Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Come By, Throw the Ball Around....


We're stoked for Opening Day. To celebrate, we're releasing these very handsome, handmade baseballs by LemonBall.

- Based on late 19th Century Lemon-Peel Style balls
- Chromexcel leather: Guaranteed to patina beautifully with use
- Hand stitched by Cooperstown native Paul Cunningham
- Slightly smaller and softer than modern balls. Consistent with balls used at the turn of the Century, and great for backyard games

Available in Brown or Burgundy Chromexcel. Come by the shop and toss one around for a while (We've even got a few mitts here).... You'll be hard pressed to leave without one. $36

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Its kinda like a garage sale...

Time for some Spring Cleaning! Going through my personal stuff and lightening the load a little. eBay is where you'll find it all. . .







Thursday, March 17, 2011

Hahhhh-Pee St. Pahhhhhteeee's there Boy-o

Come in today inappropriately drunk, and receive 10% off your entire purchase. Bring me a Guinness to get there with you.... 20%. Make an unsolicited crack on the British occupation..... 25%

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Saturday, March 12, 2011

Philly Stand Up

Spring Clearance!

I hate doing sales, so I'm doing it big and I'm doing it quick. All Sugar Cane denim $150. All Kicking Mule denim $125. 40% off all sweaters.

Pete's home sick as a dog with the Flu..... Send comments wishing him well (or making fun of him), and get an additional 10% off any sale merchandise!

Good sizes still available across the board. Get 'em while they're here.


Is a pen really mightier than a sword? Or is that a lie perpetuated by the Sword Owners?

Friday, March 11, 2011

These old Jags always remind me of....



Steve McQueen first saw his Jaguar XK-SS parked on a studio lot on Sunset Boulevard, back when it originally belonged to Bill Leyden (a local LA radio/television personality). McQueen bought the Jag from him for $5,000 in 1958– though some historians claim the purchase price was $4,000. Wife Neile recalled, “I know exactly how much we paid for it– I signed the check.” Once, McQueen was pulled over for speeding with Neile, 6 months pregnant at the time, sitting beside him. He lied and told the cop that she was in labor. They got an official police escort to the hospital, where nurses were waiting to rush Neile in. After the police left, McQueen told the staff that it was just ‘false labor’, and off they went. He was later quoted as saying, “Neile was pissed. She didn’t speak to me for the rest of the day. But, by God, it worked. I didn’t get the ticket!”(via)

You're Welcome



(via A Time to Get)

Winning

Our Thoughts Are With You

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Blk Pine Utility Tote:




Wax Canvas outside. Heavy Cotton Canvas inside. 6 Exterior pockets. Zipper pouch pocket inside. Made in Seattle. $142, in Olive/Blk and Blk/Blk. Blk Pine continues to make handsome, solid bags, at an honest price. These will go fast. Info@craftworkwear.com for orders.

Shame On You.


Great article on old school soda fountains.... And a great local place to get one...



Phosphate With a Twist

A long-forgotten soft drink is helping create surprising new cocktails.

By WAYNE CURTIS


"The term cherry phosphate has a lovely, faded, elegiac ring to it. It brings to mind an ornate soda fountain, a white-jacketed soda jerk, and a precocious child clambering up a stool to a marble countertop, squawking, “Hey, mister, gimme a phosphate!” And is that the tinkly sound of a player piano? A cherry phosphate has always seemed wonderfully Capra-esque to me, even though I had no idea what was in it.

Neither, it turns out, did Darcy O’Neil, a chemist and bartender with an interest in historic drink. Someone asked him a few years ago what he knew about antique soft drinks. Not much, he realized. So he started digging through old texts and handbooks. In the process, he discovered the surprisingly complex ecosystem of the early soda fountain—which involved some curious ingredients (strychnine, tincture of oats, Leroy’s Vomito-Purgative Elixir) and wasn’t always imbued with a cherry-on-top innocence (Los Angeles Times, 1902: “They Thirst for Cocaine: Soda Fountain Fiends Multiplying. Slaves to the ‘Coca Cola’ Habit”).

