural on it). 

The bartender and the bar attendants are ever helpful and make sure that no one is drinking alone. One of them, of Bangladeshi origin, strikes up a conversation with Sood, asking him if he watched Bollywood movies and mentions that a Bollywood movie was being shot in the Disney store across the street. Within minutes, the discussion turned to the stars in the movie and it happened that some of them were (obviously) known to Sood. Armed with a promise of a free martini, the bar attendants and Sood make their way across the street and soon they are preening at being introduced to a reigning Khan, who then joins Sood at the bar. Plenty of free martini's follow …  

The original article as it appeared in Business India

MARTINIS AND MUNESH :BAR HEMINGWAY

Bar Hemingway 

Keeping up with the Soods. 

End of  August , the summer breeze feels warm against the Zegna suit at the end of a long day. After a busy day, concluding a closely fought deal, and wandering through an exhibition of Monet’s waterlillies, our favourite banker-about-town, P Sood, walks out of the Le Meurice Hotel  and walks towards the water. Briefly pausing to assist a few Japanese tourists, with yet another photograph at the Tuilleries, he rests against the embankment, watching the laser light show at the Tour d’ Eiffel, and waits for his companion to join him. He remembers the last time he stood there, in the chilly January air and sighed his soul across chilly skies to one who waited on the other side of that dark night. Mellow and reflective...what the hell, he could do with a well-deserved nightcap tonight. 

  

Whatever the mood, whatever the season, the place to go for a civilized nightcap in Paris is the Bar Hemingway at the  Ritz  Carlton. They walk through a long corridor, flanked on one side with floor to ceiling drapes concealing nooks full of interesting possibilities, and there it is, tucked away in the recesses of the Ritz. The bar itself is small, enough space for maybe 20 people. Its wood paneling, leather sofas and Hemingway memorabilia and photographs encourage people to talk of life, and of love. 

Originally opened in 1921 as the small salon in which ladies waited for their husbands who drank at the main bar, the bar’s regulars have included Marlene Deitrich, Frank Capa, Graham Greene, Ingrid Bergman, F Scott Fitzgerald, among others.  The best known patron, of course, is Papa Hemingway  who whiled away many hours plotting racing bets at this bar, reputedly downing 51 dry martinis on a particular occasion. Over the years this hotel witnessed many historical events – from Papa Hemingway’s “liberation” of the wine cellar along with the liberation Paris in 1944, to his swinging from one chandelier to another, to the birth of the orchid trick - when Fitzgerald  ate one by one all the petals of a box of orchids until  a lady he desired said yes. One of the many legends insists that the Bloody Mary was created by the legendry bartender Bertin in 1954 so that Hemmingway could have an odorless drink which his (fourth) wife Mary could not detect.  The combination of tomato juice and vodka was such a success that  the next day Hemmingway reported to  Bertin, "Bravo ! Bloody Mary didn't smell a thing" Hemmingway’s own recipe for this famous mix reads … "Keep on stirring and taste it to see how it is doing. If you get it too powerful weaken with more  tomato juice. If it lacks authority add more  vodka

Cheerily agreeing to the very agreeable suggestion of ordering the house cocktail by an extremely agreeable hostess, P Sood sits back and lets the history seep into his tired bones, till his companion spots a framed Guinness Book of World Records citation in the far corner, next to a large framed swordfish. This bar is famous for serving the world’s most expensive cocktail. Panicked, P Sood wonders if he has indeed ordered two $500 cocktails? He finally summons enough courage to approach Colin Fields, the head bartender.

A moment here on Colin Fields – P Sood  first  heard about the Bar Hemingway when a famous business magazine listed Fields as the Best Bartender in the World. With just a hint of a laugh, Colin charmingly assures them that they had indeed not ordered the “Ritz Sidecar” a drink that was created by the bar to take the chill off for a regular customer who arrived by motorcycle with sidecar. It is half-lemon juice and Contreau, half Ritz Fine Champagne 1830 - 1865 pre-phylloxera Cognac, that was nearly seized from the hotel by the Nazis during the German occupation. Only a few bottles remain to date. 

The original Article as it appeared in Business India