http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-cocktails_us_5810e935e4b001e247dfc17e
Donald Trump Is Opening The Dumbest Cocktail Bar In America
Go home, Trump hotel bar, you’re drunk.
10/26/2016 06:25 pm ET | Updated 1 hour ago
As the rest of his campaign desperately tries to keep Utah’s electoral votes from falling into the wrong hands, GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump was in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, attending a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the new Trump International Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue. You might remember this as the venue for Trump’s last hotel promotion-slash-birtherism event ― the one that got full coverage on cable news and featured a collapsing stage evidently rush-delivered from the metaphor store.
The cable news cameras stayed away this time, but as Trump is ostensibly still running for president and Election Day is less than two weeks away, a few reporters were obligated to attend this latest example of Trump’s mixed-up priorities. One of them was The Daily Beast’s Olivia Nuzzi, who is at her sly and savage best as she sets the scene for this ribbon-cutting.
There’s a lot to absorb, but I can’t stop thinking about this hotel’s cocktail bar, which seems to violate a number of conventions, perhaps even some of the Geneva ones. Per Nuzzi:
The bar at the new Trump International Hotel in Washington, Benjamin’s Bar and Lounge, is a sprawling space with high ceilings, few customers and too-sweet cocktails that go for $20 to $100, the most expensive being the bar’s namesake, a concoction of rye, potato and winter wheat vodka, shaken and served with raw oysters and caviar. There is also, inexplicably, a section of the menu called BY THE CRYSTAL SPOON that offers literal spoonfuls of wine for anywhere from $15 to $140.
Let me just tastefully arrange some exclamation points and question marks really quick:
?!?!?!?!?!?!
Nuzzi also tweeted a photo of this bar’s cocktail menu.
Holy cats, you guys! That is some hot nonsense, right there. Look at those prices! What would have to happen for you to pay $24 for a finger of bourbon, a gloop of honey and a couple dashes of orange bitters? I would need a few questions answered before I paid that much for a half-assed Old Fashioned. Questions like: “Did Kentucky just get nuked from space, causing a supply shock, and nobody told me?”
Who on earth would pay $100 for whatever is being done to Benjamin Franklin’s good name on that first item? It’s vodka and rye and potato and raw oysters and caviar? What? How? Why? Hop in a cab, go up to Eat The Rich and you can have a shot of rye and a shot of vodka and a bunch of raw oysters for much less than $100. If you’re willing to forgo the caviar, you can even tell everyone that you’ve “deconstructed the Benjamin.” Now you a fancy molecular gastronomist, bruh!
Not everything on this menu is terrible. In the privacy of my own home I might try this “Rocking Chair” thing. I am guessing that Trump’s bartenders are simply rinsing the glass with the Laphroaig to give it some smoke, but advertising it in such a way that it sounds like you’re getting your money’s worth of decent scotch, because how else would you justify a $20 charge on a peat-smoked glass of rum and honey and lime juice?
That “Please Sign Here” cocktail, with the mezcal and aperol, is a solid drink, but I liked it even better when it was called the “Naked And Famous” and it was created by Joaquin Simó of New York City’s iconic Death & Company bar ― who will typically sell you drinks mixed by professionals for about $15. Unless you can confirm that the mezcal was hand-bottled from the personal secretions of the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl, do not pay $20 for this drink.
I was talking, a few hours ago, to a certain bartender I’m lucky to know. Her take:
I can’t decide what upsets me the most about this. Is it the recipes? Is it the random capitalization? Is it the terrible names? Is it the venue? Aw, it’s all of it. I would like to suggest adding the following cocktail: “Bitter Tears of Regret.” 1 part Malort, 1 part Root, 1 part Rumchata, absinthe rinse. Garnish with Hemlock.
Really, by any metric, this place is absurd. Did you know during the Sept. 26 presidential debate, this bar sold hummus for $29? One order was supposedly enough for six people, but still: You would literally have to not know what hummus was to agree to pay that much.
