Surprising how well a reasonable Segura Viudas Brut Reserva Cava goes with Rochester NNY's finest - the white hot. A Snappy Griller to be precise. All of Iberia may weep at the thought but I tell you it is a match... a pair even. Just the thing for Raiders of the Lost Ark, too. Makes sense. Cava is from the part of Spain that was largely republican in the 1930s. Indiana Jones is set at the same time as the Spanish Civil War. And hot dogs are the favorite food of Captain America. Everybody knows that. Snap!
New Years Eve is always the worst party of the year. So much hype and expectation. So few hours. So little likelihood. Far better, then, to have a festival of anti-Nazi programming to, you know, teach the children well. There is so much to choose from. Star Wars. Doctor Who - especially the fourth Doctor and his fights with the plunger saluting Daleks. Perhaps a well placed Bond against the Red Marxist Menace. Why not? We are totalitarian ecumenical.
What goes with such things? The Doctors, 
at least the early ones, had a sense of such things as the image up there shows. One tends to think in terms of British ales, perhaps. I could segue to stout via a wee Black Velvet, perhaps. Perhaps. One would not want to overdo. Got it. De Ranke Père Noël. Now that all (spoilers) the bad men with swastikas have had their brains melted out their ears at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark, now perhaps something a bit Judeo-Christian construct. And a Whovian Christmas special. Something Tenth Doctor that won't scare the kiddies too much. Well, something that won't make them scream. And only at Donna. Hmm. Bitter weedy herbs meet peppermint and a nod to raisin. Nicely lightened by a third of cava.
What? Crap! Did I make a beer cocktail just now? Funny, don't feel like I visited the proctologist during a trance. See, that's what happens on New Year's Eve. Plan a quiet night. Lay out a schedule of wholesome tyrant death scenario dramas. And you end up making a new beer cocktail. Regret. Anger. Regret. Anger. That's what you get from New Year's Eve. Govern yourselves accordingly.
Comments
Craig - December 31, 2012 11:50 PM
Snappy's are from Syracuse, Zwiegel's are Rochesterfarian.
Alan - January 1, 2013 12:42 AM
Nooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!! How could I have misunderstood this basic fact? Your entire culture, sir, is a minefield. Example. Here's a relatively recent story on the state of the corporation.
Alan - January 1, 2013 12:47 AM
PS: I have an archived bottle of Snuffy's so don't hate me.
Gary Gillman - January 1, 2013 6:36 PM
White hots, and red, are well to note Alan. Zab's was THE place in Rochester to eat the cooked article, is it still there...? This is something the craft beer nerds born after 1970 will never get: a Zab's white hot and curly fries after an iced schooner of Genny Cream Ale in one of the bars on Monroe or Goodman Streets.
But the traditional foods of the Empire State, especially in its northern belt, encompass more: we must not omit spedies and beef-on-a-weck, for example. (One needn't mention Buffalo chicken wings, which have conquered the world but are still offered non-pareil at the Anchor Bar in the city of origin, okay Duff's too which we even have in Toronto).
You want iced Genny Cream Ale draft with those specialties by the way, APAs and Black IPAs will have to find other accompaniments.
Gary
Gary Gillman - January 1, 2013 6:40 PM
Good call too Alan on that Cava, it's first-class all the way and as good or better than most Champagne, in my experience.
Gary
Gary Gillman - January 1, 2013 8:35 PM
In trying to get at the bottom of spiedies, I found this very helpful food map of New York. Its author deserves much credit. The comments appended are very interesting too.
Mozzarella sticks with raspberry sauce? In Albany? (Or anywhere?). How interesting. I never ran into that there. Live and learn. As I said earlier, to me white hots will always go best after a Genny Cream Ale, but I can see that mozzarella sticks with raspberry might accompany an Imperial Stout very nicely!
I had to smile at the mention of "Labatt" in the gray area of Canada to the north.
Gary
Alan - January 1, 2013 9:26 PM
I've seen that one before. It's good but there is no land of frozen custard or a place for salt potatoes. Where are the Michigans?
Gary Gillman - January 1, 2013 10:30 PM
The Michigan hot dog is an odd one, it pops up here and there and certainly was a staple of Quebec fast food when I grew up there. Did it come from Vermont and NY, or the reverse? And where is Michigan State in all this?
.I definitely remember salt potatoes in New York. There are probably many more such things and perhaps new ones all the time which would be reassuring in a time of homogenization and uniformity. Yet I strain to think of the Ontario equivalents. Famously peameal bacon and even that is more a Western Ontario thing, I think. Butter tarts of course. (Apparently derived from border tarts, a confection in the Borders area of Britain). But not too much else..
Gary
Gary