Cocktail

The philosopher Hannah Arendt once wrote a book about the banality of evil. After seeing "Cocktail," I want to write one about the evil of banality. I know, I know. It's only a movie. But when a movie is as cliche-ridden, witless, numbingly dull, untrue to life, ill-acted, silly, poorly constructed shoddily written and vulgar as this one - all washed down with a score of second-rate rock music - you tend to overreact. "Cocktail," which was directed by the previously reputable Roger Donaldson ("Smash Palace," "No Way Out")

While the eating may be suspect at the Farmers' Cabinet, the libations are solid gold. The beer geeks will be in heaven with 26 stellar taps of unusual Euro suds, including cask renditions of rare salty, wheaty Swiss La Douze from BFM, among many others. But with a ragtime band pumping away, I was really channeling the pre-Prohibition cocktail inspirations from mix-mistress Phoebe Esmon. There are renditions of the classics (a tart whiskey sour amped up with egg whites and Yamazaki whisky)

The culinary cocktail fad has spread - its emphasis on classics revamped with boutique liqueurs and surprising house-made mixers - into a required accessory for most striving new restaurants. And Adsum's moody bar, run by former Apothecary mixologist Preston Eckman, is no exception, with its own battery of infused wines, smoked blackberry syrups, house apricot liqueurs, and shaker-whipped eggwhite froths. But few of the cocktails here show the sharp kitchen cross-over moves of the genre quite as artfully as the Logical Consequence.

THE cocktail menu is now taken as a given, almost an article of faith. If you go to anyplace with a liquor license and any sort of ambition above that of Bud Lights or Jagermeister shots, there's probably going to be one, usually with drinks costing in the double digits. Go back only a decade or two, and you found very few places with cocktail menus. Just about the only places that had specialty cocktail menus were places like Chili's, Applebee's or other chains, with their cloying Mudslides and Appletinis and Cosmopolitans and gigantic Day-Glo Margaritas.

The bartender as a professional is a member of a noble, if unsung, breed. He is equal parts confessor, counselor and consoler. Who else but your neighborhood gin jockey dispenses wisdom such as "Women, can't live with 'em . . . can't kill 'em"? Or sagely observes of a cantankerous client: "I think his dogma has caught up with his karma. " The bartender is a psychologist of the nightlife crisis, a Samaritan who quietly sobers up the pub-crawler and gets him to walk out on his own two feet.

The dark-haired woman who accompanied mob boss Nicodemo "Little Nicky" Scarfo from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., to Pomona, N.J., Thursday night has been identified by law enforcement sources as Colette Phillips, a 37-year-old former cocktail waitress. Phillips, who lives in Longport, N.J., has been seen in the company of Scarfo, 57, since at least November 1980, the sources said. After Scarfo was arrested by FBI agents at Atlantic City International Airport at Pomona, Phillips, wearing a black mink coat, drove off in a Mercedes without making any comment.

Last week's apparent outbreak of amity among city leaders over school funding makes it seem more likely - though by no means certain - that City Council will finally pass a modest "cocktail tax. " This 10 percent tax on drinks sold in bars and restaurants won't by itself solve the schools' funding problems, but it is now a crucial component in the package put together to cover the school district's projected deficit by Mayor Rendell, the school...

Can there be the slightest doubt that "The Cocktail Hour," which bowed locally Wednesday night at Plays and Players under the auspices of the Philadelphia Theatre Co., is the closest A.R. Gurney play to Gurney's own true self? Does Heinz believe that pickles are delicious and refreshing? "The Cocktail Hour" is a play about a dramatist who has written a play called "The Cocktail Hour" which centers upon the author's own thinly disguised family - particularly his father and mother - and takes place during that cherished WASP social interval, the pre-dinner cocktail hour.

It's a cross between Waiting for Godot, Cabaret and Towering Inferno. It's "Cocktail in the Sky," a hard-to-peg but explosively funny dance-theater hybrid. This collaboration between choreographer Melanie Stewart and the Scottish-based Benchtours theater company bowed at Temple Center City's Stage III on Friday, sharing the bill with Darla Stanley's "Blood Carved. " Surprisingly, there was a coherent story here, emerging in pieces from under the strange goings-on: Five disparate characters find themselves in an elevator, bound for the highest cocktail lounge ever built.

A former Northeast Philadelphia plumber's five-year fight to overturn his conviction for being the notorious "Molotov cocktail bandit" has gone down the drain. Yesterday, Common Pleas Judge James A. Lineberger not only denied Bruce Riffel's request for a new trial, but also sentenced the him to 30 to 60 years in prison on robbery, arson and related charges. Riffel, 36, of Sanger Street near Loretto Avenue, Frankford, used gasoline bombs and knives to terrorize and rob a series of convenience-store clerks, pulling the jobs between 2 and 5 a.m., in 1988, said Assistant District Attorney Tia Sutter.