As The Huffington Post’s Travis Waldron reported at the time, the hotel bar was also offering a debate-night drink special that entailed you paying $100 to essentially drink all the Budweiser you could get down your gullet in three hours. As getting your money’s worth would involve slamming back a beer every 12 minutes, it was the perfect deal if you wanted to watch a presidential debate and then get rushed to a hospital and/or a recovery program immediately afterward. (To be fair, that’s what a lot of people wanted to do after that debate.)
Why is this cocktail bar so insane? Well, probably because Trump is going to have to go to some great lengths to recoup the investment he’s made in this hotel. As Fortune’s Jennifer Wang reports, when the General Services Administration first made the property available for redevelopment, Trump won the right to refurbish Washington’s iconic Old Post Office by sensationally overbidding his rivals. By doing so, he might have created a financial hole for himself that’s too deep to dig out of:
Soon after, rival bidders complained to the GSA, alleging that Trump’s promise to spend up to $200 million on renovations (reportedly $60 million higher than competing bids) and pay $3 million in yearly rent is financially unfeasible. “A properly conducted price reasonableness analysis would have resulted in the conclusion that the minimum base lease proposed by Trump would require Trump to obtain hotel room revenues which are simply not obtainable in this location based on the concepts for the redevelopment,” read a Hilton team lawyer’s letter to the GSA.
Trump’s checkered financial history, marred by numerous corporate bankruptcies, was also questioned. Colony Capital, a private investment firm that was a partner in the initial bid, eventually bowed out of the project, citing that the timeline had become too long for the firm. To finance the renovations, Trump took out a $170 million credit line at Deutsche Bank (his camp says he only drew down $125 million of that credit line); Trump reportedly spent an additional $40 million from his own accounts.
Since then, Trump has faced numerous setbacks, some of them self-inflicted. As Wang reports, Trump’s anti-immigrant positions so repulsed Jose Andres and Geoffrey Zakarian, the chefs who’d agreed to open restaurants at the hotel, that they subsequently backed out of the deal. (Litigation is pending.) Trump got another restaurateur to take one of the spaces, in a contract less favorable to Trump than his original deals. The other space is being transformed into about 5,000 or 6,000 square feet of conference space ― which will only generate revenue if the 30,000-some-odd square feet of conference facilities that were already there are filled.
Wang also reports that Trump has not been able to rent his hotel rooms at the preferred rate, instead having to offer them at “heavily discounted prices,” which a Trump spokesperson puts down to simple market fluctuations. But, there is a but!
In the days leading up to the World Bank-IMF’s October meetings in D.C., the property reportedly offered discounted room rates, while other five star hotels in the downtown area were fully booked out. Currently, rooms at The Four Seasons Hotel ― which Trump’s camp has compared his property to ― start at $775 per night for a Oct. 27th booking, while prices at the Trump hotel start at $404 per night. The nearby St. Regis, another historical landmark close to the White House, charges $565 and up per night.
When you add Trump’s need to recoup this investment to the revenue shortfalls he’s already faced, it makes sense that you’d see this sort of shakedown happening at the cocktail bar. Everything really might depend on convincing people to order spoonfuls of wine and insanely marked-up mixed drinks (which range from quotidian to fussy to unnecessary) on a regular basis. Who knows? Maybe there are enough people willing to pay $20 for a confused Kir Royale thingy that can’t decide if it should have pear liqueur or Chambord, so now it has both.
Look: If you are coming to D.C. and want to drop some major scratch on cocktails, please take my advice and go to Copycat, or the Passenger, or Southern Efficiency, or the Columbia Room, or Denson’s, or literally anywhere else.
And if you ever find yourself thinking you might just spend $100 to drink 15 Budweisers in 180 minutes, please, find someone to talk to. Your life is too precious.
this was funny too
I Got Drunk at the Trump Bar in Trump Tower and It Was Predictably Terrible
October 21, 2016 / 12:00 pm
BY HILARY POLLACK
I’ve made a terrible mistake.
I’m at the Trump Bar within Trump Tower, the gilded skyscraper named after the blustery blonde Twitter-ranting demagogue who is easily the most controversial presidential candidate of all time, and am just now recognizing my vulnerability.