O’Neil recently published his research and a slew of drink recipes in an intriguing little book called Fix the Pumps. Among the more fascinating long-forgotten fountain ingredients he examines is acid phosphate, a souring agent both cheaper and less perishable than lemon or lime juice. It consists of neutralized phosphoric acid and mineral salts, O’Neil told me. That may not sound like much of a marketing slogan, but it’s a great improvement over 19th-century advertisements for best-selling Horsford’s Acid Phosphate, which boasted: “It is not nauseous, but agreeable to the taste.”

Mixed with sweet syrup and carbonated water, acid phosphate created “a most delicious beverage,” as a Boston newspaper put it in 1888. The phosphate persisted as a sort of feral class of fountain drink into the 1950s, but fell out of favor amid the rise of bottled soft drinks and the decline of the fountains. O’Neil thought its disappearance a shame, so he founded the forthrightly named Extinct Chemical Company, and now sells acid phosphate to adventurous bars, including Clive’s Classic Lounge in Victoria, British Columbia, and Anvil Bar and Refuge in Houston.

Acid phosphate does two bewitching things to a drink: The acid gives it sourness without making it taste like anything in particular. And the salts enhance existing flavors, much as they do with food. The various elements of the drink (sweet, sour, bitter, sharp) are each discernible, but none is overwhelming. Adding a teaspoon or so of acid phosphate makes a cocktail seem slightly off center, and makes your tongue tingle.

“You can’t name another single cocktail ingredient that functions like this,” said Bobby Heugel, a partner and bartender at Anvil. “The actual phosphate you can’t taste, but the impact on the cocktail is enormous.” Last summer, Heugel put on his cocktail list a sarsaparilla phosphate made with aged rum—basically a grown-up version of a fountain classic. “It’s very subtle,” he said. “It allows you to taste all these flavors that otherwise you’d miss because you’d have to balance it out with more citrus juice. When you add lemon juice to something, it tastes like lemon. Phosphate just adds acidity, balance, and texture to a cocktail without screaming, Hey!

O’Neil sent me a bottle of acid phosphate, and I’ve been playing home chemist ever since. Heugel’s Uncle Morris cocktail—made with gin, honey, celery bitters, lime juice, tonic, and a dollop of acid phosphate—is refreshingly light and nicely tongue-tingly. But my favorite so far is one O’Neil created, which he calls the Wet Grave (after a nickname for New Orleans). It combines acid phosphate with bourbon, dry vermouth, and claret syrup. It has a deep red-ocher color, and a rich, beguiling flavor—somehow tasting both soft and hard at the same time.

And that made me wonder: How about a nice cherry phosphate? I got some concentrated cherry juice, then added sugar, acid phosphate, seltzer water, and—why not?—a little bourbon. Sipping the mixture (which still needs work), I felt as if I were embarking on a small adventure, with a player-piano sound track, into a familiar landscape where the horizon had tilted a few degrees from level. In an era of big tastes and artificially flavored everything, I’m not sure acid phosphate is bold enough to captivate a nation once again. But wouldn’t it be wonderful, someday, to lean on a marble counter and say, “Hey, mister, gimme a cherry-bourbon phosphate”?

Wayne Curtis is an Atlantic correspondent." (via The Atlantic)



Tuesday, March 1, 2011

We ride for Middleton Made Knives

Bladesmith Quintin Middleton of Middleton Made Knives from Jonathon Stout (aka BadJon Photo on Vimeo.

Rintage Spotlight: Engineer Boots

A really great looking pair of engineers to wear everyday. Harley Davidson branded, size 10, but fitting slightly smaller. Soles and heels still very solid. These are just perfect looking beaters. What really makes them special is the brass Harley Owners Club pin, left exactly where I found it.... On the instep strap of the right boot. $250