Had you stumbled upon the well-scrubbed crowd in the tented courtyard at historic Bartram's Garden one evening last week, you could not be faulted for thinking you'd discovered a country wedding reception under way beside the old medicinal herb beds. The scene offered requisite trays of passed hors d'oeuvres (a pale sliver of pork over white bean puree seemed popular), and punch bowls scented with strawberry and lemon, and busy cocktail stations. No band, though. And, well, no bride, either.

For cocktail salsa: 1 1/4 cups ketchup 1/4 cup tomato juice 1/2 cup sweet chili sauce 1/2 ounce habanero chilies, minced very fine 1 1/4 ounces garlic cloves, minced to a paste 3 1/2 ounces red onion, minced very fine 1/2 cup fresh cilantro, minced 4 tablespoons fresh lime juice For avocado salsa: 3 tablespoons lime juice 1/2ounce fresh cilantro, leaves and soft stems chopped...

The Edible Balcony : Growing Fresh Produce in Small Spaces by Alex Mitchell (Rodale Books, $21.99) is a treat to look at - the shelves loaded with pots of lettuce, basil and thyme, the peas and blackberries scrambling skyward, and yes, even the borage blossoms encased in ice cubes for a cocktail on the balcony after dark. The author, a Londoner and former gardening columnist for the Sunday Telegraph, touches on window boxes, hanging baskets, "10 best easy crops," good pots, salvaged and recycled balconies.

THE cocktail menu is now taken as a given, almost an article of faith. If you go to anyplace with a liquor license and any sort of ambition above that of Bud Lights or Jagermeister shots, there's probably going to be one, usually with drinks costing in the double digits. Go back only a decade or two, and you found very few places with cocktail menus. Just about the only places that had specialty cocktail menus were places like Chili's, Applebee's or other chains, with their cloying Mudslides and Appletinis and Cosmopolitans and gigantic Day-Glo Margaritas.

There is a certain wind-chill factor seldom mentioned on weather reports. It's the point at which consenting adults agree that "having a drink" means sipping something hot. Winter is no time for a "tall cold one. " Whether you plan to meet at a bar, a gastropub, a cafe, or on the couch, your wintry drink should be warm to the touch and the taste. In this economy, you might want to experiment at home, and stock up on less expensive alternatives, applejack brandy instead of Calvados, or triple sec instead of Cointreau.

True to the spirit of the latest trend in liquor, the distiller's new darling was there all along, but we just didn't see it: white whiskey, trickling clear and fresh off the still. Beaming with high-octane heat and the edgy fruitiness of warm distilled grain, that booze, until recently, never saw the light of a legitimate store shelf until it emerged from a barrel, ambered with the caramel brown and sweetness of years in well-charred wood. Once the sole province of undercover moonshiners pumping out cheap illegal hooch sold from the hills of Appalachia to the "nip joints" of North Philly, unaged whiskey has now gone hipster-legit in a big way. With the recent debut of Shine XXX corn whiskey by the Philadelphia Distilling Co., expected to be widely available on Pennsylvania store shelves by Aug. 22, we now have an impressive local entry in the white whiskey craze, a national phenomenon driven by the high-end revival of the cocktail and the growing ranks of craft distillers who fuel it. "Of the 155 people I know making whiskey, a full third of them are now making white whiskey from rye, corn, barley, or another grain," says Bill Owens, president of the American Distilling Institute, an artisan spirit trade group.

THOSE OF US who sometimes complain about the lack of realism in "reality" TV should probably be careful what we ask for. Because that's apparently what we're getting on Oxygen's "The Glee Project," where the disconnect between how the contestants perform in weekly challenges and how "Glee" creator Ryan Murphy deals with them can be, um, frustrating to watch. "But that's how the entertainment business is," said "Glee" casting director Robert Ulrich, who functions as a Tim Gunn-like mentor on "The Glee Project.

While the eating may be suspect at the Farmers' Cabinet, the libations are solid gold. The beer geeks will be in heaven with 26 stellar taps of unusual Euro suds, including cask renditions of rare salty, wheaty Swiss La Douze from BFM, among many others. But with a ragtime band pumping away, I was really channeling the pre-Prohibition cocktail inspirations from mix-mistress Phoebe Esmon. There are renditions of the classics (a tart whiskey sour amped up with egg whites and Yamazaki whisky)

A tall, lithe blonde - in tight, black shorts, low-cut corset top, and heels - worked the $25 blackjack table at Parx like a dancer. All eyes, almost exclusively male, followed her every move across the floor. The cocktail server, one of the Bensalem casino's Parkettes, set a cold bottled beer down in front of Matthew Warren, 39, a financial adviser from Princeton. Having an attractive woman cater to his beverage whims makes a difference, Warren said, stealing a final glance as she turned to another customer: "Oh, yeah, absolutely.

By nature, drinkers tend to move away from brown spirits when the warm weather hits. But here's a cocktail that, thanks to the unsung magic of Metaxa, manages to be dark and breezy at the same time: the Bekris. The folks at Opa, channeling all things Greek, have given a Hellenic twist to the Old Fashioned with this clever combo that mixes the lightly sweet, raisiny kiss of five-star Metaxa brandy with an herbaceous splash of Bluecoat gin for a lightening effect, then a smack of Angostura and Fee Bros.