My name is Hilary. I have made the poor decision of telling this to a man at the bar.
“Hilary?!?! More like HELLARY,” the man spits. “H-E-L-L…”
I have made a terrible, terrible mistake.
My colleague Martin*, whom I’ve brought for emotional support and as an excuse to order more of the Trump-centric drinks from the bar’s menu, is keeping his cool. He’s from Florida, and knows how to act in these situations.
“You look like a journalist. You look like a Hillary supporter,” the man hisses at me with a devilish, accusatory grin. I freeze. He’s wearing a shirt printed with a giant photograph of Donald Trump’s face, adorned with a large, matching Trump button. Above that button is a tiny pin depicting Martin Luther King, Jr. Somehow, even in the most culturally neutral outfit I could assemble this morning, I’m giving off libtard red flags to this guy.
“A journalist! HAHAHAHAHA!” Martin interjects, rescuing me with fake incredulousness.
Trump-Shirt Man backs off and introduces himself as Joe*. Martin tells him we’re tourists. “Whoo—well, at least you look like a Trump supporter,” Joe says to him. Martin is wearing a blue button-up shirt, and is a man. Other than that, I don’t really understand the distinction here.
Really, we are kind of tourists. From Brooklyn. But look, the Trump Bar might as well be Mars. In sharp contrast with the graffitied, bike-racked, juice-bar-lined streets that comprise our universe, the Trump Tower is all marble and brass and cursive and worn red velvet curtains. There are security guards in suits at its entrance, although they pay little attention to us, as the lobby is conspicuously empty at 7 PM on a Tuesday. So is Trump’s Ice Cream Parlor (save for some security guards playing on their phones), the Trump Grill, The Trump Store, and Trump Café. And the aspirations of grandeur really fade when you make a sharp right at the gaudy escalators, past the wide variety of MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN-embroidered baseball caps and infant onesies in the lobby, and walk into the Trump Bar.
Two large TVs in the surprisingly small bar are showing Trump being interviewed on The O’Reilly Factor. You might assume that the Trump Bar would be packed with his supporters during these crucial final weeks of the election. It has only been only two nights since the second presidential debate. But instead, the bar has the semi-abandoned vibe of a faux-fancy pub in a lesser-used airport terminal at four in the morning.
There’s just me and Martin; Joe, who soon tells us he quit his job in Washington, DC just to come to New York City and spread the Trump gospel; a younger guy named Steve* who looks like a townie version of Christian Slater; a golden-maned, argyle-socked mini Trump in the corner drinking a whole bottle of wine by himself; an incredibly awkward couple off in the leather chairs in the corner who appear to be on the kind of stiff, banal date that preludes most softcore porn movies from the 1980s; and an older, glowering man in a suit whose sole preoccupation seems to be staring at me and Martin from a few tables away. I am convinced that he is a Trump spy, there to keep a wary eye on people like us—people who come to Trump Bar hoping to glean an inside look at what they assume to be the mania of Trump followers.
As much as the man in the suit is freaking me the fuck out—which is a lot, I tell Martin—he’s not wrong. I am not voting for Trump, and I never assumed that his eponymous bar would be a beacon for well-informed, open-minded political discussion. But if it was, it would have made me feel better about the growing rift in America, the ideological division that forms a tale of two countries.
Within three minutes of our arrival and shortly after letting go of his suspicions that I might be a member of the amoral, all-powerful media, Joe casually hands us a flyer. This flyer presents all of his thoughts about every contemporary political figure, government organization, and world religion, an hours-long stream of consciousness squished into a single 8 ½-by-11-inch sheet in a maddeningly small font. (Why didn’t he print this double-sided in a normal-sized font? I wonder.)
This is the first sentence of his flyer: “DONALD TRUMP & DR. BEN CARSON 2016 TO DEFEAT ANTI-CHRIST SPIRIT OF OBAMA & HILLARY CLINTON THE ILLUMINATI’S PUPPET JEZEBEL WITCH!!!” It gets worse from there. “Here you go!” Joe beams.
