Frank Sinatra goes to visit a new doctor, the doctor asks about his alcohol intake - roughly how much does he consume? Sinatra answers immediately, unblinking: I have thirty-six drinks a day The doctor asks him to be serious, Frank explains - seriously - that he drinks one bottle of Jack Daniel's every day and that he figures there are about 36 shots per bottle. The scandalised doctor asks him how he feels in the mornings. I don't know, says Frank, I'm never up in the morning and I'm not sure you're the doctor for me.
Throughout his adult life Frank Sinatra had an almost amniotic relationship with liquor. A photograph that amused him greatly was the one mocked-up by friend and professional Hollywood snapper Phil Stern. It featured a loose-limbed Sinatra floating in a jar on a shelf at Harvard Medical Centre. The label read:
Speciman: F. SINATRA
Solution: J. DANIEL'S
I don't drink a lot, but then again I don't drink a little was how he sometimes answered questions about his consumption; but he undoubtedly lived the LUSH LIFE.
The Sands late night and both the audience and performers are joyfully partaking of what is considered by all as a mothery gas - what James Wolcott described as the Mount Rushmore of men having fun - the Rat Pack onstage . The Leader slows down the action in order to mock-berate his Second-in-Command.
Frank: Say, I'd like to talk to you for a few minutes.
Dean: Why - am I in town?
Frank: Listen, I wanna talk to you about your drinking.
Dean: What happened, I miss a round/
Frank: No, you didn't miss a round, I wanna talk to you about the amount you drink.
You know what they're saying about you?
Dean: And how about you?
Frank: Me?
Dean: Yeah you - you shoot a pretty good stick with that bottle yourself.
Frank: Ah - but I don't inhale.
Ah - but he most obviously did, more than frequently and often to excess.
Although Dean played up his boozehound reputation in public, in real life Sinatra always had the more ferocious appetites.
The Sands again, this time Sinatra performing solo; he tells the audience:
The question most asked of me is - Does Dean Martin really drink?
Well, I can attest to to that fact. He's a drunk. He is an absolutely
unqualified drunk, and if we ever develop an Olympic Drinking Team
- he's gonna be Coach.
Playacting aside, Sinatra would boast in company - I spill more than he drinks - that's an actuality. Years later it was Frank who sported the blue baseball jacket embossed with the legend
Coach of the U.S. Drinking Team
His drinking imbued his whole life with a booze glow. The taking of alcohol was integral not just to his lifestyle but also his art. This was a man who was regarded by many as the Voice of the Twentieth Century. In his lifetime he structured a career that spanned six decades; he became a cultural icon, movie star, business man and playboy, but above all he created a uniquely substantial body of recorded work: something like 18,000 recordings, some of which are lauded as performances of unparalled textual and emotional depth.
Big claims are made on his behalf - that he could raise pop artistry to a transcendent level. That his mastery of phrasing, rhythm, dynamics, and above all - inerpretation, helped define how vocalists came to approach a song. That he changed not only how songs were performed, but which songs were performed - perfecting the notion of The Great American Songbook and creating definitive versions of songs that became regarded as classics.
He was by no means a modest man, yet he preferred a much simpler description of what he did - he was, he often insisted, a Saloon Singer. Towards the end, after a lifetime's dedication to the Thirsty Muse, he ammended his title slightly and became The Last Saloon Singer - and maybe he was. Forget maybe.
SO........
This blog is dedicated to the Last Saloon Singer and here you will find accounts of how to properly construct, present and consume some of the drinks he enjoyed himself. I've researched and am researching his Drinking Buddies, collected and am collecting Drunk Stories, I've looked up some of his favourite Watering Holes (from straight up Saloons like Toot Shor's or Jilly's to more fancy hang-outs like The Stork Club or Chasen's) and have an on-going mission to study some of the many drink-related rituals and etiquette he followed or inspired. All of it in order that you, the listener, with a knowledge of such things - may come to achieve (late at night with a glass in hand and one of his records playing) something close to Frank-like status. Selfless I know, you can thank me later.
FIRST PRINCIPLES
FIRST PRINCIPLES
He's the boy
Who wrote all the manuals
On the joys
Of consuming Daniel's
Dean Martin sang the above to the tune of Your'e the Top (lyrics ammended by Sammy Cahn) at a private Birthday bash held for Sinatra at Chasen's. Everyone there was aware of Frank's deep devotion to the drink he sometimes referred to as the Black Ass of Jack Daniel. One of his favourite sobriquets amongst friends was Jack Daniel's Original Test Pilot, less specifically the Washington Post dubbed him The Bourbon Baritone.
He was first introduced to JD by Jackie Gleason in a bar off Broadway in the early 40's, as a callow youth he had toyed with the occasional malt whiskey in an attempt to appear sophisticated, this had not suited him - but after sipping Jack he was instantly smitten; and from that moment forth a bottle (more likely several) was always close at hand. Jack Daniel's inspired a devotion that most of the women in his life would have envied. He had blazers with the Jack Daniel's crest on the breast pocket, flags with the insignia were flown outside various residences, his personal bar was always plentifully stocked and cases were on standby in the holds of his private jets. Jack Daniel's repaid the compliment by naming him as one of their Tennessee Squires - an elite group of aficionados (which also included Paul Newman, Elizabeth Taylor and J. Edgar Hoover) who were all granted their own plot of land on the original distillery site. The others received a square foot but Sinatra was gifted a full acre - he eventually owned millions of dollars of real estate; but that single plot was priceless to him.
HOW SINATRA TOOK HIS
In an Old Fashioned Glass
(a squat tumbler, named in honour of the cocktail, with a capacity of 8-12 0z.)
With a splash of branch water
(I'm thirsty not dirty, he once reprimanded an over-enthusiastic bartender)
Just one or two rocks of ice
(I'm drinking, not skating)
and preferably a napkin.
Here's to the confusion of our enemies.
Absent friends - fuck 'em.
Drink up and be somebody.
May you live to be a 100 and may the last voice you hear be mine.
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