Magic and prohibition
One week from today in 2020, I was supposed to be performing my first gig as a magician in quite a few years. A couple months before I’d found out my main client in the spirits industry was pulling out of the US, which I took as a cue to start diversifying my range of work. So for the month of February I spent a lot of time alone at home reading books, learning routines, and practicing sleight-of-hand while watching TV on the couch. I thought I was rehearsing for a performance. As it turned out, I was just rehearsing for a long year of social distancing. Obviously the gig never happened; the bar that was supposed to host it is now closed, and aside from a brief summer season of street performances and one short show for an enthusiastic kid on Zoom, magic has remained a mostly solitary pursuit for the past two years.
There’s some satisfaction in working on it solo, but more than most arts, magic requires an audience. “There isn’t a magic effect unless someone is there to experience it,” Joshua Jay writes in his new book How Magicians Think. “If you’re doing magic alone, you’re just practicing.” Jay is an accomplished performer and the proprietor of the internet’s best magic shop, but his new book is written for laymen. As such, it mostly avoids discussing specific methods; it’s more about providing a glimpse at what goes into a magic performance, what it’s like to be a magician, and how to better appreciate a live show. I reviewed it for the Washington Examiner magazine. Check it out, and pick up the book too if you’re curious. It’s a fun read.
The new era of nicotine prohibition
I also have one of the two cover stories of this month’s Reason magazine, shared with Elizabeth Nolan Brown. Her story is about how government, banks, and tech platforms are shutting down online sex workers. Mine is on why the United States is entering a new era of prohibition of nicotine and tobacco products, which will soon reach a tipping point that creates illicit markets, police crackdowns, and prosecutions. Subscribers can read these now. The rest of you will have to wait a bit or hit that subscribe button. (A year of Reason is only $15, so why not do it?)
In the meantime, I have an ungated piece up at Reason looking at some of the arrests and prosecutions that are already happening in states that have banned flavored tobacco and nicotine products. In some instances, these involve big operations moving tobacco and cannabis. But police are also targeting insignificant sellers. In Massachusetts, for example, police staked out a small Latin American clothing store to spot a customer leaving with forbidden Newport cigarettes, entered the store, seized a small amount of tobacco and alcohol, and arrested the owner.
Though I didn’t attempt to verify the ethnic background of the accused in these cases, one might reasonably infer from their names that law enforcement is having a disparate impact on racial minorities, which is consistent with our country's typical approach to drug prohibitions. And if it hasn’t happened already, it’s only a matter of time before someone is sentenced to prison for selling banned cigarettes or e-cigs. Read the story here.
Social distancing
(It’s probably about time to change the title of this section of the newsletter, isn’t it? Email me your suggestions!)
To listen: If you’d asked me a couple years ago which current band I’d most like to see live, the answer would have been Hurray for the Riff Raff. And now that live music is returning, I’m finally making it happen, catching them in San Francisco next week on my way to the New Directions for Democrats conference in DC. Lead Alynda Segarra is an amazing songwriter but also a fantastic cover artist, so here are a few covers to try: a live performance of the Ronettes’ “Be My Baby”; a kitchen recording of Lucinda Williams’ “People Talkin’”; and George Harrison’s “My Sweet Lord” from their studio album My Dearest Darkest Neighbor.
To drink, sans alcohol: I’ve been surprised by how much I’m enjoying non-alcoholic IPAs. But what about dark beers? Are there any good non-alcoholic stouts and porters? This is getting super niche, but I managed to assemble a dozen options for a tasting panel and wrote up the results for Inside Hook. While none of them quite match a really good traditional stout or porter, there are some worthwhile beers to try. Bonus: For Inside Hook’s Texas newsletter, I also tried out Slow Luck, a new non-alcoholic spirit from Austin that’s intended to substitute one-for-one in cocktail recipes for white spirits like tequila, gin, or vodka.
To drink, with alcohol: Vodka often gets a bad rap among serious cocktail people. Part of that is due to memories of all the bad vodka drinks that dominated menus before the revival of American cocktail culture. Part of it is that as a nearly neutral spirit, vodka takes up space in a drink without contributing flavor. That makes it sound boring, but it can also be its strength. When you have botanically potent ingredients, vodka can be used to stretch them out and allow those flavors to come through in a less concentrated format.
That’s how I used the spirit in a recent cocktail for the Multnomah Whiskey Library, combining it with two intensely flavorful liqueurs. The first is Ver, a green herbal spirit made in Eugene, Oregon. Depending on where you live, this might be hard to find, but green Chartreuse can stand in for it. The other is Besk, a Swedish-inspired liqueur made in Chicago. Its name literally means “bitter” and that’s an apt description, with it offering a crisp bitter edge from wormwood. (Scandinavian trivia: BESK was also the name of Sweden’s first computer, the Binär Elektronisk SekvensKalkylator.)
A little bit of Besk goes a long way, as does Ver or Chartreuse, but they’re so complex that there’s no need to bring in additional flavors. Hence, vodka. Here’s how to make the Ver-ry Besk:
1 1/2 oz vodka
1 oz fresh lemon juice
1/2 oz rich simple syrup (2 parts sugar to 1 water)
1/2 oz Ver (or Chartreuse)
1/4 oz Besk
mint, for garnish
Shake, strain into a glass filled with pebble ice or crushed ice, and garnish with a bouquet of mint.