On that note, I decide that I need alcohol. A lot of it. Immediately. The bartender is a lovely young woman—with nice bangs, a mark of the beast signifying her as a potential progressive—who I hope eventually escapes the eerie clutches of Trump Tower. I order a “You’re Fired”(“House-made Bloody Mary Mix, Absolut Vodka, celery”) for Martin and “The Billionaire Martini” (“Premium Chopin Vodka, Noilly Prat Dry Vermouth, Castelvetrano olive, pearl onion, cornichon”) for myself.
There’s only one problem. The bar is “out of pickles.” Oh, she means cornichons. And they’re also out of pearl onions, and that brand of vermouth. And the bartender isn’t sure if they have the Chopin vodka, either; is another brand OK? Yeah, sure.
I receive a martini glass full of shaken mid-tier vodka, no vermouth, with three decidedly non-Castelvetrano olives in it. They are the tiny pimento-stuffed olives that typically come in a one-gallon jar purchased from BevMo.
This is the worst martini I’ve ever had in my life.
Oh, and although the website also says that they serve food until 10 PM—we had looked forward to sampling the shrimp cocktail and Buffalo wings—there isn’t any food available, either. But the bartender is so angelic, especially in contrast to the man two barstools over from me who is talking about how “Black Lives Matter protestors hate Jews—they are all Jew-hating Muslims who want to douse white people in gasoline and set them on fire,” I just say, “No problem.”
Drinking my enormous glass of watery olive vodka on an empty stomach, I do not feel like a billionaire. I feel like someone who is realizing they just paid $20 for a strong pour of watered-down vodka and a few Manzanilla olives.
If I had a tower named after me that was built of my (purported) enormous affluence, and a bar within that tower, right near its entryway, and a drink within that bar that was meant to specifically signify my wealth and success, I would probably try to ensure that if nothing else, that one cocktail was pretty decent. Or at least that I had the correct garnishes on hand.
But then again, we’re talking about about a man who had his own failed line of steaks that he declared “The World’s Greatest,” but who eats his own beef well-done; dry, brown, and rubbery. I think it’s fair to assume that he doesn’t give a rat’s ass how the Billionaire Martini tastes, or even whether it contains the ingredients listed on the menu; he just cares that a drink with that ostentatious name is on his menu at all.
After a few sips of my tragic Billionaire Martini, I hear Joe suggest to Martin that Khizr Khan, the father of fallen Muslim-American soldier Humayun Khan, is a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood. (If you Google this assertion, the first result is a Snopes page debunking it due to complete lack of evidence.) “His goal is total indoctrination of the American people,” he says. “And the mother supports the practice of female genital mutilation and wants to spread it throughout the US.”
I’m just not sure I believe that’s true, Joe. But I remain quiet. It’s not worth it, I tell myself.
“Furthermore,” he continues, “Hillary—the Khans’ best friend—anyone who’s ever worked with her will tell you that if you try to look her in the eye, or talk to her—and this is true!—she’ll say—and this is exactly what she says!—she will say, ‘Shut the fuck up, you dumb motherfucker. Do you even know who you’re talking to, you stupid fuck?’”
At this, I can’t help but break into laughter as I contemplate how incredibly exhausting it would be to repeat this highly aggressive phrase to every single person who attempted to make eye contact or conversation with me on a daily basis, which is surely far fewer people than Hillary Clinton encounters.
“Wow,” I say. “Really? She says that?”
“Yes,” Joe says. “Every single person who’s ever worked for her says so.”
Martin leans over. “Dude, this drink is disgusting,” he whispers. “It has like a half a jar of horseradish in it and the texture of drinking wet carpet fibers.”
Over the course of the next 40 or so minutes, Joe tells us that he has exchanged Facebook messages with David Duke, White Nationalist “politician” and former Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan; that on September 11th, 2014, God spoke to him directly and said he had to guarantee that Donald Trump would usurp power from Hillary Clinton and President Obama; that Hillary Clinton’s private email server was used for her to personally sell American military weapons to terrorists; that Obama is the antichrist; and that he really, really loves conservative radio host/conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.
Steve, nursing a Budweiser, occasionally chimes in with affirmations: “That’s true about Black Lives Matter. My dad was Jewish. I have black friends, and they say that’s true,” or “Oh yeah, Hillary Clinton is, like, best friends with the heads of ISIS. It’s a fact. She wants sharia law in America now.”
I’ve downed the horrible martini, and my brain hurts. The glass shelves behind the bar are lined with Trump wines of all kinds. I order an $18 glass of Trump sparkling rosé. In all fairness, it’s not bad. Perfectly pleasant.
To tear my thoughts away from the paranoid, racist, nonsensical drivel that Joe and Steve are unabashedly perpetuating, I ask the bartender how the crowd at the bar has changed since the election cycle really took off.
“It’s not that busy,” she shrugs. “People do come in here and want to talk about political stuff.”
“Do you agree with most of the things they say?” I ask.
“I keep my political beliefs to myself,” she smiles. “I’ve worked here for ten years. So, yeah—things are different now. By the way, we’re closing soon.”
The bar’s website says it closes at 10 PM. So did whoever answered the phone yesterday. It’s 8:45.
The bartender shrugs.
In efforts to get as drunk as we can before leaving, Martin simultaneously orders a glass of Trump’s sparkling blanc de blancs and “The Boardroom”—a cocktail that purportedly contains Dewar’s 12 Year, Carpano Antica, Angostura bitters, and brandied cherries, per the menu. When the bartender sets it down, I note that the cherries are maraschino. But it tastes pretty decent, like a markedly sweet Old Fashioned. I ask if I can see the bottle of whiskey used to make it. She shows me a bottle of Puerto Rican pitorro, or moonshine. I’m really confused.
The emperor is a stark naked statue in Union Square, literally and figuratively.
Martin asks if he can take a photo with an extremely dusty magnum of Trump sparkling wine that’s sitting in a tarnished bucket at the end of the bar. “Sure,” says the bartender.
Someone on the TV mentions Hillary Clinton’s remark describing many Trump followers as “deplorables.” “Hey—we’re all deplorables,” Steve says. I certainly feel deplorable right now.
The bartender is turning down the lights and handing us our substantial bill. I ask Steve if he can recommend a restaurant nearby where Martin and I can go grab a bite.
“Well, I don’t know how strong your political beliefs are,” Steve says. “But if you don’t mind passively supporting terrorism, I will say that there is a really good halal cart on 53rd and 6th.”
*Names have been changed because my coworker is sketched out, I don’t want the bartender to get fired, and Joe and Steve, despite their somewhat troubling political stances, were quite friendly. Unless you’re a journalist. Which, it turns out, I am. Sorry.
TRUMP- His booze is lousy, his patrons deplorable, and his cocktails expensive.
Candy-coated liberal journalism at its finest.
It's highly doubtful that Trump has any idea what his bars are charging or what they serve.
If it's a Trump venture it's bound to he horrible in every possible way...
Keep repeating as often as possible until everybody agrees with you!
never mind
TRUMP- His booze is lousy, his patrons deplorable, and his cocktails expensive.
Candy-coated liberal journalism at its finest.
You could always go there and try the cocktails for yourself. But in my experience not following the recipe a cocktail leads to a bad cocktail. Is that Donald Trump's fault no but if you give your name to something you will take criticism and praise for stuff.
I stayed in Trump's place in Vegas about a month ago.
My room on the 53rd floor was awesome: large sitting area, a wall of built-in closets, drawers, TV, and residence-type amenities (Sub-Zero mini fridge, Viking two-burner induction cooktop & microwave). The bath was big enough to park a car or two: large Jacuzzi, a shower stall for 4-6, etched glass doors and walls for the shower & lav, and a large dual-bowl marble covered sinks. Very nice! More so when you consider we were paying $129/night for it.
Food was good but not over-the-top, the drinks at the bar were what you'd expect in Vegas - not cheap, but competitively priced. Staff was great - like most places in Vegas.
I'm fairly sure most of these places with his name are not run by his organization. But my experience was very positive. I'm also fairly certain anyone writing for Huffpo would find anything possible to criticize if it had the Trump name attached.
